Wisconsin Dems 6. Wisconsin Republicans 0.
by Greg Sargent

Conservatives and some political observers are making a big deal out of the fact that the Dem candidate in the closely watched state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin finally conceded defeat today, as had long been expected.

But surely it’s also a big deal that we now know for certain that sixWisconsin Republican state senators will officially face recall elections, while a grand total of zero Democrats may face the same?

Today the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board announced that they have now approved the signatures required for recall elections against the following six GOP senators: Rob Cowles, Alberta Darling, Sheila Harsdorf, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, and Luther Olsen. That means these six elections are definitely moving forward.

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Is A Wake Up Call for Election Fraud
May 31, 2011
By Sarah Jones

In spite of evidence that the Government Accountability Board did not even review the election irregularities noted in the canvass report uncovered by the Brad Blog, JoAnne Kloppenburg has conceded the Wisconsin Supreme Court race to Republican conservative (and Walker “complement”) David Prosser. In what can only be seen as an understatement, Kloppenburg warned that the recount should serve as a wake-up call to improve Wisconsin’s election process.

WisPolitics Election Blog reports:

“This recount should serve as a wake-up call to improve Wisconsin’s election processes,” she said.

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A Country Without Libraries
Charles Simic

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside
of a dog, it’s too dark to read. – Groucho Marx

All across the United States, large and small cities are
closing public libraries or curtailing their hours of
operations. Detroit, I read a few days ago, may close all of
its branches and Denver half of its own: decisions that will
undoubtedly put hundreds of its employees out of work. When
you count the families all over this country who don’t have
computers or can’t afford Internet connections and rely on
the ones in libraries to look for jobs, the consequences
will be even more dire. People everywhere are unhappy about
these closings, and so are mayors making the hard decisions.
But with roads and streets left in disrepair, teachers,
policemen and firemen being laid off, and politicians in
both parties pledging never to raise taxes, no matter what
happens to our quality of life, the outlook is bleak. “The
greatest nation on earth,” as we still call ourselves, no
longer has the political will to arrest its visible and
precipitous decline and save the institutions on which the
workings of our democracy depend.

I don’t know of anything more disheartening than the sight
of a shut down library. No matter how modest its building or
its holdings, in many parts of this country a municipal
library is often the only place where books in large number
on every imaginable subject can be found, where both
grownups and children are welcome to sit and read in peace,
free of whatever distractions and aggravations await them
outside. Like many other Americans of my generation, I owe
much of my knowledge to thousands of books I withdrew from
public libraries over a lifetime. I remember the sense of
awe I felt as a teenager when I realized I could roam among
the shelves, take down any book I wanted, examine it at my
leisure at one of the library tables, and if it struck my
fancy, bring it home. Not just some thriller or serious
novel, but also big art books and recordings of everything
from jazz to operas and symphonies.

In Oak Park, Illinois, when I was in high school, I went to
the library two or three times a week, though in my classes
I was a middling student. Even in wintertime, I’d walk the
dozen blocks to the library, often in rain or snow, carrying
a load of books and records to return, trembling with
excitement and anticipation at all the tantalizing books
that awaited me there. The kindness of the librarians, who,
of course, all knew me well, was also an inducement. They
were happy to see me read so many books, though I’m sure
they must have wondered in private about my vast and
mystifying range of interests.

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From: Cindy Sage
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 11:38:11 -0700
To: CHE-EMF
Subject: [cheemf] Perspective by Cindy Sage on the IARC 2B Decision for RF

The WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer has just issued
its decision that non-ionizing radiofrequency radiation is classifiable
as a 2B (Possible) Carcinogen. This is the same category as DDT, lead,
and engine exhaust.

Importantly the IARC finding did not decide to classify it as either Group 3
(Insufficient Evidence) or Group 4 (Not a Carcinogen). A possible carcinogen
is really a higher-level finding than it sounds. Since animal toxicity experiments
have rarely been funded, there is just not much evidence to review from animal
studies, which, had they been done, would have likely boosted this
2B classification higher to a 2A (Probable) Carcinogen.

This mirrors the 2001 IARC finding that extremely low frequency (ELF-EMF) that
classified as a 2B (Possible) Carcinogen. This pertained to power frequency (power
line and appliance) non-ionizing radiation.

These two findings confirm that non-ionizing radiation should be considered as a possible
risk factor for cancers; and that new, biologically-based public safety standards are urgently
needed.

Smart meters can produce RF exposures in some homes higher than those from PDAs and cell phones in
the manner they are being installed and operated. See our report “Assessment of Radiofrequency
Microwave Radiation Emissions from Smart Meters” (January 2011) at:
http://sagereports.com/smart-meter-rf

Cindy Sage
Sage Associates
Co-Editor, BioInitiative Report

Kloppenburg concedes Supreme Court election (AUDIO)
by BOB HAGUE on MAY 31, 2011
in ELECTIONS

The state Supreme Court election is now officially over. “I have reviewed the record. I have reviewed the evidence, I have reviewed the law,” candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg said during a Madison press conference on Tuesday in which she announced she won’t seek judicial review of the results of the race for state Supreme Court. “It would serve no purpose to bring a suit with insufficent legal basis. That is not the kind of lawyer that I am.” Kloppenburg said her campaign “did the right thing” in requesting a recount, the final results of which showed incumbent Justice David Prosser winning by just over seven-thousand votes. Kloppenburg picked up 683 votes in the recount her campaign requested, while Prosser gained 371 votes. Kloppenburg said she called Prosser to congratulate him.

Read more.

30 May 2011 http://www.legitgov.org

All links are here: http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Ag Gag 2011: What Does Agribusiness Have to Hide in Iowa?
Dave Murphy
Founder of Food Democracy Now!

If Iowa is considered the belly of the beast of industrial agriculture, then the Iowa state capitol is the part of the animal that drains the swamp. After all, Iowa is the place where Iowa legislators have made it possible to produce11.3 hogs per person annually and created some of themost polluted rivers and streams contributing to the Dead Zone in the nation due to continued poor legislation and failed regulatory oversight.

Last year Iowa’s modern agricultural practices were made famous by legendary food safety violator Jack DeCoster, who is still in business after a 500-million egg recall due to salmonella last year that sickened more than 1,500 people in 23 states. This year Iowa’s state legislators are about to pass a bill that would make it illegal for anyone to take a photo of his “farms” or any other farms and fields in Iowa. Even though some of the worst animal welfare abuses in U.S. history have taken place under the roofs of Jack DeCoster’s hundreds of industrial animal confinements, (in 2010 the state of Maine he was fined more than $130,000 for egregious animal cruelty violations that took place at DeCoster Egg Farm), Iowa lawmakers are willing to offer immunity to offenders like him from being recorded and penalize those that would blow the whistle on those who abuse animal livestock i.e. our food.

Incredibly, House File 589, which I call, “The Jack DeCoster Animal Abuser Protection Act of 2011″, passed the Iowa House on March 17th by a vote of 66 to 27, despite the fact that 65% of Iowans oppose the bill. Unfortunately for consumers across the country versions of this bill have been popping up in states like Minnesota and Florida, where both bills recently failed to pass.

Read more.

WHO: Cell Phone Risk May Increase Risk Of Cancer
Sarah Lai Stirland | May 31, 2011, 1:03PM

Reversing its previous statements on the issue, the World Health Organization said Tuesday that radiation from cell phones can possibly cause cancer.

The WHO put cell phone use in the same risk category as exposure to lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.

The finding comes from a team of 31 scientists from 14 countries who are part of the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC.)

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EXCLUSIVE: WI State Election Board Failed to Review Minutes from Waukesha County ‘Recount’ Before Certifying Supreme Court Election Results
Mountains of irregularities, more than 800 official exhibits, and objections by candidate’s attorneys never examined by top state election authority before razor-thin results for 10-year seat on state’s high court certified as ‘correct’…
By Brad Friedman on 5/30/2011 8:54pm

Last Monday, May 23rd, Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the state’s top election agency, officially certified [PDF] the controversial results of the extraordinarily close April 5th statewide Supreme Court election and its subsequent “recount”.

However, as The BRAD BLOG has learned, the agency certified those results without reviewing hundreds of official exhibits documenting wholesale ballot irregularities, on-the-record objections from the attorneys of the candidate who filed for the “recount”, and thousands of pages of official transcripts and minutes documenting the entire “recount” process from the election’s most controversial county.

Even more alarming, the agency doesn’t even yet have a copy of the hundreds, if not thousands of pages which make up the official minutes documenting the nearly month-long “recount” from Waukesha County — the last of the state’s 72 counties to complete their count, and by far the most controversial county following the late discovery there of some 14,000 votes not included in the county’s original Election Night results.

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Mitch Daniels Uses Benefit-Cost Analysis to Teach his Daughter Ethics
By William K. Black
New Economic Perspectives

This is the fourth and final article in a series of pieces discussing the claim by a Cato scholar at CIFA’s recent meeting in Monaco that formal benefit-cost tests by economists were essential to prevent regulatory excess. The second column focused on a speech in 2001 by Mitch Daniels, then President Bush’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

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