MADISON — Another day, another jump in the polls for recall embattled Gov. Scott Walker.

Marquette Law School in Milwaukee released its latest political poll Wednesday, and it’s almost all good news for Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is leading in polls ahead of a June 5 gubernatorial recall election.

According to the poll of 704 registered Wisconsin voters and people who said they would register in time to vote in the June 5 recall elections:

Walker leads Democratic challenger Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett by 6 percentage points, 50 percent to 44 percent, among likely voters.

Republicans were 91 percent more likely to indicate they are “absolutely certain” to vote June 5, compared with Democrats and independents, both at 83 percent.

More Republicans than Democrats, 62 percent to 54 percent, said they have tried to persuade someone to vote for or against a candidate. Forty-eight percent of independents said the same.

Respondents said Walker would be better than Barrett at creating jobs, 48 percent to 41 percent, and at balancing the budget, 55 percent to 34 percent.

The margin of error for questions involving all 704 respondents was plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. For the 595 likely voters, the margin of error was 4.1 percentage points. The poll was conducted May 9-12, immediately following the recall primary.

It appears Barrett didn’t pick up much of a post-primary bump.

“I think what’s striking, rather than maybe surprising, is that Barrett wins the primary strongly and yet falls behind in the trail heat,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, a visiting Marquette professor who has been conducting the law school’s series of polls.

There was some good news for Democrats:

• Democrats were more likely to have been contacted by a campaign, 83 percent to Republicans’ 78 percent and independents’ 76 percent.
• While 37 percent of respondents said they liked what Walker has done as governor, 38 percent said they didn’t, and 22 percent said they liked what he did, but not how he did it.

The Democrats’ recall campaign against Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four GOP state senators stems from the Republican’s push and passage last year of Act 10, the law that curbed collective bargaining for most unionized public employees.

Polls consistently show that the percentage of people who are undecided in the race is in the low single-digits.

So the question, Franklin said, is whether the 22 percent who are ambivalent about Walker are “persuadable?”

Walker’s campaign responded to a request for comment with a generic news statement that did not specifically address the poll results.

Ben Sparks, spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, declined to respond to the poll.

But, Sparks said, “we’re seeing the highest Republican intensity that we’ve ever seen in the state.”

“We’ve already exceeded what we’ve done in the entire 2010 cycle,” he added.

Democrats had a different take on the Marquette poll, considered by politicians and pundits to be among the more respected gauges of voter sentiment.

“We’re kicking ass, and it’s going to be a Democratic tsunami at the polls,” Oneida County Democratic Party chairman Paul Knuth said.

Three polls out this week show Barrett lagging, one showing Walker with a substantial lead.

Public Policy Polling‘s poll conducted for liberal website Daily Kos, found Walker beating Barrett 50 percent to 45 percent, identical to PPP’s poll last month.

“Since that time, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett won the Democratic primary but does not appear to be seeing a bounce from that victory,” Daily Kos reported Tuesday. The website notes that there appears to be an enthusiasm gap that’s “favoring the GOP right now.“

The We Ask America Automated and Interview poll found Walker up by 9 percentage points. Conducted Sunday, the poll asked 1,219 likely voters whom they planned to vote for in Wisconsin’s June 5 gubernatorial recall election. Walker led Barrett with 52 percent support to Barrett’s 43 percent, according to the poll, which had an margin of error of  plus or minus 2.81 percentage points.

The Democrats’ strategy, Knuth said, is to find the 806,360 people who voted for president in 2008 — when Democrat Barack Obama won the state in a landslide — but not for governor in 2010, when Walker bested Barrett by 124,000 votes.

“That’s what we’re working on (getting those people out to vote),” he said. “Why wouldn’t we?”

Both parties, and pundits, have said voter turnout will decide the recall, but which party’s base will be most motivated to get to the polls?

Not helping the voter-turnout drive is that the elections will be held in June, when Wisconsinites’ minds are turned toward summer fun, not voting booths.

“We’ve got more people donating more money and more time than we have in the 10 to 12 years I’ve been involved in this,” Knuth said, adding, “It’s impossible to predict (the elections’ outcome), but we’ve got a lot of enthusiasm.”

Illinois lawmakers are considering a "strip club tax" that ultimately could help women.

SPRINGFIELD — A revamped plan to tax Illinois strip clubs danced its way out of the Senate Public Health Committee on Wednesday.

The revised legislation could require owners of strip clubs that serve alcohol or allow alcohol consumption to pay either a $3 fee per visitor, or a flat fee based on the establishment’s tax revenue.

The old version gave club owners a single option of paying a $5 per patron flat fee .

“This is a product of pretty intense negotiations,” bill sponsor state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields, said. “We have done our best to address every concern.”

Fee amounts would follow a tiered scale. Operators reporting taxable receipts totaling more than $2 million would pay a $25,000 flat fee; those earning between $500,000 and $2 million would pay $15,000; and any club earning less than $500,000 would pay $5,000.

Hutchinson said both options could benefit club owners. She gave the example that smaller clubs with fewer customers may not reach the $5,000 limit, and would spend less paying for each visitor. It’s the opposite situation in a larger club, where owners would benefit from paying the flat rate fee.

The measure is set to generate $1 million for the state. Money raised would help fund sexual assault assistance programs and rape crisis centers.

“Sexually-orientated businesses contribute to objectifying and exploiting women,” Lt. Gov. Shelia Simon said. “The research has shown that a combination of live nude dancing and alcohol is a particularly dangerous one for areas in which these clubs are.”

The proposal would not affect clubs where alcohol is prohibited.

Senate Bill 3348 passed committee in an 8-0 vote. The latest version heads to the Senate floor.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach says a constitutional crisis is looming in Kansas.

TOPEKA — Kansas is in the midst of a constitutional crisis, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the state’s chief election officer, said Wednesday.

Candidates must decide by June 11 whether to run, or not to run. But they don’t yet know who their opponents might be, or which doors to knock on.

Voters who are in the military, living overseas or won’t be in Kansas for the scheduled Aug. 7 primary elections are supposed to start receiving early ballots June 23, but they still can’t identify the district in which they live.

Kansas legislators are the last in the nation to redraw the state’s congressional and state legislative districts to reflect population changes reported on the most recent U.S. census.

They can’t seem to agree on how to do that. In fact, the lawmakers don’t even agree on why they don’t agree.

Democrats and moderate Republicans in both Houses say conservatives, led by House Speaker Mike O’Neal and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, both Republicans, are trying to redraw the maps to place more conservatives in the Senate. The conservatives, conversely, say the Democrats and the moderate Republicans are trying to rig the process to thwart the conservatives.

“Personally, it looks to me like some people are still talking about who’s right and who’s wrong, not how do we get something done,” said state Sen. Terry Bruce, R-Hutchinson.

No matter, says Kobach, a Republican who counts himself in the conservative camp.

“On April 23, I urged the Kansas Legislature to complete its task of redistricting as soon as possible, and no later than May 16, in order to avoid a constitutional crisis” he said Wednesday. “Due to the Senate’s inability to reach consensus, the Legislature has failed to meet its obligations under the Kansas Constitution.

“Because of that failure, I have no choice but to proceed in federal court,” Kobach said.

Kobach is a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month by Robyn Essex, a Republican precinct worker from Olathe, who alleges Kansas’ failure to pass a redistricting plan dilutes the strength of her vote and violates her rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Kobach said he planned to file a response that would seek the appointment of a three-member panel composed of federal judges to choose Kansas’ congressional and state district boundaries.

Kobach said he hoped legislators would still pass a redistricting plan by week’s end. But if not, he would ask the courts to come up with a plan by June 4 to meet both the June 11 filing deadline and the June 23 deadline for mailing early ballots.

Kansas Senate leaders remain optimistic that lawmakers by Friday can agree on new congressional and state district boundaries, said Tony Venturella, press deputy for Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton.

Brian Newby hopes so.

Newby is Johnson County’s election commissioner, and he’s responsible for ensuring things go smoothly for the nearly 365,000 voters in his county.

If the impasse is resolved by June 1, organizing the elections in the county’s more than 500 precincts will be tough, but manageable, Newby said. If not, preparing for state primaries on Aug. 7 could become a futile exercise.

If that happens, “we’re beyond crisis,” Newby said. “We’re over a cliff.”

DES MOINES — Leaders of the Iowa Department of Education failed to fulfill promises made in exchange for more than $17.6 million in federal money to improve six of the state’s poorest performing schools, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education.

Leaders of the Iowa Department of Education failed to fulfill promises made in exchange for more than $17.6 million in federal money to improve six of the state’s poorest performing schools, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education.

• Set up a rewards program and teacher evaluation system linked to student outcomes;
• Increase parent involvement;
• Increase learning time.

• Iowa failed to post all required information related to the School Improvement Grants on its website.
• State officials did not ensure Waterloo and Des Moines set a timeline for turning around the schools and implementing measures to increase student learning.
• Iowa did not make sure the two districts adopted an incentive program and evaluation system based on student outcomes for staff.

Kern Wildenthal

AUSTIN — Kern Wildenthal will have his pay reduced to $490,000 beginning June 7.

That will be a pay cut of $351,557 from his previous $841,557 salary.

Wildenthal is the former long-time University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center president and most recently special assistant to UTSW President Daniel Podolsky. As of late April, Wildenthal was reassigned to tenured faculty member.

That came after a UT System special outside investigation determined Wildenthal did a poor job of accounting for his travel expenses that were mainly between June 2005 to December 2010.

For the entire story go to Texas Budget Source.

AUSTIN — The Teacher Retirement System of Texas doled out $6.1 million of $9 million in incentive compensation, which included the Employees Retirement System of Texas and the Permanent School Fund at the Texas Education Agency.

The three state agencies control about $160 billion in assets for the two pension funds, TRS and ERS, and the corpus of the PSF, which was established in 1854 for the benefit of public schools.

“Those three entities awarded a total of $9,022,838 in incentive compensation to 180 employees for fiscal year 2011,” State Auditor John Keel writes in a new report.

For the entire story go to Texas Budget Source.

The state Senate kicked off the short session of the North Carolina General Assembly with quick action on annexation and live gambling on the Cherokee Nation.

RALEIGH — The state Senate kicked off the short session of the North Carolina General Assembly with quick action on annexation and live gambling on the Cherokee Nation.

A Senate committee approved two bills that would nullify annexations in nine areas of the state and change the way residents vote on annexations. The audience was packed with people who lived in those areas. They were all wearing red shirts protesting annexation.

The lawmakers thought they had solved the problem of involuntary annexations in the previous session but cities involved took the matter to court and won a reprieve.

Read the complete story at Civitas

Five government agencies and businesses in Missouri made the latest non-compliers list for failing to report how they used money from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

ST LOUIS — Five government agencies and businesses in Missouri made the latest non-compliers list for failing to report how they used money from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The list, for the fourth quarter of 2011, identified 418 stimulus-fund recipients that failed to submit reports as required. Thirty-four recipients nationwide did not file reports for the past two cycles, including the Kinloch Police Department.

The list of non-compliers for the first quarter of 2012 has not yet been released.

When asked why they didn’t comply, representatives of the respective Missouri agencies said that either the projects had been completed or the department stopped receiving the money.

A Newton County sheriff’s lieutenant called the accountability measures the “weirdest report.”

Kinloch’s city manager said his municipality stopped receiving stimulus money last year, yet remains on the federal government’s black list.

The Recovery Act, often called the stimulus package, provided $840 billion to help with economic recovery. Through March 31, Missouri entities had received 6,193 awards worth some $4.94 billion.

One of the act’s goals was to make the spending process transparent through strict accountability measures. Agencies that receive the money must file quarterly reports detailing for what the money is being used.

The five Missouri recipients on the black list include Kinloch Police Department and Hollister Department of Public Safety, which got $90,604 and $112,609, respectively, to hire police officers.

The list also includes the Newton County Sheriff’s Office, which received $43,447 for patrol car terminals; Washington County, which was granted $29,476 to upgrade computers and software in its prosecuting attorney’s office; and Patriot Company Inc., awarded a $17,189 contract for a project in New York.

Kinloch City Manager Eric Mason said the police department is no longer getting the stimulus money.

“We discontinued the program with the Department of Justice last year,” Mason told Missouri Watchdog.

In its last report from June 30, Kinloch police reported receiving and using $46,175 to hire a career officer “engaged in community policing activities responding to local needs.”

Mason said the department did not receive the rest of the $90,604, since it canceled its project.

The police department received the funds as part of the COPS Hiring Recovery Program, which helps law-enforcement agencies hire or rehire higher-salaried, veteran officers.

Mason said the city is no longer eligible to receive the money because the officer who would have been employed under the program is ineligible. Mason indicated it was a sensitive personnel issue, and declined to discuss that aspect further.

“I don’t think that was communicated well with the federal government,” he said, noting that the grant predated his tenure as city manager.

Mason said as far as he knows, no report has been filed since the city stopped receiving the stimulus money.

Lt. Rick Geller of the Newton County Sheriff’s Office said his department used its money to install mobile data terminals in its patrol cars. These allow officers to quickly conduct criminal checks and communicate with dispatch.

Geller said the grant, because it was through the Department of Justice, required him to file three quarterly reports to that body and the federal reporting website.

“I called and talked to those people,” he said. “You were just duplicating crap, and I told them that.”

Geller said the department completed the project in November, and he filed all the required paperwork.

“I don’t know why we’re still on the non-compliance list because we’ve sent in all the reports,” he said.

However, the last report on recovery.gov is from Sept. 30, 2011, and shows Newton County as having spent $38,412 of its $43,447 award.

Geller said he has tried to submit a final report, as is required for all of the stimulus projects, and is awaiting assistance from someone at recovery.gov on how to do it.

“I tried to put on there it was final,” he said. “I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that.”

Washington County, Hollister Department of Public Safety and Patriot Company Inc. also were on the most-recent list of non-compliers, but all have since filed reports for the first quarter of this year.

The Washington County prosecuting attorney’s office reported using $3,054.98 of its stimulus money to buy new computers and software for its Karple system, which is used to keep track of cases.

Office manager Kathy Pashia was reluctant to discuss the issue when contacted by Missouri Watchdog.

“I don’t know if I can give you information on office matters,” she said.

The latest report from Hollister Department of Public Safety notes that $88,741 of the $112,609 award has been put to use hiring an officer to investigate felonies and head the neighborhood watch in the White River Mountain area.

Missouri Watchdog contacted the department and was referred to Sgt. Tim Matthews, who did not return two calls Wednesday.

Patriot Company Inc., a Greenwood-based construction business, received its latest contract through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to replace windows at the Robert Holley Center for Agriculture and Health in Ithaca, N.Y. The company’s report for the first quarter of 2012 says the project has been completed.

The company previously had been awarded a $264,721 contract to replace windows at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Fort Meade, S.D.

By Eric Boehm | PA Independent

U.S. Rep Joe Pitts came off as more than a little out of touch, when he suggested that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat should do more to advance the peace process in the Middle East.

Arafat has been dead since 2004; Sharon has been in a coma since 2006.

Con una votación 52-45 el 8 mayo, el Senado rechazó una moción presentada por los demócratas, sobre como pagar para extender la prorroga de un anio en las tasas de interés de los créditos federales estudiantiles.

MIAMI— Con una votación 52-45 el 8 mayo, el Senado rechazó una moción presentada por los demócratas, sobre como pagar para extender la prorroga de un anio en las tasas de interés de los créditos federales estudiantiles.

Según la Oficina de Presupuesto del Congreso (CBO, en inglés) mantener la tasa de interés de los prestamos conocidos como Stafford en su nivel mas bajo del 3.4 perciento, costara unos 6,000 millones de dólares.

Los republicanos proponen que el dinero prevenga al eliminar un fondo de 17 mil millones de salud preventiva dirigido a las mujeres y creado bajo la reforma sanitaria de 2010. Pero de aprobarse el presidente Barack Obama amenaza con vetarla.

“Esta es una propuesta por motivos políticos y no la respuesta seria que el problema que enfrentan los estudiantes universitarios de Estados Unidos merece,” dijo el Presidente en su mensaje de veto.

Entrevistas con activistas y representantes estatales de la Florida sobre préstamos estudiantiles

Mientras que los demócratas quieren recaudar $5.900 millones de impuestos a negocios.

La medida afecta principalmente a unos 7 millones de estudiantes en toda la nación que poseen préstamos directos del gobierno federal conocidos como Stafford, entre ellos casi un millón de hispanos.

Pero según un estudio sólo el 37 por ciento de los estudiantes son capaces

De acuerdo con un estudio realizado por el Instituto de Política de Educación Superior, un “think tank” de educación en Washington, D.C., sólo el 37 por ciento de los estudiantes universitarios son capaces de terminar de pagar sus préstamos a tiempo.

En 2010, los graduados de las universidades en los estados unidos debían un promedio de más de 25,000 dólares en préstamos.

A nivel nacional, la deuda del estudiante escala a los $ 867 mil millones superando por primera vez, a las deudas con tarjetas de crédito que alcanzan los $ 704 mil millones, de acuerdo la Reserva Federal de Nueva York.

Comentario relacionado: debate sobre los tipos interés de préstamos estudiantiles pierde el punto

Grupos como Occupy Graduation, una organización hermana de Occupy Wall Street se han creado para alzar su voz contra las deudas estudiantiles.

En los estados unidos, unos 7,4 millones de estudiantes universitarios de medianos y bajos ingresos, entre ellos 986,494 hispanos, dependen de los préstamos “Stafford,” subsidiados por el gobierno federal.

Segun los indices de precios al consumidor los costos de la educacion en tuition y tasas se incrementaron dos veces en la ultima década, sobrepasando los precios de la inflación comparado con los costos de vienes, cuidado de la salud, vivienda y energía.

Los indicadores económicos plantean si realmente, una baja tasa de interés es la solución que los estudiantes tienen al graduarse.

El secretario de educacion durante la presidencia de Ronald Reagan, William Bennett, planteo en 1987 que, “en todo caso, el aumento de la ayuda financiera en los últimos años han permitido a los colegios y universidades elevar sus matrículas despreocupadamente, seguros de que los subsidios federales de préstamos ayudarían a amortiguar el aumento.”

Varios estudios parecen apoyar la hipótesis de Bennett.

El Buro Nacional de Investigacion Economica encontro en febrero que los colegios privados que no poseen prestamos de ayuda del gobierno federal ofrecen su matricula a un 75 perciento mas bajo que aquellos que acepatan prestamos federales.

Richard Vedder, el director del Centro para el acceso a la universidad y la productividad, reiteró que la única manera sensata de resolver el problema es “que el gobierno federal quede fuera del negocio de préstamo por completo”, y para deshacerse de la “carrera de armamentos costosos académica que nuestra nación cada vez más no se puede permitir.”

El economista Xavier Serbia senalo reciente en su columna de opinión en CNN Dinero, que los estudiantes deberían pensar si la deuda que contraen al solicitar un préstamo tendrá un salario equivalente que permita re pagar el préstamo.