"The Mecca For Prejudice And Bigotry"

By now, most have heard of the senseless violence and mayhem which occurred today in Tucson, Arizona. A deranged young man walked up to U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords while she was having a public event outside a local store and shot her point blank in the head. Fortunately, Giffords survived the attack and early reports are that she made it through surgery and was able to recognize her husband and other family members.

Unfortunately, the gunman, Jared Loughner, was hellbent on being as destructive as he could be and went on to shoot a eighteen other people, killing six of them. Among the fatalities is U.S. District Judge John Roll and a nine year old girl who was there as a reward for being elected to the student council.

While no official motive has been going, we do know that the gunman was probably suffering from some sort of mental illness. We also know that he hated the government and among his favorite books was "Mein Kampf."

As tragic and horrifying as this event is, it was also all too predictable. Across the country, but especially in Arizona, there has been a growing disregard for civil discourse or even basic respect for fellow men and women. Judge Roll himself had already been the subject of death threats by the intolerant bigots of the right regarding a case he heard which pitted illegal immigrants against an Arizona rancher. In fact, most news articles regarding today's terrorist attack show the growing number of threats across the nation. And don't forget that the last two days have had news of mail packages for elected leaders exploding and spewing an unknown substance.

Pima Sheriff Clarence Dupnik spared no words on putting today's nightmare in perspective:

Mr. Dupnik called the shooting a "very sad day for Tucson" and a "horrendous, horrendous, senseless, unbelievable crime." And then he blamed the crime on the rhetoric -- presumably political rhetoric -- in the country.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," he said. "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Mr. Dupnik said it is time for the country to "do a little soul searching."

He added: "The vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business ... This has not become the nice United States that most of us grew up in."

Here is a link to a video of his press conference. His sincerity is quite telling. You see none of the calculative word choices that someone like our own Sheriff Clarke.

Indeed, many people keep referring to Sarah Palin and her PAC, which specifies Representative Giffords as a "target" and that people shouldn't retreat but reload. Eerily, ten months ago, Congresswoman Giffords spoke about the hatred and death threats aimed at her.

Arizona has been worse than most areas in regards to their bigotry towards Hispanics and poor people. Things have gotten so bad that their own state government have told poor people that they aren't worth the expense to keep alive.

But as heart-wrenching as today's horrific events are, the reaction from too many on the right are egregious.

By far, the majority of the right is back-pedaling, saying that this shouldn't be made political and that we should all only pray for the family.

I have two real problems with this crap coming from them.

First of all, they are the ones that have been spewing this hateful rhetoric for two years now. So many of them have spent so much time and energy into pouring gas onto this already blazing fire.

Secondly, if the gunman's name hadn't been Jared Loughner, but Julio Lopez, these same people that are calling for people to step back would have been leading the charge trying to determine if he was an illegal alien. And if he was, they would really begin to howl. It would have been just as bad if the gunman's name had been Jamale Lofton. The racial comments would be spewing like a volcano's eruption.

If you don't believe me, look at the right's reactions to the news earlier this week regarding the drunk driver who killed a woman on I-94 or the incident last weekend at Mayfair Mall.

Life is hard enough on a lot of people. We don't need these bullies spewing their hateful rhetoric making things worse than they already are. But if they feel they need to do it, at least be adult enough to face the consequences for the irresponsible and reprehensible behaviors.

Stop The Lies: Main Street Vs. Wall Street

A Decision Made Easier

For each of the past few years, coming up around this time, I have struggled with the decision of whether to renew my subscription to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

I started leaning away from doing it when the powers that be at the paper decided to start parting ways with their best employees, like Stuart Carlson and Tim Cuprisin.

But even then, I gave them one more chance.

Last year, I struggled again, but they convinced me to give it one more year when they dropped the price by one third.

But I think this might finally be the year when I part ways with them.

First of all, money is too damn tight to justify spending it on a paper that reports less and less news, and then doesn't even do so with little accuracy. And early indications are that they are going to jack up their rates sky high this year. It now costs a $1 for the daily if you buy it in a store. Even at the reduced rate of a subscription, that is still a few hundred dollars that I could spend on something more meaningful, like toilet paper or food or paying down some of the real bills we have.

Secondly, their schizophrenic approach to the recent elections in which they spent weeks and months bashing Scott Walker, only to endorse him. Then turn around and spent weeks on buyer's remorse, only to name him the person of the year. If they can't stay consistent, why should I trust them on anything?

Thirdly, they are now reporting that O. Ricardo Pimentel, the last true liberal voice on their Editorial Board, is giving up his leadership role to become a twice-weekly columnist.

In other words, they are finalizing their conversion from a newspaper to the print version of talk radio.

That leaves the only worthwhile things in the paper being the TV Guide (which is usually inaccurate), the comics (available on line) and the word games. Those things don't carry the value that would make such an expenditure feasible.

So, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel people, if you are reading this, don't be surprised when I get my invoice and I call you to tell you goodbye. And don't be surprised if I'm not the only one.

Is This What We Are Becoming?

Several weeks ago, I pointed out to you, gentle reader, that the real death panels belonged to the Republicans, like Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona (state motto: If you're brown, you're going down).

CBS News is reporting that Brewer has started showing "success" on her mission with two of the people waiting for transplants allowed to die and another 96 waiting to die, just to save $1 million dollars.

The conservatives and Teapublicans have been saying that Americans should embrace our "exceptionalism." If this is what they consider to be exceptional, they can keep it. This is not what we, or any other civilized nation, should be doing.

And there is a special place in Hell for those that think this is the right path.

H/T Kay

Sinking Like A Rock

For those of you who use Twitter, you might already know that Scott Walker has a new Twitter profile to reflect that he is now governor. But instead of acting gubernatorial, he sounds like he is still on the campaign trail. His inane and banal tweets consist of little more than pointing out articles that reflect a kinder shine on his short reign than the harsh light of the truth.

I had thought it odd until I saw the first post-election poll taken. Walker is on the campaign trail just to keep his popularity rating from its continuous spiraling nosedive:

Walker and Kasich both have worse numbers than they did in our polls right before the election.

Walker's favorability is a 41/49 spread and Kasich's is 36/40. One key reason for the disparity? We're now polling all registered voters in the states, not just 2010 likely voters as we were the last three months before the election. There was a steep drop in Democratic turnout compared to 2008 in both of those states that was a key part of the Republican victories and those Democrats who didn't vote aren't real big on their new Governors.

Only 12% of Democrats in Ohio have a favorable opinion of Kasich compared to 65% with an unfavorable one. And in Wisconsin just 7% rate Walker favorably to 85% with a negative opinion. They don't have anywhere close to the sort of crossover appeal that folks like Sandoval and Mead do, and as a result they don't go into office particularly popular.

And with the actions that he has recently taken, he'll be in the single digits by Easter.

The Chief and the Brawler each have more on these unsurprising results.

Janesville Is Getting No Love

One has to feel bad for the folks in Janesville. They can't seem to find a representative that actually wants to live there.

First they had their former Assemblyman Mike Sheridan who, while going through a divorce, ended up moving out of his own district.

Now they've elected Joe Knilans to represent them, but he doesn't have an official address in the district either. He reportedly moved into his brother's basement, but now it doesn't appear to be his real address since it isn't up to code. The Democrats are at least jumping on this one.

Who knew that Janesville had such an apartment shortage?

I'm just waiting for Kevin Binversie, who really enjoyed slapping Sheridan around for this, to cover this story. That is, if the screaming 20 somethings let him.

So When Does This All Become A Conflict Of Interest?

That someone is the law firm of Michael Best and Friedrich. And it appears this is one heck of a snugglefest for the law firm, Walker and his campaign, and the Republicans in general.

Emily Mills, writing for the Isthmus, points out that Walker and the Republicans as called upon the Michael Best and Friedrich law firm to help them with their power grab on redistricting. Ms. Mills also finds out an interesting fact in that Reince Priebus, head of WISGOP and backstabber to Michael Steele:

The GOP is hiring two outside law firms, Michael Best and Friedrich and Troupis Law Office, to help them draw the new legislative district boundaries -- but disallowing the Democrats to hire their own attorneys for the process.

And -- surprise surprise! -- there are direct ties between Republican officials and these firms:

Reince Priebus, chairman of the state's Republican Party and a candidate to lead the Republican National Committee, works for Michael Best. But campaign finance reports show attorneys from the firm have donated to both Republicans and Democrats. James Troupis, who has frequently contributed to Republican campaigns, worked at Michael Best for years before starting his own company last year.

Is it wrong to hire people one knows and presumably trusts for this kind of work? Not inherently, I don't think, but it certainly warrants a raised eyebrow or two. Add on top of that the fact that the fees charged by these outside firms will likely be paid for with taxpayer money, and that Democrats aren't being allowed the same benefit, however, and this goes from suspect to dirty pretty fast.

Well, well. Isn't that a nice bit of payback? But wait, that's not all!

The name of the law firm triggered a red flag for me, making me think that Walker had another tie in to this law firm. Sure enough, he does. Michael Best and Friedrich is also the employer of former US Attorney Steven Biskupic, who Walker's campaign has retained to defend itself (and Walker) from the growing investigation into campaign law violations and Walker's campaign:

In a widening probe, Milwaukee County prosecutors are pushing forward with their two-prong criminal investigation into campaign activity by county staffers for Governor-elect Scott Walker and questionable donations by a Walker supporter.

Sources say the case has gotten to the point that the Walker campaign recently brought in former U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic, now with Michael Best & Friedrich. Walker will step down next week as Milwaukee County executive.

The same law firm is defending Walker and his campaign from the growing scandal and doing work to rig elections so that Walker and his Republican allies can stay in power for the next ten years.

And all this time the Republicans have been saying that Democrats have been the ones with tight relations with trial lawyers. Ha! They're pikers compared to Walker and his crew.

The big question though is this: So when does this become an official conflict of interest?

A Good County Executive Is So Hard To Find

Six weeks ago, I took a preliminary look at the potential field of candidates for Milwaukee County Executive. It was a heady time, when people were looking forward to starting to heal after a decade of abuse and neglect.

But then, a couple of weeks ago, Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that philanthropist Chris Abele was going to get into the race. This bombshell of an announcement changed the entire landscape of the race, but not necessarily for the better. Abele is a multimillionaire who also runs a multimillionaire charity group called the Argosy Foundation. Abele is known not just for his charity work, but is also a contributor to many political campaigns, with the vast majority of his beneficiaries being Democrats. It was reported that Abele was ready and willing to drop at least one million of his own money to fund his campaign, and that he was hoping to raise another half a million in donations.

When his candidacy became known, other candidates, mostly from the left side of the aisle, started dropping out like flies. Sheldon Wasserman said he wasn't going to run. John Weishan said he wasn't going to run. Joe Czarnezki dropped out. Johnny Thomas dropped out. Sue Black never really got in before she got out. Dan Diliberti dropped out. Marina Dimitrijevic, whom I thought to be one of the best candidates, dropped out.

A few notables either chose to stay in or to join in the race despite Abele's presence. These include Republican Jeff Stone, Jim Sullivan and Lee Holloway. There is also a field of a half a dozen or so lesser known names, including the controversial Ieshuh Griffin, who apparently can't make up her mind what she wants to run for.

When one looks at the four better known candidates, one finds that it leaves a lot to be desired.

Chris Abele

Chris Abele, who only made his formal announcement this afternoon, is really starting off on the wrong foot. Outside of being a millionaire by the graces of good inheritance, there is little know about him. He makes only vague statements of "bold and innovative reform," but won't offer anything of substance. Even his website is devoid of any information and is utterly useless unless one is in the habit of donating to or volunteering for a candidate just for the heck of it.

Abele also has some questionable allies, namely Sheldon Lubar, who is a strong advocate for the wholesale destruction of Milwaukee County, even though this would only serve to raise taxes and greatly reduce services. Lubar said that he is supporting Abele because "Chris and I agree that there are some specific changes that are needed, and we have a man who's governor who knows what they are better than anyone else."

Abele did tell the media today that he is open to further privatization (read higher taxes for lesser quality service). He also mentioned that the would consider consolidating services with other municipalities, which is not as bad. He also said that he was opposed to the dedicated sales tax to bolster the parks and the transit systems, but offers no other solutions on how to stop their slow deaths.

I also find it more than a little off-putting that a candidate that won't present any stances on any issues, is personally wealthy, and possibly wants to finish the destruction that Walker had started would send out mass emails begging for money, especially to those he would harm the most.

Until Abele can come up with something - anything - that would let people know where he stands, and if that thing is polar of what the signs indicate about him, he is not really worth consideration for county executive.

Jeff Stone

Stone is currently a Republican in the State Assembly for the Greendale area. He is also Scott Walker's chosen heir apparent. Stone returns the love by saying that he would continue where Walker left off, namely, bankrupting and killing off the county, regardless of how many people it hurts or even kills. But lacking even as much as Walker's vanilla personality, Stone is more like Walker Lite than anything else.

Stone's only claim to fame is the failed attempt at a back door privatization of the airport. Stone, backed up by the conservative paper, makes claim that he never tried to privatize the airport. he only wanted to take control of it away from the county and give it to a private entity. Yeah, that's a big difference. That's like saying he wasn't driving a car, he was driving an automobile.

With the county literally crumbling around us, we don't need a guy who would only try to exasperate the problems we are currently facing.

It will be interesting to see how Stone does in the race though. He has Scott Walker's war machine which is still running from the November elections. However, Walker has become so unpopular on a local level that he lost Milwaukee County in that election by a 62-38 margin. I don't see how a Walker wannabe will fare much better.

Jim Sullivan

Sullivan is the former State Senator for the Wauwatosa area. While in the Senate, he did a few good things, like giving Wisconsin an uniform policy against smoking in work places. But despite his good deeds, he still managed to lose to Leah Vukmir in November's election. That is not an easy task, even with the Republican surge across the state.

However, there is reason to doubt Sullivan's worthiness to run the county, since he was also a player in making a push for the sale and pillaging of the county grounds, endangering one of Milwaukee County's greatest treasures, namely the Monarch Trail. Not only that, but this gift to the private land developers will now cost Tosa residents $12 million in the form of a TIF. That is something that can't be popular in the current political climate.

Sullivan could have be a good candidate, but he doesn't have much time to ensure which candidate he is going to be.

Lee Holloway

It is nearly impossible to living in Milwaukee County and not know who Lee Holloway is. Holloway is the Chair of the Milwaukee County Board, and at the moment, he is also the interim County Executive. Holloway says a lot of the right things, such as how he wants to make the county grow, get a dedicated funding source for the transit system and the restoration of full service at the airport.

However, during the last few years, Holloway has repeatedly let the county down. When he's had the opportunity to stand against Walker and Walker's path of destruction, Holloway had instead chosen to stand side by side with Walker. Not only did he fail to protect the county and its tax payers, but he gave Walker a handy foil to push the blame at when things went sour, as they inevitably would.

Holloway also has the issue of his private property and his failure to maintain them properly. To make things even worse, these properties are the homes of people with chronic mental health problems. He already lacked a lot of support in the suburbs, and this has alienated a lot of the city voters and the black community.

***

What Milwaukee County really needs is a strong leader with bold, progressive ideas of how to re-establish the county as a leader after a decade of one scandal after another, and one detrimental decision after another. It needs someone who would work hard to restore the transit system, reverse the decline of the parks and strengthen the safety net for its most vulnerable citizens.

It also looks like Milwaukee County will have to wait another year before it might have that person.

TrogloFAIL

Lance Burri, aka the TrogloPundit, apparently is easily confused.

Take for example, this excerpt from this post, in which he takes exception regarding the group of hardy people that went to Madison on Monday to let Goobernator Scott Walker know that we are out here and we are ready to hold him and his cronies accountable:

Note what the sign says: “We Need Good Jobs NOW!” Outside the inauguration of a conservative, pro-business governor who is replacing a liberal, anti-business governor whose idea of job creation was raising taxes by several billion dollars and sticking taxpayers with untold billions in debt.

If that’s not ironic, I don’t know what is.

Actually, the irony is that he doesn't get it.

The truth is simple. Walker's brand of being "pro-business" does not equate to good jobs.

A good job would be one that pays a living wage, provides decent benefits and does not unduly endanger the worker. Walker's idea of how things should be would be a major decrease in a worker's pay; cutting, if not cutting out, employee benefits (especially for homosexuals); and loosening, if not entirely eliminating, safety regulations and consumer protections.

Perhaps Lance has spent so much time among the elitists that he doesn't understand what the working class is going through. Maybe he doesn't understand that concentrating the wealth among a few will not help the state or the people that are struggling and suffering, or fix the economy.

Or maybe he does and just doesn't care.

Even As Governor, Walker Has No Job Plan

Scott Walker on job creation, from WisPolitics.com:

"In the world of putting people to work, it's not always about the process. It's about the mentality."

Great. And we can tell our creditors that the world of paying bills, it's not always in the process. It's about the mentality.

Let's see how they like the idea of pretending we are paying them.

When we need real leadership to bring in good jobs, we get Mr. Rogers and the Land of Make Believe.

The Birth Of A Theoligarchy

With all the pomp and circumstance one might expect from a showboating megalomaniac, and despite being shrouded in a cloud of suspicion, Scott Walker was sworn in as the governor of Wisconsin today.

The day started with religious the religious symbolism that one might hear from a cult leader or from a petty tyrant trying to convince the people that he is not just a man but a god-king. The faithful acolytes of this cult of personality, quoting the scriptures as preached by the corporate media and the false prophets, cheered on what they perceived to be a momentous occasion.

But the adulation of Walker is not the real purpose of this cult. The real motivation is the promotion of the real cult behind this cult of personality and of that religion's high priests.

The religion is the worship of the Almighty Dollar and it's high priest are collectively known as Big Business.

Look at the things that Walker and his Republican allies intend to force down the throats of the populace. They all go to serve one purpose which is the establishment of an oligarchy.

They want to destroy the unions. They've already weakened the private sector unions as shown by the extortion done by companies such as Harley Davidson, Mercury Marine and most recently Kohler. Walker and his allies have done nothing but attack the public sector unions for years, using outright lies and misdirections. While repeatedly saying how the unions need to take concessions and give back to the community, don't look for them to actually take any action regarding this outside of dishing out sound bites.

Without any action to actually address their straw man issues, they will claim that they have no choice but to change the laws, making Wisconsin a right to work state. They will claim that it is to reduce business costs and thus allow job creation. But it won't. While it will lower business costs, the only other things it will do is lower everyone's pay by an average of $5000, make jobs more dangerous and lower everyone's quality of life.

Another goal of the new regime is to consolidate power to the governor's office. Their public reason for this is to streamline regulations, save costs and create jobs. Again, this is false. What it will do is give Big Business more control over what comes out of the state legislature. This will of course save them money, but not to create jobs, but only increase their concentration of wealth. Meanwhile, we will lose consumer protections and rights.

Other things that the newly empowered oligarchy wishes to force upon us include cutting their taxes (but not ours), destruction of social support programs like Badger Care or Senior Care, dismantle the DNR to make it easier for companies to pollute and pillage our natural resources, destruction of public schools, and basically anything else that Big Business thinks will help them amass more wealth and power, regardless of the cost to the citizenry.

As a side benefit, the powers that be will grant their faithful disciples the things that they wish, but as with everything else, won't create jobs but will lower our quality of life. I'm referring to things like making it harder for minorities and college kids (who tend to vote Democratic more often) to vote, allowing people to play cowboys and carry their guns everywhere no matter how inappropriate it is, squelching the rights of women, squelching the rights of homosexuals, and squelching the rights of anyone else who is different from them.

But all is not lost, my friends.

Walker's favorable rating is not all that good. And that was before Walker's grandstanding cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs when he threw high speed rail and all of its benefits away. That was easily exemplified by the hundreds of people from all walks of life and all parts of the state which came to Madison this morning to let Walker know that he may want to answer only to his wealthy patrons, but his still accountable to us, the people.

Only When It Affects Them

Cindy Kilkenny gets on her soapbox, taking her righteous indignation out on me. My trespass was that I was not thoroughly shocked enough by a couple of pictures of the aftermath of whatever happened at Mayfair Mall Sunday evening.

The thing that Cindy apparently does not understand is that this sort of thing is, most unfortunately, not all that uncommon in the poorer parts of the city. However, because it is so commonplace, it barely makes the news anymore, unless it is somehow extraordinarily sensational.

The local paper no longer covers every mugging in the inner city. They don't mention when a corner store on the corner of 27th and Vliet St has an unruly customer causing mayhem. They don't report every beating, every bit of vandalism or any other "petty crime" which happens in the poorer areas of our community. Heck, I personally doubt that even most of them get reported to the police anymore.

The most one might find in print or on the Internet would be the police blotters of the CommunityNOW subsidiary of the Journal Company, and even then, they are in no way comprehensive of all the crimes that occur.

So, no, I can't find myself working up any outrage because some clothes got knocked down at a suburban mall. Do I approve of it? Of course not. That type of behavior is inappropriate whether it be at the mall, a Walmart or at the corner store in the inner city.

If I were to be incensed about anything, it would be that it only became an issue for some people when it started to impact them more directly, by happening at a place they might patronize. Where were they when this stuff was already happening in the inner city or other places of our community?

Or I could be become angry about the fact that this is just gaining their attention while this sort of bad behavior has become so commonplace in some areas that people just shrug it off as being part of life, when it really ought not to be.

Another thing that I could easily become outraged at is the automatic, thinly veiled racist comments that already one of Cindy's commenters has left at the time of this posting.

That whole attitude of racism, whether it is by choice or some subconscious part of their upbringing, the whole laissez faire mentality when it doesn't directly impact them, or whatever their motivation might be, does nothing to stop these problems, but actually enables them to fester.

The irony of it all is that I, being portrayed as the Every Liberal, is being chastised for not being duly upset when this has happened to them. However, they were not upset, or sometimes, even aware, that this was occurring elsewhere.

Hypocritical Outrage

The folks at WisDems are putting out a bumper sticker regarding Scott Walker's bungling of the high speed rail and the consequences stemming from his stupidity.

Actually, the have two. The first sticker looked like this one:

But then after it hit the Intertubes, the right, led by State Representative Robin Vos (R-Crybaby) started whining that it was violent somehow. I suppose, if you have a propensity towards violence, anything appears violent.

The Democrats acquiesced to the right's faux outrage and changed the sticker to look like this:

It definitely loses some of its impact with the change. Instead of clearly showing that it was Walker who was responsible for the lost revenue and the lost jobs, it makes it look like the train was his brainchild and that he failed to get it done.

But the real silliness is the right's hypocritical outrage regarding this. Take, for example, Freedom Eden, who bewailed the original sticker as being some gruesome death wish. However, just four months ago, when gave us the ridiculous image of him donning a pair of boxing gloves and telling voters how he was going to fight and beat Tom Barrett, who had been the victim of a vicious beating at State Fair the year before, this same blogger said that it was no big deal and that Barrett and the Democrats should have thicker skin than to complain about it.

Just your typical hypocritical outrage that we see from the right any day of the week.

Oh, and if any Democratic operatives are reading this, save me a couple of the original ones, OK?

It's An Outrage!

Heh:

Source

Frugality And Transparency!

As most people already know and more and more are figuring out, Scott Walker sold the voting public a bill of goods, saying he was the epitome of frugality and was as transparent as cellophane.

But lo and behold, just three days after the election, Mr. Frugality goes out and, using tax payers dollars, rents a 2011 GM Yukon XL. The car was driven for over 5000 miles and pinched the tax payers for more than $2000 in just the first month.

Not quite the Saturn he led people into believing he drove.

In all honesty, it's not that much of an upgrade, since as county executive, he was riding around in two or three SUVs, all on the tax payers dime. It's often been suspected that he was also using them for campaign events, but that's another story.

The alarming part is when The Daily Page called his office on it, they were first ignored, then given the run around, by Walker's new mouthpiece, Cullen Werwie. The paper had asked only two questions - how did Walker rack up so many miles in one month and whether he was a passenger in the SUV for all of those miles - yet Walker's office couldn't answer those directly.

Here's a hint: When they stall like that, there's a good chance that they're going to tell a lie.

Also: It's special equipped with an extra air bag and lots of bag lunches.

I just wonder if it came with its own manure spreader or is the superfluous airbag doing double duty.