http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blogs-1-1-1-31.html <p>Four candidates are vying to replace longtime city of Milwaukee treasurer Wayne Whittow. The top two vote-getters in the Feb. 21 nonpartisan primary will advance to the April 3 general election.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Tim Carpenter</strong><br />Carpenter, a state senator, has represented the city's South Side in the state Legislature since 1984 and is a graduate of UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison&#]]> <p>Here we go again: What did Gov. Scott Walker know and when did he know it?</p> <p>Much has been made of the email Walker sent from his campaign account (and reprinted in one of the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"/blog-7870-if-walker-didnt-know-his-campaign-sure-did.html\">criminal complaints</a> in the John Doe probe) to Tim Russell warning him about fallout from negative media coverage of his ]]> I just finished reading the two new criminal complaints filed by Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm against two Walker aides at the county, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=259245\">Kelly Rindfleisch and Darlene Wink</a>.<br /><br />Both women are accused of doing political work on county time. Rindfleisch is being charged with four felonies while Wink is facing tw]]> As <a href=\"http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=258252\" target=\"_blank\">Wispolitics.com</a> is reporting, recall organizers have collected more than a million signatures to recall Gov. Scott Walker, almost twice as many as the 540,000 signatures they needed to force the election.<br /><br />Recall supporters gathered 845,000 signatures to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, well above the re]]> Welcome to 2012, the year of the permanent election cycle. Not only will voters go to the polls four times this year but they may be asked to vote in recall elections for the governor, lieutenant governor and up to four Republican senators.<br /><br />I\'ve compiled a calendar of all of the important dates related to the 2012 election to help you figure which offices will be up for grabs this year. Please note that this is a deci]]> <p>So news broke that three more people have been arrested as part of the 20-month <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"/article-17283-scott-walkers-other-big-problem.html\">John Doe investigation of Gov. Scott Walker\'s aides</a>.<br /><br />The biggest news—as of now, at least—is that close Walker aide Tim Russell has been arrested and has been charged with three counts of theft/embezzle]]> I had the pleasure of interviewing media reform activist Sue Wilson, producer of the documentary Broadcast Blues, which she'll screen in eight Wisconsin communities this September. Wilson sees Broadcast Blues not just as a movie, but as the beginning of a movement. She's asking fed-up viewers and listeners to monitor the content of talk radio so that “We the People” can make formal complaints to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in ]]> So the State Journal followed up on a curious incident related by state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to investigators looking into Justice David Prosser's attack on Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.Gableman said that on Sept. 18, 2008, Bradley had thumped him on the backside of the head when he had called the Chief Justice “Shirley.” Gableman specifically remembered that date because it was his birthday and Justice Patrick Crooks was readi]]> I know that the Journal Sentinel decided to ignore the Legislative Audit Bureau's review of the latest study on voucher schools (the paper is too busy propping up the rumored campaigns of Paul Ryan and Tommy Thompson, apparently). But the study is newsworthy anyway.To recap: when folks started questioning the performance of voucher students a few years ago, the voucher supporters decided that if they picked some researchers to study the program o]]> Democrats are rightly jubilant about yesterday's attempted recalls of Sen. Jim Holperin and Sen. Bob Wirch. Both men won decisively, as did fellow Democrat Sen. Dave Hansen a month ago. That should put the hatchet in the Republican fantasy that voters were upset about the 14 Democrats' flight to Illinois to slow down Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining bill. Voters were clearly with the Fab 14 on this one, not with Walker and the string-pul]]> Check out a panel at Cream City Collectives tonight. “From Milwaukee to Cairo: A Talkback on the Uprisings in the Middle East” features a panel of four Milwaukeeans and one Egyptian, all of whom were in the Mideast during this spring's historic protests.Jeremy Booth and Kelsey Kaufmann were studying in Cairo when the protests took place. Kelly Todd and Nichali Ciaccio were in Kurdish Iraq during an unreported uprising. Mariam Ismail took par]]> Do you live in one of the six Senate districts with a recall election today?Then get out there and vote.Polls are open until 8 p.m. If you are standing in line at 8, you will still be able to vote.To check your registration status and polling place, go here.Remember: Only some facets of the new voter ID law are now in effect. You will be asked to show a photo ID. But you do not need to show it to vote today. I've heard reports that there are home]]> So, who's to blame for last night's chaos at the State Fair?Depends on which media outlet is doing the reporting.WISN-TV, blaming “young people”: MILWAUKEE -- Local law enforcement agencies are investigating several incidents near State Fair Park late Thursday night.Milwaukee police said that around 11:10 p.m., squads were sent to the area for reports of battery, fighting and property damage being caused by an unruly crowd of "hundred]]> Hmmmm…Wonder why Sen. Alberta Darling is finally acting on my request from May 12 for communications with or about ALEC?I'll let you know what Darling turns over as soon as I get it. UPDATE: As of noon on Friday, Aug. 5, I haven't received anything. I've called Darling's office and sent an email and haven't received a reply yet, either. Stay tuned... UPDATE 2: Jim from Darling's office called to say that the package was put in the mail o]]> As I noted in this week's cover story, state Sen. Alberta Darling has done a full flip-flop on women's reproductive rights.Once a moderate Republican who served on the board of Planned Parenthood, Darling shed her pro-choice position as quickly as the Republican Party shed its moderate pro-choice members.In the new budget, Darling authored a provision that would end state funding for family planning services at Planned Parenthood's clinics and ma]]> Perhaps you've heard that the Fitzgerald brothers and Scott Walker are rushing through an intensely partisan legislative redistricting scheme before the Republicans lose their majority in the August recall elections.One of the problems is that doing so blows up all of the maps that are currently being agonized over by local units of government.According to state law, locals get first dibs on redistricting. Then the state draws the legislative and]]> Is your state senator Alberta Darling?Or one of the other five Republican senators that is up for recall?Then you should get to your local polling place. And don't forget a valid photo ID (although you can still vote if you don't have it with you).Today is the primary election for the recalls. Democratic state Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) is facing a fake Democrat who is sponsored by the Republicans. So if you are a Darling constituent, get]]> No need to do any polling on the upcoming recall races.Republicans are worried they're going to lose their majority in the state Senate. First, they hired fake Democrats who are really Republicans to try to confuse voters and knock real Democrats out of the race.Then they're funneling money to the fake Dems through shadowy, anonymously funded special interest groups.The latest shenanigan is pushing out their pro-incumbent redistricting plan on a]]> Well, this should be interesting.State Rep. Mark Pocan and state Sen. Fred Risser—both Democrats—have announced that they're drafting legislation that would roll back the horrible collective bargaining bill. It won't go anywhere, of course, since Republicans want to bury the thing as quickly as possible. Sure, they'll tout the “tools” that they've given local elected officials. But they definitely don't want to take yet another vote to st]]> “Grim.”That's what R.L. McNeeley called the findings of a new NAACP study on the status of African Americans in Milwaukee.Take, for example, some of these facts: Only 28% of Milwaukee's black families had two parents in 2000, down from 64% in 1970. Fatherless homes and black family disruption are associated with neighborhood destabilization, black juvenile criminality, increased black juvenile violence and, indeed, to substan]]>