Is the city intervening in gun litigation?
The Wisconsin State Journal calls them “wedge issues.” What kind of issues? Broadly defined, a wedge issue is that for which the prevailing liberal/progressive orthodoxy has no good answers.
Further defined: it is an issue that doesn’t translate into billions of dollars of give-away government spending. That is what keeps the Woke awake at night. Elizabeth Warren cries that Joe Biden has to pass the $2 trillion Build Back Better while there’s still time. That’s the problem with us conservatives: we’re not looking for handouts.
An even finer point: Calling it a wedge issue is the Left’s way of telling voters like us we’re stupid without getting socked in the kisser. Here is Charles M. Blow in the New York Times with a side garnish of racism:
Republicans are using white parental fear, particularly the fears of white moms, worried about harm coming to their children, to attract suburban white women and get them to the polls.
The Werkes, however, remains decidedly un-fooled by education reporter Elizabeth Beyer’s response to the Werkes that “If scholars are studying and discussing the application of critical race theory in education policy, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically adopted into to K-12 classroom lessons.”
What does it mean, then, this scholarly ruminating on CRT? Is it like a faculty pick-up game of pickle ball after class? Just for funzies? Yet these academics write books and conduct seminars on the CRT. Schools of Education, after all, have no purpose other than the K-12 classroom. Not like the pure sciences, which can study a subject for its own sake.
Note the date: July 2020
Speaking of wedge issues
Ross Douthat tiptoes on treacherous terrain where Bari Weiss and other cashiered NY Times employees dare not in his carefully worded Sunday essay: “How to make sense of the new LBGTQ culture war.”
You will notice that I have written this essay in a studiously cautious style, on the theory that as I am in fact a known social conservative, my too-vigorous prosecution of the skeptics’ case would serve only to reinforce the current progressive orthodoxy — enabling the response that, see, to doubt the wisdom of puberty blockers or the authenticity of teenage self-identification is the province of Catholics, religious conservatives, the out-group.
But of course this is also a theory of conflict-avoidance, shading into cowardice. So to end more straightforwardly, I will make a prediction: Within not too short a span of time, not only conservatives but most liberals will recognize that we have been running an experiment on trans-identifying youth without good or certain evidence, inspired by ideological motives rather than scientific rigor, in a way that future generations will regard as a grave medical-political scandal.
Tonight’s Madison Common Council agenda
With instructions on how to register to speak on this virtual meeting. It starts 6:30 p.m. today 04-19-22.
• How is it that Madison’s mayor STILL has taken no position on police body cameras? It’s item #114 on tonight’s agenda. File 68625.
• Agenda Item #93 is the recycling fee. File #70344.
• Also take note of Agenda Item #130 (introduction only) which “authorizes the city attorney, in consultation with the mayor, to join the City as amicus in cases supporting reasonable and effective firearm regulation.” File #70882.
• Agenda #120 begins the process to remove racial membership quotas on the Police Civilian Oversight Board to settle Blaska’s lawsuit. File #71016.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
Again newspapers need to just go away forever. They are not journalism anymore. They are partisan political hacks running interference for the regime, fomenting hatred and racial division, obfuscating the truth and outright lying, and persecuting even private citizens who question their narrative.
Enough is enough!
What newspaper in America would EVER get away with pointing out the “unmarried Black mothers with 5 children by 3 different men” yet here is a national columnist allowed to attack tens of millions of “white moms” with a broad brush.
Well, maybe white moms will send a giant “F You” message this November. They are coming after you, your kids, your men, and your paycheck.
LikeLiked by 4 people
“… we have been running an experiment on trans-identifying youth … inspired by ideological motives rather than scientific rigor …” One reason for this can be found in the trend among white, upper-middle class progressives to treat their kids as trophies. A few years ago, it was all the rage in this demographic to adopt a kid from some third-world sh*thole–not to save the kid from a life of poverty so much as to display him/her to their fellow elites as evidence of their unbounded compassion for the “marginalized.” Then the fad shifted to the disabled, then to the autistic, now it’s settled on the transgendered (or would-be transgendered). God only knows what’s next.
Seen yesterday at the Hawthorne branch of the MPL: a display of books labeled “Transgender and Non-Binary Authors.” Most of them were clearly targeted at an audience of middle-school-aged children. It’s not only schools that are grooming kids to transform themselves into freaks by mutilating/experimenting on their God-given bodies.
LikeLike
We await deft reporting on Blaska’s lawsuit regarding the police oversight board.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The obsession you all have with this issue Is starting to look as if your not very comfortable with your own identity. May I sggest some “testicle tanning”?
LikeLike
richard lesiak wrote, “The obsession you all have with this issue Is starting to look as if your not very comfortable with your own identity. May I sggest some “testicle tanning”?”
That’s pure ad hominem trolling.
Richard,
Here’s your own words coming back to haunt you again…
“For the love of god, if you can’t post anything that adds to the conversation then STFU.”
The haunting continues…
LikeLiked by 2 people
This would be a concern ONLY to those with none to tan…
The Gotch
LikeLiked by 1 person
Richard-May-I-Calls-Ya-Pizzle…. Been avoiding comments to yer comments, for obvious reasons. Keep that navel-gazin’ goin’ on, friend.
LikeLike
You state: “That’s the problem with us conservatives: we’re not looking for handouts.” For someone like you, a government handout is any governmental benefit that someone else gets that he does not.
I estimate you have received more than $1 million dollars in government handouts in your lifetime.
The taxpayers subsidized your college education and gave you a draft deferment (how do I put a price on that) at the same time. The taxpayers kept your fuel bill artificially low by ensuring safe shipping lanes defended by the US Navy. The taxpayers lowered your housing costs by allowing you to deduct your mortage interest. The taxpayers kept your food prices low through farm subsidies. And the list goes on.
In the future, working people will subsidize your health care costs because you receive socialized medicine through Medicare.
The real problem: you don’t have a problem giving handouts to Taiwanese con-artists.
LikeLike
The difference is you want more. Now it’s forgiving college loans. I paid mine.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I don’t want more. I have more than enough. I just hate hypocrisy.
LikeLike
Yet, you vote Democrat!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Who was going to pay WILL if you lost your case? The GOP?
LikeLike
“In the future, working people will subsidize your health care costs because you receive socialized medicine through Medicare.”
It’s painfully clear your understanding of Medicare/CMS ends abruptly with knowing how it’s spelled.
“I just hate hypocrisy.”
Yet fine with crippling imbecility?
Priceless!
The Gotch
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gee; I worked for over 50 years. I paid in and helped pay for the care of the elderly and sick. Complete the circle gotch. Who paid for your parents and now you? Idiot.
LikeLike
David Gerard ,
I know I’m not as smart as you, probably, I guess, (I don’t know). Your comment is probably witty, profound, and all that, but I don’t get it.
The Government produces nothing in the way of income, and is solely funded by taxpayers. So, it would seem, your comments to David (Taxpayer) Blaska should read: “The taxpayers subsidized THEIR OWN….., Kept THEIR OWN fuel bill……, Lowered THEIR OWN housing costs and food costs…etc.”
Government skims money from all aspects of life, it seems, of those who work. But, it doesn’t get to keep it all!
Please elucidate posthaste, that we may marvel in the brilliance of your remarks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear pANTIFArts:
You asked for a response. You stated that “Government skims money from all aspects of life, it seems, of those who work. But, it doesn’t get to keep it all!”
That is the point. Call it what you want: handout, welfare, subsidy, investment, give away government spending.
The best example I can give you is from Andrew Leavitt, chancellor of UW-Oshkosh.
In his office, he holds onto a copy of the 1970 Wisconsin State University Oshkosh course catalog, from a time when the cost of instruction for students was paid for by taxpayers. The line showing tuition cost for an in-state student in that catalog reads: “None.”
So lets assume the cost per student in 1970 at Oshkosh was $3000. That only covers operating costs and does not include capital expenditures. That means the state of Wisconsin gave a handout of around $15,000 (in 1970 dollars including capital costs) over a four year period.
This brings us back to the original post where we read: “That’s the problem with us conservatives: we’re not looking for handouts.” That is simply not true. You got your handout. Now you insist that no one get theirs.
LikeLike
No, we’re only saying America doesn’t need another New Deal of spending. Witness today’s inflation caused by too many dollars chasing too few goods.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mr Gerard,
“Call it what you want: handout, welfare, subsidy, investment, give away government spending.” — (for most of us it is a “paltry return on a lifetime of payment”)
I am not the person for you to have this discussion with, as I FIT the austere standards that you require for a conservative. I have worked since high school, never been unemployed, never went to college (couldn’t afford it), only had one loan (house), never had a credit card, and never petitioned the government for anything until applying for Social Security a few years ago. I am months from my 70th birthday, and still must work. I am either a pillar of virtuous individuality, or a stupid chump.
I have experience with many people who live entirely off of government assistance, and in many cases their living standard is higher than my own. For 55 years I have paid into “slush funds” for politicians to use to buy votes with give aways. When I stand in line at Wal-Mart and watch a couple pay for groceries with food stamps, and a large flat-screen TV with cash, I ask myself “how many TV’s have I paid for?”
All too often we send politicians to Washington who have but one goal: to buy their constituent”s votes with free goodies for some, and return some small measure of their own money to others.
To top it all off, the cost of everything that the government involves itself with (college, healthcare, etc.) SKYROCKETS, pricing it out of reach for many. (without more government assistance)
Well, anyway, Blaska is not the problem. Sorry it took so long to respond, but I just got home. (Gotta work…….)
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—-Edmund Burke (tax critic)
LikeLiked by 2 people
David Gerard,
What you’re doing here is trying to justify new government spending based on your perception of old government spending, that sir is unethically rationalizing BS, you’re spewing gaslighting propaganda. Either new government spending is justifiable based on its own merits or it’s not, all other arguments are rejected.
You and your “progressive” cohorts are completely full of “it”.
LikeLike
You reply: “Yet, you vote Democrat!”
You have made this claim three times and I’ve corrected you now for the third time. I’m an Edmund Burke conservative. I don’t vote very often and I have never voted for a Democrat.
LikeLike
If you don’t vote I have not the time to waste on you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
David Gerard wrote, “I’m an Edmund Burke conservative.”
I haven’t read much of what you’ve written so you’re going to have to support that claim over time with an array of comments that show a pattern of being an Edmund Burke conservative. At this point in time it appears to me that you lean progressive because your argumentation is the same kind of socialistic argumentation progressives use to justify socialism. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Time will tell but as for this moment in time I say…
…and “hogwash” to your claim.
David Gerard wrote, “I don’t vote very often…”
Whether you think so or not, that statement is signature significant.
Signature Significance: Signature significance posits that a single act can be so remarkable that it has predictive and analytical value, and should not be dismissed as statistically insignificant.
David Gerard wrote, “I have never voted for a Democrat.”
Again; based on what I’ve read from you so far I say “hogwash”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
FYI -The AP Stylebook and The CBO Guide to Style and Usage says Medicare.
LikeLike
Over 90 minutes in and the council is on item 9.
I don’t know why anyone would want the job.
LikeLike
“BUNNYGATE” “BUNNYGATE”. The latest Fox outrage right after “testicle tanning”. BAHHHHAAAHA. Someone watching that station would think there’s nothing important going on in the world.
LikeLike
richard lesiak wrote, ““BUNNYGATE” “BUNNYGATE”. The latest Fox outrage right after “testicle tanning”. BAHHHHAAAHA. Someone watching that station would think there’s nothing important going on in the world.”
That’s pure deflection trolling.
Richard,
Here’s your own words coming back to haunt you again…
“For the love of god, if you can’t post anything that adds to the conversation then STFU.”
The haunting continues…
LikeLiked by 1 person
“The haunting continues…”
No kidding!
Is there anything that positively SCREAMS: I’ve Completely Given Up more than a 75 year old shut-in trolling a Righty site because he’s been banned from every Lefty site for displaying breathtakingly imbecilic slobberings which are unacceptable even by (heh!) Lefty standards?
#PitiablyPathetic!
The Gotch
LikeLike
There are sooooo many things on this list that could be used to describe the man behind the “richard lesiak” psydonyme, like Hollow Shell Airhead, or could be used to describe the behaviors shown in the comments of “richard lesiak” like Salem Witch Trial School of Thought or Animal House School of Thought but in the end I think we must apply Zoltar’s Razor which states “don’t attribute to hypoxia that which is adequately explained by alki-bopping”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wellll; that was a really informative reply. NOT
LikeLike
Dig deep enough in any case and you will find the information that you won’t find in any lame stream media outlet including the news outlets in our own city and state.
Watch and listen to this from Tucker Carlson: This is an intimidation campaign against ‘Libs of TikTok’
It has been revealed that the government of Germany has bought and paid for the crushing of an American citizen for posting what the libs say on Tik Tok.
Knowing this, I have to ask myself what other governments and big businesses have influence over what the American people see and hear?
Just how much are “we the people” mind blanked by entities that we are not made aware of?
LikeLike
Do you carry that Funk and Wagnalls with you at all times?
LikeLike