A bang and a whimper
 That gavel the state Senate uses to open and close its sessions might have been Maxwell’s silver hammer, considering its effect on the Doyle administration’s legislative agenda.
Senate Democrats cautiously took a read on Wisconsin voters and concluded they weren’t ready for a European-style welfare state. Among the casualties for now:
The Clean Energy Jobs Act, a textbook example of deceptive labeling;
Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs), a friendly-sounding name for bureaucracies raising new taxes for money-losing mass-transit projects;
The Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) commuter rail project, left in limbo (see RTAs, above);
The George Soros-backed Wisconsin Voter Protection Act. The bill would have only protected voters who vote more than once or otherwise illegally, and placing new burdens on voters who would challenge election fraud.
And let’s not forget the earlier rejection of a key Doyle agenda item, mayoral control of the Milwaukee Public Schools.
What’s striking is that much of this wasn’t even brought up for a vote, the equivalent of dumping the agenda by the side of the road rather than giving it a decent burial. Assembly leaders were still pondering what to do with the Clean Energy Jobs Act when the Senate settled the matter for them by skipping town.
As for the Assembly, its chief distinction was the failure to expel Jeff Wood on a near-party line vote, soon after he hired an additional staffer who had been an Assembly Democratic campaign operative until the end of March. Monday night Wood began serving a 45 day sentence for his third OWI.
Happy Earth Day—for now
 It would be hard to overstate the importance of what happened when the Wisconsin Legislature adjourned last Thursday without bringing the deceptively-titled “Clean Energy Jobs Act” to a vote in either house.
Credit the steadfast Republicans in both houses, who would not provide a single vote for the economic suicide pact. Credit also Senate Democrat Jeff Plale, roped into putting his name on the bill but publicly honest about its destructive costs.
If only that were the end of it. Aspiring governor Tom Barrett said the Clean Energy Jobs Act would “build a clean energy economy that creates high-paying green jobs, protects our environment, and reduces our state’s dependence on outside sources of energy."
We wonder if anyone really believes that. Most of the “green” jobs would likely pay less than the ones destroyed by higher energy costs. The environment won’t benefit from energy systems that kill birds, don’t reduce emissions, and demand a much larger land use footprint than a conventional power plant. All that whining about our dependence on “outside sources of energy,” is like complaining about your trade deficit with the local grocery store. If you want to achieve food independence, you’ll have to grow your own.
It’s hard to tell what Barrett does believe. In December, Barrett said if elected governor, he would pursue state climate change legislation if the bill didn’t pass in 2010. In February, he said the bill shouldn’t pass without big changes. Things no one ever took seriously were removed, the worst parts were kept, and when the whole thing flopped, Barrett flipped again, saying, “As governor, I'll work to bring together all parties to produce a meaningful clean energy bill that accomplishes these goals without increasing costs on families and businesses.”
That part about not increasing costs tells us he simply doesn’t understand, or thinks we’re really stupid. This fiasco was less about energy choices than about dictating the manner of energy production and use so as to centrally control the economy. After three years’ preparation, it took about three weeks for the message to sink in that even members of Barrett’s Party were unwilling to go that far.
A brief celebration is in order, then back to work repelling the next attack.
The Red Fred Badge of Courage
 Funny how left-wingers always counsel resistance to government policies: plastering their hybrids with preachy bumper stickers and parroting slogans that rhyme. Always, that is, until they have power. Then dissent isn’t patriotic, it’s treason.
A nice example occurred in the state Assembly during last Friday’s predawn hours.
At about 4 a.m., the Assembly voted against authorizing Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen to challenge the constitutionality of ObamaCare, that nice reform legislation decreeing federal punishment for citizens who decline to buy a specific consumer product. Every Republican voted in favor of suing. Every Democrat, plus Honorary Democrat Jeff Wood, voted against.
Milwaukee Democrat Fred Kessler had a novel argument against challenging the government’s health insurance fiat. In his words,
“I believe this issue was resolved a long time ago. The issue of whether we can nullify federal laws. I think in 1860, wasn’t it, when South Carolina decided they were going to nullify some federal laws, and we ended up having a situation where we had quite a battle over this… I hope we don’t try to do this because I know we are having some trouble with militias around the United States but I don’t think we need to take on the federal government the way South Carolina and the other states did in the 1860s.”
So, ask a duly constituted court of law if the federal government has authority to force private citizens to buy privately-sold products—in other words, question authority—and you’re advocating secession, civil war and, by Kessler’s smarmy implication, slavery.
Of course big tyrannies like slavery and the governments that sponsor them tend to get overthrown violently. Annoying little tyrannies like those practiced by the Obamans can still be overthrown at the ballot box.
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