I’m not afraid to call a spade a spade.
It is entirely too convenient that Commandant Doyle has moved Senator Breske, one of our staunchest allies, to the position of railroad commissioner. After all, this removes Doyle’s biggest obstacle in passing a smoking ban, since as commissioner Breske would lose his power in the legislature.
It also explains the sudden jump in salary for the commissioner position, as I would not doubt if Doyle bought off Breske with a higher salary to try and grease the skids a bit.
Already the articles about this are pointing out that Breske was the Tavern League’s agent against the smoking ban, and they aren’t hesitating to make it known that this will now change.
Personally, I’m not happy about this. Not happy one bit.
Filed under: Governor Doyle, Roger Breske, Tavern League, Wisconsin Ban, Wisconsin Culture | Tagged: Governor Doyle, Roger Breske, smoking bans, wisconsin smoking ban
Oh yes – buy off the opposition! How “original”. At least Breske will be an improvement over the current railroad commissioner.
I’m glad you said it, Ryan.
Doyle saves his Democrat colleague from losing face and at the same time buys himself a smoking ban. He can’t lose with this sweet deal.
Although I must say that Breske isn’t innocent in this whole ordeal, either. From the beginning it seemed to me that he was more interested in saving his own hide with the Tavern League than he was in preserving their freedom and property rights.
Remember how hard he was pushing for a “phase-in ban”?
I have to say that I’m thankful that he was there this session, because without him the ban certainly would have passed and we would be fighting for a repeal rather than fighting against a propsed ban, but it would appear that his presence was simply delaying the inevitable.
We have to do more than simply count on politicians to preserve our freedom. We need to show people the true oppressive nature of smoking bans, the slippery slope, and the shameless insulting of our intelligence by our government and the anti-smoking crusaders.
Like I said earlier, sometimes I think the best way to handle these fuckers is with guns.