Crawford's Take

Updates on the Fight at the Tea Pary Rally in Milwaukee Today

2009-09-20T00:14:00.005-05:00

I posted this blog earlier today and more information has come in, so I want to make sure I keep the facts current.

The blog is my first hand experience at a Tea Bagger Rally on Milwaukee's lakefront today. It's a bit disjointed and more information has come in since I wrote the original post (in the heat of the moment) so I want to relay what's come in since and clarify my comments so far.

I want to start by reiterating my belief that the man was in danger by a large group of angry people. I don't know why, I just know that he was being followed by an angry mob. I still don't know the circumstances prior to the portion I saw. All I know is what I actually saw. Other eyewitness accounts are coming in and I'm not sure what happened before the part I reported on.

I also missed Joe the Plumber's actual involvement in it all and I said that in the original blog. I really don't know personally because I didn't see it, but I suspect from the people who've posted on my blog that he may have been trying to calm down the people attacking the guy.

Unfortunately I missed that part of it and only saw him in the middle of the crowd as previously stated.

One commentor on my blog stated: Joe the Plumber joined in and he WAS BREAKING UP THE SQUABBLE! He had a booth set up and when he saw what was happening he got between the squabbling. So don't slur him. He said to me, "we don't need this." I agree.

This suggests JTPe may have seen the portion of this that I saw and was not happy with the way it looked... similar to my reaction. I suspect more on this story will come out today.

I strongly suggest you read ALL the comments and take my perspective into account as it's accurate to what I saw and experienced, but may not tell the entire story since I freely admitted in the post that I didn't see everything.

I want in particular to discuss the free speech issue. No one from government was quelling free speech today and I'm not saying they should have. The people at this rally had every right to say what they thought, and by God, they took full advantage of that right LOL! I would defend their right to speak and would be the first to say something if their right to speak was infringed on by the government. Anyone can make a comment about anything they want as long as they don't explicitly say, "attack that guy" and a group of people attack that guy.

My question goes to responsibility for your speech and this is a careful line to draw. Just because you have the right to say something, should you say it? That's a moral question that each individual in a free society should make. My questions in the previous blog go to that point.

Vicki McKenna's comments today were horrifying. She called for a "revolution", called the crowd the "people's mob" and said

"When someone says bigot, say thank you when someone says nazi laugh,"

actually I think in both cases she said "calls you a" but was trying to get it posted on my FB account so I didn't forget the gist of it...

This was clearly an irresponsible speech that she had every right to give. Shortly thereafter the scuffle ensued. Is there a cause and effect here? I don't know. I only asked the question.

Is the rhetoric around this anti-government movement out of hand? Again, asking the question. What's really important here isn't whether or not I feel it is out of hand, but if the people using this rhetoric are ready to take responsibility for the results of it whatever those results.

Here's some video that basically confirms the portion of my story after came back from getting the sheriffs. It certainly confirms JTP's involvement in some way. It confirms the mood of the crowd (even the guy videotaping is flipping out and justifying the attack on the guy). It also confirms in particular that walking into that group of people (I was near the guy videotapping and he also missed the take down...) and hearing the anger and the horror at the applause when the guy lifted his head and was his face was full of blood would have scared just about anyone rational. That justifies my own horror with the entire incident.

More video apparently exists that could show why the mob was angry and I'll withhold judgement on that until after I see it. I also suspect it will confirm the first half of my story even if the first half of my story may have been the middle of the whole story.

Most importantly, I want to reiterate that I wrote the story as I personally saw it. I was careful to leave out what I didn't see and point out what I didn't know.

I do know that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was able to confirm that there was a fight. Much more will come out around this. I suspect the angry mob will try to justify their behavior in attacking the guy. He was an angry liberal crashing their party after all.

I was terrified by it all. I was appalled at the outcome. I saw the look in the guy's eyes as he realized that the people around him were way outnumbering him, not letting him walk and pushing and surrounding him. This was ugly no matter the final story.

The bottom line is that the guy was pretty spotable with his fuscia backpack. If, as some people are stating, he was out of line, they had one duty and one duty only, to get the police or sheriffs involved. That's what I did. My husband against his better judgement did not try to step in and break it up, but waiting for the authorities to get involved. This is what rational people do. They get professionals only a few feet away, not form an angry mob and attack someone.

I will have more to say on this, but I wanted to make sure I keep my readers up to date on the latest developments. Lots of other bloggers are linking to my original post and I suggest you read their posts on both sides of the story.

Just know that my original report of what I saw is accurate to my perspective as a truly independent and interested observer at the rally. I was not there to cause trouble. I did not and do not know the guy involved in the incident. I was there out of honest curiousity about it all and my opinions on it are my own.

Anti-Govt Rally Masked as Anti-Healthcare Rally in Milwaukee Turns Violent

2009-09-19T18:43:00.006-05:00

I'm sorry I don't have pictures... If anyone who had a camera can post them, please do. My husband and I were going for a drive on the lakefront in Milwaukee and went by an anti-gov't/anti-healthcare rally with about 300-500 people at Veteran's Park.

We decided to double back and go into the parking lot behind the rally and just go quietly watch and check out what was going on. A woman I didn't recognize was on the podium as we approached the rally. The average age seemed to be above 40 and except for one black couple and a black family with 15 children (one of them holding a sign that said something like "We drink juice, not kool aid") it was all white.

Here are my actual Facebook status updates as we walked into the rally:

When someone says bigot, say thank you when someone says nazi laugh, that's an actual quote from the podium at the anti- govt rally at Vets Park.

Th They are calling themselves "the people's mob"

Joe the plummer just gott in a fight and they guy the mob attacked is getting arrested... (here I have to say, I'm unclear as to Joe's role just that he was in the mob)

He had 30 guys surrounbding him and attacking him and HE just got arrested! Blood around his face

The tussle's over...

That poor guy was walking away being chased by an angry mob who was surrounding him, pulling on him, at what point did he have a right to defend himself from 30 people attacking him?

This was SCARY, these people on the lakefront today were being told, this is a revolution, being told they were the people's mob? At what point do the speakers at this rally have some responsiblity for inciting violence? This is an honest question.

I was shocked and sorry for the typos, but here's the full account of what happened.

A woman at the podium was making the statements (exact words above) I was posting as I wandered into the rally. We were on the north entrance and as I was typing her words, I hear a commotion. I looked up and saw an angry mob of angry white men chasing an older white man with a backpack. He was yelling "I have a right to free speech too." The crowd was yelling, "You should die. You're not an American., etc..." They started grabbing at him as he kept trying to leave the event. The crowd was growing (eventually to about 30 people) and the man clearly scared and angry and being grabbed, pushed and surrounded to impede his attempts to escape, I believed was in imminent danger. He was shouting back at them and attempting to defend himself from the crowd and the sheriffs about 300 yards away couldn't see what was going on because of the vendor booths in their way. I made a decision and ran to get the sheriffs.

The man traveled about 300 yards attempting to escape the growing crowd. The crowd was riled up and screaming en masse, continuing to chase the man down, stop his movement, push and pull on his and in general attack the guy.

Then Joe the Plumber joined the tussle. I kid you not. I have no idea his role in it, just that he was IN THE MIDDLE of the crowd. The sheriffs get there, I turn to look at Joe the Plumber and the next thing I know the guy being assaulted by the crowd is bloody on the ground under the knee of two sheriffs and being cuffed. His face was bloody, there was something about a broken camera and I became scared of the crowd who were cheering and congratulating the sheriffs for "doing a great job". There was a girl who said something about someone in that crowd punching her. I decided to walk away from it all because honestly, I saw a sign denouncing the org I work for and was afraid I might be spotted by someone who recognized me and become the next target of the crowd. I just wanted to listen to the speakers and tell what I saw, and I'd seen enough.

After it all dispersed, I did make a statement to the sheriffs telling the same story as above. The sheriffs said to me, "Well, that's a different story than the other people just told us." I bet it was...

So, I'm interested in my reader's thoughts on this entire incident. As we've expected this revolutionary movement that has been calling people to revolution, includes gun-toting nut bags, and overall is promoting violence has turned to violence.

Is the discourse out of control?

At what point do we call this violent "revolution" that's embracing bigotry and nazism from the stage out for their actions?

Do you think there's any connection between the call to violence on the stage and the actions minutes later on the ground?

Will this get any media play or be ignored as an anomoly?

Will the rally leaders denounce the violence or applaud it?

Let's see if we can have a civil discourse here.

The Lion Has Died

2009-08-26T00:49:00.007-05:00

My sadness is overwhelming. I put this short story on my Facebook update:

RIP Teddy. I remember meeting you on the dock at Hyannisport. You were gracious and paused for a minute to watch our husbands play football on the beach... perhaps provoking a memory... You stopped chatted and then sailed off with your granddaughter in a little tiny boat on the vast ocean. I'll always remember you like that on that day. Thanks for everything!!! And God bless!

It is time for the Senate (and the House) to stop screwing around, pass Medicare for all and be done with it! In fact, it should be called the Edward M Kennedy Medicare for All Act.

Let's get this done!!!!!

Some housekeeping, this means the Senate is now at 59. It also means that Deval Patrick the young brilliant African American Governor of Mass is now quite literally the most powerful man in the world.

My love to his family for all the love they have given this nation over the years so they may get through what must be a devastating time to have gotten him back from the years of self abuse only to lose him when he seemed more powerful, respected and brilliant than ever. It must just be terrible for his family (and yes, I'm crying too...)

God bless.

March for healthcare!

When Big Daddies Came to Town...

2009-08-17T21:18:00.004-05:00

Yeah, I'm going here even with one of the principles still in the hospital for unrelated reasons... (I wish him a speedy recovery by the way and am as impressed as Maddow about the superhero behavior ;)

But I gotta do this.

Okay, and when I say this, I'm going to make a lot of liberal white people really angry. I'm going to say it anyway.

What do three white men think they are doing stepping into a primarily African American community and telling them their right to vote doesn't matter? That the three white men somehow know better than the majority minority parents who best represents the children's interests?

Oh yeah... I went there...

If they want to disolve the MPS School Board, what about democratically taking the idea to the voters in a binding referendum is so completely not even considered...

What is going on here???

Oh sorry voters, we've decided you can't make decisions the big daddies like, so we're going to take away your representative government because we don't even trust you to hear our argument for our idea and vote in what we think is your best interest...

Well, they won't win that argument now will they... The voters are not children who don't know what's best for them, boys... They are adults who were presented in most cases with choices and came out of their homes on cold winter days to make those choices. What really stinks is they aren't suggesting this in Madison. Not in Crivitz or Kenosha or Haywood or Manitowoc. No, the big daddies only want control of the largest minority district in the state. Didn't anyone tell you guys HOW BAD THIS LOOKS???

Why don't you try funding MPS and giving the school board something to actually work with?

Why don't you eliminate school choice and put taxpayer dollars back into public schools in Milwaukee? Think it's a coincidence that the least performing schools in Wisconsin also happen to be the ones fighting their defunding by the choice program??? I think not...

Hey liberals, think this sounds good because our Democratic Mayor's in charge?? And what happens when Scott Walker becomes the next Mayor of Milwaukee?

The voters already made the decisions as to their best interests. They can change those decisions every couple years... all up and down the ticket by the way...

Next, someone will tell us that the Mayor will be chosen by a vote of the Common Council, the School Superintendent will be chosen by the Governor and the Governor will be chosen by the State Legislature.... Wait a minute... hmmmm...

Why Obama Failed... So Far...

2009-08-17T20:25:00.003-05:00

So I've ranted. I've called to action. I'm really angry.

I also want to break down here what went wrong.

Obama failed before he started. And don't kid yourself a co-op option (we already have these by the way...) is a pure and utter and absolute failure.

Why?

He failed because he started in the wrong place from the beginning.

The first rule of a successful negotiation is that you always start from your ideal position. You know, if you got to make the decision all by yourself and you thought the best thing in the world would be in your wildest dreams... that's where you start.

In other words, don't cave before you sit down to the table. What is ideal? What should Obama came to the table with?

Single payer healthcare.

It's the cheapest. The most effective. Would cover the most people. It has been proven to work around the world.

That said...

What's the problem with single payer healthcare? The hand full of insurance companies left selling health insurance in this country (and there are really just a handful compared to 20 years ago) would have to work harder on life insurance or go back to nursing school.

So that was mistake number one. Obama caved before he came to the table. In fact, he didn't let the ideal outcome at the table at all. Obama started with a compromise position, had he started with single payer, I'd be ranting that a public option is a cop out to single payer, but an acceptable compromise.... for now...

But now, we are discussing the most ludicrious of options.

Think about this.

Co-ops. So called non-profits pooling resources to negotiate lower rates and setting up partner "advocacy organizations" to lobby congress to help out the insurance industry even more.

Here is what a co-op is not:

It is NOT in any way reform to our health care industry. WE HAVE CO-OPS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY ALREADY. They do not work. They become political organizations in their own right. They may be owned by members, but how many members of a credit union have ever been to a meeting? How many Outpost or Willy Street members have ever been to a meeting?

How many actually care to run for office to help run the organization?

It's all good if it's groceries or books or milk farmers who create a co-op. Negotiating the price of your milk as a group makes perfect sense.

Health insurance is a whole other deal. Primarily because the potential for discrimination in health care in a voting membership organization is way high in this country. For example, what if the co-op in a particular area gets together and says no Asians can be covered under their plan.

Think that's crazy? Well how about they say no gay people can cover their partners?

Not so crazy now is it? How about Obama writes into the plan that they cannot discriminate against gays and their partners? Now he doesn't have enough votes to pass it at all, it fails and he gets to say he tried at least... A co-op will create the tyrrany of the majority in regional areas around the country. This is as Matt Taibi said, "Sick and Wrong".

In a public option this becomes mute. Anyone can get covered regardless of their relationship status. No private rules apply. How fast do you think insurance company executives will get on the boards of those "non-profit co-op organizations"?

This is the most insane of the proposals.

Let's see. Keep every thing the same as far as how insurance is delivered. Add bigger conglomerates that we can control internally. Add requirements to cover everyone so the cost skyrockets for everyone. Finally, sell the new super more expensive package as some sort of "health care reform" and give a discount to approximately 20% more than we pay now... When it all fails as this is no doubt going to in the long run, blame the Dems for the crappy idea to regulate the insurance industry.

Dems are done politically for 20 years if they don't allow a vote on at the very least the public option. Done. Their voters will stop caring for another 15 years. You can't promise the people of this country something this big and then give them a worse product than they started with in the first place. They're DONE if they don't force a floor vote on the public option.

Yes.

This is the B.S. the so-called Dems in Congress and now the White House are trying to sell us. A vote on crap is somehow better than forcing everyone to take sides.

I say vote on single payer (medicare for all), vote on the public option and then on this crap co-op option. I want to know where everyone stands on each option. It's only fair.

MAKE CONGRESS TAKE A STAND.

CALL AND TELL THEM YOU WANT A VOTE ON THE PUBLIC OPTION regardless if it will pass or not, OR YOU WANT NOTHING AT ALL!!!

How can he get this back? Force this vote. I guarantee that if only 43 say privately they will vote for the public option plan an actual VOTE will change that equation significantly.

FORCE THE VOTE. MAKE THEM TAKE SIDES. ALL OF THEM OFFICIALLY.

Broken Backs...

2009-08-17T20:09:00.002-05:00

I can remain silent on this no longer. In fact, I'm so angry right now at the Democratic Party that I'm nearly ready to cancel my membership. I'm DONE with this. After the following rant, I promise my actual take on what's going on here.

This is MY line in the sand.

I want a vote.

I want a vote on the public option in health care.

I want to KNOW who will vote no.

I WANT the American people to KNOW who to vote out of office in 2010 regardless of party. I want that NO vote.

WE DESERVE TO KNOW WHO LIED TO US!

And almost more important:

WE DESERVE TO KNOW WHO TOLD US THE TRUTH!

I can guess that it wasn't Gwen Moore lying to us. In fact, I'm pretty sure it wasn't after her forum the other day. I can guess this is not Steve Kagen or Russ Feingold (considering his PASSIONATE cry to his colleagues to reconsider the public option in a press release today).

The problem is, without a vote. Russ, Gwen and Steve will never get their say. They will never be able to show their voters their loyalty as elected officials to the people who elected them.

EVEN IF THE BILL FAILS, the people of this country who have given sweat and tears for a decade to take back our country and reform our health care system NEED and deserve to know who who's with them and who's against them.

Stop writing about how good co-ops are and aren't. Write the White House and every member of Congress in both houses and DEMAND A VOTE ON THE PUBLIC OPTION.

Even if it loses, we will know where everyone stands. I wanna see the Dems run a campaign on "I voted with the insurance companies and against you" next year. I wanna fight that fight. I can't have that fight if I don't get a vote.

In fact, I first want a vote on single payer, then on the public option, the on the co-op option. I want every single member to have to take a position on every single bill.

I WANNA KNOW!

Think Again...

2009-08-11T13:48:00.001-05:00

Think the anti-healthcare movement isn't overtly tinged with racism
and hatred and threaths of violence?

Think again

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html

--
Sent from my mobile device

Professor Gates

2009-07-31T16:44:00.003-05:00

This entire episode is getting surreal for me... Those of you who have read my blog know that racism and subtle racism are frequent topics I like to address out here. In fact for several years I tracked the days the Milwaukee Sheriff's Department was on the lakefront pulling over people of color for no reason and giving as many as 80 seatbelt violation tickets a day. He has been less aggressive this year, but then again, it's not an election year...

On one hand, I KNOW for a FACT that when I'm driving in Fox Point or Bayside or WFB or several other communities in and around the Milwaukee area I'm in danger of being pulled over for no reason at all.

Once my "kids were out of their seat belts" only for me to turn around angry at them and see that they had them on and were just as surprised through their scared tears as I was that they were being faulted for the stop.
Another time I was pulled over for having a tail light out. I politely asked to get out and see the problem and the suddenly very nervous cop reluctantly said okay, slowly backed off and when he and I got to the back of the car, it was clear I had no problems with my tail light... "Let me see your driver's license anyway" was his reply. He still wrote the ticket that said I needed to get it fixed in 5 days or so and then bring it back for a police inspection. I drove straight to the police station that night and had another officer check it out and he signed off on the ticket...
Another time, I was accused of "speeding" on the lakefront when I was by far the slowest car on the lincoln memorial...I always am...much to the chagrin of my family and friends...
Another time, I was pulled over headed out of a suburb and accused of running a stop sign. When the officer saw my license he SAID "Oh! You live here! Well, then I'll just give you a warning." Sigh...

The point is that I can do this all day... I can tell you stories of clear, obvious and annoying racial profiling all day long that happened to me personally. My husband never believed in it when we first met. He's a true believer today though...

After being pulled over for no reason over and over and over again (and I have a damn good driving record because once they find out I'm not up to any wrong doing, they DO usually let me go...) my entire lifetime, it's just a fact of life that several times a year if I'm driving in the wrong neighborhoods, I'll be pulled over and checked out.

The bottom line is, that I GET why Gates was ticked off. He's older than I am and male, he's had it worse than I have guaranteed... and eventually, it will happen on the wrong day when you're tired or irritated about something else and yeah, at that point I understand why he might have lipped off to Gates. Unleashed a lifetime longer than mine of irritation and anger with having your life interrupted regularly because your skin's too dark for law enforcement to trust you to be on your way without a check in first...

I also understand that the officer who probably prided himself in his ability to train fellow officers in these encounters and deal with these situations appropriately, lost his cool when he found himself in a situation with an old cranky man accusing him of being heavy handed over the one thing he didn't want to be accused of... racism... and with his career on the line decided to call for back up and take him in rather than risk a he said he said situation.

I more and more think two somewhat reasonable men found themselves face to face in a situation they were not expecting to find themselves in at that moment and both overreacted, both got out of hand and the one with the ultimate power to arrest went too far with it all rather than backing down and letting this one go... Obama is still right the officer did ACT stupidly.

And I'm irritated, confused, and disgusted because as people of color, we have to be good. Not just good, but REALLY good ALL the time or our risk of incarceration is really high. It's just not the same for everyone in this country.

That's the ultimate problem. The inequity in how good you have to be just to survive in this America. Yes, Barack has proven that if you are PERFECT you can achieve ANYTHING in America regardless of your race.

Perfect is a pretty high margin. Professor Gates was pretty damn perfect for a black man in America and he still ended up getting arrested for being in his own home that happened to be in the wrong neighborhood...

Six Black "Prostitutes" and a White "Runaway"...

2009-06-20T00:04:00.004-05:00

I'm just really upset about these serial killings. First, they've completely fallen out of the news. Second, the way the media and the police department handled this (42 dead prostitutes in 21 years in Milwaukee) over the years has me just livid. Could someone please mention when we have two women a year murdered, under similar circumstances in the same community, to us women so we can be aware of this problem a little sooner that 21 years later? Third, we have a failure to communicate.

I keep seeing this "six prostitutes and a runaway with drug problems" description of the victims attributed to this same killer. My cynical side noticed that I only saw the pictures of six black women all over the news and wondered if the "runaway with a drug problem" was white, then my practical side took over and for weeks, I've actually refused to check this out. I just didn't want to go there... really I didn't...

But the AP is asking questions too... questions that are just my speed...

Why is it that the black women are prostitutes and "crack whores" in the media, but the young white girl is a "runaway with a drug problem" who happened to have the same killer who's been killing strictly prostitutes for decades DNA on her? Why is it okay to say the black women were prostitutes, but when describing the white woman, she's a "runaway with a drug problem"? As if she wasn't selling her body to access a drug she was physically addicted to the same as the black women were...

This is my point. I'm not mad that they tried to soften the blow to her family that she was killed by a man while having sex for drug money.

I'm mad that the media and police department have gone OUT OF THEIR WAY to describe her any differently than the black women who were murdered by the same guy doing the same thing! The 19 year old's family and the 35 year old's family and the 41 year old's family, ALL of their families, have the same level of grief, pain and loss. At least two of the black women's family members deny the victims were prostitutes at all.

The loss first of their loved one to drugs that stole her future from her and them. The loss from the betrayal of their love when she no longer could be trusted around their possessions. The loss from watching someone you love descend into the depths of a hellish drug addiction that leads to a dangerous life on the streets supporting your habit with the only thing you have left as a woman...

Your body.

Subjecting it to the highest of the high men and the lowest of the low men in our society all preying on your illness by paying for the use of your body for their own twisted sexual needs.... Completely vulnerable to abuse, and suffering by the men who prey on them and the drugs that enslave them, they were also vulnerable to a police department that dismissed them as useless and unknown not worth more than a quick look at the evidence and an envelope that holds it for 20 years...

No woman chooses to be a drug addict or a prostitute. This is not a life you dream of living as you're growing up. It's the life around you that you endure that eventually leads you to this life. It's one bad boyfriend or abuse as a child that you must dull your mind from to forget because you cannot afford a therapist...

These women were human beings. They were real. They had families and children and once in their lives they dreamed of being doctors, or lawyers or fashion designers or marine biologists. Life didn't yield those careers for them and their illnesses, yes, drug addiction is a physical illness, untreated led them to a dangerous life.

Why did the police and media recognize that in the white 16 year old girl and so gently treat her murder and so callously treat the murder of the black women who still are not victims, but "murdered prostitutes" in their eyes.

I'm really upset by this and I want the families of all seven victims to know that I look at your family members as who they were women with families, lives and dreams and their skin color, age, addictions don't matter one bit to me. They were human beings with a right to life, a right to have a chance for sobriety and freedom from their hell, and that was stolen for more of them than might have been the case, should had someone actually seen what I see... and more are in danger...

If you have a loved one who is putting themselves in danger due to drug abuse or prostitution call the Benedict Center for help with programs for women you love and feel like you've lost. Hope always exists, some do come back. As desperate as it seems right now, help is out there.

Find it. Save a life. If you know anything about these murders, please call the MPD, this psychopath needs to be stopped now and now that we all know about it, I assume they are actively trying to find him.

SCOTUS Rules Access to DNA to Prove Innocence NOT a Constitutional Right

2009-06-19T23:17:00.002-05:00

That's right. The Supreme Court of the United States said in a ruling this week that if a defendant has had a "fair trial", they have no right after the fact to access the DNA evidence available to prove their innocence.

Let me say that again. If you have been convicted of a crime and you believe you are innocent and a new DNA test method is developed years later that could prove your innocence, you do NOT have a right under the Constitution to test that evidence or test that evidence again even if you pay to do the testing!

In other words, the hundreds of people exonerated on DNA evidence around the country would no longer have had the right to prove their innocence. Even if it means they will die or spend the rest of their life in prison for a crime they did not commit. This means thousands of people in prison or on death row convicted before DNA testing became available or the newest methods were developed, could die or rot in prison if they are innocent.

I just want you to imagine this is you. You KNOW you didn't rape and kill someone. You are convicted of it on circumstancial evidence maybe just wrong place wrong time and sitting in prison every day locked up with people who did commit their crimes and you find out that a new testing method that could prove you did not do it has been developed, but the state you live in says, "No, you can't have the evidence to retest it." They can now do that and you will sit in prison for life or until the state changes it's mind.

Now what the court says is not that you can't have it, just that the STATE can tell you you can't have it. So in some states, the legislature will pass laws that say, yeah, you can have it and in other states they could decide, no, once there's a conviction we're done with it.

Now read this article and think of this ruling in the context of the Milwaukee serial killer. In particular pay attention to the last lines of the article posted below and the lines I bolded:

Police believe the killer had sex with the runaway, but she was killed by someone else.
The developments have prompted officials to form a local, state and federal task force to investigate the homicides. A state lab is working to determine whether the DNA of at least 23 other slain prostitutes matches that of the killer.
"In the past, we might have linked some of these homicides through their method of operation, but theory has given way to technology," said Edward Flynn, the Milwaukee police chief. "Within the last couple of weeks, we have been able to confirm a link."
Flynn, who described the killer as an "unknown suspect who conducts his business in secret," said the investigation would require tips from the community.
"This suspect has been able to avoid and evade law enforcement for these last 23 years. He has never been arrested for a felony as he does not appear in any DNA database," Flynn said.
Police said 42 prostitutes were killed between 1986 and 2007, and that 31 percent of the cases have been solved. There has been a higher clearance rate -- 78 percent -- in other homicides.
Of the seven killed, two were in 1986, three in 1995, one in 1997 and one in 2007. The runaway was one of the three killed in 1995.
Flynn said there have been "patterned homicides" discovered across the country as a result of advanced DNA technology, citing investigations in Los Angeles, California; Mesa, Arizona; and Las Vegas, Nevada. However, he said there is no link with the Milwaukee cases.
In discussing advances in DNA technology, Flynn said there were no matches in 1990s, two around 2000 and the seven have been linked in recent weeks.
"We already have determined that five suspects in murders of other prostitutes -- completely unrelated to this investigation -- have been identified because their DNA match open homicide cases. Three of them already are in prison for cleared homicides of prostitutes," police said in a statement Tuesday.

Three men were exonerated in Wisconsin this year because the state of Wisconsin finally decided to test the evidence with new methods. Those men sat in prison KNOWING they were innocent of rape and murder and yet had what was considered "fair trials" that were wrong.

They happen to be in Wisconsin and Milwaukee's new police chief apparently decided that 42 prostitute murders in Milwaukee in 21 years deserved a second look, but under the new Supreme Court decision, these three men had NO other recourse than to wait for the state to decide to retest evidence, while the real killer kept on killing...

50 states, 50 legislatures, thousands of police departments and each one gets to make up it's own rules on this.

The outrage of this is that the Supreme Court of the United States of America essentially decided that the right to prove innocence is no longer a part of the phrase "due process". Until Congress acts to restore it, this is now the law of this country.

State legislatures must act quickly to restore the rights at the state level. Congress must act to explicitly spell out this right nationally. Before potentially innocent people die on death rows in states that refuse to retest, before another innocent person spends another lifetime locked up for a crime they didn't commit.

Yes, this is the SCOTUS that George W. Bush gave us when he appointed Roberts and Alito to the Court. This is the new nightmare for individual rights in this country, a court that is dismantling them one by one... and the result is that Congress will be running around spending time passing laws trying to undo the damage instead of working on fixing our country's economic mess.

Can you tell I'm just a little upset about this one?

More on the serial killing in the next post... This deserves it's own discussion...

Juneteenth Day: Hope and Promise Delayed

2009-06-19T14:57:00.003-05:00

Since 1865 when Galveston, TX made this day, June 19th an official holiday, the African American community holds this day in reverence as a sign of hope and promise.

It was the day the last slaves in Texas were told they were free. The day about six months after the Emancipation Proclamation, that freedom became a reality for all African Americans in the United States of America.

I never learned about this day in school in the 1970's. It happened after school let out and frankly, it wasn't part of the curriculum. I learned about this day as my father and his father and so forth, and most African Americans learned about this day, the same way most people learned about it (and celebrated it quietly for generations underground), from my father through a story at a seemingly spontaneous picnic as a child. It's become more prevalent in the United States with more and more cities recognizing the day as significant in our history but...

I think in many ways the celebration of Juneteenth Day is a mystery to the majority of the population of the United States.

The first obvious question I hear is why not just celebrate the day of the Emancipation Proclamation when people were legally freed?

The answer is simple really: Because legal freedom does not always equate to actual freedom. If it did the civil rights movement would not have been necessary.

In so many ways this day is symbolic of a nation that was willing to say one thing and do another. While passing the 14th and 15th amendments that gave African Americans full citizenship (well at least men), they quickly passed a slew of local laws that essentially took that citizenship away in the reality of everyday life.

It took 100 years of Jim Crow, the Tuskeegee Airmen, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, Hank Aaron, Thurgood Marshall, separate but equal, lynchings, Brown v BOE, and more bloodshed than in the Civil War to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, neither would have been necessary had the 14th and 15th amendments been adhered to in the first place. They were the law of the land, but the enforcement of those laws was all but ignored for a century.

African Americans understand that the laws in this country are always quite far ahead of the ways they are enforced and that they apply differently to different people.

Even today...
(if you read my blog regularly, you have an idea of what I'm referring to here...)

So in our community, we continue to celebrate not the day the laws changed, but the day six months later when the law was finally enforced throughout the Union and freedom was actually achieved by the very last slaves still held captive by their former owners.

I'm still waiting though for full freedom.

Felon disfranchisement, educational disparities, policing disparities, sentencing disparities, economic disparities, literacy, housing inequality, banking inequality, gender disparities, sexual orientation inequities, health care disparities, racially charged immigration "debates", and full freedom still are plaguing minority communities all over this country, despite the feel-goodness of having elected an African American president that we all are experiencing today...

I'm patiently waiting, well, I'm not so patient on these issues actually, but waiting to fully celebrate the actions of a more reasonable President (who happens to have skin just slightly lighter than Boehner's), a more reasonable Congress and someday maybe a more reasonable SCOTUS...

I have hope and promise, I'm ready now for action!

So in the true spirit of Juneteenth Day, let's celebrate the successes and remember to keep an eye on the ball for the hope and promises of a day in the future, not yet established, when every man, woman and child born into this country is truly given a chance for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Not just in law, but also in practice.

Kagen and Erpenbach Take Central Role in Public Health Care Option

2009-06-16T11:05:00.003-05:00

The press release says it all really. A public health plan option is the most doable option right now and while far from what the public is demanding (a single payer system would be the most logical), the PHP option is a good first step in that direction if it's done properly. Senator Russ Feingold spoke eloquently about this on Friday night as well!

Thanks to both the WI Congressman and the WI State Senator for their leadership on this issue on behalf of citizens and businesses nationwide and thanks to the 26 legislators from Wisconsin who have signed onto this legislative demand.

From Progressive States Network:

WISCONSIN STATE SENATOR JON ERPENBACH TO REPRESENT OVER 600 STATE LEGISLATORS IN DELIVERING LETTER TO WHITE HOUSE AND CONGRESS URGING CHOICE OF PUBLIC HEALTH PLAN

As health care battle heats up on Capitol Hill, Wisconsin takes central role in pushing for progressive reform

WHAT: A dozen state legislators will hand off a letter from 600 of their colleagues urging health care reform including a public insurance option to Sen. Tom Harkin and other Members of Congress.
WHEN: Wednesday, June 17, 1:15pm
WHERE: Russell Senate Office Building, Room 385, Washington, D.C.
WHO: Sen. Tom Harkin (D - IA)
Rep. Steve Kagen, M.D. (D - WI)
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D - ME)
Connecticut State House Speaker Christopher Donovan (D - 84)
Texas State Rep. Garnet Coleman (D - 147)
Wisconsin State Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D - 27)
Iowa State Sen. Jack Hatch (D - 33)

As battle lines begin to be drawn around provisions for a public health insurance plan in draft House and Senate health reform bills, Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach will take up a central role in the debate. At a White House meeting with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and a Capitol Hill press conference hosted by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, Senator Erpenbach will join a delegation of state legislators organized by the national group Progressive States Network as they deliver a letter urging comprehensive health care reform within the year. The letter, which was signed by over 600 legislators from 46 states, including 26 from Wisconsin, calls for any federal reform bill to include the choice of a public health insurance plan, strong affordability protections, and shared employer responsibility for health care costs.

The day's events will highlight an emerging consensus from Main Streets across the country that constituents want the choice of a public insurance plan, and it will call attention to the broadening discussion in which federal leaders are seeking input from a broad coalition at all levels of government. At the press conference, Members of Congress will discuss the importance of hearing voices from outside the Beltway in formulating a uniquely American solution to the health care crisis, and legislators who have been key leaders on state level reform will share how the lessons they have learned from pioneering reform policy at the state level support the drive for a national public plan and other progressive reform priorities.

The full text of the letter is available here: http://progressivestates.org/statefedhealth

Non-Profits, Fundraising, and Tough Economic Times

2009-06-13T18:24:00.004-05:00

I sit on the boards of or work for at least 8 organizations in the state of Wisconsin. Some non-profit 501(c)3 organizations, some non-profit 501(c4) membership/advocacy organizations, some political organizations. For the purposes of this post, none of them will be named, because it's not necessary. This isn't about just my organizations that I care about, in fact, what's most important is that it is an organization YOU care about.

In tough economic times, things get tough for everyone, but for these types of organizations that rely solely or primarily on the generosity of their members, donors and benefactors, your donation means more now than ever before!

Membership and political organizations for example have lots (thousands or 10's of thousands) of small donors, $10-$50 that they give annually because they care about the work the organization does and want to give something to keep it going or just want to be able to say they are a member. These donors are often the hardest hit in a recession (or arguably a depression) because many donors just cannot afford even that level of giving. Often donations to membership organizations are not tax deductible and so, they are the first donations cut in a budget. In even a 10% or 15% drop off in a year, the effects on programs and staffing can be devasting! In off election years, political organizations in particular are forgotten in the donation mix.

Foundations that have tax deductible donations often have much smaller donor bases who give much larger donations. In tough economic times donations are altered by these larger donors. The donations are put off until later in the year, they are similar to the previous year's donation amount and sometimes are even downsized depending on the extent of the fiscal issues the donors are facing.

In times like these, your donations to the organizations you care about most are more critical than ever! Many non-profits are struggling in ways that are dramatic. I know of staffing cuts, program cuts, delayed projects, salary decreases, benefit cuts, and core services barely being preserved in so many organizations right now, it would blow your mind!

So as someone who has causes I care about that are teetering and as someone who knows that no matter your politics or critical issues, your organization is struggling:

Give
Give early in the year (early gifts help to delay disaster planning and layoffs)
Give more than once (this can be done easily by setting up small monthly payments $10/month is $120/year and that's more than your usual $35 annual gift and will help more as a steady stream of income)
Give more than you did last year if you can
Join an organization you care about but have never given to before
Renew your membership
No matter the organization or cause you give to, let them know, you are giving because Crawford's Take asked you

The organizations you are about to give to will be sustained and the work you care about will continue ONLY if you reach a little deeper and give a little more on behalf of those who care, but just cannot.

Conservative Insanity and Sotomayor

2009-05-30T23:06:00.006-05:00

Back in late 2005, George W Bush appointed John Roberts to the Supreme Court to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist. We liberals grumbled internally, but there has been this unwritten presidential political truce...

The first SCOTUS pick is a gimme for the opposition party, after that, all bets are off...

So following the general rule and looking back, these are the president's first picks, all nominated:

Johnson: Abe Fortas

Nixon: Warren Burger

Reagan: Sandra Day O'Conner

Bush: John Roberts (note, the opposition party didn't end the Miers nomination, quite to the Dems surprise, the president's own party did...)

You have to go back to Hoover to find a first nominee rejected by Congress... and that's too far back to apply to my point today. ;)

So for 79 years there has been this unspoken agreement between the parties that the first pick is a freebee. Then comes President Obama who not only picked a highly qualified (although pretty moderate for my taste :) and highly experienced justice to nominate to the court in Sonia Sotomayor.

What happens? Conservatives go ballistic. We liberals waited. Bush won the election, was president and he got the first pick without much ado. In fact, I've searched my blog several different ways and I couldn't find one reference to the Roberts nomination. If you find a post, let me know... We went ballistic over Alito (and my blog history shows that blow back), but the first pick we respectfully declined comment on.

The key word here is "respect". A certain deferrence to the president, but more importantly a deferrence to the voters who elected him.

That said, "respect" doesn't seem to be the GOP talking head's best subject lately.

Conservatives on Sotomayor this week:

Limbaugh: "reverse racist" and a comparison to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke

Gingrich: "new racism is no better than old racism." and a "Latina woman racist"

Tancredo: When speaking about her called the National council of La Raza "Latino KKK without the hoods and nooses"

Coulter is on the "racist" rant as well, but she's irrelevant as her insanity is well documented

And my personal favorite insane quip of the week was by G. Gordon Liddy:

LIDDY: Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Another choice comment by Liddy is that she "speaks illegal alien".

Makes me wanna show him a real PMSing woman...

Cornyn and Hatch have sort of freaked out and realized that losing the female and the latino vote entirely wouldn't be good for the GOP's attempts to rebuild the party and have condemned these types of attacks to their credit both politically and personally, but the insanity rages.

Info from stories here and here and here

Where is the decency of these men?

The simple answer is that they do not have any decency.

The GOP needs to give up these attacks immediately. They are not substantive, not in any way. They are so revealing to the ugly nature of these men as to be truly nauseating and disgusting. These comments are horrible on their face loaded with blatant racism, sexism and hatred and underneath are just inhuman.

As the false veil of the now clearly dead compassionate conservatism and outreach to women, Latinos and African Americans has been raised, the ugliness underneath is truly stunningly awful and a place more than 57% of Americans never want to return to again...

Just keep digging that enormous hole back to political relevance deeper conservatives...

23 years?????

2009-05-21T20:42:00.007-05:00

So for 23 years someone has been killing women, and mostly black women in Wisconsin and it seems mostly in Milwaukee. All the women were prostitutes. All but one were found on Milwaukee's North Side.

One man has been serving a life sentence, but it is now confirmed by DNA that he's not the killer... Still that man lost 13 years of his life... Thank god, we don't have the death penalty in Wisconsin.

23 women were killed, 7 linked so far. All prostitutes. All but one in a small geographical area.

Someone knew... In fact it was that same man who called Eugene Kane recently to tell him about a police coverup of a local serial killer.

The story scares me and reminds me of another man killing minorities on the fringe of society and ignored by the Milwaukee Police Department for years. Jeffery Dahmer.

My fury is that the public wasn't warned. My fury is that the public wasn't protected. My fury is that who ever these women were in society, they were human beings, women, women of color and they were allowed to be slaughtered for decades, left on the fringes, ignored by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel left defenseless and with slit throats and strangulation. Where were reporters?

Who knows how many others they haven't thought about adding to the list or how many other innocent men sit in prison for this monsters crimes.

I don't understand how this could happen for so long and no one noticed a pattern? How so many people could be dead under similar circumstances and the public, WE weren't warned? A simple, "someone's killing black prostitutes" would have sufficed. They may not have had the DNA, but they definitely had a pattern of behavior. An MO. Did no one compare the files?

The FBI should have been in here decades ago... Decades...

What's really strange is that the 23 doesn't count the other 5 prostitute murders that WERE matched to people in the database. That brings the total prostitutes killed in Milwaukee in the last 23 years to 28 women. 28 women slaughtered in the streets of Milwaukee and no one said anything...

The MPD has taken two decades to live down the disaster of the Dahmer fiasco.

Who knew that instead of learning from the disaster of ignoring the murders in a community on the fringe, they spent those 20 years covering up or ignoring or completely inept enough to notice another man's horrors in the same neighborhood?

Or is that why they covered it up?

We need an independent investigation into the police practices of the MPD. Who's decision was it to keep this under wraps? What police practices broke down? Who didn't care enough to say anything to protect the public? This goes through four or more police chiefs. It goes through a female chief and a black chief. This is a class issue and a fringe community who's cries for help were completely ignored by everyone.

Why Sykes Was Wrong Today...

2009-05-21T00:55:00.006-05:00

I was listening to a ball game and found my car on 620 this morning. Charlie was going on and on about the Obama plan to put emission and mpg standards on the car makers.

The main points he drove home until the callers were in a frantic frenzy were:

Obama's gonna take away your minivan (American car companies won't be able to make minivans that meet the standards and so they won't make them or will make them too expensive for the average family). If Obama lets you have a minivan, you won't be able to afford it.
Obama's gonna raise the price of gas by taxing it to oblivion.
Hybrid cars are flimsy and unsafe.
Electric cars run on electricity, but Obama's gonna cap and trade emissions and add $1800 to your annual electric bill (oh wait, that last part was from the baseball debacle from day before) before you even plug it in.
Obama's a hypocrit because he drove a big American car before he was president.

Let's get an overview of how weird his arguments were...

The American car industry has tanked because no one wants big gas guzzling cars since the Bush Admin let gas prices go over $4/gallon. Toyota and Honda in particular jumped out ahead of the American car companies who were still selling Hummers and cars that get 14mpg and began to introduce gas/electric hybrids that get up to 55 mpg. The Prius in particular is cute, comfortable, full of fun extra toys and you can get to Madison without the gas gage moving and because it recharges itself, doesn't even need to be plugged in... Everyone I know who has one LOVES it.

So you can't buy a Prius without a year or more waiting period. A few years back it was 3 years... And somehow, the American car companies are going bankrupt because Americans still want big cars? No one is going to take away anyone's minivan. You're just going to get a better car that costs a bit more upfront (or maybe not since they still have a market to compete in) and pay a ton less in gas at the pump.

I have a Toyota minivan. It gets 25 mpg city and 28-30 highway depending on how I'm driving it. It's cute, comes with lots of adorable toys, so comfortable my family of 5 can travel to DC in it and it feels like a trip to the Dells, roomy and turns ON A DIME, drives like a dream and I got it two years old with 40,000 for $14,000.... American minis get 12-17 mpg and don't hold their value because after a few years paying high gas prices everyone wants to dump them to get a Sienna or an Odyssey so they can afford the gas.

If everyone's driving hybrid cars, won't demand for gas go down naturally and therefore prices (Economics 101)? If no one needs gas, why bother to tax it?

If Honda and Toyota can make high quality, low mileage, safe cars for affordable prices and can't keep them on the lots paying equal or better wages and benefits to their workers as the American companies, why couldn't revamped and regulated American car companies do the same?

If Obama had been driving a high efficiency hybrid, it would have had to have been a foreign car and you'd be yelling at him for not driving an American car. Catch 22 argument Obama can't win this one...

The Prius system would solve this problem, reverse engineering has been around as long as engineering. Deal with it. As for the cap and trade issue, I much preferred when the government owned the electric and gas companies and prices were controlled by the taxpayers. Prices were stable and without a profit margin to work into the equation, the people got electricity and gas at cost and when grids needed to be upgraded any "profit" was reinvested in the system instead of going into the pockets of anonymous fat cats. This is a great argument for de-privitizing the industry...especially since we'll be bailing them out anyway with taxpayer dollars.

American car companies are just now releasing hybrids and because they gave their profits to their executives and stockholders instead of reinvesting them in the technologies they are so behind on now, they are in a pickle and coming to the American taxpayers for help. This is not the workers fault either by the way. They were building the cars the executives told them to build.

If gas is truly the greatest threat to American security, then aren't I acting like those during WWII by buying a high mileage car, using less and ultimately protecting American security?

Basically all Obama's doing is acting like a sane CEO. Telling the American car companies to build the cars with the highest demand, controlling our investment dollars if they are put in the industry and reorganizing the companies to do what they were incorporated to do. Make the best cars in the world for the best prices, pay their workers enough to buy their cars (H. Ford) and use a fair share of the profits to learn to make even better cars.

If Obama was a CEO or had the last name Bush, the stockholders (and GOP) would be hailing him as the best new car CEO in America. Because he's a Democrat, Sykes is going after him like a rabid dog... sigh...

No one is going to take away anyone's minivan. You're just going to get a better car that costs a bit more upfront (or maybe not since they still have a market to compete in) and pay a ton less in gas at the pump (between needing less and lowering demand). Think of the razor you got as a giveaway at Summerfest, fell in love with because of it's performance and then went to get refill blades only to find that a pack of 4 cost $12! That cheap or free blade's real cost isn't upfront, it's in the continued use of it over time...

Its time to retool, rethink and rejuvenate the great American auto industry! Even if they need a kick in the rear to get it done.

Please try to make some sense with your next argument Charlie.

Shorewood and Chickens

2009-05-20T16:54:00.003-05:00

So some friends of mine started a Google group to get chickens in Shorewood, WI. For those of you not in the Milwaukee area, Shorewood is the first suburb north of the city of Milwaukee. It bills itself as Uptown, Upscale, Uncommon. Well at least that's what the Shorewood BID has to say. The website says At the Edge of Town and the Heart of Everything.

Shorewood is a really great place to live, raise children and has one of the best school systems in the country. Property values are high and have barely dropped...even in this economic catastrophy. The people who live in Shorewood are the heart and soul of the community. Minorities are not only welcomed, but encouraged to live here. Progressive values are a way of life.

The Shorewood soccer and girl scout and band moms I have had the pleasure to raise my family with are by far some of the most dynamic, strong, accomplished and cool women I've ever known in my life, the dads are cool too.

Shorewood is progressive. VERY progressive. Politically and socially this is a wonderful community for a liberal hack like me to live in... Of course not all people in Shorewood are progressive. The former chair of the state GOP lives here as well as a fellow from the Heritage Foundation. The national leader of the abstinence only movement lives here as well as the state head of the anti-abortion movement and a well known conservative blogger too.

This is what I love about my community though! Even with the political differences here and there, Shorewood neighbors for the most part cherish the back yard barbeques, the nightly walks with neighbors and the safety of living in a community hell bent on 3-4 police squads on duty 24/7 in an area that I've mentioned is 1 mile square. We raise our children as a village because we all believe it takes a village to raise a child. I think of Shorewood as a tiny town accidentally plopped into a big city.

So with all of these things that I love about Shorewood comes that saying Uptown Upscale Uncommon. My love comes from the Uncommon part of that saying. I've been a resident here for all but a few years of my entire life. I have Shorewood stories of Atwater Beach with the tram and lifeguards and I remember the go-carts. In particular I remember moving back in 5th grade and being put into Shorewood public schools after being in Harambee, an all black private school in Milwaukee. This was the late 70's only a few years after the equal housing wars in Milwaukee and we were perhaps the only black family here. My father had lived here before and knew it was going to be okay because Shorewood was different and so he moved back. I remember the kids dragging a terrified and crazy shy young me out to play kickball or go ice skating all day and I remember that none of my new friends even seemed to know I was black. If they did, they certainly didn't care and neither did their parents.

It wasn't perfect, but no where is and this was damn close.

So this is my life in this community. A community I love and can't imagine not living in...

When a group of people first started talking about chickens, I had no idea that was even an option in a urban community. My parents had raised chickens in Neenah and Key West and I'd grown up visiting those places. Ever since Mr Gutnik had us hatch chickens at Atwater in 5th grade I've wanted to raise them, but because I live here in Shorewood, I'd long since resigned myself to the fact that, that was not an option.

Then the Shorewood Chicken movement began.

I followed for months as it moved through the variety of board meetings and finally this week, I decided to show up and see how it would all turn out.

The facts about urban hens are a bit surprising!

First did you know they allow people to keep chickens all over the country in large urban settings? Madison, WI and several other communities around the state allow them in urban areas. Also, Portland, Seattle, Austin, and New York City allow urban hens!
Most don't allow roosters (and we don't want them here). Hens will lay eggs without them.
Hens are quiet animals unless scared by predators and then not loud enough to drown out the noise of a poorly trained dog.
Hens are clean. Their waste can be dried and composted because they are vegetarians. Unlike carnivorous dog and cat waste that can leave behind horrible live bacteria in the ground for up to 2 years and so cannot be composted, but is very dangerous.
Hens in small numbers socialize with their owners and make nice pets.
Hens don't smell (unless you have hundreds of them).
Hens are vaccinated before you get them.
They eat vegetarian food scraps and so decrease human waste.
Hens go to vets like all other pets and when its time their time, they are euthanized just like dogs and cats.
They live in a small space comfortably and in an urban setting are kept in a coop that can be closed up to protect them from predators at night (and if they can't see them, then don't squawk.
Hens in urban settings bring neighbors together. Some owners give them to neighbors and teach your own or neighbors children about how their food is raised.
Most cool is the obvious hens lay eggs and you can eat fresh eggs!

I go to the meeting and what grated on me most was two things. First a board member asking what we mean by "progressive"... "I don't know what that word means.", she said. This is an elected official, in office for at least 10 years who I vote for asking us to define a political term for her... The other was a woman who threw out that she "moved to Shorewood for the terms uptown and upscale this only gets to the term uncommon". I don't know how long she's been here, but uncommon is why I live in here. It is upscale and physically uptown, but in so many ways most of the communities that have those traits are unfriendly, and class oriented.

A group of people wanted to redo Atwater Beach to the glory of only 20 years ago and Friends of Atwater Beach was started. We lost our bookstore and the Shorewood Book Coop is well on its way. When people just wanted to get involved, Grassroots Shorewood, now Grassroots Northshore was created to funnel people into cool progressive projects. Our high school has done Urinetown and Rent (first high school in the country) in just that past four years. No one has tried to ban a book here in the 20 years I've lived here; National Coming Out Day is celebrated at the high school with a picnic on the front lawn, bands and comraderie; typically banned books are part of the curriculum for all students.

Shorewood is family, children and community centered. Just the place where a progressive slow food movement like owning a few backyard hens should be embraced.

I was pretty disappointed when board member Dawn Anderson was at least willing to support looking into a pilot program, and Eckman and Hannewall stopped her in her tracks as if that was a ludicrious idea. Frankly I was surprised by the abruptness of their approach and dismissiveness of the 20 or so people in the room supporting the measure.

The "facts" they presented are all countered by the scientists, animal specialists, veteranians, city officials and urban hen owners in other communities as out and out false.

There's a lot more to say about this issue and I'll be blogging about it here and there as well. Milwaukee is also attempting to pass an ordinance to allow urban hens and they are having much more success there than here so far.

After the meeting, I thought I was talking to the activists on the issue about how to get a direct legislation petition (referendum) on the ballot. I was talking to a JS reporter LOL!

So, yes, I'm the Renee Crawford MJS wrote about this week. Yes, I do want chickens. Yes, I will continue to work on the issue. And yes, I'll now be blogging on chickens as well as the many other things I post on when my take is warranted.

Even if...

2009-04-20T09:52:00.003-05:00

Some sick SOB could make a case that some rational person could agree with that waterboarding someone is somehow not torture, this pretty much makes that case a moot point.

186 times in one month. 83 times in one month. That's an average of 6 and 3 times a day EVERY day for an entire month!!! The thought of this no matter who the person is, no matter their crimes, well, this is the Spanish Inquisition level of torture all over again...

Not only was the US torturing (I think we've become numb to this thought, but torture is something serial killers, not humane governments do...), it was torturing with a sadistic fervor and this is NOT excusable because we were hyped up about getting info after being attacked.

This is sick and wrong and MUST be punished so it NEVER happens again. The Obama Administration must bring charges all the way to the top. Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld ARE war criminals and belong in prison for these two incidents alone. Any ruler around the world who justified this level of torture, would be in prison already. This cannot be allowed to stand.

We must demand it, the very soul of who we are as a people is at stake here...

Obama's Stunning Trip to Central and South America

2009-04-19T11:50:00.004-05:00

For two centuries the United States has had at times mildly contentious and at times full out antagonistic and warring relations with Central and South American countries. More wars than all the other wars we've fought as a country have been fought in the nations to our south. We have in one way or another attempted to dominate and impose a regional imperialism upon the peoples to our south since we became a nation.

The antagonism has been such that the mistrust of US intervention policies (especially in the last 50 years) leaves many countries nearly unable to even talk to the US in civil terms, let alone attempt to reach out and build a relationship. From Panama to Cuba to Nicaragua to Columbia to Venezuela, we have time and again proven that our interest in these nations is only to the extent that it serves our needs (in particular our business and economic needs) at the expense of the needs of the people in living in those nations.

It can reasonably be argued that the US has used it's superior military over the decades to impose an economic superiority and as a result enslaved the people of Central and South America to the whims of American priorities. Democracy be damned, if a leader chooses to defy American interests in the interest of the people they are responsible for, rest be assured, the US will intervene and the leader will not be in power long.

I believe I'm being generous here. I also believe I'm way understating the effects our policies have had to our South...

To make matters worse, we have facilited horrendous economic conditions in most of these countries forcing the inhabitants to migrate to places where they have a reasonable chance of survival. Namely, they migrate to the United States. This has created an interesting dilemna in this country. We've forced desperate people to come to the United States for work by any means necessary (including the imminent threat of death in the transport here). Once they are here, the ridiculous situations they came from means they are willing to work for anything, and they do. Suddenly we have this desperate workforce in the United States willing to work, work hard and do what ever it takes to prove they are worthy of staying here and suddenly our economic interests with in the United States have changed...

Employers lured by the thrill of cheap labor hire and hire and hire the immigrants. More immigrants come to the United States as word spreads of jobs. Employers have a huge advantage over the employees for one stunning reason. The employees are undocumented and subject to deportation by a simple phone call and by the current practice of the law (not the meaning of it, but how it's been practiced for the last 8 years), they are returned without even a hearing in front of a judge.

This spreads fear in the immigrant community of deportation. The fear leads to a willingness to accept any wage, and working condition no matter how safe and a willingness to stay in the shadows hiding in a society that only pretends to not want them there, but does want to enslave them as long as they are here.

And that's what they have become by the way... Slaves in America. Working in plain sight. They have been given no access to the legal system, they are paid in cash under the table and at wages not much higher than they would have made in their own country's but well below our current standards. They work in unsafe working conditions, who would tell and risk an ICE enforcement raid on the facility that could result in hundreds being deported, so they are silent...

And we as Americans have one of three reactions. You are either like me and are enraged and want the government to bring them out of the shadows, give them access to the justice system and allow them to work here legally and humanely within our labor laws so they compete on an equal level for jobs with all the unemployed. Or you are completely oblivious to the problem, don't care, don't pay attention and don't want to know about it at all, just want your meat and vegetables to stay cheap and have no idea why they are.... Or you are part of a rabidly racist anti-immigration movement who throws out seriously misinformed rhetoric about how immigrants are "stealing our jobs" or "living off taxpayer dollars" (by the way which is it...) and we should just "send them all home" the Dobbsian theory of immigration in America...

On May 1, 2009 we will again march in the streets of Milwaukee to demand these policies be reformed and human beings living in our country be treated as human beings. Join US!

And into all of this, comes President Obama...

So this is a small snapshot of the context in which our new president made a historic trip to Central and South American and the Cuba. In the middle of a firestorm of immigration issues that have no simple or even reasonable solution on the table on either side, President Obama went south to listen.

Listen. Listen. Listen.

I'm not really sure the last time a US President just sat down face to face with dictators and diplomats and leaders of all political stripes from an entire region and just LISTENED.

No real demands, no real agenda, just listened.

This stunning development in US and Latin American relations is even more than I had anticipated. President Obama of course has a game plan to all of this, but the absolutely amazing tactic of actually listening first before negotiating is a pretty new concept for the American media and people to digest. They are sort of grasping to find something to write about and settling on Chavez giving Obama a book or repeated asking why Obama has had very few comments on the overall summit on on individual things that have been said so far.

Novel thought: Perhaps he's letting them just vent???

Have you ever had a discussion with someone who thinks you haven't been listening to them for a significant period of time? How does that usually go? They generally are angry and just want to have their say. You won't get very far with them just starting in with "here's what I think you should do...", will you? No. The best tactic is to quietly sit, listen to their concerns and let them vent until they are sure you have heard them. They will not hear you until you give their concerns that minimum amount of respect.

And that is the stunningly brilliant new tactic that President Obama has brought to the foreign policy of the United States of America.

Regardless of how this all shakes out individually by country and/or policy, just the simple courtesy he had afforded the leaders of Latin America of listening and letting them fully vent their concerns to his face, to the face of the American people is by far the most significant and important change to American foreign policy in the history of this great country.

Bravo!

Your Vote Is More Powerful TODAY Than It Was Last Fall!

2009-04-02T08:23:00.004-05:00

Why? Because if today is anything like last April's election less than 25% of the people in the state will vote. That means that your vote will count for about 3-4 people who voted last fall and will not vote today.

It's critical that you get out and cast a ballot today! I have 3 main suggestions for you as to whom you should vote for today.

1: Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson for Supreme Court

She's been a fair justice who truly respects the rule of the law. She's brilliant, thoughtful and tough and this could be one of the most powerful votes you can cast in your lifetime for fairness and justice.

2: JD Watts for Circuit Court

JD Watts is an amazing guy who I have seen on a regular basis carefully taking the arm of Vel Phillips as he takes her to events she otherwise would not have been able to attend. He really does know and care about our courts, he's a judge already and this is his time to take a seat for the entire county and work for justice.

3: Peter Blewett for Milwaukee Public School Board

What can I say about Peter? Only that he has fiercefully championed the rights of the students at MPS not only to get an education, but to get a quality education, to have equity with the public school students in the suburbs and to have the freedom to learn. Without Peter on the Milwaukee Public School board championing the children first, the board would be in chaos. At times Peter has been one of only 3-4 board members who stood sdtrong for the kids and we need his voice to continue that! Vote to keep the sanity in MPS schools. Vote for my friend and a true leader. Peter Blewett.

Finally, if you are in Port Washington, Doug Cvetkovich for school board. In Madison, Brenda Konkel. I also like Annie Woodward for MPS.

For the other circuit court seat, Ellen Brostrom is my pick!

On a side note, my daughter just turned 18 about a week ago and I'm really excited that she's excited to vote today for the first time!

By the way, election day is April 7th, but you can vote early at your local municipality, so make sure you get out today, tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday and cast that ballot!

Mixed Messages: Can some GOP blogger explain this to me?

2009-03-30T21:41:00.001-05:00

I'm completely confused by listening to Charlie Sykes this morning. He
had several distinctly different positions that are in complete
conflict with each other philosophically in any rational thought
pattern. I couldn't even begin to follow his logic.

First he was upset by the entire idea of bailing out any corporations.
A total waste of our hard earned tax dollars to give our money to
these failing companies. (Nevermind that it was Bush's financial
disasterous ideas in the first place that first got us here, then did
a crappy job of bailing them out in the first round as if he was
leaving office in a few months and couldn't be bothered to do it
right...)

Then he was upset that Obama is even attempting to finish doling out
the money Bush got but gave to him to dole out.

Then he was upset that after Wall Street totally ticked off the
American public by continuing to misappropriate the money, Obama
wanted to add at least the minimum amount of strings to them getting
our money.

Finally he was totally upset that Obama had the nerve to tell the auto
industry to clean up its act before he'd give them OUR money. This is
the strangest argument the GOP has ever made...

I know it all makes so little sense I'm hoping I'm misunderstanding him...

These are TAX PAYER Dollars!!!

If the big corporations don't like being pushed around by the Federal
government when they are looking for a handout, they have two other
choices. Fix the problem themselves or file for bankruptcy.

When I was a teenager and went to my dad for $20, I learned really
quickly that dad wanted to know what I was going to use his hard
earned money for... If I didn't want to have to answer that question
and bring back the receipts or justify the really cool off the
shoulder 80's sweater I HAD to have there was another way to get it.
Get myself a job and earn my OWN money. Which is exactly what I did!
Dad was quick to give me bus fare to get to my job. ;)

These whiny CEO's need to learn that if they need daddy's money, he
wants to know how they're going to spend it.

If they don't want to be accountable to daddy, then they need to NOT
RUN THEIR COMPANIES into the ground!

These spoiled children have never had a daddy who taught them the core
American values of work hard, save money, reinvest to make more money
(including making sure your employees can buy your cars), and only
take a salary from the PROFIT that is left over after all the bills
are paid.

Obama is teaching them that hard work pays, gambling and partying
costs, and daddy is only going to pay the bus fare to get them back to
work. Sounds like conservative values to me...

The GOP is scarily grasping for straws for any reason, no matter how
inane, to have a reason to exist after their grand plan has failed so
astronomically.

Help me out here. What am I missing?

Satellite Crepes! How Cool are my Sister and Bro In Law?

2009-03-29T16:41:00.003-05:00

Look for Satellite Crepes all summer long around Milwaukee! Go to http://www.satellitecrepes.com/ for more information and to see the schedule as soon as the snow stops that is... :)

By the way, they are totally delicious, all natural, made to order and they have been known to make them veggie, vegan, low carb, diabetic friendly... You name it, they've got something you can eat!

WI DP Registry Artfully Explained

2009-03-27T00:34:00.004-05:00

My friend and fellow Center Advocates board member Leonel Marchand wrote a timely and lovely piece on the domestic partnership registry last week and it's worth a read.

Denying the basic human protections of a society to a group of people just because you have made some personal judgement on the morality of their love (as if somehow, you have a right to define love for another human being) based on your own misunderstanding or bigotry is just wrong.

It's time Wisconsin's legislators and Governor Doyle put in place the very basic protections called for in Leonel's piece. Honestly, it's embarrassing that simply because I love someone of an opposite sex, I have some sort of right to protect our love and yet, look into the faces of hundreds of friends and know that their lives are less secure simply because we live in a society that feels it has some right to be all in their business like that...

Any two people should be able to go to a court house and get a legal document providing these protections call it what you like, dp registry, civil unions, marriage, the language is all tied up in knots. The point is, it's a legal document, it's illegal to discriminate on who can get it.

A Rare Day: Angry with a Dem and Praising a Conservative...

2009-03-26T22:49:00.014-05:00

What is this world coming to?

In a 10 minute span of time, I am both bashing

the bejeezus out of a Democratic Senator from WI and compelled to praise Congressman F. Jim Sensenbrenner, my own GOP Congressman!

From his website:

Washington, Mar 25 -
Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Constitution Subcommittee Ranking Member F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), and former Rep. Steve Chabot filed a bipartisan
friend of the court brief in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder urging the Court to defer to Congress’s judgment and uphold the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Section 5 is a key provision that prevents discriminatory voting changes.

and Sensy continues...

“The most fundamental right is the right to vote – and that can be seen on the faces of the individuals who are participating in the democratic process,” Sensenbrenner said. “We built an impressive record during the 2006 reauthorization, and the evidence presented to Congress was overwhelming. While progress has been made, much still needs to be done, and the Voting Rights Act remains as necessary as ever in maintaining that progress.”

It's words like these that nearly bring tears of joy to my eyes.

Sensenbrenner has LONG been one of the greatest champions of the Voting Rights Act. He led the expansion in the 1970's, the reauthorization in the 1980's and again he took the lead a valiantly fought off the southern Congressmen attempting to water it down as it was reauthorized in 2006. So this is no surprise to me.

I call it like I see it no matter what letter is after your name and with Sensenbrenner, I have a love/hate relationship as a search of my blog makes quite clear. Scroll through the posts and you will see my attempts to run candidates against him, to criticize his inane support of the PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act, to fight to get to see him when I'm in DC, tease him when he votes to kill wild mustangs, and you will also see towards the bottom a ton of posts in wonder of him as the process of watching him champion the VRA unfolded.

Praise is given where praise is due.

In fact, I had a civil and interesting conversation with him at the Inauguration just two months ago on the VRA and it's implications on the issue of felon disfranchisement. Here is my awesome hubby snapping away to make sure the moment was captured for posterity. ;)

For all his faults, F. Jim has one redeeming quality that I am fascinated by and thankful for...

I think he really DOES put the right to vote above politics.

Now if I can just convince him of the disparate impact of felony disfranchisement laws, maybe he'll go down as the greatest defender of the right to vote in modern American history... ;-)

Kohl is a ConservaDem?

2009-03-26T21:53:00.002-05:00

After my Facebook Flip Out last night, a local blogger picked up my words off the post and shared them beyond my small private group of 921 friends... It's all good though, I was pretty ticked off at the time and I still don't care who knows it...

Friend me! You get all the midnight rants that way ;-)

So the still ticked off, but more rational community organizer me has a few more thoughts on the Kohl betrayal. Having visited Kohl's website today, I see no retraction of his being named as one of Evan Bayh's "ConservaDems" as Rachel Maddow has coined them.

With no quick retraction and no public comments on his being named as one of the 16, I can only assume he has indeed allied himself with this group of DINOS who have made it a priority to represent big business over the demands of the American public who elected them. If for some reason he's "slow on the draw" and decides to deny his being named as joining this group, I will apologize for spreading the rumor. That said, he has not and so the rest of this is under the presumption that he is.

This seems to be a group of Dems who have decided that wealthy and powerful business interests trump the will of the American people to reform our healthcare system and who knows what other mischief they are planning to sabotage the Obama Administration's major agenda items about 2 months into his first term.

Of course my first thought is follow the money. Who made the calls to these 16? Was it the insurance industry? Big pharma? Why did they feel the need to immediately attempt to block healthcare? Of all things? Before it's even introduced! The one thing that could really boost the economy. Give small business a chance to recover. The one thing that could put a significant dent in the pocketbooks of millions of American's who have to choose between healthcare and mortgage payments, food and utilities. Universal healthcare is the answer to so many of American's woes.

It's time, we DEMAND it and no small group of 16 nimwits is going to stop us! We WILL get on the phones and flood their offices. We WILL put down their servers with emails. We WILL stand out side their offices and protest en masse. We WILL vote them out of office and start over again... We will EVEN consider recall elections.

Its no longer business as usual in Washington. These Senators have significantly under estimated our resolve in these matters.

The people have found our voices and we have spoken, LOUDLY, and our representatives will listen and represent OUR interests.

Russ Feingold has continuously and steadfastly stood with the people and his low dollar, no special interest fundraising has been rewarded at the ballot box. The people know and remember who stands with them when it really counts...

Kohl made a major miscalculation that will be remembered... I wouldn't be surprised with a primary challenger, a recall petition campaign or a whole lot of busy Kohl staffers fielding calls from angry constituents.

Not only will the watch begin on how he responds to this crisis in the immediate future. Kohl has raised the red flag high above his head and the scrutiny of his work begins today.