Troops Want Out

Today the Zogby Poll organization and Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies released the results of a poll of US troops serving in Iraq. The poll was conducted using a methodology designed to maximize valid and reliable results: "The survey included 944 military respondents interviewed at several undisclosed locations throughout Iraq. The names of the specific locations and specific personnel who conducted the survey are being withheld for security purposes. Surveys were conducted face-to-face using random sampling techniques. The margin of error for the survey, conducted Jan. 18 through Feb. 14, 2006, is +/- 3.3 percentage points. "

The findings completely contradict the balderdash about soldiers' sentiments being spewed by the Bush Administration, congressional war boosters, cowardly editorialists, and oppponents of the Wisconsin troop withdrawal movement. Some key findings:

• 29% of troops believe the US should leave Iraq immediately.
• 22% said the US should leave Iraq within the next six months.
• 21% said the US should leave between 6 and 12 months.
• 23% said the US should stay "as long as they are needed."

That means 72% of US troops believe the US should leave Iraq within a year.

The majority of troop withdrawal referendums on Wisconsin ballots urge the US to begin an immediate withdrawal from Iraq beginning with the Reserves and National Guard. According to the poll, 89% of reserves and 82% of National Guard believe the US should leave Iraq within a year.

These findings demonstrate that the "Vote No" pro-war hawks opposing the Wisconsin referendums, many of them chickenhawks, have been engaging in wildly inaccurate and unethical smears of those who want the troops home. As noted by John Nichols in today's Cap Times: " . . . despite the fact that some of the most conservative members of the Republican caucus in the U.S. House have split with the Bush-Cheney administration and endorsed efforts to bring the troops home, the list of reasons to vote no makes repeated references to the need to counter 'the anti-military Left,' 'the extreme Left,' 'the Radical Left' and the 'Left wing of the Democrat Party.'" Are the 72% of American troops who want troops home within a year part of some Left conspiracy? Are the 29% of soldiers courageous enough to tell a pollster they want immediate withdrawal (and you know that many more feel that way but fear a backlash if they say it) part of some Left conspiracy?

President Bush should listen to conservative icon Bill Buckley. The founder of National Review now says this: "One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. "

Water Wars

Britain's Defense Secretary John Reid (standing next to Rummy) is predicting that water shortages brought on by global warming will result in chaos involving military conflict if the world does not act soon.

The London Independent provides some facts about water consumption:

* On our watery planet, 97.5 per cent of water is salt water, unfit for human use.

* Most of the fresh water is locked in the ice caps.

* The recommended basic water requirement per person per day is 50 litres. But people can get by with about 30 litres: 5 litres for food and drink and another 25 for hygiene.

* Some countries use less than 10 litres per person per day. Gambia uses 4.5, Mali 8, Somalia 8.9, and Mozambique 9.3.

* By contrast the average US citizen uses 500 litres per day, and the British average is 200.

* In the West, it takes about eight litres to brush our teeth, 10 to 35 litres to flush a lavatory, and 100 to 200 litres to take a shower.

* The litres of water needed to produce a kilo of:

Potatoes 1,000

Maize 1,400

Wheat 1,450

Chicken 4,600

Beef 42,500

The Independent's Michael McCarthy explains how dire the situation truly is:

Across the globe, perhaps a third of all people suffer from "water stress". There are 1.1 billion people lacking access to clean water, 2.4 billion lacking access to improved sanitation, and half the world's hospital beds at any one time are thought to be occupied by people suffering from water-borne diseases. You think this is bad? It's going to get worse.

Scooter Doyle's Ticket To Re-Election?

If Ed Garvey is right, and I think he is, Scooter Jensen's refusal to take a bullet for Mark Green and Scott Walker might be the single biggest factor deciding whether or not Doyle is returned to office.

Talk about PATHETIC.

Wispirg Interview Dedicated To Gloria Link

My Radio Commentary interview with Robin Novak and Abby VanStraten of the student Wisconsin Public Interest Research Groups (Wispirg) is available here.

The interview is dedicated to the late Gloria Link, a dear friend of mine and professor of theatre arts at UW Oshkosh from 1959-1992. Gloria died on February 23rd at the age of 79. The campus press release regarding her passing can be found here. (In 1971 Gloria starred in "The Visit," the inaugural play produced at the new Fredric March Theatre when the Theatre program was part of the then Department of Speech; "The Visit" was produced again this year in celebration of the Theatre Program gaining Department status).

Prior Radio Commentary interviews can be found here.

Hentz: Five Rivers Info Owed To Taxpayers, Citizens

Note: This piece by Cheryl Hentz appears on the Eye on Oshkosh site (registration required).

Earlier this evening I was told that certain council candidates who have spoken with Five Rivers developer Tom Doig about his proposed project, are "sitting on" information Mr. Doig shared with them, saying they can't share it with people in the general public because they promised Mr. Doig it would remain confidential. If this is, in fact, true, then it is a big concern to me and I think it should be to every taxpayer in Oshkosh.

We are talking about millions of dollars in taxpayer money and these council candidates who want our votes, by promising confidentiality, seem to be saying to us by their silence that they feel more of an allegiance to a possible developer who is asking for a handout than to the people they say they want to serve and protect the tax dollars for. These are also some of the same people who felt that the closed session meeting of Feb. 14 should have been done in the open. There seems to be a disconnect there. They are either willing to put the taxpayers first or they're not.

I was also told by one council candidate that Tom Doig did not ask for the recent closed session meeting; that, instead, it was community development director Jackson Kinney who pushed for it. This is both troublesome and problematic. It's also a little unbelievable.

But this is not the first time I have heard of Jackson Kinney trying to stop Tom Doig from making information public. Mr. Doig himself told me he had wanted to put certain information out there for the public but that Jackson Kinney stifled it. I asked Bryan Bain, Frank Tower and Burk Tower about this at the last Fifth Tuesday Forum and not one of them was able to answer my question. They said they'd find out though. I hope to hear the answer soon.

I also have a hard time believing that Mr. Doig so desperately wants a public forum on his project. If that is true, why is he "swearing" certain existing council members and candidates to secrecy - even having at least one councilor (Paul Esslinger) sign a confidentiality agreement, which under state statutes he can't require of sitting council members, I'm told. But if Mr. Doig truly does want a public meeting and Mr. Kinney is resisting, there is a simple enough fix. Mr. Doig simply needs to tell Jackson Kinney that the meetings are going to be held in public and with Q & A sessions being shared with the public or he is taking his multi-million dollar dream development elsewhere. This is not that complicated. In some ways it makes one wonder (but then again, not really) who's in the driver's seat here. Let's not forget it was Mr. Kinney who offered TIF money to Mr. Doig - Doig told me himself that he did not initiate the discussion about it.

We also learned at the Fifth Tuesday Forum that Mr. Kinney is speaking to banks for developer Doig. Why? Exactly whose payroll is Jackson Kinney on and why is he speaking to bankers for a developer instead of the developer talking to banks himself?

Council candidate Kent Monte has said on his blog that he spoke with Tom Doig. That conversation has taken place since Doig missed the January financing deadline and since this month's closed session meeting. Did Mr. Doig share with Mr. Monte or perhaps the council itself in the infamous closed session meeting why his financing is not in order after months and months of tying up our staff and working on this? Has he explained to anyone why he is so opposed to the "pay as you go" option? I can venture an educated guess and the two are probably tied very closely together: I bet it's because his potential financiers are not going to go for the "pay as you go" option. They'd rather have all the risk on the city and its taxpayers. That risk can be avoided or at least greatly reduced with the "pay as you go" option rather than "direct pay." To do anything less than "pay as you go" is dangerous and the council that votes on this project would be well-advised to not do it. Jackson Kinney himself recommended the "pay as you go" option in the early stages of term sheet options being presented. But it would not surprise me if (a) this is part of the reason financing seems to be somewhat of a stumbling block for Doig and his partners, and (b) we eventually see Mr. Kinney change his tune and recommend that the council approve the project with a "direct pay" option. Better to do the project under any conditions than not do it at all, right? Wrong!

The council needs to be smart about this project. Look at all the evidence to suggest that these types of projects are not the financial windfalls they are projected to be. There are far too many questions still unanswered and far too many risks. No one seems to be too concerned, if at all, about money when it comes right down to it: not the redevelopment authority, not the plan commission and not the council - at least that we've seen so far. The only ones concerned about money seem to be the developers and how much they can get from us and with the least risk possible for themselves. If that's not the case, then maybe some conversation and honest answers in public will start to dispel some of the mystery and skepticism. Until then, one can't help but feel we're being sold down the river again - this time down Five Rivers.

Back in the Radio Saddle

Tonight I return to hosting Radio Commentary on WRST 90.3 FM from 6:20 - 7:00 pm. My guests will be Robin Novak and Abby VanStraten from the UW Oshkosh WisPIRG (Wisconsin Public Interest Research Groups). WisPIRG currently has recognized chapters at UW Madison, UW Milwaukee (scroll down), and UW Stevens Point. Robin and Abby are active in organizing a UW Oshkosh WisPIRG. Radio Commentary is a live call-in show (numbers are 920-424-0444 or 920-424-3113).

I want to thank Justin Mitchell for his outstanding guest hosting while I was off working in The Visit.

Iraq: Assault on Journalists Continues

The horrific wave of violence in Iraq yesterday claimed the life of broadcast journalist Atwar Bahjat and two of her news crew.

According to Reporters Without Borders: “A total of 82 journalists and media assistants have been killed since the start of the war in Iraq. Seven of them have died since 1st January 2006, making this start of the year the most deadly in three years. Atwar Bahjat is the 7th woman journalist to be killed since the war in Iraq began.”

According to the BBC, Atwar Bahjat was only 26 years old.

How's this for a decisive Doyle

Wisconsin Governor Jim The New Democrat Doyle was recently asked for his view on the troop withdrawal referendums that will be appearing on the ballot in more than 20 Wisconsin municipalities in April. All of the referendums call for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. How's this for a decisive answer from the Guv: "I think an immediate (withdrawal) would be a very difficult thing to accomplish. And I'm not sure we would like what the results are. Having said that, I guess it's in the meaning of the word immediate."

Dear Governor: On issues like the referendum people want to know if yer fer it or agin' it. If yer agin' it that's fine. Stop with the New Democrat triangulating already. It's disgusting and won't gain you any votes. (Democrats lost the majority of governorships and state legislatures when this kind of mealy-mouthed hogwash became the discourse norm for the party leadership.).

What about Doyle's view on Russ Feingold's relatively tame call for a "timetable" for withdrawal? "I think there are good arguments on both sides," said Doyle.

Say what you want about Mark Abramoff Green, but at least he's been clear that he's solidly behind Bush's conduct of the war.

College Student Journalists Screwed

On Tuesday the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a case involving the right of college student journalists to criticize school administrators in student publications. The Court's failure to hear the appeal means that administrators at public universities in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin (and most likely the rest of the nation since the Supremes have now left the earlier Seventh Circuit decision in place) can now legally censor the student press.

This is a frightening development in the de-evolution of student speech rights. The Supreme Court in its silence has now consented to allowing the horrific Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier decision of 1988 (the decision that legitimized administrative censorship of high school students) apply to college students. For more background on the history of student speech rights (especially at the K-12 level), see my "Administrative Regulation of Student Expression."

John Nichols and Tony P. Celebrate THE George W.

That's George W. as in Washington. On Wednesday evening I will have the honor of sharing the platform with the great Progressive journalist/editorial writer John Nichols of the Madison Capital Times:

What: "From George W to G.W: Taking Back Our History and Talking to Americans on Matters of War and Empire" will celebrate George Washington's anti-monarchist and anti-imperialist principles and protest the abandonment of those American values by President George W. Bush.

Details: 7-9 p.m. Wednesday, Escape Java Joint & Gallery, 916 Williamson St, Madison, WI Mapquest directions from Oshkosh can be found here. A preview of John's remarks can be found here. The organizers have asked me to talk about "how to" engage in public argument on topics like the war. At least part of what I talk about will be a summary of how conservative, liberals, and radicals need to stand together against real tyranny.

Organized by the Peregrine People's History ProjectCo-Sponsored by The Nation Magazine, Bring Our Troops Home,Madison Area Peace Coalition, World Can't Wait, 4Lakes Green Party and Rainbow Books. Free parking available in directly in front of Escape and in the lot next to Reflections one door west.More information: Peregrine Forum 608-442-8399 Escape Java Joint & Gallery 608-255-0997

Palmeri's 4 Under 40

(Palmeri realizes that speaking in the third person forces the loss of respect of at least one internet troll. Somehow Palmeri thinks he can handle that loss. In fact he wishes all trolls to know that he wants neither their respect nor their attention to this site, and wishes that they would just go away and do whatever it is trolls do when they are not making asses of themselves on other peoples' websites.).

Anyway, this year's "4 Under 40" include UW Oshkosh Education instructor Courtney Bauder, teen activist Angel Aiken (who has posted a few times on this blog), Winnebago County Supervisor Ben Farrell, and working mom Mandy Mitchell. Here 'tis:
http://www.tonypalmeri.com/pfuf06.htm

Cliff Kurowski Nails It

I must admit that I have not been a big fan of Cliff Kurowski's cartoons in the Sunday Northwestern, but today he absolutely nailed it on the Five Rivers closed meeting imbroglio.

List of Iraq Referendum Sites

Below are a list of Wisconsin cities, villages and towns that will hold advisory referendums April 4 asking whether U.S. troops should be immediately brought home from Iraq. The list came from here. Conspicuously absent from the list is the city of Oshkosh, due to the efforts of 6 members of the common council that can find technical reasons to meet in closed session with a developer who does not want to discuss his finances publically, but couldn't find it within themselves to allow the public to vote on the referendum. Shame.

- Algoma

- Amery

- Baraboo

- Town of Draper in Sawyer County

- Town of Edgewater in Sawyer County

- Egg Harbor

- Ephraim

- Evansville

- Forestville

- Frederic

- Kewaunee

- La Crosse

- Madison

- Monona

- Mount Horeb

- Town of Newport in Columbia County

- Osceola

- Shorewood

- Sister Bay

- Sturgeon Bay

- Watertown

- Whitefish Bay

Northwestern: Palmeri feels "singled out"

Recently I posted a letter I received from the UW Oshkosh administration reminding me of system rules for professors seeking public office. Today the Oshkosh Northwestern published this story by Jeff Bollier on the matter.

To repeat my position on all of this: I have no objection to system administration sending rules to candidates or even potential candidates employed by the UW. However, one would think that UW employees who have already announced their candidacies (Gordon Hintz has been clear since November of 2004 that he will be a candidate for the 54th in 2006) and those who are currently running (Burk Tower is in the Common Council primary election of Feb. 21) would receive the rules first.

Lake Winneblogo says, "It appears that there is nothing to dispute Palmeri's claim that he was singled out by the administration, for some unknown reason."

But it's "only an opinion," right?

The Northwestern's Alex Hummel includes some quotes from me in his report on Assistant AG Alan Lee's first impression comments regarding Tuesday's closed Council meeting. Apparently Oshkosh City Attorney Warren Kraft forwarded Hummel's earlier online version of the story to the Councilors, City Manager, and staff. I'm not sure why Kraft would care what Alan Lee thinks. After all, it's "only an opinion," right? City Hall has made it clear that when it comes to the law, only what Kraft thinks matters. (Unless citizens are willing to spend money and time they do not have to haul the city into court after each one of these digressions.).

Will we let Jill Carroll be killed?

Ethicist Peter Singer penned this provocative piece (registration may be required) in the Wednesday Los Angeles Times. Journalist Jill Carroll was kidnapped in Iraq last month and her captors have threatened to kill her if their demands are not met by February 26th. Singer asks why the possibility of meeting the kidnappers demands is not discussed openly, especially when there is precedent for meeting such demands. He writes:

"Which of us would not seek to meet the kidnappers' demands if Carroll were our daughter? If one of President Bush's daughters were in a similar situation, do we believe he would not be thinking about whether to meet the demands? Indeed, wouldn't we think worse of him as a human being if he did not?

"Admittedly, the duties of a president may override the duties of a father. The leader of a nation sometimes has to stand firm, and he may even be required to sacrifice his children for the good of the nation. But of course that would be a last resort and should not be done unless the stakes are truly momentous.

"Are the stakes that momentous in this case? They don't seem to be. The kidnapper's demands, if indeed they are limited to the release of the five female prisoners being held by the military in Iraq, seem relatively modest, a small price to pay for saving the life of a young woman."

Jill Carroll Updates can be found at the Christian Science Monitor Site.

Support Feingold's PATRIOT Act Amendments

From the Bill of Rights Defense Committee:

Late yesterday, Senator Russ Feingold gained Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's commitment to postpone a final vote on the House-Senate PATRIOT Act reauthorization "conference report" (to accompany H.R. 3199) until March 1. A vote on Senator John Sununu's bill, S. 2271, which makes a few insignificant changes to the conference report, is expected later today and is likely to win. Senate Judiciary Chair Arlen Specter (R-PA) acknowledged that Sununu's amendments were merely cosmetic and said, "Sometimes cosmetics will make a beauty out of a beast and provide enough cover for senators to change their vote."

Please continue to support Senator Feingold's courageous effort to pass stronger safeguards by urging your Senators to support Senator Feingold's four proposed amendments! Thus far Senator Frist has refused to consider votes on those amendments. Call both your Senators via the Capitol switchboard, 202-224-3121 (24 hours), or look up their numbers at http://www.senate.gov. Find out whether your congressional representatives are holding town hall meetings in your area during their recess next week (week of February 20th).

Summary of Senator Feingold's amendments: (Read Senator Feingold's prepared floor statement for today here.)

• Guard against "fishing expeditions" by replacing amendment to section 215 business records orders in the conference report with the more meaningful relevance standard in Senate reauthorization bill S. 1389, which would require a connection between private records sought to a suspected foreign terrorist or spy rather than simply to an authorized intelligence investigation.
• Give third-party recipients of business records orders and National Security Letters a meaningful opportunity to challenge automatic, permanent gag orders.
• Add a four-year sunset on section 505, National Security Letters
• On section 213, "sneak and peek" searches, reduce initial notification deadline from 30 days to 7 days (retaining ability to go to court for extensions if needed).

Other suggested talking points about changes needed to the conference report:

• Remove the new provision that expands the authority of the Secret Service and allows them to arrest demonstrators at any 'special event of national significance' if they believe there has been a breach of a security perimeter. Demonstrators can be charged with a felony, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison. (This amendment was added to the conference report without any hearings or discussion.)
• Eliminate proposed new death penalties from the reauthorization.

Please don't forget to remind your senators of the resolutions passed in their state, and of the 403 resolutions passed nationwide! Look up your state's resolutions here: http://www.bordc.org/list.php?sortAlpha=1.

Find more talking points here: http://www.bordc.org/callin.php.

DON’T DELAY! Call your senators now, and urge your friends and contacts to join you.

"Legitimate" closed meeting?

An assistant attorney general told Oshkosh Northwestern reporter Alex Hummel today that the Oshkosh Common Council Tuesday night closed meeting "sounds to me like it would be okay." It is clear from Assistant Attorny General Alan Lee's comments that he is not aware of all the facts of this situation. Indeed, Hummel's report on the closed meeting from this morning's Northwestern says that "It's unclear what the city is still negotiating with Doig."

Let's assume for the sake of argument that on Tuesday night in closed session the Council spent 45 minutes in deep negotiation with Doig. That in itself means nothing in relation to the legality or illegality of the meeting. The Attorney General's office has said many times (and not just the current attorney general) that the key question for a governmental body to ask is whether the negotiations are REQUIRED to be held in closed session for competitive or bargaining reasons. To make the case that Five Rivers (for which the Council has already approved a detailed term sheet, a TIF district, the developer is already booking conventions and advertising the complex on a web site, while the city attorney claims the city can be sued if it pulls out at this point) fits the closed session requirements is to make those requirements meaningless. Indeed, if this kind of closed meeting is okay then it would be difficult to imagine any situation in which a developer would have to appear in open session; virtually ANY public discussion could be defined as placing the developer at a disadvantage against "rival developers."

More important, the burden of proof is not on citizens to prove that a meeting should be open. The burden of proof is on the governmental body to show that it should be closed. The Common Council has not met that burden of proof, and in fact refused (except for Mr. Esslinger) to request that the city administration resolve the confusion BEFORE going into closed session.

Since city attorney Kraft does not seem to care for attorney general Lautenschlager, let's quote former AG Bronson LaFollette instead. In a 1979 opinion he said: "While the questions whether there are bargaining reasons and whether circumstances require [emphasis in original] closed sessions are of mixed fact and law, the governmental bodies themselves must make a good faith determination of both the applicable facts and the legal conclusion that flows therefrom, given the basic legal guidance already provided by their respective legal counsel and advice provided by this office (pursuant to sec. 19.98, Wis. statutes)."

The Oshkosh Common Council did not make a good faith effort to find out if this closed meeting was proper. A Gannett reporter calling the attorney general after the fact does not cut it. A good faith effort would involve giving the AG's office all of the relevant facts rather than simply acquiesce to the city attorney's logic which even Oshkosh News called "tortured." For once I agree with the Oshkosh Northwestern editorial board: "The public backing for this immense project is now in jeopardy. The demand for secrecy and the city council's sheep-like acquiescence is so infuriating that we think it could threaten public trust in future development projects."

Soon the local DA will have the relevant facts of this situation in a formal complaint. If what the Common Council did on Tuesday constitutes a legal closed meeting, the legislature should give serious consideration to repealing the open meetings law since it would have been shown to be a toothless tiger subject to suspension at the whim of openly confused city officials who cannot even be bothered to inquire from the state AG as to whether they are acting properly.

Talk to Tony Mentioned in Two AT Stories

This week's UW Oshkosh Advance-Titan mentions this blog in two stories:

"Radical" Professors Researched by Julie Becker and

Practicing a "New Kind of Journalism" by Kate Briquelet

The latter story does a nice job reporting on Miles Maguire's groundbreaking OshkoshNews

Complaints Will Follow

On Tuesday night the Oshkosh Common Council voted to go into closed session to discuss Five Rivers Resort financing. Only Councilor Paul Esslinger, to his credit, voted no and refused to attend the closed session. I asked the Mayor in open session whether citizens who tried to attend the closed meeting would be removed by the police if necessary, and he said yes. Approximately seven citizens did indeed try to attend the closed session, but we did leave when the mayor asked us to so there was no need to bring in the police.

I think you'd have to search far and wide to find such a clear cut example of an open meetings law violation. The Council discussion of this matter in open session revealed that most of the seven were conflicted about whether they would be doing the right thing by going into closed session, a revelation that in and of itself should have prevented them from closing the meeting. Rarely has a city attorney given a governing body such bad advice; Mr. Kraft went through his familiar song and dance of interpreting the law to meet the needs of city hall, along with the tired canard of the Attorney General's views being "only opinions."

On Polly Briley's blog, someone just reported a rumor (scroll down) that the Oshkosh Northwestern will be filing a complaint against the Council. If that's true, it will mean that the Council will be facing at least two complaints (Cheryl Hentz and I plan to file one as soon as we get time). All the Council had to do was postpone the meeting and ask Kraft to get a formal opinion from Lautenschlager on the matter. But they apparently would rather be subject to the laborious investigation that will now be the result of the complaints. Anything for a developer, I guess.