The study comes on the heels of an earlier one showing that Milwaukee County welfare agencies were discouraging food-stamp applicants. People are going hungry even when they have a right to food stamps, Sherry Kay of the Hunger Task Force declared. But Jean Rogers, in charge of accentuating the positive for Thompsons welfare program, called the decrease in food stamps here very good news. While that may seem positive for the gun-control crowd, the Forum also noted that those opposed to gun control were much more likely to let their elected officials know about it. He also shot from the hip that women were buying guns at faster rates than men, but offered no statistics to back this up.
Business is on a rampage in Madison.
A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review of lobbying records for the first half of 1999 showed a huge increase in special-interest spending, mostly by business groups. Increasingly, there is no counterveiling force to business in the state Capitol. Former Gov. Tony Earl called the increasing influence of money in politics a disturbing trend, which is a fine sentiment, but Earl himself is a lobbyist and recipient of business largesse. Bob Crawford, Milwaukee Countys shaming judge, tried to bring a little shame on the district attorneys office in a recent case when the D.A. was showing some compassion for a defendant. The D.A. allowed the young man to cop a misdemeanor plea instead of facing 20 years in the hoosegow for the felony charge of having sex with someone under 16.