The problem with liberals, parts #234 and 234½ 

Big long story in today’s print Capital Times exposes a terrible injustice:

“A student lingers in detention after an unauthorized letter
from his school reaches his court file.”

Mattie Reese wants to make sure what happened to her child never happens to another Madison Metropolitan School District student. 

Say it with me my liberal-progressive-socialist acquaintances: NEVER AGAIN! For added punch, the story is illustrated with a bare detention cell. No teddy bear on the steel-frame bed.

Transpires that Ms. Reese’s 16-year-old son is a sophomore at Madison West high school who was already being monitored by juvenile court — so we know this kid is no honors student. The kid runs away from home, which may say something about his home life. Kid’s court-appointed monitor asks the high school dean of students for a report on his school behavior. You know, more information. Get the full picture. That kind of thing. Unsurprisingly:

The letter characterized the student as a troublemaker who was a bad influence on other students.

Where does the Voice of Progressivism place its outrage? Class?

You there, waving your hand like you’re going to pee yourself. That’s right, bad on the dean of students for writing the “unauthorized” letter.

No representation that the letter is inaccurate. Just the legalistic hair-splitting that the letter was “unauthorized.” And no foundation for even that. The court monitor is fairly quoted to say “It’s routinely what we do. We get reports on [students’s] behavior and attendance and we do share that and submit that to the court.” One would hope!

Result of the letter is that the kid is kept in juvie detention for three weeks — “much longer than usual,” according to the CT. Usual being about eight days. Oh, the humanity! 

What’s the fallout? Yes, you there with the MAGA cap. Right! The school district is all guilty white-privilege apologies for its subliminal racism. The old “school to prison pipeline” agitprop. Disparate impact. Rinse and repeat.

In a statement to The Capital Times, [the dean of students] said she ‘fell short’ of her duty to advocate for her students.

Some of us would say the dean got it right the first time, that she WAS advocating for her students — all of them. The Capital Times never divulges the havoc this kid caused at troubled West high school. That would spoil the desired narrative.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Heaven forbid that Madison’s public schools should work with duly constituted law enforcement authorities — even those as liberal as Madison’s!

Save the crustaceans; let the man drown

If that isn’t bad enuff, Boris, there is Kathleen Vinehout, one of an undetermined number of Democrats running for governor. The upstate legislator is aggrieved that 10 million gallons of “orange sludge” was released from the Hi-Crush frac sand mine in in Trempealeau County, in the west-central part of the state.

Liberals hate fracking because it makes the U.S. energy-independent and less likely to fill farm fields with solar panels and wind mills and “hi-speed” rail. So Sen. Vinehout conjures the supposed environmental horrors of this “orange sludge” to the receptive Voice of Progressivism:

As one woman wrote to me from Eau Claire: “I watched in horror at the events of the recent Hi-Crush break. It is prime nesting season for waterfall. Once the sediment settles and covers the vegetation on the bottom of the river, … that vegetation will die. The mallards and other bottom-feeding ducks … the fish … frogs and other crustaceans … herons and egrets.”

Oh my! Sen. Vinehout gives short-shrift to the human element, as our environmentally disturbed acquaintances are prone to do. What happened was a bulldozer slid down an embankment into 15 feet of water in the retention pond. Divers, firefighters, EMTs and law enforcement attempt a rescue. Anguished minutes turned into desperate hours; still, rescue divers could not locate the terrified operator in the murky water. The operator is on his cell phone issuing final thoughts to his expected widow as the dark water creeps into his cab.

After 2 ½ hours, the decision is made to breach the retaining dike, exposing the submerged man and machine to life-giving air. “This was an emergency decision made to save Mr. Gunderson’s life,” said a company official quoted by the Eau Claire newspaper.

It should be  noted that news sources describe the “orange sludge” as “mostly water, sand, clay and silt,” plus trace amounts of a flocculant that promotes clumping. 

As of May 25, four days after the accident, U.S. Fish and Wildlife supervisor Sabrina Chandler said her agency is keeping an eye on potential environmental impacts. So far, she said she hasn’t noticed any fish or plants deaths in the refuge.

Decide for yourself how orange is the discharged water. The white lab coats here at the Policy Werkes were expecting Carrot Top but looks like any muddy stream.

As for Sen. Vinehout and liberal-progressive-socialist fellow travelers, color them an unattractive shade of green.