The Morning Paws

Just because:

Would The Real Scott Walker Please Stand Up?

Today, on Twitter, Scott Walker and his echo chamber were making a big deal about a CNN clip of Newt Gingrich stating that he thought Walker would win Wisconsin.

Big deal.

First of all, the clip is from four months ago. Secondly, Gingrich has said a lot of things in his time, including marital betrothals of fidelity and undying love to three separate women. We all know how much he meant those.

But Walker raising the Gingrich clip now does set up an interesting question about Walker: Who is the real Scott Walker?

Walker's propensity for flip flopping on any given subject, such as the federal stimulus funding, is legendary. But now Walker is flip flopping on who he even is.

Last June, Walker was proudly announcing that he was going to be on stage with Gingrich as part of Walker's perpetual campaign for governor. That was a mixed blessing for Walker. First, Gingrich did not even endorse Walker at the time. Secondly, Gingrich soon became reviled among the neoconservatives as being "King of the RINOs." Gingrich's sin was calling for moderation and temperance among conservatives in order to keep the Republican Party intact.

A few months after Gingrich's appearance, Walker appeared to be completely shifting gears and was going for the extremist vote instead of the normal Republican one when he appeared at a TEA Party at the lakefront in September. To be fair, there was a sizable crowd at said TEA Party, but they did not come to see Walker. There was something better that drew them in.

Walker's attempts to appeal to the extremist fringe continued when he tries to schmooze Sarah Palin into endorsing him in his perpetual run. But as with Gingrich, Palin also declined his request and just used him for a practice run for her upcoming book tour.

Now we see Walker going back to the Gingrich video (which was actually recorded between his TEA Party and his failed attempt to woo Palin).

Between Gingrich and Palin, Walker is really starting to look pitifully insecure as he bounces from one side to the other, only to be used and then dumped by the side of the road.

But all of this should make any cognitive right winger kind of nervous. How could they possibly endorse Walker when they have no way of knowing if they were going to get extremist TEA Party Scott or Walker the RINO?

Unfortunately for them, Walker probably doesn't know who he wants to be either.

Guns Keeping Us Safe

In Delaware, you never know when those snow shovelers will attack:

New Castle County Police said a man pointed a gun at a neighbor who was shoveling snow on Saturday at the Hampton Walk Apartments. A man told police a neighbor came outside while he was shoveling, pointed a gun and threatened to shoot him if he didn't stop shoveling snow onto his car.

A man, 43, was arrested and charged with aggravated menacing.

And here in Tosa, Michael Mathias has more about those menacing boyfriends.

A Perfect Fit

Last fall, I mocked Team Walker when it was learned that he was hiring a non-Wisconsinite to be the communications director for his campaign. Little did I know that it was a perfect fit.

I recognized my error today, when I saw that this morning she tweeted that the city streets were in terrible shape and tried to pin the blame on Mayor Tom Barrett.

It was only later in the day that she admitted that, like most Southerners, she just doesn't know how to drive in the snow.

I can see now that Jill Bader is a perfect fit for Team Walker. She's got the hypocrisy down pat.

Walker's Grandstanding Causes Pandemonium

But then again, that's not really new is it?


See MCF for the details.

What's The Hubbub, Bub?

Marlin Schneider, Democratic State Representative from Wisconsin Rapids, wants to keep people from having easy access to CCAP, but for what?

Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, wants to restrict the popular service, known as CCAP, to only records of people who have been convicted of crimes, not those that are only pending or have been dismissed or ended in acquittals.. He said he sought the changes because hundreds of people had told him tales of how information from CCAP prevented them from renting homes or getting jobs.

But Schneider fessed up after the Associated Press requested copies of all complaints he had received about CCAP. The total, over four years, was 59 -- and only 22 were from people who had had criminal charges dismissed.

This is a valuable tool for many people. Perhaps instead of making it even harder for people to use, they could clean up the system to make sure it is easier for people to correctly read it in the first place. It would resolve the complainants grievances while maintaining the good that comes from this program.

Why Won't Republicans Help Fix The Problem?

The Republicans and the teabaggers have done everything in their power to fight any sort of meaningful health care reform. They claim that it will raise taxes too high. But would any reform raise taxes this much?

California's largest for-profit health insurer is moving to dramatically raise rates for customers with individual policies, setting off a furor among policyholders and prompting state insurance regulators to investigate.

Anthem Blue Cross is telling many of its approximately 800,000 customers who buy individual coverage -- people not covered by group rates -- that its prices will go up March 1 and may be adjusted "more frequently" than its typical yearly increases.

The insurer declined to say how high it is increasing rates. But brokers who sell these policies say they are fielding numerous calls from customers incensed over premium increases of 30% to 39%, saying they come on the heels of similar jumps last year.

Many policyholders say the rate hikes are the largest they can remember, and they fear that subsequent premium growth will narrow their options -- leaving them to buy policies with higher deductibles and less coverage or putting health insurance out of reach altogether.

Imagine how much better shape the economy would be in if we could fix the health care problem before the health care bubble bursts?

Bad Parent Of The Year

It should be an automatic win for anyone who would waterboard their four year old daughter:

A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.

Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.

As his daughter 'squirmed' to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.

Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.

How the hell did this guy get custody?

Reince Priebus' John McCain Moment

Priebus' spin of things in Milwaukee:

Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Reince Priebus says while it is positive Barrett is noticing his property tax hikes have consequences, Wisconsin residents don’t want to gamble as to whether or not Barrett’s new rhetoric will match reality if elected governor. “Barrett has a record of hiking property taxes as a mayor, so it’s hard to believe he’d have a sudden about-face as governor,” Priebus said. “It sounds like the same shallow rhetoric on taxes we heard from Jim Doyle before he was elected.”

The reality:

Seven of 20 indicators of business activity in the Milwaukee area registered improvement in December, according to a monthly report by the Metropolitan
Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC).

This marks the highest number of improvements posted since August 2008 and an upturn from the five improvements posted in November.

“In recent months the aggregate picture of local economic indicators suggests that Milwaukee’s economy has turned the corner and is on the mend,” said Bret Mayborne, economic research director for the MMAC. “While Milwaukee’s economy is likely to continue to improve throughout 2010, it will take the better part of this year, perhaps all of this year, before the local economy posts real year-over-year employment growth.”

Seems to me a lot like when John McCain called the economy sound just as the collapse was happening.

With Priebus at the wheel, is it any wonder why Michael Steele still can't wrest control of the GOP from Rush Limbaugh?

Views From Scott Walker's Handbasket

Over the past eight years, we have seen Scott Walker attempt to system-atically destroy Milwaukee County.

He has continuously denied his responsibility towards the parks, cutting funding every year, until we have over $200 million in deferred maintenance and repairs.

Likewise, he has continuously cut routes and raised fares for the transit system, to the point that it is now 80% of what it was when he took over and on the verge of collapse.

He has kept cutting mental health services to the point where there is insufficient beds at the mental health complex and people in the community who have mental health concerns are literally being put in harm's way. He only started to change this patter after a series of condemning articles ran in the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal.

He ran the House of Corrections into the ground to such a point that it received poor grades in a federal report. Instead of fixing the problems, Walker abdicated his responsibilities and dumped the whole thing off on the Sheriff's Office.

Walker's pattern of failure has been repeated year after year and in department after department.

This pattern of failure only worsens in the years that he is running for re-election or when he is trying another one of his attempts to be governor.

This year is already shaping up to be Walker's worst year ever, and it is something that he has been setting himself, and the citizens of Milwaukee, up for for over a year and a half.

The contracts for most, if not all, of the unions expired December 31, 2008. In the fall of 2008, the unions came to the negotiating table, as was agreed upon and a long standing practice. However, the County was not ready to contend with them. Having dealt with similar behaviors from Walker and his staff in 2006, when Walker had his first failed attempt to be governor, the unions were prepared for this and started looking at going to arbitration right away.

After a lot of false starts and obstructive behaviors by Walker and his administration, the unions and the County Board's Personnel Committee were finally able to come to terms and forged a proposal both sides could live with. The proposal called for no pay raises for two years and an increase in health insurance costs to be paid by the employees. In exchange, the unions would get a no lay off clause. This proposal was very similar to the one that AFSCME had just signed with the City of Milwaukee and many other municipalities around the area.

The Tentative Agreement was ratified by the unions in rather overwhelming numbers and it easily passed through both the Personnel Committee and the Finance and Audit Committee.

Unfortunately, by the time that the Board as a whole was to vote on it, Walker had presented his proposed 2010 budget which had a $32 million deficit built into it, which is a violation of state and federal laws. Instead of doing the right thing and sending Walker's illegal budget back to him, they took it and tried to craft something out of it. They failed to completely overcome Walker's gaping deficit. The concerns of trying to overcome this illegal budget led them down the path of rejecting the Tentative Agreement and doing their own illegal budget as well as bad faith bargaining. (In last week's 4th Street Forum, Supervisor Jursik admitted that they passed a deficit budget, which is, as I already mentioned, illegal.)

If the Board had agreed to the contract, they would have had saved over $3 million in salary costs and several more millions in savings on health care costs. If they had passed this at the beginning of 2009, there would have been a surplus of several million dollars last year and no deficit in the budget this year. But that is all woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Due to all of this bungling, Milwaukee County started the year with a $20 million deficit and no way to plug the hole except to hope that the unions forget all of the bad faith bargaining and everything they stand for and agree to massive concessions in pay and higher costs and to lay offs.

I doubt very much this will happen for a number of reasons. The first one is that it would be very difficult for the unions to get its membership to agree to all of these concessions and get nothing in return.

Secondly, Walker is already grandstanding, trying to obfuscate the reality that his budget is illegal and irreparable. (The problem Walker has with trying to blame AFSCME for his budget problems falls flat when one realizes that AFSCME isn't asking for anything more than he already agreed to give to other unions.)

Thirdly, even if the unions would agree to all of the demanded concessions at this very moment in time, about 350 workers would still have to be laid off. By the time that any such vote could be coordinated, voted on, ratified, and approved by the County Board and then Walker, the number will probably over 400 workers gone.

And if the unions take it to arbitration and wins (which everyone from Supervisors to the negotiator believe would happen), that only means more workers will be laid off.

And therein lies the problem.

He cannot cut that many workers without seriously affecting services and without exasperating the budget problem.

If he cuts out all the parks workers, he still wouldn't save enough money. And he would lose out on all of the expected income from the parks including golf fees, rental fees, etc.

If he cuts into transit, that will implode the economy and greatly increase the number of people applying for income maintenance aid.

Some insiders have told me that Walker might be targeting social services. But to reach that number of workers, he would have to lay off all of the target case management workers, all of the community support workers and all of Disability Services. And this would still not get him nearly the numbers he would need. It would also greatly affect the income the County receives for providing these services and would effectively destroy Family Care, something which he has been touting for years.

Even if Walker would try to do across the board cuts, programs are going to be put in serious binds and money will be lost.

And people, not just the workers, but the entire community will be greatly and negatively impacted by the cuts Walker has to now make. And even then, there is no guarantee that it will be enough to balance his budget and to fill the hole he created.

The cuts will have to be so severe that upstate news media will notice. And even if they didn't, you know that Mark Neumann and Tom Barrett will be sure to bring it to everyone's attention.

The only thing that surprises me is that Walker never thought far enough ahead to realize that as he was taking Milwaukee County to Hell in a handbasket, he was going along with the rest of us.

MJS Must Really Be Hurting

Gretchen Schuldt may be very well correct when she points out that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is going down the toilet.

Last year, I had a difficult time justifying renewing my subscription to the paper. Even though the paper was already a diminishing product, there was a lot of debate in the Cheddarsphere about supporting the media. Despite its lowered quality and its high level of right wing bias, I decided that there was sufficient cause, like the reports on child welfare by Crocker Stephenson, to renew it for another year.

As the year progressed, the quality of the paper dropped even more. They laid off some good quality people like Tim Cuprisin and Sonya Jongsma Knauss. Inexplicably, they laid off these good people but kept the inept Steven Schultze and the disingenuous Patrick McIlheran.

They started crunching sections together several days of the week. On Mondays, for example, they crunch the local and national news into one section, lowering the coverage of each. They also dropped their own editorial page and the syndicated columns on Mondays, only running a handful of Letters to the Editor.

They also started to mess around with things like the TV Cue section, one of the few useful sections of the paper. First scaling it back, then dropping it unless you called and ordered it special. Now they want to charge people to have it included in the paper.

Now, I am a creature of habit, and admit that I enjoyed having the paper sprawled out in front of me as I ate my breakfast and had my morning cup of coffee. The crossword and other word puzzles were my way of getting ready for the day, getting my sleepy brain up and running.

So it was sad when I realized that I was going to have to let my subscription lapse. With my wife underemployed and me facing a very real of layoff in a month or two, there was no way I could justify the expense this time. I set up things as much as I could so that I didn't miss much (I hoped).

My decision was only strengthened when MJS finally got around to sending me my renewal notice. They jacked the rate up another 10% and wanted my money four days later. I felt that was being very disingenuous to give such short notice. Then I noticed on the back that I had to call and cancel the subscription or they would automatically renew it.

So early last week, I called them up to cancel. The customer service representative was very polite and professional when I told her that I wanted to cancel. She asked why I wanted to cancel, and I told her simply that I could not afford it, and to be frankly honest, it wasn't worth the money that they wanted for it.

To my surprise, the representative said that MJS didn't want to lose a long-time subscriber such as myself (I've been getting the paper for ten years). She immediately offered me their promotional rate of $150 for the full year, Monday through Friday, including the TV Cue.

That was a full 36% cut from what they wanted. I succumbed to the urge of keeping my habit going at least one more year, and agreed to the renewal.

My father had a similar experience. He signed up for the Sunday only delivery at a promotional rate of 99 cents per week. When they wanted him to renew, the jacked it up to $86, a 60% increase. He called to cancel and they immediately offered him the promotional rate again.

My dad, who used to work for MJS a long, long time ago, said that they are really hurting, since their circulation is less than half of what it was when he worked there all those years ago, and it is the circulation numbers that drives what they can charge for advertisements. For them to be so quick to offer such cuts in their costs would indicate that their numbers aren't as good as they keep touting every other Sunday.

I felt a little better about the deal when I learned a friend was paying $125 for six months of the paper. For $25 more, I got twice as much paper as my friend.

Although I still can't help but wonder if I am still getting ripped off.

Team Walker: No Dissidence Allowed

I guess they're afraid of a little reality:

Oh, Crap!

Lots of white crap, that is:

But at least it won't leave us crippled like the East Coast or down south.

Time for me to have another round of PTSD: Post Traumatic Snow Disorder.

Call To Action - Make The Call Today!!

Fellow Supporters of Milwaukee County-

Things are really starting to move in regarding the much needed dedicated funding for our transit system and our parks system.

The state legislature is poised to consider two very important bills.

One is SB-511, which is the bill that would allow Milwaukee County to pass the half-cent sales tax for the transit system as the prelude to the RTA.

On January 19, Governor Doyle was joined by many of the area’s business leaders, each of whom pointed out that a sustainable, and even extended transit system would be good for not only their businesses, but for the entire regional economy. Without a doubt, the fact that our transit system, which has been cut by some 20% over the last few years, has contributed to the fact that the Milwaukee area lost nearly 50,000 jobs in the last year, as well as why we are lagging in our economic recovery.

No less important, even though it is receiving less attention, is AB-504, which would provide the vehicle for getting dedicated funding for our parks system. And as has been proven in New York City, parks are also vital for a thriving economy:

Such cuts could turn out to actually cost the city money. Fine parks contribute to the economy by increasing property values and, as a result, real estate tax receipts. A 2008 analysis found that the completion of the Greenwich Village section of the Hudson River Park raised real estate prices in the adjacent two blocks by 20 percent.

[...]

Parks also attract tourists and residents who come to events and activities or who just want to enjoy the surroundings, generating economic activity inside and near the park. Central Park attracts more than 25 million visitors a year, about one fifth of whom come from outside the city, according to “The Central Park Effect,” which was prepared by the economic analysis firm Appleseed for the Central Park Conservancy. The study determined that in 2007, spending by visitors and enterprises in the city’s most famous park directly and indirectly accounted for $395 million in economic activity. This activity, as well as increases in property values near the park, generated $656 million in revenues for the city in 2007.

“Measuring the Economic Value of a City Park System,” released in April by the Center for City Park Excellence at The Trust for Public Land, analyzed seven ways that city parks provide economic benefits: property values, tourism, direct use, health, community cohesion, clean water and clean air. Starting with conservative assumptions of park use and other variables, researchers calculated dollar values for each of these benefits in a different city.

Even though supporters of Milwaukee County like yourself, as well as the other like minded groups, such as the Park People and the Coalition for the Advancement of Transit, have made many calls and sent many emails in support of these two bills, I have learned that there are some legislators that state they have hardly heard a peep in support of these two vital bills. This is especially true for the leggies that represent the suburban areas.

Please take a few minutes now to call and/or email your state representative and state senator and call on them to support this bill. Everyone needs to do this, but especially those that live in the suburbs.

If you don’t know who your representative or senator is, you can find out by clicking on this link.

We thank you in advance for supporting our community by making these important calls.

Cross posted at Milwaukee County First and other places.

Worse Than I Thought

The Google never lies:

(click on image to embiggen)

I thought that there might be something from Scott Walker the musician or Scott Walker the hockey player. Heck, I even thought that our own Scott Walker the hypocrite would have had at least one, until I remembered that he hasn't completely destroyed Milwaukee County...yet. Although he is getting close, if you read the bottom one involving "indecent sacrifice."

And don't get mad at me. It's all the rage.

As The County Begins To Crumble

At Milwaukee County First, we discuss what could be the beginning of the end.

Walker has done a good job of driving Milwaukee County into the ground, and I'm afraid that it may be only a matter of time before we end up looking like Colorado Springs.

I cannot imagine how in the world Scott Walker thinks that this continuous cycle of failure on his part is going to help his campaign one iota. But then again, if, or should I say when, his campaign falters due to his bunglings, that will only be good news for the state at least.

It's The Nature Of The Beast

Scott Walker, perpetual gubernatorial candidate, like a good candidate, filed his campaign finance report this weekend. Walker says that he did so well, that his report crashed the Government Accountability Board's system:

There were so many donations flowing Walker’s campaign for governor, that Government Accountability Boards’ (GAB) online system could not process them, Walker campaign staff said today.

“We ended up having to ‘unload’ our report because we brought the system to a grinding halt with the sheer volume of our donations, and other people had trouble filing their reports. The system just couldn’t process how large our donor listing was,” said Walker campaign manager Keith Gilkes.

The GAB, however, said that Team Walker is full of it:

“The Campaign Finance Information System did not crash. It was up and running throughout the weekend. No filers were prevented from downloading information, and the system has remained available throughout the filing period.”

“There was a small issue with the system generating the Walker campaign’s report in PDF format. That issue has been resolved, and the PDF has been posted to the web site. Users interested in viewing Walker’s reports are urged to do so using the system’s ‘View Receipts’ and ‘View Expenses’ functions, which allow the data to be downloaded in Microsoft Word or Excel formats.”

On the right side of the Cheddarsphere, Kevin Binversie thinks that there was probably a problem, but that Team Walker is merely embellishing the situation, afterall, it's just politics.

On the left side, Cory Liebmann thinks that this is just another reality check for Walker.

I think it is just part of an ongoing pattern for Walker. He likes to take credit for things that he really can't or shouldn't, and he likes to do it in the most grandstanding fashion he can think of.

There is a long list of times when he has done this.

Walker claimed to be the one responsible for Family Care, a new way of administering services for the disabled and the elderly. In reality, Milwaukee County is converting into Family Care because it was ordered to do so by Governor Doyle, and the whole process is under the approval of the state.

Walker also tried to claim credit for a $7 million surplus from the 2007 budget. The truth is that was the year Walker had a showboating event at the businesses of one of his campaign contributors, in which he vetoed the entire budget for that year (another election year, by the way). He vetoed it because he thought it was hopeless and he wanted to distance himself from it after the Board overrode his veto:

But Walker has spent the past week trying to distance himself from various board budget actions, and he continued that tack after the vote.

"It's their budget now," he said in a statement issued by his office. He added: "Despite my disagreement with the board, the professionals in my administration will work to implement the County Board budget for 2007."

This list of examples of Walker doing things like this is almost endless. I don't know if this is merely a character flaw for Walker or some kind of, narcissistic personality disorder or if he is overcompensating for a deep-seated insecurity issue.

But whatever the cause, this is just the nature of the beast. And in this case, the beast happens to be a weasel.

Someone Pass The Popcorn!

This should be really entertaining:

For years, Wauwatosa gadfly Bob Dohnal teamed up with politico J.J. Blonien to try to push Republicans to the right and conservative candidates into elective office.

Most notably, Dohnal was the publisher and Blonien the editor of the Wisconsin Conservative Digest, and the pair helped promote Tom Reynolds, a kooky, one-term senator from West Allis.

But it now appears that the conservative union is irrevocably broken.

Dohnal is suing Blonien in Milwaukee County Court, accusing his former comrade of failing to come up with his half of the cash needed to launch a jointly run political newletter called The Sportman's Digest. Dohnal says he is owned nearly $21,000, plus interest.

Good to see that Dohnal still hasn't gotten even a tenuous grasp on reality yet.

This does add another dimension to the phrase "No honor among thieves."

Those Poor, Poor Oil Companies

I've seen on Twitter and in the blogs that conservatives are complaining that Exxon Mobil had to pay some taxes this last quarter and that their profits are down.

Well, their profits are down:

In the fourth quarter, Exxon Mobil’s profit dropped 23 percent, to $6.05 billion, or $1.27 a share, compared with $7.82 billion, or $1.54 a share, in the period a year ago.

The earnings, however, beat analysts’ expectations, helping drive up shares, which rose 2.72 percent on Monday, to $66.18.

Revenue was up 6 percent, to $89.84 billion in the quarter.

The poor darlings only netted $6 billion (yes, that's billion with a capital B) in those three months. I should have it so rough.

The SuperBowl: The Devil's Playground

From WAOW-TV9:

A national conservative political activist group is urging people not to watch the Super Bowl this year, and instead read a book about politics or history. Mark Dice, spokesman for The Resistance, calls football the "opiate of the masses" and says Americans' obsession with sports is partially to blame for the decline of country.

"Most Americans know more about football than they do about the Constitution or their political leaders," says Mark Dice, who last week posted a video on YouTube showing him gathering signatures on a petition to repeal the First Amendment to prove his point. "People yell and scream at the TV when their team messes up, but they aren't even aware when politicians pass legislation that will cause higher taxes, deeper government dept[sic], or violate the Constitution."

"This Super Bowl Sunday we are urging people to leave their televisions turned off and do something productive like reading a book," he says. Dice suggests that parents ask their children for their civics book or any text book about American history and begin reading it.

"Imagine how fast we could stop the corruption in Washington DC if every weekend, instead of 60,000 people traveling to a stadium to watch a football game, that many people would march outside the capitol," explains Dice. "Unfortunately, professional sports are the opiate of the masses and keep people distracted from what's actually important."

I blame Ted Thompson for creating the whole Favre melodrama, distracting Wisconsin from the good path. Ted Thompson works for Satan!

Another Responsible, Law-Abiding Citizen

We already met one responsible, law-abiding citizen who used his concealed carry gun to commit murder.

Thanks to Las Vegas Dan, we learn of another one (emphasis mine):

An assistant preschool teacher was shot and killed Friday as she was leaving the school to go home.

Tetyana Nikitina, 34, died when Mary Nance Hanson, 70, fired several shots at her as Nikitina drove away, said Unified Police Lt. Don Hutson. Hanson then reloaded and allegedly fired several more rounds.

[...]

Nikitina had just left the school for the day and got into her car when Hanson approached her and opened fire, Hutson said.

Hanson, armed with a .38-caliber revolver, unloaded her gun into the car as Nikitina sat in the driver's seat and began to pull away. Hanson then reloaded and continued firing through the car at close range, he said.

The revolver typically holds five rounds. Police would not say how many shots they believe were fired.

[...]

When asked if the alleged shooter had any signs of impairment or illness, Hutson said, "She looked coherent. She made appropriate (answers) when we asked her questions."

Hanson was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Friday for investigation of murder. She is a concealed weapons permit holder, and her most recent address is in Taylorsville. Investigators found her car parked about a mile away from the crime scene, Hutson said.

These stories keep popping up everywhere. Which made it initially kind of difficult to understand why the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Editorial Board would say that they are now suddenly in favor of CCW, which they've been against for years. And then it dawned on me, their pet candidate Scott Walker claims to be pro-gun. It kind of shows where their priorities are.

The Power of Unions

There are many people out there in the right wing of the world that have been hammering at the meme that unions aren't needed anymore and that they are obsolete. They claim that so many people are making good money without belonging to a union. They also argue that OSHA ensures job safety, etc. etc. etc. However, we keep seeing stories where they are continuously proven wrong.

Retired Delphi management personnel are finding out the hard way the importance of unions:

But his career was cut short after GM spun off parts-maker Delphi Corp., which closed the plant in November 2008. Now, Richards and thousands of other Delphi salaried retirees could see their monthly pension checks cut between 30% and 70% as the government-run Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. has taken over the company's retirement fund.

As a result, the average Delphi salaried retiree - many of whom were forced into early retirement by Delphi's bankruptcy - stands to lose $300,000 in pension payments over his or her lifetime.

"I am not sure how I am going to survive, going forward, because of this," said Richards, who as mayor was known for being a fiscal conservative.

It's especially upsetting given that the pensions of Delphi's hourly wage retirees, represented by the United Auto Workers, will not be reduced.

That's because when General Motors spun off Delphi in 1999, it agreed to "top up" the hourly employees' pensions if their plan ever fell short of what the employees would have earned had they remained at GM.

It's crappy that these people that worked most of their adult lives for one company doesn't get that loyalty returned to them. Unfortunately, they gave up the benefits of being a union member when they chose to take the promotion. At the time, it probably made a world of sense, and I don't blame them for making that choice. It is just too bad that they are paying for it now when they should be able to enjoy life a little more.

The people in Oklahoma also learned the hard lesson when the unions were able to swing a last minute deal, albeit a very crappy one, with Mercenary Marine last year. That deal kept the plant from moving to Oklahoma.

Even the conservatives who like to bash unions at every chance actually unionize themselves, even though they would never admit it. But if you stop and think about it, are these TEA Party events really any different than a union? Or groups like WMC? They are a group of people or groups of people forming a larger group for a common cause, just like workers form a union to fight for their rights.

In these bad economic times, and with so many politicians and businesses playing "Gimme" with our livelihoods, it makes perfectly good sense to still have unions and to strengthen them before we all become victims of the money-grubbers.

A Serious Question For Scott Walker Supporters

Whenever the Milwaukee County budget has imploded (which it has done every single year), Scott Walker puts a lot of the blame on the fact that the state is imposing unfunded and/or underfunded mandates on Milwaukee County.

I actually agree with him that this is a major problem, not for just Milwaukee County, but every county in the state.

Putting aside that he voted many times to do the same thing (shorting the counties) when he was in the state legislature, what do you think he will do if he were to be elected governor? Do you think he would restore full funding for these mandates? Or do you think he would stick to his "tax freeze" or "tax cut" pledges, and create an even larger deficit for the counties having to perform these mandated services, thereby either forcing dangerous cuts to these services and/or forcing local governments to drastically raise taxes to pay for them?

Walker's Motto

Scott Walker has a motto for his life and his management style: Do unto others, but don't do that unto me.

This motto has been exemplified time after time in his eight years as Milwaukee County Executive.

For example, Walker has continuously cut deep into park funding, to the point that Milwaukee County is now sitting on over $200 million in deferred maintenance and repairs. He claims that this is to save tax payers some money. But all it is really doing is kicking the can down the road.

But when the State allowed the zoo interchange to deteriorate that it now requires emergency temporary fixes, Walker and his crew were the first ones to point fingers at Governor Doyle, blaming him for not meeting the public's needs.

Another example would be when he kept cutting corners at the House of Corrections and the Community Correctional Facility. Things got so bad that inmates were escaping and the whole corrections system was lambasted in a federal report.

Despite this track record, Walker chose to tear into Doyle for releasing inmates early and into Barrett for giving MPD two days of furlough. Just days after he tears into Barrett, the news breaks that Walker is four times as bad. On top of furlough deputies for eight days, it was recently found that Sheriff Clarke was considering releasing 120 inmates early and cutting highway patrols because of a $5 million hole in what Walker budgeted for the Sheriff's Office.

Yesterday, Walker joined with County Board Chairman Lee Holloway in condemning a proposed bill that would put 17 year old offenders back in the jurisdiction of the juvenile court system. Walker's big beef was that it would add another $24 million expenditure to a budget that he has set up to fail. But I can't help but remember how he cut back on expenses like first time offender programs and the sports complex in Franklin, which would have helped give the County alternatives to having our youth going to corrections. And those alternatives would have been much, much cheaper.

Walker also has continuously cut back on spending for mental health services. This only means that tax payers are paying more, either through being directly harmed by an untreated mentally ill person or by having to pay their municipal police tons of overtime while they sit with detainees waiting for a bed to open up at the mental health clinic.

As anyone can see, Walker is constantly haranguing and attacking others for the same things he is doing. Maybe Walker should tweak his motto so it is a little more accurate:

Hypocrisy: It's not a choice, it's a lifestyle.

Gretchen Schuldt has more on the bill regarding juvenile defenders at Milwaukee Rising.

Culpeper County, VA meet West Bend, WI

There is at least one loon and one incompetent school administrator in Culpeper County, Virginia.

That is the only way to look at it when they ban Anne Frank's diary:

Culpeper County public school officials have decided to stop assigning a version of Anne Frank's diary, one of the most enduring symbols of the atrocities of the Nazi regime, after a parent complained that the book includes sexually explicit material and homosexual themes.

"The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition," which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank's death in a concentration camp, will not be used in the future, said James Allen, director of instruction for the 7,600-student system. The school system did not follow its own policy for handling complaints about instructional materials, Allen said.

The diary documents the daily life of a Jewish girl in Amsterdam during World War II. Frank started writing on her 13th birthday, shortly before her family went into hiding in an annex of an office building. The version of the diary in question includes passages previously excluded from the widely read original edition, first published in Dutch in 1947. That book was arranged by her father, the only survivor in her immediate family. Some of the extra passages detail her emerging sexual desires; others include unflattering descriptions of her mother and other people living together.

I bet that some folks are already standing outside the West Bend library again with torches in hand.

Don't Mess With Favre Fans

Or you might get a butt-whuppin':

Police received a 911 call from the 20-year-old son of the Maple Street resident. The son said his father, 49, had been at the residence of his 52-year-old friend watching the game earlier in the evening. After he arrived home, he argued with the friend on the phone. Later, the friend walked in the house, yelled "Vikings suck" and began beating the older man.

The friend had left by the time police arrived. They went to the friend's house and found that he had significant injuries including cuts, swollen eyes and lip. He told a different story. The friend said he went to the Maple Street house and was punched and kicked by the father and son without provocation.

What Leadership Looks Like

From JSOnline:

The village has approved an employee contract that, for the first time, limits the amount of tax money that will be paid toward employee pensions.

The contract with public works and some clerical employees is unusual in that most municipalities in southeastern Wisconsin pay all employee pension contributions and with no limit, Village Manager Russell Van Gompel said Thursday.

The provision in the AFSCME union contract, approved this week by the Village Board, is a "foot in the door" toward controlling pension costs, Van Gompel said.

The change applies only to employees covered by the union who are hired after Jan. 1, 2010. Pension contributions vary from one year to the next, but for 2010 the village would pay 10.5% of the new employee's salary as a pension contribution and the employee would pay 0.5%.

The 10.5% contribution is the maximum the village would make.

Van Gompel said the contract also provides a retroactive pay increase of 2% for 2009 and a pay freeze for 2010. For health insurance, all employees covered by the contract will pay 10% of premium costs by the end of the contract; some now pay 7%, he said.

Folks, that's the same AFSCME that represents me and my fellow county employees.

The difference is that Brown Deer have leaders that want to look after their constituents. Scott Walker wants to only look after his campaign interests. He just plain doesn't give a damn about the tax payers.

V 2.0

Why is that Paul Ryan coming out with his Road Map 2.0 always reminds me of Domino's changing their recipe? Could it be that both of them only shows that the original sucked, and that merely changing the name doesn't mean that it will be better?

Is The TEA Turning Tepid?

It's not been a good week for the teabaggers.

First, one of their poster children, Andre Bauer, puts his foot into his tea cup, comparing poor people to stray animals, and how neither should be fed.

Then another one of their members, one that could be considered a leader since he has spoken at rallies, gets arrested for raping a seven year old girl and having an arsenal of explosives:

A former Marine with ties to Tea Parties and militias who talked openly about using his training “to become a domestic terrorist” has been charged in separate complaints with raping a child and possessing an unregistered grenade launcher. His arrest may signal that a wing of the Tea Parties is heading in a more militant direction.

Charles Allan Dyer, 29, of Marlow, Oklahoma was arrested on January 12 at his home by Stephens County Sheriff’s deputies on the rape charge. The arrest occurred after a 7-year-old girl told sexual-abuse experts about a January 2nd incident at Dyer's home.

While sheriff's deputies were at Dyer's home, they found several firearms and a Colt M-203, 40-millimeter grenade launcher, according to court documents. When they searched a national crime database, the deputies discovered that the grenade launcher was one of three stolen from a military base at Fort Irwin, California, in 2006. According to an affidavit, Dyer told law enforcement that he had received the grenade launcher "from his best friend who gave it to him while Dyer was stationed in California with the Marine Corps" (United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, Criminal Complaint, Case No. M-10-36-BA, January 14, 2010, pp. 2-3).

But now, as they are trying to rally their zombies members into a frenzy for a national Tea Party Convention, they suffer two grievous blows. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R - Tenn)decided not to go to the convention after all, afraid that their profiteering will turn out bad for her.

Even more painful is that Representative Michelle Bachmann (R - Batshitcrazyville) is also dropping out. If your having an event that is too far out there for even Bachmann to join in, you know you have serious problems.

Further showing that the tea has become watered down is the fact that the people of Oregon threw their own type of anti-TEA Party, stating that quality of life is more important than a few bucks more to the already wealthy:

Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-Salem sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services.

The tax measures passed easily, with late returns showing a 54 percent to 46 percent ratio. Measure 66 raises taxes on households with taxable income above $250,000, and Measure 67 sets higher minimum taxes on corporations and increases the tax rate on upper-level profits.

The results triggered waves of relief from educators and legislative leaders, who were facing an estimated $727 million shortfall in the current two-year budget if the measures failed.

[...]

Overall statewide turnout was expected to be around 60 percent of Oregon's 2 million voters.

Tuesday's strong support also validated a strategy by Democratic lawmakers to single out the rich and corporations for targeted tax increases.

Campaign ads by supporters highlighted banks and credit card companies and showed images of well-dressed people stepping off private jets. They also hammered on the $10 minimum tax that most corporations have paid since its inception in 1931.

Good for them! And Scott Walker, are you listening?

The PPF Report And Subsequent Fallout

The Public Policy Forum came out with their much ballyhooed report on the sustainability of Milwaukee County. They also discussed ways on how to dismantle, or at least partially dismantle, the county. They did next to nothing on how to fix the problems.

Needless to say, this has caused, and is sure to cause, much discussion. Here are some of the more pertinent links, in no particular order:

• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's coverage of it.
• Rob Henken, President of the PPF, posted his explanation of the report.
• The Business Journal's coverage of the report.
• Rob Henken's take, again, this time via WisPolitics.com.
• Greater Milwaukee Committee's press release.
• Milwaukee County First's very preliminary analysis.
• County Board Chairman Lee Holloway's press release.
• Business Journal again, this time covering Holloway's take.
• The Editorial Board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showing that they really don't know what they are talking about.
• Milwaukee County First calling out the MJS-EB and making some realistic suggestions to get the ball rolling.
  

Walker Fails In Economic Development

This morning, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Scott Walker is again failing at economic development in Milwaukee County:

Milwaukee County supervisors faulted County Executive Scott Walker on Monday, saying he hadn't developed a plan or designated staff to promote financing aid that could boost local economic development.

Two major federal lending programs could be tapped by the county to assist private developers by lowering borrowing costs, but the county has been slow to market the aid, supervisors said.

"That's the problem - we don't have the staff and we really don't have a plan," despite a push by Walker to raise the profile of county economic development efforts, Supervisor Theo Lipscomb said.

The article goes on to detail the failures and how tens of millions of dollars are at risk of being lost due to Walker's inability to lead. The article ends with one of Walker's interim department heads making excuses which the County Board was not buying:

Supervisor Lynne De Bruin said it was disconcerting that Walker had not acted more aggressively in marketing the programs. Jack Takerian, the county's interim public works director, said that task would be a priority for an as-yet unhired county economic development director. The county can't advertise the position until it's approved by the County Board, likely later this week, he said.

De Bruin said Walker should name someone to promote the financing programs on a temporary basis until the development director is hired.

Walker fired back this morning. JSOnline dutifully reported on it, but greatly cleaned it up:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker on Tuesday defended his efforts to market new federal financing programs to developers.

Walker was responding to criticism from supervisors, who faulted Walker for a sluggish effort at promoting the low-cost bonding programs -- Recovery Zone Facility Bonds and Midwestern Disaster Relief Bonds.

Walker said supervisors stripped a portion of his plan to create a separate county economic development office from the 2010 budget; noted Supervisor Toni Clark had failed to advance a proposed job description for a new economic development director; and touted his efforts to market the bonds with developers.

"Anyone who knows anything about development, however, understands how difficult it is (even with some help) to put together a new project in this economy," Walker said in a prepared statement.

There's a few things about this. One, as I noted above, JSOnline cleaned up Walker's original statements. Yes, there were two. The first one, which I received via email through the eNotification program, read:

My recommended 2010 Budget included creation of an Executive Office of Business Development to partner with existing employers and new businesses to foster economic development and job growth. In this plan, Milwaukee County Works, I specifically asked that the county board designate the entire County as a recovery development zone to seek the new low interest rate bonds. The county board summarily removed this provision from the budget, keeping only an Economic Development director position.

As required in the adopted budget, a job description for this position was given to the chair of the Economic and Community Development Committee well in advance of the committee meeting. The chair failed to bring it up so that the county could fill the position. Then they blame us. Classic.

We have been working with developers and local financial institutions to promote programs such as the Recovery Zone Facility Bonds and Midwestern Disaster Relief Bonds. Anyone who knows anything about development, however, understands how difficult it is (even with some help) to put together a new project in this economy. Regardless, we are still working hard to promote progress in our county.

If you have any ideas, please contact Tim Russell in our office at 414-278-4211.

Scott Walker
Milwaukee County Executive

Walker, or more likely one of his 20 staffers, noticed that Walker was less than accurate in this petulant tantrum, and cleaned it up, sending out a revised edition with the first paragraph corrected:

My recommended 2010 Budget included creation of an Executive Office of Business Development to partner with existing employers and new businesses to foster economic development and job growth. The county board summarily removed the provisions related to the Office of Business Development from the budget, keeping only an Economic Development director position. Prior to taking this action, the county board did pass a resolution designating the entire county as a development zone, so all areas qualify for these Recovery Zone Bonds.

As you can see, it is still as petulant and still tries to shift the blame around, but at least it's not as blatantly false.

The second problem is with his last statement, complaining that it is too hard to boost economic development in these difficult economic times. However, it doesn't seem to be nearly as difficult for the City of Milwaukee, who has had a number of recent successes, including the clean up at the Tower Automotive site and other buildings proposed to go up around the city. Heck, Walker even proposed dumping the work of getting the Park East Corridor developed on the city, since he knew he wasn't up to the challenge.

But what Walker and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel fails to tell the people is that these problems started a long time ago. Anna Landmark at One Wisconsin Now does a good job of highlighting how Walker systematically cut the economic development structure until he all but eliminated it altogether:

When Walker was elected exec he had two divisions under his supervision that managed economic development programs in the county -- the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) Economic & Community Development division (a merger of Economic Development and Housing & Community Development), and directly in the Executive Office was the Office of Community Business Development Partners (initially called Disadvantaged Business Development).

In his 2006 budget Walker moved the Office of Community Business Development Partners out of his office to the County Board after several years of reducing funding (in 2002 the program was funded at $680,454 and by 2005 Walker recommended funding of just $494,688).

After four years of recommending flat funding, Walker reduced funding for the DAS Economic & Community Dvlp department by $3 million (2007 budget), and then followed that up in his 2008 budget by stripping the program down to just real estate management and federal block grant distribution.

In his 2009 budget, introduced right in the midst of the 2008 financial collapse, the division was completely eliminated.

Walker reduced what had been $18-19 million each year in county spending on economic development (2002-2006), to just over $1 million in his proposed 2010 budget.

One thing that Ms. Landmark did not mention in her piece was the fact that when Milwaukee County did have an economic development division, Walker filled it with his campaign staffers, who proved to be far from fit for the job:

Walker’s last two choices to lead the county economic development office, Bob Dennik and Tim Russell, came from his campaign and lacked depth in the development business, Clark said. Dennik left the post this week to become an executive with a Pewaukee construction company. Russell is now Walker’s community relations director.

“Walker chooses folks who don’t have (the necessary) experience,” she said.

Dennik came under repeated fire from the board the last two years over disappointing land sales results that put the county budget in a jam. He didn’t return several phone calls seeking comment.

Only about $226,000 of the $7.2 million in budgeted land sales revenue for this year has materialized, contributing to a projected multimillion-dollar, year-end deficit. The land-sales budgets have been off $1 million or more in four of the last seven years, county figures show.

Yes, that's the same Tim Russell who Walker now wants us to call with ideas on how to do his job, since he apparently doesn't have any.

In other words, Walker was unable to be bothered to find qualified people and chose to use the program to pay back some political debts. He also demonstrated the fact that one simply cannot cut one's back to good economic health. If anything, he has single-handedly made things much worse than they need to be.

Given Walker's abject failure as a county executive, it is extremely bemusing to wonder how Walker, or anyone in their right mind, could thing he'd be anything but an absolute failure as governor.

Walker: He Said, He Said

Scott Walker tweeted this this morning:

"Stimulus failed to create jobs, economists say" Didn't we say that last year? http://ow.ly/10zoQ

Well, to be perfectly honest, he flip flops on the stimulus so much that he said that it helped and it didn't many times over. But I do recall that he touted using stimulus dollars in his so-called "Milwaukee Works" project in his 2010 Budget Address from last September:

Milwaukee County Works, in the Executive Office of Business Development, will partner with existing employers and new businesses to foster economic development and job growth.

In an effort to jumpstart our local economy, this budget accelerates the county building program by beginning $395 million for projects to be started by the end of 2010.

The plan includes $38.6 million to rebuild highways, bridges and roads; $142 million in Airport improvements; over $38 million for park improvements and over $25 million for county facility upgrades.

John Goetter, the Vice President of Graef USA, is here today. His firm did the engineering work on the David F. Schulz Aquatic Center we opened this summer.

Accelerating three years worth of construction work into the next 16 months will help folks like John put more people to work within Milwaukee County.

In fact, over 1,000 jobs will be created in order to complete the more than 100 projects funded for 2010 in the accelerated capital plan I am proposing today. In addition, we will save up to $3 million in interest expenses by utilizing the Build America bonds.

Does Walker have no sense of ethics at all? I realized that he has come so far in his career as a lifelong politician with his hypocrisy, but to be bald face lying like this. Sheesh.

Parents Dearest

But I thought this only happened in the inner city:

An Ozaukee County husband and wife were charged Monday with abusing their 12-year-old daughter by chaining her to a bed and whipping her with coat hangers, according to a criminal complaint.

The husband and wife, from Belgium, each were charged with being party to the crime of physical abuse of a child, intentionally causing bodily harm, according to the complaint filed in Ozaukee County Circuit Court.

The couple admitted to striking the girl several times with plastic coat hangers since September as punishment for stealing from stores and from them, the complaint said.

The girl told investigators that once she was struck 20 times with such a hanger and the woman said the whippings left a mark on the girl's buttocks.

The woman also told police she and her husband would chain the girl to a bed every night using a zip-tie around her wrist and pulling the zip-tie through a chain that was fastened to the bed.

The husband told police he whipped the girl with a hanger and fastened the zip-tie around her wrist so tight it would leave a mark because he was afraid of his wife.

James T. Harris and his ilk would have us believe that it is the culture that causes this kind of story. I wonder which culture they should really be looking at.

It also ticks me off to no end that they only had bail set at $500 each. I guess Ozaukeeans are OK with whipping children.

Instead Of A Judge, He Should've Appealed To The Dungeon Master

Talk about frivolous lawsuits:

A man serving life in prison for first-degree intentional homicide lost his legal battle Monday to play Dungeons & Dragons behind bars.

Kevin T. Singer filed a federal lawsuit against officials at Wisconsin's Waupun prison, arguing that a policy banning all Dungeons & Dragons material violated his free speech and due process rights.

Prison officials instigated the Dungeons & Dragons ban among concerns that playing the game promoted gang-related activity and was a threat to security. Singer challenged the ban but the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld it as a reasonable policy.

I can think of many reasons why authorities wouldn't allow inmates not to play D & D, most notably that the inmates would be using the dice for gambling, which would constitute a security hazard.

But the concern of gang-related activity seems to me to be a little far fetched. What, are they going to form a gang called "The Dwarvz of Cell Block C?"

Let Them Drink TEA!

From the NY Times:

Nearly one in five Americans said they lacked the money to buy the food they needed at some point in the last year, according to a survey co-sponsored by the Gallup organization and released Tuesday by an anti-hunger group.

The numbers soared at the start of the recession, but dipped in 2009 despite the continuing rise in unemployment. The anti-hunger group, the Food Research and Action Center, attributed that trend to falling food prices, an increasing use of food stamps and a rise in the amount of the food stamps benefit.

More than 38 million Americans — one in eight — now receive food stamps, a record high

Is this really time for Scott Walker and his TEA party buddies to start calling for cuts to necessary services? And doesn't this make the TEA Party poster child, Andre Bauer, look all the more heinous?

What A Tangled Web They Weave

Ed Garvey has a column in The Cap Times which highlights an unholy alliance between UW and WPRI:

In Wisconsin, St. Norbert’s College polling is used by public radio and public TV. And now we also have the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute/University of Wisconsin-Madison poll -- a “partnership” between right-wing WPRI and our great state university’s political science department. Whoa, Nelly! The institute apparently needed credibility to persuade people to pay attention to the Bradley Foundation poll, so it is easy to figure out its goal in creating this “partnership”: instant credibility. (No one has ever accused WPRI of neutrality on issues of importance to the Bradley Foundation.) In essence the institute rents the good name of the UW.

Garvey details how they did an open records requests and found that, basically, all of the WPRI - UW polls are tainted and only go to push the neoconservative agenda of the Bradley Foundation.

As Garvey and others points out, it throws doubt on anything that this group produces. Garvey et alia have also raised questions about the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel publishing WPRI's reports like they are gospel truth. That is easily explained, since I've already shown the incestuous relationships with the Bradley Foundation's Michael Grebe, Journal Communication's Steve Smith and wannabe governor Scott "It's my turn, dammit" Walker.

And to deepen the ties to Charlie Sykes, who already has been shown to be in the midst of this mess, is the fact that old Chuckles is a member of WPRI's brigade of propagandists.

In summary, WPRI is a front for the Bradley Foundation. The Bradley Foundation and WPRI, lacking credibility on their own, are using UW as their beard. And as for Sykes and Walker, they each of an arm of the Bradley Foundation so far up their posteriors, their resembles to Mortimer Snerd is more than coincidental.

In other words, you can't believe a word from the lot of them.

Cross posted at Whallah!

Brett Favre: The Man, The Myth, The Movie

Needless to say, as one of the few true Packer fans that still appreciate Brett Favre and what he did for the Pack, I was disappointed in how the game ended last night.

That said, I have to point out that I was amazed that he took that big hit in the third and then went back out on the field, even though I thought his ankle was broken.

But when I read this accounting of his injuries, I realize that Favre is one of the fable iron men of football:

Some 30 minutes after the game was over, Favre gathered himself from the Minnesota Vikings’ locker room and headed for a postgame media session. As he walked through the bowels of the Louisiana Superdome, dejected from the 31-28 overtime loss in the NFC championship game, he walked past a fracas between a security guard and a Saints fan. The angry and apparently inebriated fan got to the point that he threw his beer, hitting both the guard and Favre.

That was thematic of the night for the 40-year-old Favre, who will once again ponder retirement this offseason. Regardless of his decision, no one will quite believe Favre is walking away or not until next season begins (and even ends).

But be sure of this: Favre limped away from this game, literally hurting from head to toe. In the first quarter, defensive end Bobby McCray(notes) hit Favre so hard that Favre thought his teeth had been knocked out. Along the way, Favre hurt his left wrist, had a softball-sized strawberry on his left biceps and got high-lowed on a hit in the third quarter that badly sprained his left ankle.

But that description did remind me of something, perhaps a rough screen draft of the life and time of Brett Favre, including a depiction of yesterday's game:



And while I still think Favre to be one of the all time greats, I fully recognize that many do not feel the same way, so for them, this:

The Great Transit Debate

Who are you going to believe?