May 5, 2011
The gods are crazy!
Republicans are rushing a bill to permit concealed-carry. You know. Weapons! Ah, but they will be careful, won't they? Well, not exactly. The latest proposals would eliminate the need for training! Why no training? The sponsor, Pam Galloway, said, "People who carry concealed guns are responsible people."
Wow! Let that settle in.
The other Republican sponsor said a hunting license should be enough. (I have a suspicion that Galloway and her colleagues have never fired a hand gun.)
Wisconsin State Prosecutors: Already under-staffed, prosecutors are near revolt over Walker's proposed budget cuts, salary reductions, furloughs and confusion over cost-savings. Dozens will be laid off and others forced to become part-time! The DAs are taking the position that the governor does not have the authority to impose layoffs and reductions.
While Walker tries to spin the crisis, one DA hit the nail on the head: "We will now be doing less with less." One prosecutor asked for guidance on "what crimes to not prosecute." (A referendum perhaps?)
Bad penny: Message to bloggers is don't scoop the "real" corporate newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Like a bad penny, they won't go away or even spend the time investigating a story. They will try to punish you naughty bloggers! (Yes, that includes you, Forbes magazine.) If you use a comma where a semi-colon is called for you may be found guilty by the political factoid police! But here is some hot news: Sykes is on board.
In the old days the proud JS told candidates that they paid no attention to Charlie Sykes even though they worked for the same media company. The editors jumped as if stuck by a pin when we complained that it was not fair to be attacked day-in-and-day-out WTMJ radio by Sykes of JS! Surely the editors would assign a reporter to check facts or fiction on the Sykes rants! No way, was the response. Why? Sykes may work for Journal Communications but we are not influenced by him! Period! And in fact the editors made it clear that they were not, in any way, responsible for his rants. Meaning that JS editorial policy would not seek balance in covering statewide races!
No fairness doctrine slop for them. Perhaps as penance they now try to be the journalist cops.
Back to Benton Harbor:
Recall Fighting-bob.com got a copy of an anonymous memo that "exposed" Walker, Mary Panzer, Foley & Lardner, and the Greater Milwaukee Committee of moving toward the Michigan plan used by Governor Snyder in Benton Harbor. "Oh no," cried Wolf-Walker; "Oh no" cried JS's whiner-in-chief Charlie Sykes; "We deny it," said Walker; and if Walker and fellow Journal Sentinel "journalist" Sykes deny it then it must be false. Not "pants on fire," but at a minimum, "not proved"
Then they get confused, mix fact with fiction and declare that while lots of dots are connected and suspicions are understandable, "A closer look at the evidence shows it's not as Machiavellian as Garvey claims." Really? MJS looked at evidence and declared FightingBob.com was slightly out of sync? Well there is that messy "stress test" but...but...but. And the website laying out plans for Milwaukee County, but...but....but that can be explained. OK, so Grebe was head of Foley and now runs the extreme right-wing Bradley Foundation and the anonymous memo said Foley was drafting the bill...See anything yet?
Julia Taylor of GMC says, "It’s very, very early in the process. At this point we don’t have draft language." (JS misses that "process" admission.) And she does not know who will introduce it, but exudes confidence it will be introduced.
And that was our position. "Introduced" presumably in the Legislature when the draft is ready. Really? Paul Revere should have added a footnote: "The British are coming...maybe."
Having graded hundreds of law school blue books, I give the JS a 65 on a scale of 100. Incomplete would probably be better, but unimpressive to be certain.
We invite Governor Walker to write an article that we will post on FightingBob.com, or to a debate on the Benton Harbor fiasco.
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How many of our Congressional leaders are concealing and carrying into Congress? Is this a return to the old west as shown on TV where all disputes must end with a shootout?
I really believe that at the price of handguns only the wealthy will be able to afford to carry. I must therefore presume they wish to be prepared for the revolt of the masses over their draconian measures proposed by their Republicon friends.
-Richard Kanak | Cherry Valley, Illinois | May 5, 2011
The whole concept of firearms and self-defense makes me wonder. The only purpose of a gun seems to be to kill something whether it be a person, a deer or a stop sign. Most people are not qualified or trained to even own a firearm let alone use one. Now we are going to have people running around armed and ready to shoot.
The formula for possessing and using a gun is twofold: The possessor has to be of the mindset to kill another human being, and how many of us really want to do that? The other part of the equation is that the possessor also has to accept the possibility he/she might be killed as well, if not first. How many out there are willing to die and call it "self-defense"? Once you're dead, you're dead. There's no rising from the tomb 3 days later. The perp with the weapon will always have the element of surprise on his/her side.
The NRA and its paid-for politicians, particularly the Republican'ts, want to make us more scared than we already are. They want to keep us suspicious and want us to live our lives in distrust.
I already distrust these policy makers... now I'm supposed to distrust my family, friends and neighbors?
-Franz Fripplfrappl | Madison | May 5, 2011
Some folks want to run government like a business. What do you think of licensing criminals and then setting up a private review board to make sure they aren't doing anything wrong?
This certainly would seem like the Walker approach. Silly, you say? Just as silly as not giving prosecutors the resources they need to get their jobs done on our behalf.
-Pietr haikuu | Hurley | May 5, 2011
I think a lot of people might be looking for a sense of empowerment and just plain old safety when they are attracted to handgun ownership.
For some, it also seems to be a lot of macho posturing. I don't see how we can all look out our doors or at our TVs and not get the idea that a lot of people (trying hard not to say "men") really care about power.
How many marriages are ruined by - power struggles. So to me this issue goes deeper than the talking points we hear.
Personally I have a friend who carried a gun in her purse for a time. She has been single for decades. Lives alone. She had to travel for work and because she has friends flung around the country.
As a female, I can tell you that there are areas and situations where you just get a cumulative effect, feeling uneasy snowballs. You just get sick of it.
Who's to say that there isn't a lot of people who feel all this generalized anxiety and heightened threat all over and just "feel better" thinking they can own a gun. Probably a lot.
I'm annoyed by the Osama Bloodlust, but on the other hand, if I let my paranoid delusions about Walker and martial law run wild and I visualize people throwing my city council to the street- I would feel like "the time has come"
I also got sick of living in "Rape City" (Madison) I moved. Had I stayed I would have been sick of the constant feeling of threat. Would I buy a gun? I don't know.
I got sick of the feeling of constant nervousness and personal danger as a female walking around NYC also. I have wished I had a gun, but not because I wanted to "kill", because I hoped people might be more likely to leave me alone. Yes, you also realize the same gun can be used against you etc.
Then there's the Kids issue. Getting killed by accident.
Was I "afraid" of my friend with the gun in her purse? Not at all. In fact I once had to travel alone and asked her to come with me. By then she had gotten creeped out by her own gun, got rid of it and brought an "alternate weapon" on our trip. I don't like guns and all this "threat" all over. I hate the gun lobby, they stink. But it's a Thelma and Louise World. So the issue resonates with people.
I actually would like to shoot a gun before I die. (Hopefully much later) Those little shot up target guys look cool. I'd like to be able to say "I did that". I would not however like to go on TV giggling about how Osama's eyeballs are shot out. Very self-contradictory.
Anyway, living in the north-woods I always felt concealed carry was a matter of time.
-Annie K. | Eau Claire, WI | May 5, 2011
Sorry about peppering your site with BS. I'll back off. However I have a really serious request. Could you please go all inflammatory over the Internet Deregulation stuff? I don't think the Dem echo-cheddars are going to.
I also think they don't get it. They use blog software yes, but I don't think they understand jack.
Okay - so they like to make the point (after Maddow did) that hitting Unions will erode the support for the Dem party. Choking up the Internet as we know it will do the same - but much worse than you can imagine. Unions are dying, dinosaurs, but ppl do not communicate that way. Internet is exploding and going higher and higher all the time. More likely to be used by younger and younger people (liberal) and they all use Internet to express politically FAR more than the Republicans do or will for the foreseeable future.
So in this proposal (which is overseen by Montgomery - ALEC man-of-the-year, and R.J. Pirlot from WMC) if they get what they want they will be completely free to operate with NO supervision and they will have the ability to DENY SERVICE as they please to anyone, OR large blocks of people.
Finally they will be able to use deep packet-sniffing technology. Talk to a person who is tech savvy about packet-sniffing. People don't mention it when this Internet issue hits the news, but it's phenomenal.
Packet sniffing "detects items" that pass over the Internet. You can set it to search for a single word, groups of terms, topics etc. You can "sniff out" and "listen in on" any conversation that passes thru your servers. You can weed out who uses the word "Democrat" in their emails. Anything. Like listening in on every phone conversation everywhere. Also able to store all data away from public eyes or regulators, to be used for commercial purposes or political suppression (there would be nothing stopping them from putting all "progressive" conversation in a "slow lane", or monitoring opponents' private net-based campaign communications, any application they want)
They also can deny common forms of Peer-to-peer exchanges. What bloggers do is peer-to-peer content. Packet sniffing can be used legally and legitimately in private networks, I worked where it was used. No one knew it was being done, the admins did not tell the 500 employees their files on the network could be viewed, or that all their emails could be read, or what sites they looked at while on the job would be logged. Back ups of all this data was made at least twice a day. How much storing you want to do of data is up to the boss. Imagine that capability in the hands of megalomanic corporations.
When they say "the revolution will not be televised" (or talked about) it sure won't be if these guys win.
It's not about "thousands of jobs".
-Annie K. | Eau Claire, WI | May 6, 2011
Annie K.
Eau Claire is not the northwoods of Wisconsin, and we up here don't much like it when you city slickers say it is. :-)
-Steve Carlson | Trego, WI. | May 6, 2011
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