Sunday, August 26, 2012

Alderman Bob Donovan And His Wacky Friends

Who wouldn't trust that face?
Milwaukee Alderman Bob Donovan has long been providing the City of Milwaukee with comic relief for years now. He has recently expanded his show into a three ring circus.

Donovan, partisan puppet for the Republicans, is a busy man though. He's always up to something, like issuing racist press releases and pushing to have all the children (especially the poor and the black ones) locked up where they won't get in the way of his pretending he rules Milwaukee.

His latest Quixotic venture has been his repeated tantrums about the street car. For the longest time, Donovan and his radio squawker buddies have been the only ones griping about it.

Then, at the end of last year, he was joined by Brett Healy, figurehead for the MacIver Institute. Healy was whining about the costs related to the proposed streetcar. Showing his hypocrisy, he completely ignored the much more expensive freeway reconstruction. But then again, his masters probably told him to not to worry about their investments.

More recently, Donovan was joined by Chris Kleisment of CRG. Kleismet, whose corruption is only dwarfed by his cowardice, did his own bootlicking by joining in the faux outrage. We're still waiting for Kleismet to say one thing about Walkergate and the way Walker and his henchmen squandered taxpayer dollars.

After all these months of ineffective and hollow hollering, the Koch Brothers have decided to up the ante by bringing in their trained attack teahadists, Americans for Poverty. They've really taken their game up a few notches by introducing - gasp - a propagandist anti-street car website!

To help support their drivel, the have also brought in master drivelist James Wigderson. Wiggy, as he likes to call himself, is fresh off of a tour of obstructing the rights of people in Walkersha County and is trying to do the same in Milwaukee.

Wiggy has written a rather pedestrian essay which is only notable for its adolescent insults, touting the Koch/Bradley Foundation tag team. But the hilarity comes in at the end of his diatribe (emphasis mine):
Everyone in Milwaukee and the surrounding communities are invited to sign. It isn't just Milwaukeeans that will be paying for the Streetcar Nobody Desires. Everyone can take this opportunity to let the Milwaukee Common Council know what the public thinks of this giant waste of money. If the Common Council will not listen to common sense, perhaps they will listen to the public.
Now, far be it for me to give advice to Wiggy (He's a professional writer, y'know. If you don't believe me, ask him. He'll tell you.)or the Koch Brothers and the Bradley Foundation on how to run their business, but I would think they'd get a lot farther by not implying that the citizens of Milwaukee don't have common sense.

Indeed, the fact that these front groups have to go outside of not only Milwaukee, but out of Milwaukee County, to find supporters shows that we tend to have more common sense than our neighbors.

16 comments:

  1. He/they might want to consider finding someone as an expert with more than a degree in Forestry. James still can't forgive those who taunted him in high school. His opposition to everything Milwaukee stems from two distinct sources: fear of minorities and paychecks from the 1 percent.

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  2. I read Wiggys piece and I did notice that your writing contains far more "adolescent insults" than his.
    As a Milwaukee county resident I have been curious to see where this will end up. I would think it would cater to tourist riders and link some of the more popular visited sites in Milwaukee. But that doesn't seem to be the vision at all. It would seem they just want it to be another arm of the bus transport system which doesn't make much sense, since that is already in place. On one hand it would make a nice post card picture, but if it's going to raise my energy bill and make me avoid any streets it is running on in my car, while doing nothing more than serving as a bus line, I'm not so sure it will be a success. One of these years I will make it to San Francisco, and I will ride the street car as a tourist. But I don't ever see me parking my car and getting on at the intermodal station and riding to basically nowhere.

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    1. What I find interesting in any transportation debate, is that the righties like to whine and moan about anything that will improve our transportation options and never ever offer up alternatives, except keep bulding more and bigger roads. Which of course are incredibly costly and inefficient, but the road builders donate to the republican party. Scratch each others back regardless of necessity or what helps the public.

      Had High speed rail been a top 5 donor to the walker campaign we would have rails all over the state by now.

      Its a shame that their party is so petty!

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    2. "Had High speed rail been a top 5 donor to the walker campaign we would have rails all over the state by now."

      BINGO! There is an obvious connection between oil (Koch) money and Walker's opposition to anything that doesn't include road building and fossil fuel use.

      And Bob Donovan needs to be sent back to 1974, where his racist, idiotic self, his chain-smoking, and his greasedup hairdo belong. People like him are why Milwaukee can't move ahead.

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    3. IMBAR says he wants to look ahead, but apparently not too far or otherwise he would recognize that the street car is only the initial step of an intermodal city, just like all the successful cities have.

      Maybe it's just a fear of success that makes Republicans like IMBAR and Walker reject any idea that actually moves us forward.

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    4. Your party controls the city, So have at it. For now at least. You don't need any republican support, at least until its broke and you want to talk about "regional funding".
      The city can't seem to afford to run a bus system, how does it afford your "inter modal" fantasy?
      And lets define "successful cities" I think I might be amused by your definition! (please say Chicago)
      I thought all large cities have been declining in population in recent decades.

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    5. And Jeff, "Scratch each others back regardless of necessity or what helps the public. "
      I think I understand what you mean. Kind of like the teachers union, government unions and most lawyers do for democrats, right?

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    6. Well, people have been calling for a dedicated funding source for years, as recommended by every single study, even by conservatives. Yet Walker actively fought it as County Exec and still is opposed to it. And you wonder why the regional economy is tanking.

      Actually, in the last couple of years, since the Bush/Cheney recession, people have been moving back to the cities. It's even more so in Fitzwalkerstan. And just about every city, with the exception of Detroit, is doing better right now. Now who is again that's been cutting funding so much that everything is falling apart?

      As for your second comment, you should take some time to compare right-to-work-but-not-get-paid states to unionized ones. RTW states fall in the bottom ten of just about every category you'd care to name.

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    7. And I contend the need for more funding will increase with a trolley system. With the benefits being highly questionable to say the least. Look at who is commissioning the studies. I have seen first hand how these studies work, the result is pre-determined.
      Surely there must be a city plan that doesn't require contributions from the rest of the states taxpayers just to keep running. But I suspect that wouldn't be the plan you would support.
      Indiana went right to work and Minnesota is debating it. I can see the merits to both sides arguments, but as unions keep giving concessions whether voluntary (private) or forced (public) at some point the difference in wage will no longer justify forcing people to join the union.

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    8. And roads are self-sufficient? That's a lame argument. Surely there must be a plan for road building and maintenance that doesn't require taxpayer contributions.

      There is much more to unions that just pay, but you might not understand that there is more to life than money.

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    9. OK, I'll concede that roads aren't self sufficient. But a better case can be made for them than electric rail cars.

      Maybe your right, I guess I just got caught up in all the writings of how much money Gov Walker took from "us".

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  3. Imustberacist, maybe then, instead of slamming the current plan and throwing it out the window, you should take part in democracy, and suggest these things to the transportation department.

    That is of course, unless you've already been brainwashed in to believing that all forms of public transportation are bad, and that the best thing we can do is have everyone own their own car to clog up our cities with unneeded traffic and congestion.

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    1. I'm afraid my ideas are self serving. I am not a city planner, but can't see the logic in the plans that have been presented. Apparently neither can many others, because they seem to be hard to defend.
      For daily transportation I would think a bus line that can very easily change routes and operate better in a snowy environment makes more sense than a rail line.
      Traffic and congestion are not an issue here like in Chicago, and other large cities. That doesn't mean I don't invite forward thinking, but I haven't seen much of it yet.

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    2. I'm not in favor of the downtown rail for aesthetic reasons. They've spent years burying ugly wires underground and downtown is finally cleaned up of all that ugly spaghetti. Now they want to put ugly wires all over downtown ruining the view. Go look at old pics with the streetcar wires all over the place. You think that shit looks good? I don't.

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  4. I am all for public transportation, especially if it will push us toward the 21st century. I think the original plan was to link to KRM and then follow out to Waukesha, which would be great. I am not so sure a loop around downtown Milwaukee is worth it. The 50 cent trolley buses couldn't even make it.

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  5. It doesn't matter what it is. The dumbfucks in this state are against improving anything. From health care to high speed rail to public art, cutting grass etc. everything is a waste to these people. Completely unsophisticated hicks full of rage for their fellow americans. Clinging to their guns like a baby holds a bottle. Maybe I'll join you, I want your kids to suffer.

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