Commentary Update for July 29, 2002: Nuclear Waste Route, Baxandall on EAA, Joel McNally, Four Sides of Bill Clinton, Litjens on Budget Repair Bill, WDC Clean Sweep Pledge

Dear Friends:

I was listening to a classic rock radio station last week, and they played a song from 1985 called "Radioactive." It suddenly hit me that if the US Congress' plan to ship nuclear waste to off to Yucca actually happens, this might be the perfect candidate as the new national anthem. Of course we would have to change the lyrics to "Radioactive, under God."

• Seriously, the Appleton Post-Crescent took a break yesterday from the wall-to-wall EAA advertising masquerading as news to include a story about the Fox Valley route to Yucca. What I find fascinating about the story are the comments attributed to the state railroad commissioner Rodney Kreunen. He sounds like Homer Simpson, but dumber:
  http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_5090930.shtml

Speaking of EAA, Lee Baxandall sent a letter to the Oshkosh Northwestern Editorial Brigade asking for some solid reportage.

This week's Commentary guest is legendary Wisconsin reporter/journalist Joel McNally. Jim, Doug Freshner and I traveled to Milwaukee last week to interview Joel. He wrote for the Milwaukee Journal for 27 years (including his famous "Innocent Bystander" column for the last 17 of those years), then got fired when the Journal merged with the Milwaukee Sentinel. McNally and other fired employees filed a class action suit against the paper, and recently won a multi-million dollar settlement.

• McNally writes a weekly column that gets picked up by the Madison Capital Times, Milwaukee Shepherd Express, and otehr newspapers around the state. Here's his latest:
  http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/guest/29654.php

We spend a little bit of time talking to McNally about the race for governor. I wrote a piece for wispolitics.com recently on how the 4 Democrats represent 4 sides of Bill Clinton:
http://www.wispolitics.com/freeser/features/f0207/f02072402.html

• Here's a version with pictures and links to some of the content:
  http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/4sidesofbc.htm
  
• In there is included a link to a report from CNN's Bill Schneider about the extent to which the Democratic Party suffered losses during the Clinton era:
  http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/02/schneider.htm

We have another contribution to the "Fox Valley Budget Reactions," this one from County Republican Party chair Michelle Litjens

• Pugsley Palmeri took another sniff of the budget and calls it Christmas in July for road builders and other special interests:
  

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is asking for all candidates this year to sign a "clean sweep" of state government pledge:
http://www.wisdc.org/pr072902.html

As always, letters to Commentary are welcome.

Best,

-Tony