Noooooooooooo!!!

Someone tell me this is a nightmare and will be gone by the morning. Please!


And of course, we know who is to blame. Has there ever been a good Thompson in Wisconsin?

Mayor Tom Barrett: Hometown Hero

Saturday night, Mayor Tom Barrett got the chance to enjoy some quality private time with his family and take in State Fair. Unfortunately, the happiness didn't last long.

On their way back to their car, the group came across a scene of domestic violence, in which a young tough was threatening his ex-girlfriend's mother, who was trying to protect her grandchild from this drunken fool.

During the ensuing altercation, Mayor Barrett suffered numerous injuries, including a severe laceration and some broken teeth. He also shattered his hand punching the assailant.

The good news is that the Mayor is now out of the hospital and recovering at home. During the entire time in the hospital, Barrett has been able to keep up on the city's business and has maintained a positive attitude, even joking with Governor Doyle about bumping his announcement of the main headlines.

Appropriately, Governor Doyle came to Milwaukee to visit Barrett in the hospital, and President Obama called Barrett to wish him well and call him a hero.

Unfortunately, while Mayor Barrett has exemplified all that is good about Milwaukee and Wisconsin, there are others that have chosen not to take the high road. There have been the expected number of gun nuts that have tried to spin this into an argument for concealed carry laws, totally ignoring the fact that there were several innocents in the area, including the woman Barrett saved as well as Barrett's own family.

With all of those people around, the least wise course of action would have been to start a fire fight.

Even more unfortunate, is that the gun nuts were not the most offensive people out there. One horrible person, Amy Geiger-Hemmer, of the blog site The Right View Wisconsin, takes the prize for the most ignorant, hateful commentary. Ms. Geiger-Hemmer wrote a malicious post the day after the incident, when the news was still fresh, which included this:

The second thought that came to mind, knowing that Barrett is a staunch liberal, was why didn't the mayor just offer to go sit down for a chat with the offender? (At least he had the courage to whip out his cell phone and dial 911! Never mind that he chose not to intervene physically to defend the woman that was being attacked...) After all, according to the liberal mindset, criminals are usually considered victims, too. They have feelings and needs! Why didn't Barrett reach out and offer to console the attacker? Find out what was bothering him? After all, maybe the woman who was being beaten had said or done something that angered him. She may have been to blame! Many times in liberal land, we know that there is more concern shown for criminals than their victims. Which is why so many of us are against activist judges in our court systems. Activist judges, as we have seen, will bend over backwards in favor of criminals, disregarding their evil deeds and forgetting about the true victims.

Hello? AGH? Anyone home? The Mayor got hurt fighting the guy. What in the world do you mean that "he chose not to intervene physically to defend the woman?" Barrett shattered his frickin' hand punching the guy!

Just in case there were still a few people that doubted her total lack of tact or insight, she then put up another post today, wherein she has the audacity to play the victim. The post also has this gem in it:

We see too often the violent perpetrators, once caught, are treated with kid gloves and don't serve the prison time they deserve. Anthony Peters - who attacked Barrett and another woman - should have been sitting in prison. He was well-known to the West Allis police, and had a lengthy criminal record. His background included: several assaults, disorderly conduct, and an assortment of other crimes. And just recently, our soon-to-be-ex Governor Doyle has legislated "early release" for many in prison. Where is the real concern for the safety of the general public? Who are the real victims - the criminals, or the people they prey on? Sometimes, after observing our court systems, it is hard to tell.

My highly esteemed friend, Zach Wisniewski, points out one of the follies of her verbal flailing:

...I couldn’t find one single criminal conviction involving Peters, and while Anthony Peters may not have been a stranger to the police in West Allis, the last time I checked, an individual couldn’t go to prison without first being convicted of a crime – that’s what separates our nation from two-bit dictatorships. What’s more, even if Peters had been convicted of one of the crimes for which he has pending criminal charges, he certainly wouldn’t be sent to prison. After all, while Amy Geiger-Hemmer might think it would be a grand idea to employ a “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” system for anyone convicted of any violent, in the real world folks convicted of misdemeanors don’t get sent to prison.

But that is not all. I have heard reports that this Peters fellow was bipolar (manic-depressive). Whether this is true or not, I cannot say with any surety, but the behaviors described by this guy is far outside of the norm, and it would not be a stretch to believe that Peters suffered from some type of mental illness. Add to this the fact that Peters was self-medicating with alcohol and who knows what else, and there is a recipe for disaster.

If Ms. Geiger-Hemmer needs someone to lambaste, perhaps she should be attacking the person who removed much of the mental health support system in the area. But then again, it would be uncharacteristic for the right to hold any of their own to any accountability.

For more on AGH's immature and emotionally-stunted screed, I would refer the gentle reader to The Chief and/or Illusory Tenant.

As for me, I just want to wish Mayor Barrett and rapid and complete recovery, and to thank him for his heroism and showing of true leadership.

Note: The t-shirt pictured at the top of this post is for sale at Brew City Brand Apparel. Even though my birthday was last week, it would not be tacky to get me a belated present, like one of these shirts.

Because Our Health Care Is So Good

As I told you earlier this month, I am headed off to yon northern castle for the weekend.

We don't have to go, per se, but then again we do:

The weekend after next, my wife and I will be going up north. However, it won't be to relax, do yard work, or anything else. We are going for the sole purpose of attending a fund raiser for a friend of ours, (a different) Sharon.

Sharon and her husband, Pete, own a small diner in Rosholt. They also have a contract with Portage County to provide the meals for their meals on wheels program. Pete is covered by the VA for his health care needs. However, they could not afford decent insurance for her. Earlier this year, Sharon was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer.

She has undergone severe and multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation simultaneously, leaving her in a terribly weakened state and unable to work.

If Sharon could have had affordable health care to her, she would not have to rely on the kindness of her friends and family to spare what they can to help alleviate her costs.

You see, we're just not the type of folks that will turn our backs on our family, friends and neighbors, just because it might mean we have a couple less dollars for ourselves. Actually, we will be paying more to help this one person, than if the system was reformed and we were helping all the people at once. Think about that for a while.

Six Weeks Late And Still They Get It Wrong

The RPW (Really Pathetic Whiners) issued a press release announcing a big conspiracy that they just discovered.

Just like with everything else, they are behind the times and still are wrong about it all.

Just Your Average Type Of People

Do they even realize how stupid they look?

Krazy Kapanke's Continuing Capers

The other day, Michael Horne reported that the DPW was suing State Senator Dan Kapakne for failing to fully comply with a open records request for his emails and other documents regarding using state time, staff and equipment for a campaign event.

Mr. Horne then followed up on the story and found that Kapanke was lying through his teeth regarding getting the go ahead to use the campaign money for these events. Turned out he didn't ask about using campaign money, but corporate funding instead, and even then was told that he couldn't.

Kapanke, apparently thinking he could head an implosion off by taking action, went himself to the GAB, and only ended up throwing one of his staffers under the campaign bus.

I wonder if Kapanke thinks that he is now off the hook. If he does, he is about to be subjected to a very rude awakening.

Next Wednesday is the court date regarding the Dems accusations that Kapanke either concealed and/or destroyed the documents they requested. The evidence is pretty clear that the requested documents exist or at least existed, since the Dems already had gotten some of them in their possession.

The reason Kapanke is not following the law and cooperating is due to the fact that the requested documents will show that his using state staff, time and equipment for campaign events is not just a one time deal, as one might be led to believe from the vague news accounts. Rather, it was an ongoing thing, such that would make Scott Jensen proud.

I wonder how much Maalox Kapanke is using these days.

Cross posted all over the place.

It's The Stupid Spending, Stupid!

Scott "Always a candidate, never a governor" Walker had an opinion piece yesterday that bemoans the lousy economy and its side-effects, while completely ignoring that said lousy economy is a direct product of the policies that he embraces.

The key part from his short and nearly pointless piece is this (emphasis his):

We prioritized county spending based on available revenue. We cut non-essential spending, and we looked for innovative ways to provide more services for less money. For example, by replacing full-time, year-round park maintenance workers with seasonal part-time staff, we could add 26,000 hours of labor for park maintenance while saving taxpayers millions of dollars each year.

This brand of creative governing requires leaders who are open minded and willing to put the best interests of the taxpayers ahead of government interests. That is exactly the kind of leadership we need to get our great state working again.

Walker's been trying to ruin the park for years, and continues to ignore that his plan would actually reduce services when one takes into consideration how much of the alleged gained work hours would be spent in training and orientations and increased supervisory duties. And let us not forget to mention that if Walker really wanted to benefit the parks AND save tax payers money, he would have backed the sales tax referendum last year.

But the key to Walker's hypocrisy is in the cited text. He claims to be for responsible spending.

Well, let's just look at what Walker considers to be responsible spending of taxpayer dollars:

• Giving big, fat raises to his inner circle, some of whom just happen to have also worked on his campaigns.
• Signing a twenty-year lease for a building he had owned until he just gave it away.
• Wanting to move the mental health complex into a even older, less safe building for more money than it would have cost to build a new one.
• Going on campaign bike rides, and using county resources to organize said campaign event.

Well, those are very responsible uses of taxpayer dollars, now are they?

Maybe if we look at what he considers to be "non-essential" spending, we can get a better idea of what he considers to be responsible spending:

• Preserving the parks system
• Preserving the transit system and keeping the economy going
• Providing aid to the homeless
• Providing aid to the elderly
• Providing aid to the disabled
• Providing services to the mentally ill, despite the costs of not doing so
• Keeping the courts running
• Keeping the jail and the House of Corrections secure

Mmm. Walker fails in that area as well.

Maybe it's time for Walker to just admit that he isn't worried about saving the taxpayers anything. He's just more interested in keeping his rich friends happy so that they can give him campaign contributions.

The Twit Off: Round 4

Cory Liebmann got us started out with watching the Twit Off between Scott Walker and Mark Neumann. Cory then gave us the Macho Man edition and the third round where Neumann took the lead.

With an apology to Cory for stealing his shtick, I would like to present round four, where it starts getting serious (for one of them anyway).

Neumann took a serious swipe at Walker yesterday with this tweet:


However, despite that blow, that was all Neumann has really produced that had close to any meat to it.

Walker, on the other hand, had spent the weekend taking swipes at himself. In no particular order, we see Walker comparing the health care bill to the County's pension problems.

This would do nothing to convince me that Walker knows what he is talking about since he is still ignoring the pension scandals and his own shortcomings in fixing them.

Walker also has this prize:


Since when did a Bush know anything about growing jobs or education?

Third in this series is the tweet wherein Walker thanks Newt Gingrich and John Engler for tips on being a reformer.


But didn't Walker run for the last seven years as being a reformer? And he is just learning what it means now?

And last, but not least in Walker's acts of self-flagellation, Walker thanks Governors Purdue, Barbour and Lingle for giving him tips on how to govern.


Excuse me? How to govern? In seven years of being County Executive, he doesn't know how to lead yet?

To recap: Neumann gives only one tweet, but it is a direct blow at Walker's lack of experience. Walker has been much more prolific, but only manages to remind one of all of his shortcomings.

The advantage has to go to Neumann.

Was Sullivan Recall Just A Publicity Stunt?

WisPolitics.com is reporting that CRG's attempt at recalling State Senator Jim Sullivan bombed out, just like it did with both of its attempts at recalling Governor Doyle:

The group trying to recall Sen. Jim Sullivan over his support of a statewide smoking ban hasn't been able to collect enough signatures to force a recall election, according to the CRG Network's Orville Seymer.

Seymer, who assisted a group led by West Allis tavern owner Bill Savage, said the plan was to enlist bar and restaurant owners in the district to help collect recall signatures against the Wauwatosa Democrat from angry customers. Seymer said they were expected to provide the bulk of the signatures with a limited amount of door-to-door canvassing needed to collect the rest.

But organizers didn't fully implement that plan and the recall petered out, Seymer said.

The group filed the recall June 9 and had 60 days to collect just less than 18,000 valid signatures.

A spokesman for the Government Accountability Board said today it had not received any signed recall petitions from the group.

If they only needed 18,000 signatures, why didn't they put forth the effort to implement their plan? Was it because they met too much resistance from bar owners that thought the recall was a dumb thing to do? Or were they just trying to get some cheap publicity to help them with their doomed attempt to recall Doyle?

Odds are it is that they met with a lack of interest, since they were giving a rather lame excuse to try to veil their blatantly political move. However, I can't help but wonder if there was more to it.

I think it is that they are afraid that their favorite gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker won't be able to keep up with Mark Neumann in the Republican primary.

Neumann is reported to have a lot of personal wealth and there has been speculation to how much of it he might commit to his campaign. Combine that with the fact that Neumann has also been backed by James Klauser, who is known to be influential among the state's moneyed Republicans, and that is a formidable problem for Walker, who came in third as far as campaign war chests go. And now, he could lose a big bunch of that paying off fines for not filing a complete campaign finance report.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if CRG was hoping to successfully recall Doyle before Neumann was ready to run in the hopes of allowing Walker to weasel his way in. The recall attempt of Sullivan would most likely, in that scenario, to be just another way to draw attention to themselves and their recall of Doyle.

All they managed to do was make themselves look even more ludicrous.

Dems Sue Kapanke

Michael Horne, intrepid reporter and author of Milwaukee World, is reporting that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is suing State Senator Dan Kapanke for violating campaign laws:

The party also alleges Kapanke failed to fully comply with its request for communications about the event by his political staff members. [The party had in its possession, an e-mail composed by a Senate staffer on state time inviting legislators to participate in the event. That would be an illegal use of state resources, if the event were indeed to be found to be political in nature. However, that same e-mail was not included in Kapanke's response to the public records request, as one might expect.]

The suit also asks for staff time records and much other data, presumably to see if Senate staff members were on the state's clock while working the event. Kapanke didn't hand that stuff over, either. In an August 3rd, 2009 final demand letter to Kapanke, Attorney Michael Maistelman wrote "Your failure to follow Wisconsin law is because to do so would reveal even more serious violations on your part."

Make sure to read the entire post, including the addenda and updates, as well as the comment thread.

If It Ain't The Fauna, It's The Flora

Sheesh, what a world. First, it was killer otters. Now, we have giant man-eating plants (emphasis mine):

Natural history explorer Stewart McPherson and botanist Alastair Robinson scaled the mountain and confirmed that the plant was indeed a new species. They have named it Nepenthes attenboroughii after British natural history broadcaster David Attenborough. See photos of the plant .

Pitcher plants are tube-shaped leaf plants that trap their prey when insects and other small creatures fall in and become trapped. "The plant is among the largest of all carnivorous plant species and produces spectacular traps as large as other species, which catch not only insects, but also rodents as large as rats," McPherson told the BBC.

I blame Obamacare!

Scott Walker Broke The Law? Imagine That

The good folks at One Wisconsin Now pored through Scott Walker's campaign finance reform and found that it was like Walker's management style: faulty, shoddy and illegal. What they found was that Walker failed, probably willfully, the necessary information on donations over $100, including:

According to Walker's finance report for the January to June 30 filing period, Walker reported $1.4 million in contributions. Over $172,000 in contributions over $100 fails to include the lawfully required employer information for the donors.

Walkers widespread reporting negligence includes:

•Two contributions of $10,000, the maximum contribution allowed under the law;

•30 contributions between $2,500 and $1,000 totaling more than $38,000;

•235 contributions between $750 and $200 totaling more than $71,000.

Scot Ross, NOW Executive Director, made me more than a little jealous with this zinger:

"Scott Walker is running his campaign as poorly as he runs Milwaukee County," said Ross. "Looks like Scott Walker treats campaign finance laws the same way he treats Milwaukee's seniors, working people and people with disabilities -- with no respect."

Cory Liebmann then picks up the charge and reminds us of still unanswered questions about Walker's campaign finance report as well as Walker's previous campaign violations, including having the distinct title of being the owner of one of the biggest campaign violation fines in state history.

Xoff also takes on this issue and calls BS on Walker's stunts.

Meanwhile, the local Walker apologist daily paper* sat on the story until they found a spin that would work for their favorite candidate. Their spin? Well, it's all perfectly legal:

Candidates must make good-faith efforts to get employer information from donors who give more than $100, according to the state Government Accountability Board, which oversees campaign finance laws.

Walker's campaign manager, Keith Gilkes, said the campaign has met that requirement. The campaign asks for employer information when it solicits contributions and asks for it again multiple times if it is not provided, Gilkes said.

The campaign released a copy of a standard letter it mails seeking that information.

Much of Walker's fund raising is done through the mail, which makes it harder to collect employer information because some people don't fill out all the information, Gilkes said.

As unsurprising that Walker was caught cheating in an election campaign, it is also unsurprising that they paper omits some very important details. Fortunately, Cory was able to provide those details to us in an addendum to his post. Cory links to WKBT, which points out that it is not all as snuff as the local paper would lead us to believe:

Government Accountability Board spokesman Reid Magney says if the information isn't provided, the campaign must show what it's doing to track it down.

Walker spokesman Keith Gilkes says the campaign is working on getting the missing information. He did not know how many of the missing addresses had been found so far.

If things were on the up and up, why would they be trying to fix it?

But this isn't the only time that Walker has had problems with following the law. There was the recent issue with Walker using both tax payer dollars and corporate sponsorship for his campaign bike ride, not to mention Air Tran's corporate sponsorship came just have Walker gave them a big plus of extra space at the airport.

Campaigning isn't the only area that Walker regularly runs afoul of the law. He has also made it a wont of his during the budget process, often proposing to illegally remove state-mandated positions and services.

Walker also seems to have problems following federal laws, like HIPAA. (Funny how Walker has no problems illegally releasing other people's private information, but won't release the things he is supposed to.)

You know, for someone that wants to be the state's top executive, you would think Walker would have at least a little comprehension, understanding and respect for the laws that he would be enforcing.

*Both Walker and the local paper seem to have problems with reality as well. Really, is it so hard for them to be honest with the people?

Killer Otters

With the exception of The River Otter, you apparently can't trust the little devils.

Oh, sure, they're all cute and that, but that is just a lure to get you to lower your guard. And when you think your safe, they attack:

An Austrian woman on vacation in Wisconsin is getting rabies shots after she says she was bitten several times by at least two otters.

Fifty-one-year-old Brigitte France tells the Duluth News Tribune that she was swimming on Lake Owen near Drummond, Wis., last Wednesday when she heard something hissing behind her.

She spotted an otter. It dove and swam away, but soon another one popped up about eight feet away. She felt uncomfortable and swam to shore.

She says she had her hands on the shore and legs in the water when two otters bit her legs eight or nine times. She says it didn't hurt much.

She walked back to the cabin where she was staying with her husband, a former Duluth resident. From there, she went to a local hospital where doctors started the rabies shots.

I've never heard of otter attacks, but on the otter hand, maybe they just like foreign food.

Addendum: Otter attacks appear to be more common that one would think.

Scott Walker Steals Our Schtick

Oh, the irony of it all.

The Stevens Point Journal chose to print one of Walker's attacks on Doyle on their opinion page. It starts out with this (emphasis mine):

Wisconsin deserves a government that puts the needs of its citizens first, a state that places public safety and the education of its children above the demands of the special interests. We deserve a government that finds new ways to do more with less, not one that looks for new ways to tax families and employers when they can least afford it.

Now, look at the original presser for Milwaukee County First, that true grassroots group (as opposed to these corporate- and lobbyist-sponsored anti-affordable health care people):

The causes of this decline in Milwaukee County’s status are many, from the dire
economic times we are in, to local leaders, past and present, who have put their selfinterests
before those of the people they serve. It is time, if not beyond time, for civic
leaders to once again put the interests of Milwaukee County first.

It is time to make Milwaukee County a first-class economic and social region for the
State of Wisconsin and the entire Midwest. This is why residents from throughout
Milwaukee County have come together to form Milwaukee County First.

It's bad enough that he is a proven liar, but does he have to try to steal or schtick while he's at it?

I wonder how many people will pick up on the irony of Walker pretending to be worried about the public safety when he is the one that wants to cut all the funding to the homeless as well as the Emergency Medical System*. Just so he can appeal to the special interest groups like WMC, CRG, and AFP, to name but a few.

*Cutting the County's funding of the EMS will also force the local municipalities to raise their taxes to be able to continue to provide these services. I guess this makes Walker a tax raiser by proxy.

“Jails and juvenile justice facilities are the new asylums.”

The New York Times has a heart-breaking story showing that the juvenile corrections systems across the country are following suit of their adult counterparts, namely in locking up more and more inmates with mental health issues due to the lack of sufficient treatment resources in the community.

From the article:

As cash-starved states slash mental health programs in communities and schools, they are increasingly relying on the juvenile corrections system to handle a generation of young offenders with psychiatric disorders. About two-thirds of the nation’s juvenile inmates — who numbered 92,854 in 2006, down from 107,000 in 1999 — have at least one mental illness, according to surveys of youth prisons, and are more in need of therapy than punishment.

“We’re seeing more and more mentally ill kids who couldn’t find community programs that were intensive enough to treat them,” said Joseph Penn, a child psychiatrist at the Texas Youth Commission. “Jails and juvenile justice facilities are the new asylums.”

The article goes on to report that a majority of states have cut funding for mental health services for mentally ill children. The worst state is Ohio, which cut their funding by some 34%. And their governor is a former prison psychologist. One would think of all people, Governor Strickland would know the value of having an adequate support system for mentally ill juveniles.

The article continues with several individual stories of young people being abused by other inmates and receiving a lot of physical corrections from staff. There are also reports of children being over-medicated as opposed to simply training the guards to deal more effectively with the mentally ill.

Towards the end, the article has this:

Census studies of child mental health professionals show chronic shortages. A 2006 study estimated that for every 100,000 youths, there were fewer than nine child psychiatrists. Dr. Penn of Texas said the state youth prison system there recently instituted a system of telepsychiatry sessions, conducting videoconferences between mental health professionals and youths being detained hundreds of miles away.

Inadequate mental health services increases recidivism. In a February report on psychiatric services at the Ohio River Valley center, Dr. Cheryl Wills, an independent mental health expert, found that officials were unnecessarily extending incarceration for youths who acted out because of their mental illnesses.

I know full well that the country is still in an economic crises, even though there have been increasing amount of signs showing that things are slowly getting better. But one has to wonder: Is there any way in which we can afford restore a sufficient amount of care for these kids? And, can we afford not to?