My blog post today is about Dick Cheney saying America is less safe under Obama.http://tinyurl.com/ceaxt9 I call him Darth Vader.
"I call him Darth Vader." I bet you have never seen the former Vice President called "Darth Vader" before on any blog, right?
It turns out the national director of the Klan recently posted comments on a KKK website that predicted Barack Obama's victory could actually be a boon in terms of mobilizing more white Americans to their cause. In fact, the Klan director said he thought Obama was a "mulatto" which meant he wasn't really African-American.
Amazing, these idiots still exist and have a voice. But the truth is many Americans who don't belong to the KKK are also expressing their extreme dissatifaction - even disgust - with the Obama victory. It seems to me these folks are playing a dangerous game by appearing to be on the same side as the hard-core racists who still support the KKK.
The danger referred to by Kane is that you will be tarred with the KKK by Kane-like columnists.
Amazingly, this idiot's column still exists and he has a blog.
When did Deanna Favre become Yoko Ono?
February 19 will produce the most interesting Wisconsin primary since 1968, when the weekend before the votes were cast, Lyndon Johnson, withdrew in the face of a pending debacle. In the meantime, the national press core will celebrate the Dairy State for two weeks as they descend on the cow pastures and the court houses, the university campuses and the small town grills.We wanted attention; we're about to get it. Robocalls, Tom Barrett sightings, local politicians making meaningless endorsements, radio ads, television ads, spooky music backgrounds, Bill Clinton (hide your daughters!), Eugene Kane columns about Barack Obama, Joel McNally discussing the black experience, Mayor Larry Nelson actually staying in Wisconsin, Barbara Lawton sightings, Illinois residents making a nuisance of themselves (usually they wait until the weather is nicer), national media showing pictures of cows, stupid sports references, George Will wearing a cheesehead, Owen Robinson columns, endless citizen interviews, local television fawning over whatever candidate deigns to speak with them, twisted political metaphors using the words "frozen tundra", newspaper and television references to Kennedy campaigning here in 1960, gratuitous references to Wisconsin's "progressive" tradition which have nothing to do with the Progressives, endless amounts of junk mail, schools allowing students to campaign on class time, teachers taking students on political "field trips", rallies at Serb Hall, B & C class Hollywood celebrities (hide your daughters!), unwashed hippie protestors, and endless amounts of Russ Feingold.
Some candidates will kiss babies, the smart ones will pose for photos with cheeseheads.
Kane says he thinks pundit Charlie Sykes egged her on. “He never has been able to get the best of me, so he needs a female robot to do it,” Kane jabs. Sykes punches back: “What a surprise. Kane is a sexist as well as a racist. Who knew?”I think there's certainly a large element of sexism in the blog criticisms of McBride, and judging from the reaction of the women commenting at Jessica's site she's not the only one experiencing it.
These are residents who are mainly law-abiding and non-violent but who understand the rest of the city lumps them in with the criminals in their neighborhood simply because of their proximity to all the mayhem.Unfortunately Kane may have found an angle to the story, but Hines has not.
When something as horrible as the drive-by shooting of Jasmine Owens happens, these residents want answers from those who can make changes. For them, that means the mayor, the police chief and their local alderman.
In this case, many people want to know what Ald. Willie Hines - who represents the district where Jasmine was killed - thinks should be done to make the community safer.
"Government has no magic pill," said Hines, who is also Common Council president. "Elected officials are only one part of the solution. It has to be a collective effort. Anyone who thinks government can solve the problems by itself is disillusioned."Kane concludes by not letting Hines off the hook.
Fair enough. But I have always believed elected officials do have the responsibility to deliver resources to their constituents. In this case, the resources should be additional police protection.
As alderman, Hines said, he wants to provide support to the Police Department so it could keep residents safer but also wanted to hold cops accountable for their actions within the community, which seems like a pretty mixed message these days.What's one of the biggest frustrations of people outside of Milwaukee's North side? The lack of accountability of elected officials. If you want results, pressure needs to be applied to those that can cause the right things to happen: more police protection, better policing methods, and a judicial system with a philosophy of protecting the public. That means pressure on the mayor, the aldermen, the district attorney and the elected judges.
In the end, I get the sense powerful people in this city don't have any more answers to the problem than the rest of us.
Maybe it's time to stop waiting for them.
Historically, poor communities, while less safe than wealthy communities, have not always been violent. Similarly, there are many once wealthy, or at least middle class neighborhoods, that fell to the onslaught of both violence and poverty. The very neighborhoods in Milwaukee with the highest violence are examples of the latter.Nice to know the bourgeoisie has some redeeming characteristics, even in Soglin's eyes. But I think the economic argument at best is screwing up cause and effect, that the values of the middle class are those that make those families middle class rather than consign them to poverty.
Many fine neighborhoods with a culture that respected and valued work, community, family, education, and in some instances faith, fell under the pressure of poverty and crime. Good people lived there. They had the culture and the values.
What they did not have was the will. They lacked the will to fight as their community was challenged. Some gave up and fled sooner than others.
We call it middle class flight. It is not white flight; it is not black flight. Anyone with the resources and the means left. And with it, went many of the moral standard bearers. A vacuum was created and a culture of violence filled it.
As the middle class blacks left for the same reason as their white counterparts, they took with them the leadership that is needed in the public schools, the playgrounds and the workplace.
The vows made before Jasmine's casket for people to change their ways will ring true only when the same people in church - specifically the young black men from the neighborhood - make their new resolve felt in the streets. These are the young men who live in the same world as Jasmine's shooter.That was the closest I could find to something substantive in the column. I think I preferred the clucking chicken.
They have to make the same vows to change or it doesn't mean a thing.
Unlike others in this city, I have no illusions Jasmine's death will resound in a permanent way without constant reinforcement this summer. After all, just days after Jasmine's death, the big story on the news was a change in the weather, which shows how soon we forget. It would suit me just fine if her death served as a grim reminder for all the gangsters out for revenge to consider the little kids in the vicinity before spraying their community with bullets.
Just think about what a kid in a casket looks like before taking the next shot.
Let's start with that and go from there.
Mike McGee aired another one of his disgusting rants today on his WNOV-AM (860) radio show..Bob Walker, program director of WKTI, also condemns McGee's remarks,
At a time when even folks who have political disagreements with Charlie Sykes are offering condolences on the death of his mother, McGee the elder is slamming a guy when he's down.
Thanks to obsessive McGee listeners out there, like Real Debate Wisconsin, you can hear McGee's vile comments, such as "a woman that had a fool like that deserves whatever's comin' to her, 'cause she raised a sure enough idiot."
It got worse, when he said, ""My instincts say Charlie Sykes killed his mommy.... He got tired a waitin' for that money."
How can any reasonable person not compare McGee's rant with Imus'? I read Al Sharpton's critique of Imus' bit and it applies to McGee 100%.And Professor John McAdams caught the news at 10:00 last night on WTMJ-TV who reported McGee Sr will not be on the air Friday. Unfortunately there is nothing on their site.
McGee doesn't have the national platform of Imus so I do not expect Al Sharpton to fly into Mitchell anytime soon. But I sure hope everyone in Wisconsin who was asking for Imus' head is up in arms about this. I will be checking the JS in a minute to see if that is the case.
It's so tough to support offensive free speech from McGee or anyone else. Be assured: I would also support WNOV's right to can McGee if they don't want that kind of editorial spewing from their frequency.
Oddly enough - McGee's comments were slanderous. Even Imus didn't go there. I say let the lawyers go after him. Then he'll know the meaning of vengeance.