Those who have identified themselves as Walker loyalists in the past have done exactly what Walker has wanted them to do time and time again.

In response to Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke’s statements on the state’s eighth-grade writing results (”Education gap is a real tragedy,” April 13 Crossroads):

I ask anyone to answer why on God’s Green Earth does David Clarke care about the writing results of eighth graders when Milwaukee has been named te Murderous Capitol of the Nation and Milwaukee is part of the State which was just named #1 for drunk driving. My comment is who gives a rats ass about how eighth graders writing results are when, the crime rate is at an all time high. Oh I forgot, Clarke only sits in his office when it is benefitical to himself. And not that I am backing Clarke, but I also do believe his 2nd in command Puppet Kevin Carr has a lot to do with the bull that the Sheriffs Dept is going through.

And last item on my soapbox is I just recently heard that Deputy Inspector Edward Bailey 4th In Command under the Sheriff, gets a kick out of watching the deputies faces at the very second when the deputy is told he or she is being fired. If that isn’t the sickest SOB around I dont know what is.

Save us all and please step up and stand proud of this county and support your Deputies — Since they will be the ones coming to your aid if your in a car accidet or need the police for any other issues — I guarantee you won’t be seeing Clarke.

Sometimes it ends up being cheaper to just get the one company to do the whole installation unless you are in the building industry and know all this stuff in advance.

Don’t many white supervisors bear racial loyalties as well?

Surely, there are supervisors representing predominantly white districts for whom voting for Holloway — or ANY board chair candidate of color, for that matter — would be unthinkable in terms of electoral popularity.

Why is it that “racial loyalty” is only a factor of analysis when talking about solidarity among people of color?

The phone service is terrible. it stops working for no reason , and I don’t own a cell phone, because I can’t justify owning one. So I have to seek out a payphone, and in the middle of winter….that is no fun.

Roadrunner…..BEEP BEEP is right…censoring my honest opinion about how slow it is on the East side, and how it bogs down, and it’s claims for firewall protection are bogus. When there is a peak usage, if you can get your home screen to load, you are lucky.

Rate increases, and outsourcing for customer service….another time maybe…when I move to my new home, it will be Time Warnerless!

mkelover, my endorsements aren’t based on who I believe will win — they are who would make the better candidate. As I stated, Taylor had no chance of winning. Butler was a toss up. Colon will continue to serve his constituents well in the Assembly. As I see it, the only race I can be disappointed in is the Butler race.

Incidentally I’m more than a little amused that James White got smoked.

However, the position you staked out as your own in the race was as an ally to Scott Walker. The last thing the board needs is a rubber stamp for the parks-cutting, mass-transit hating County Exec.

Being a conservative, as you clearly are, is not in and of itself a reason for me to not endorse a candidate. A failure to understand that government has complexities which go beyond anti-tax rhetoric is such a reason to say no.

That being said, it is my belief that younger people such as yourself can have a positive impact on the political system if they take the time to invest in understanding how the system works and how it can be changed to work better for more people.

This doesn’t mean that it has to cost a ton more money. When I served, we created public-private partnerships and our partners thrived as we reduced government spending in many areas. The reason that Walker has been mostly unsuccessful in building these partnerships is that he has lied to potential partners and then tried to claim victories as his own.

While I wish you well in life, I cannot support a candidate who supports another who wishes to disassemble the quality of life County residents have, in the past, enjoyed.

Dan

I just switched over to UVERSE and it great!! much cheaper than Time Warner, picture is clearer, and better service!

JZ

FYI - “Oriental” is not a country or region

Here’s a simple solution to our reliance on foreign…rely on DOMESTIC oil…like that which could be found in Alaska or just off any of our coasts.

France generates 75% of their power from nuclear power plants, why can’t we?

We send some of the oil that we import to foreign countries to be refined. Why? Because we haven’t built an oil refinery in this country since the early 70s!!!

And you wonder why we’re reliant on foreign sources for oil and oil refining.

The licensing game is an old and well-known, deliberate Catch-22: you can’t operate an escort service without a license, but if you try to get a license, you’re going to get neighbors and the authorities on you.

People generally don’t want any prostitution happening near them for a variety of good reasons.

Thanks for the belated and encycopedic response–some of which is actually related to the question at hand.

First, the president has requested that the telecoms be granted immunity for actions they have taken on behalf of the government, not actions they have taken on their own. There is no sense in which this is unreasonable unless you are one of those trial lawyer types who wants to take in millions in legal fees for trying the case. I believe that no jury would convict a company for actions taken on behalf of the government, but any idiot would realize that that is not the point here. Why should the telecoms have to bear the burden of money and hours that it would cost to defend against such a suit. Clearly, the motivation behind such legal action–one taken against an institution who acted on behalf of the government–would only be aimed at forcing the telecoms to fork over settlement payments to spare themselves the effort. I believe that Bush wanted to afford them protections against actions they take now which might in the future be construed as illegal. If I’m wrong in this, post a link to where he says: “immunity to the telecoms FOR BREAKING THE LAW now and in the future.” I’d love to see it.

You mention that computers are not people–or something to that extent–I agree. If people are searching these streams of information in ways which are not in accordance with FISA or PPA they should be prosecuted. What more would you ask of me? Am I to be shocked that the government has more than one supercomputer? Please. Am I to be disturbed that all communications are collected and then searched according to lawful perameters? No. Is the government just supposed to randomly aim its eye into the ether and hope for the best?

I suppose I was careless with my language when I mentioned Langely. It is a bit of a distraction–which you point out and I’ll concede. But if you’re going to bring up Plaime at least get your facts straight; it was Fred Armitage who outed her, not Rove and Bush. I’m sure you’ll be quick to admit your mistake there.

If the Bush administration is failing to meet its responsibilities to provide congress with information, I don’t support that. Congress should continue to pressure the administration to meet the obligations of the law in a timely fashion.

Any administration that would act as if AlQaeda was not already inside the US is a dangerous fool. To suggest that every terrorist has to be in Iraq for the policy to be correct is weak reasoning at best. Why do we take off our shoes at the airport?

You mention a lot of stuff about generals who wanted to sell books or do the talk shows and retired–so what? What does that have to do with FISA? Who cares about Spitzer or the intellegence resources used to capture Mark Foley? Again, what do they have to do with the issue?

I will stand by the statement that American citizenship is superior to any other (I’ll still allow Ireland some wiggle-room). The real question is: Why don’t you? I’m well aware of the numbers of engineers that China and India graduate: Its a byproduct of their enormous populations and growing prosperity, but I don’t begrudge them that. Economic prosperity makes war less likely (this is one point I agree with the left on) But what I meant was that the US Consitution provides me with more rights and freedoms than citizens of other nations enjoy. This makes us superior. But we must also realize that as foriegners in other countries we would not enjoy these same rights and protections. Try to buy some land in Mexico? What protections are afforded women in Iran? My point is that we shouldn’t be in a hurry to extend the full protections of our constitution to everyone in our country–legal of not, nor should we operate under the assumption that we should treat unknown persons in forien countries as Americans. Should we make reasonable efforts to treat people humanely and fairly? Absolutely, and to the extent that my comments suggested otherwise, they were poorly spoken.

I would agree to programs aimed at spying on the other governments of the world to determine if they had spiked our technology, and I’m pretty sure we could take out the Chinese power grid too.

By the way, companies more overseas to avoid high taxes and over-regulation. If you want the companies, lower the taxes; its that simple.

Wow, I’ve never heard of the constitution. Thanks for the tip–I’ll check it out.

You mention the government sending money to support the infrastructures of other countries (why you do so in a post about FISA is beyond me) and how terrible it is. Are you likewise opposed to sending money to support the healthcare infrastructures of African nations fighting AIDS while people here are sick? If so, a lot of your lefty buddies are going to be real upset. (I support massive funds to Africa to fight AIDS–and to build roads, school, and many other things too)

On another digression you bring up energy. Lets build nuclear, drop ethanol, drill in ANWAR and maintain a good relationship with Canada–who supplies the vast amount of our foriegn oil. I’d also support lining the highways with wind turbines. Lets do it.

Another digression: Most conservatives opposed the Dubai deal. What’s your point? Do you expect me to mindlessly worship Bush? A lot of his decisions have been stupid.

The next lengthy digression (from the FISA topic, lets remember) goes into a sophomoric rant about Afganistan, Iran-Contra, The torture schools, all that stuff–all conveniently taken without a shred of historical context. Were you going to insert a link to Loosechange too? Look, Les, American presidents of all stripes have engaged in some immoral business, but that doesn’t excuse or explain the sick nature of radical Islam–or the passivity with which it is greeted by the world of “moderate” Islam. I’m sure you’ll note that the trade centers were bombed long before Iraq.

Next: Speak truth to power–I got it.

Finally, my intent wasn’t to support Bush, but rather to support immunity for telecoms as well as other stringent anti-terrorist legislation. I have enjoyed your shell game. I have lots of liberal friends, so I’m used to it.

Hope to hear from you soon!

First of all, computers are dumb, they don’t know who anyone is, they just run calculations, and process documents and route traffic based on what someone has directed them to do. But, the traffic which is being captured by supercomputers is not selective, the super computers capture EVERYTHING and then sort through it..

Anyone who has been paying attention to this issue has seen the whistleblower from AT&T who proved (with testimony and by showing investigators the actual room and equipment that was being used to do it), that not only information that was coming from potential terrorists overseas was being diverted and downloaded onto NSA computers, but ALL communication, not only from overseas but within EVERYTHING within the United States as well (Why do you think they needed all those super computers?) And it wasn’t just AT&T that was doing it, but all of the telecoms. And it was all of the telecoms and the Internet Service Providers who were sending all search queries from ALL of their customers to US Intelligence authorities so that they could go through everything with a fine tooth comb. So, while this is considered a warrantless search and seizure, according to the new FISA rules (and the old ones which have not been affected by the House not voting), investigators have the ability to request a warrant from a judge up to three days after the deed was done.

So intelligence needs have not been affected by the non-renewal of this legislation.

You also neglect the fact that the Bush Administration and Bush himself have stated publicly that the only reason for this legislation was specifically for the provision giving immunity to the telecoms FOR BREAKING THE LAW now and in the future. Bush has been doing this for the past 7 ½ years with his Presidential signing statements which give him immunity for breaking the same laws that he is signing into law. Doesn’t that seem in the least bit hypocritical?

You claim that you want to make sure that the people at Langley are listening in for terrorists and not looking for lawyers, but of course that isn’t the issue. The CIA isn’t at risk of being sued here. And only telecoms who have taken illegal actions are protected under that legislation.

You claim you are so interested in making sure that the people at Langley (the CIA) are protected so that they can do their job. But if that is the case, then shouldn’t you be outraged that the Bush Administration, through Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, )who was in charge of a large CIA operation, which actually tracked weapons of mass destruction, and WAS watching the terrorists, until Bush, Rove and Cheney destroyed that operation? It took over ten years to build that operation, and 70 agents and contacts were compromised as a result of that politically motivated outing, which was done to destroy Valerie Plame’s career, a Rove specialty.

And if you are so sure that the American people are so supportive of Bush’s lawbreaking activities and the lawbreaking activities of the telecoms, when you claim that most Americans support the policies and procedures; that these laws would make legal out of illegal procedures; then why are you demanding that a law be passed to give them immunity? If the American people want this to happen, than any lawsuit would be easily beaten in a court of law, and the telecoms would be considered innocent of any wrongdoing. The real reason that you are supporting this legislation providing immunity to the telecoms is because you believe that the American people DO NOT support this lawbreaking activity and would determine, in a court of law; that the telecoms would be guilty and should pay fines and spend some time in prison. If the people supported their actions, no immunity would be necessary.

You claim that this new legislation provides layers of oversight by the Congress, yet anyone who has been paying attention is well aware of the fact that the Bush Administration is failing to provide the information, documentation or, in many cases, any information at all, regarding what is being done or how it is being done in these cases. The fact that everything is being kept secret from even the Congressional watchdogs, (not just Democrats, but Republicans as well), is even getting Republicans upset about the lack of cooperation from the Bush Administration.

But it is also interesting that the Bush Administration continues to claim that the only reason that we are fighting the war in Iraq is to keep the terrorists “there” and keep them “out of the United States”. The Bush Administration and Republican talking heads around the country claim that they have been successful and have kept us from being attacked here at home, and have kept the terrorists out.

But if that is truly the case, then why would they claim the need to capture all of the electronic communication from overseas, while secretly capturing all of the electronic communication within the United States? If they are so interested in capturing information within the United States, then the only logical reason that they would be doing that would be because they already believed that Al Qaeda was HERE IN the United States already. That would mean that the entire purpose behind the Iraq war, in keeping the terrorists there, didn’t work, because they are now saying that that they are HERE.

But I don’t believe that that is the reason they are doing it. The fact that Rove and Bush were so involved in trying to gather dirt on anyone that they saw as a political enemy or who wasn’t completely loyal to the extent that they would severely prosecute Democrats based on flimsy evidence or would find their positions as U.S. Attorney’s or Judges, very quickly disappear. Just like any Generals or Admirals, or Intelligence experts who have the courage to stand up to Bush or Rove, they quickly “retire” or “resign” or are fired outright.

And people, like former Alabama Governor, Democrat Don Siegelman, who was judged guilty on rather flimsy evidence, and has now had over 50 former state attorney generals come forward demanding that his case be reviewed and investigated for possible interference from Karl Rove, may be the result of such “investigations”.

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was stupid for getting involved with prostitutes, particularly since he was such a law and order candidate, and publicly went after prostitution rings, but there is now reported evidence that the owner of the prostitution ring that he frequented, is owned by a former or current IRS agent, who may have been involved in turning in information regarding Spitzer’s activities.

I don’t support either of their actions if they have done what they have been accused of. I don’t believe that they should hold elective office if they have done what they have been accused of. However, I don’t believe that intelligence systems and our judicial system which Americans pay tens of billions of dollars every year for, should be used by one political party to dig up dirt on another, when they should be focused on protecting us from terrorist attacks.

You claim that as an “American” citizen, you are superior to other citizens of other countries, and that you don’t believe that we should extend protections to anyone who isn’t an American citizen. That is rather interesting on a number of different levels.

The Indians and Communist Chinese who are taking American jobs and industries, (because this administration and Republican controlled industries are moving them there), probably don’t see Americans as being superior to them, when they are the ones who have the jobs and have positive trade balances, while America has been losing millions of jobs, watching the value of the dollar tank, and are completely dependent on the importation of oil from other countries, (many of which don’t particularly like America). They probably don’t see Americans as being superior to them, when they have 600,000 engineers being graduated in both India and Communist China, every year (not together, but each individually), while the United States can only graduate 60,000 per year. Who do you think is going to win any technology war?

Bush complained when Communist China shot down one if its own satellites, contending that that could be considered an aggressive action. The Chinese responded by pointing out that Bush had better be careful, because they (the Chinese) have the ability to shut down our nations’ power grids. Given that they build almost all of the computer parts for almost all the major computer brands these days, it is possible that they have circuitry and software that they have built into them something which we haven’t got a clue what it does. (It’s not like we have enough trained engineers to look for anything or even recognize it if they do see it.)

And since most of our financial and internet service denial attacks have been coming from China, its likely that they have been doing a lot of research into how this could be done while we’re just sitting back waiting for it to happen.

You claim that American citizens are special, and imply that fair treatment of everyone, particularly if they aren’t American citizens, shouldn’t be provided to others when you say that “If everybody is special – nobody is.”

I disagree with your comment and so do the founding fathers of our country.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

That’s from the Declaration of Independence.

If you remember your history, the United States had not been formed then, so the writers and the signers of the Declaration of Independence were saying not that “just Americans were created equal” or even “above others”, but rather that ALL men were created EQUAL. You might want to read it sometime, along with the Constitution of the United States. These documents appear to be rarely read by Republicans, who claim that they will support and defend the Constitution and then attempt to rewrite it or work around it.

And Republicans don’t seem to care that we are funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries to supposedly support their economies and support their infrastructures while ignoring ours at home. Republicans don’t seem to care about conserving the little fuel we have and providing new, renewable energy resources to reduce our foreign dependency.

They’ve proven it by fighting increased fuel efficiency in vehicles for the past thirty years, only just having been forced to pass a new fuel efficiency standard, after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006.

And Republicans only claim to care about security, but ignore it when it benefits them financially.

Remember when Bush wanted to hand over our ports to Dubai, and then later again to the United Arab Emirates? Since when is handing over port security to countries who have large segments of their population who don’t like us a good idea?

Isn’t that just a repeat of the Reagan/Bush Administration’s State Department policy who thought that it was a good idea to give Saudi Arabian citizens a free pass to get visas into the United States without doing any background security checks? (Yes that is correct. The Reagan/Bush State Department officials set up that policy and the current Bush Administration State Department officials had continued the policy that allowed 15 of the 19 terrorist attackers on the planes that we’ve been told hit the WTC and the Pentagon, from SAUDI ARABIA. And the day after, when all other planes were grounded, Bush allowed the bin Laden family that had been living here in the United States, to leave for Saudi Arabia, without allowing intelligence investigators to question any of them.)

Where is YOUR OUTRAGE?!

And you claim that America is not the source of evil in the world. You say it is the people who set up the Iraq torture cells, and took down the WTC and bombed Madrid and London, the Bali nightclubs and the Kenyan Embassy.

You seem to be short on historical facts.

You forget that Saddam Hussein was a CIA asset, and was put in place and kept in power by the CIA because he helped to create turmoil in the region and was an effective power in keeping IRAN in check.

Donald Rumsfeld was a representative for a private contractor, and met with Saddam Hussein and was negotiating with Saddam Hussein at President Ronald Reagan’s request, to support providing Saddam Hussein with military assistance and weapons before, during and after the mass murder of the Kurds. Saddam Hussein used American supplied helicopters and nerve gas when they gassed the Kurds. Saddam Hussein had American supplied Sarin Nerve Gas and other biological weapons prior to and during the first Gulf War, because the Reagan and Bush 1 administrations GAVE THEM TO HIM. (The nerve gases and biological agents deteriorate after a few months, so those weren’t much of an issue during this last war with Iraq, because they hadn’t been reconstituted by the Iraqi military, but they were during the first Gulf War.)

Al Qaeda came about from the Mujahideen/Mujahadeen, who fought for freedom for Afghanistan in a nine year war against the Russians. The U.S. provided them with $4 Billion in Stinger Missiles ALONE (to shoot down Russian helicopters). That doesn’t count all the other weaponry that they gave them during the entire conflict between Russia and the Afghan fighters. After the Russians left, the CIA asked to get the Stinger missiles back from the mujahideen, and even offered to pay them pennies on the dollar. The mujahideen declined their offer. Who do you think they are using the stinger missiles on now? The U.S. Government and the military don’t like to talk about U.S. helicopters that are shot down these days.

And the CIA TRAINED Saddam Hussein and the Mujahideen fighters. They got their tactics from OUR people because of a foreign policy that was put in place by Republican Presidents, supported by our Congress and financed by U.S. Taxpayers.

People have been protesting the School of the Americas for decades. The School of the Americas is a U.S. military training school at Fort Benning, Georgia, for the military of foreign countries across the globe, particularly for Latin American dictators. But these policies, which have been promoted particularly by Republican Presidents and their supporters, and have trained the military of despotic regimes, are no different from what was done to support Saddam Hussein and the Mujahideen.

They never would have been able to accomplish what they have in their terrorist activities, if they had not been provided with the support of our government officials and U.S. taxpayers who pay for their training and their weapons, without considering whether that was a moral position, or what the long term effects would be.

It was wrong for our government to do it. It was morally, ethically and legally wrong. The American people weren’t paying attention then. If the American people don’t see that, or refuse to see it now, then they also are responsible for the consequences now.

We’ve already seen the consequences that our country and the world have suffered for allowing our government officials to act with impunity, without any oversight or consequences for their actions.

We need to smarten up; do our own research, instead of listening to the talking heads who have lied and continue to repeatedly lie to us and then claim that it was for our own good. We need to speak out and take action when we see falsehoods and outright lies directing our homeland and foreign policies.

And we need to take responsibility for our actions, and force our elected officials and their enablers to take responsibility for theirs as well.

By the way, the Pentagon just released a report based on their own investigations of over 600,000 documents, and are saying that what Bush and Cheney were saying before the war was not true. There was NO evidence of ANY connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. So “going to war in Iraq to stop the terrorists” was a completely fraudulent basis for getting us into Iraq in the first place.

Almost 4,000 military, 1123 contractors, and 600,000 civilians have lost their lives; with around 30,000 injuries, and almost $750,000.000 already budgeted for this war.

For what?

And you would continue to support Bush in spite of his incompetence and fraud?