Never reticent and probably none the wiser.
We read Paul Fanlund and The Capital Times because he and it are responsible for much of the goofiness in Madison-area politics. Same reason Mossad keeps track of Hamas.
Publisher Fanlund is smarting from the white-hot blowback from property taxpayers over their city and school tax bills (which averaged an 11.2% increase), including his own.
Paul is also vexed by Mayor Satya’s mission to sprout apartment complexes like No Mow dandelions — mandated number of units reserved for renters of a specified degree of poverty. (Likely caused by high taxes.) “Affordability” is this year’s buzz word adopted by progressive Democrats, except when construction encroaches on upper middle class neighborhoods like the publisher’s.
We hope Paul’s vital signs remain strong but his piece in this week’s Capital Times, “A New Year’s appeal to Madison’s ruling ‘uniparty’” reads like a deathbed conversion. He bemoans:
a growing reticence by moderate but left-leaning residents — especially longtime residents — to run for local offices has led the far left to dominate public decision-making to an unprecedented extent.
We can dream, can’t we?
Moderates? In Madison WI? Describes none of the four candidates running for the two school board seats on April ballots. Incumbent Blair Mosner-Feltham seeks re-election to a three-year term. Her opponent is Daniella Molle, an education researcher at UW-Madison. In other words, Mizz Molle comes out of the same Woke la-BOR-a-tory that created that mutant life form, critical race theory.
The second seat is occupied by Nikki Vander Meulen. She is being challenged by Dana Colussi-Lynde, whose issue is more teacher pay; Vander Meulen’s is special ed students.
Infamously, Ms. Mosner-Feltham proved her Woke credentials by proclaiming, “Our schools are products of white supremacy.” Challenger Molle’s claim on identity politics is her promise to advocate for non-native speakers.
Someday, a candidate will pledge to represent the taxpayer by holding the line on spending. Someday, voters will be able to choose an advocate for student discipline — a brave soul promising to restore school resource police officers, bring back honors classes, emphasize the manual arts, and fire the racial bean counters. Someday, dammit! a man will run for school board even if he is white! But not this year, due that reticence thing.
Resistance is futile!
Wait! Someone like that did run once upon a time!
“You can’t say ‘kids, obey the teacher, do your homework.’ You can’t say those things at a School Board meeting because you’ll be shouted down. You can’t say that in Madison, in this most intolerant of cities.” — a defeated candidate, not being reticent
Instead, The Capital Times endorsed Ali Muldrow who blames white teachers for the greater discipline meted out to black students.
Paul Fanlund also indicts the business community for its reticence, due to “realizing both “the futility of resistance and the potential profit in the current build-anything-anywhere approach to development.” We’ve been saying that since Zach Brandon disappeared into the Chamber of Commerce.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: What is missing from the publisher’s lament is any acknowledgement of his own culpability. The Capital Times never met a spending referendum it couldn’t endorse. Fanlund’s publication supported defunding police, endorsed every DEI hall monitor, defends illegal immigration, advocated for the police monitor, demonizes even moderate Republicans like Scott Klug. Its associate editor is a full-out Bernie Sanders socialist, fer cryin’ out loud!
We got Paul’s progressive school board. We got his progressive city council, We got his progressive county board. We got more homelessness, more drug addiction, more disabilities, more illiteracy, more stolen cars, more kids in juvie. But watch The Capital Times endorse every local Tim Walz/Zohran Mamdani/Ilhan Omar wannabe, like always.
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