Doing Ms. Vicki McKenna’s show at 4 p.m. Do tune in.

“A lot of people don’t have their needs met.” Could serve as the motto of all cop haters, as spoken by  Garrett Lee at Tuesday’s Madison Common Council meeting. Note that the phrase is rendered, tellingly, in the passive voice.

Meet My Needs or I Shoot Up the Neighborhood!

Garrett also blamed Scott Walker for his failure to get a Ph D. Found concept of a three-minute limit on testimony elusive. Tried to pick fight with your Humble Squire in the hallway outside council chambers. Is lucky that Ald. Matt Phair pulled him aside. Oddly, he filed to run against Ald. Paul Skidmore in the 2015 aldermanic election but never followed through. Probably Scott Walker’s fault.

Upon further review — the past two blogges on getting 8 more police officers on a force of 469 do not adequately capture how reluctant were the votes of at least half of the 17 who voted favor. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming. Brenda Konkel’s blog (amazingly enough) captures their angst. No direct quotes, but her synopsis accurately describes their reluctance to vote for police.

Does Blaska know how to butter up a crowd? Probably not. Your Squire thanked Mayor Soglin for calling him to the  microphone to testify Tuesday before the Common Council, adding, “I hope to be able to call you ‘Mayor Soglin’ for many more years.”

Attention social justice warriors — This ought to scare the bejeepers out of you.  From Police Chief Koval’s blotter today (01-18-18):

EAST/SOUTH: Fugitives Arrested – 6:45 p.m. Detectives from the Chicago PD requested assistance from MPD and Fitchburg PD to arrest two fugitives from outstanding homicide charges in Chicago. Units from MPD’s VCU, BCU, Dane County Narcotics Task Force, Gang Unit, and Fitchburg PD were able to safely locate and arrest both suspects, who were subsequently turned over to a grateful Chicago PD.

Perhaps they did not have their needs met.

The Trump recovery continues — Lured by the Trump/Paul Ryan tax reform, Apple is bringing its cash home and will pay one-time tax of $38 billion. Apple will also invest $30 billion in capital spending in the U.S. and create more than 20,000 jobs, including a new campus, and $10 billion in data centers scattered across the country.

Are Wisconsin Republicans in trouble? Ya think? The defeat of a sitting Republican state rep, Adam Jarchow, in Tuesday’s special state senate election, to a low-profile county medical examiner, answers that question with a Big-Time Are You Kidding? In a district held for 16 years by a Republican?

Scott Walker just doesn’t inspire the warm fuzzies that my old mentor, Tommy G. Thompson did and still does. Also, the old political adage applies: Friends come and go, enemies accumulate.

It’s the economy, stupid — today’s job numbers show December unemployment in Wisconsin was 3.0%, down from 3.2% in November, seasonally adjusted. That 3.0% matches the lowest rate ever and the lowest in any December in history. Wisconsin’s total labor force and employment once again reached all-time highs and the number of unemployed workers is the lowest since December 1999. A visitor to the Stately Manor e-mails:

I see two big problems with the Republicans being able to explain the 2.85 billion dollars in tax credits going to FoxxConn. The layman still thinks the tax payer is somehow paying for that credit. Next the stat about we have spent more on prison system than education. That number is misleading but the liberals will use the simple state to their advantage if we do not hit them back now.

Hey, all you other defenders of the John Doe speech police — did you see where Brian Bell, the embattled director of the state ethics board, is ripping Shane Falk, chief legal counsel for the old Government Accountability Board, for “displaying open partisanship”?

Falk “enabled a climate at the GAB that made it acceptable to make offensive or disparaging remarks about political parties, candidates, and elected officials.”

[Correction: No, Shane Falk is NOT the son of The Kathleen Falk.]

Playing politics is more important than so-called Dreamers. That is why Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, took a private conversation public. Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal:

Sen. Durbin poisoned the well of the immigration negotiations. He instantly recognized that Democrats would gain more politically from public exposure of Mr. Trump’s private words than they would from any DACA deal.

For Democrats, every waking moment has telescoped down to one thing: gaining control of the House in November. They have concluded, not without reason, that success at the polls will correlate directly to public dislike of Mr. Trump personally. For Sen. Durbin, the Trump expletive was a gift from the gods. As to the 800,000 dreamers who had a deal in sight at last Tuesday’s White House meeting, well, they can wait.

Yes, his supporters CAN write — Some are even profs. (Probably not sociologists, though.) The New York Times, pathologically anti-Trump, devotes its letters to the editor today to only those supporting the President. Agreed with this one:

I voted against Hillary Clinton more than I voted for Donald Trump. [The Squire wrote in Evan McMullin.] That said, President Trump has exceeded my wildest expectations. Yes, he is embarrassing. Yes, he picks unnecessary fights. But he also pushed tax reform through, has largely defeated ISIS in Iraq, has named a number of solid conservative judges, has prioritized American citizens over illegal immigrants, has gotten us out of several bad international agreements, has removed a number of wasteful regulations, is putting real pressure on North Korea and Iran, has reined in a number of out-of-control agencies, and so on and so on.

I loved George W. Bush, but he failed on policy over and over again. If it takes putting up with Mr. Trump’s brash ways to see things get done, that is a deal I’m willing to accept. To be honest, I’m not sure he would have accomplished what he has so far without being an unrelenting public bully.

Disagree with the last sentence. The Policy Werkes believes Trump could accomplish all of the above without shooting himself in the foot. But even Winston Churchill flubbed his lines on occasion. Just not every other day. Think about it: What do our liberal-progressive-socialist acquaintances aim at? Not Trump’s policies but an occasional word or that all-consuming nothing burger of Russian collusion.