What can we do about the exploding crime rate? First, we have to collectively decide that we want to do something about it. Politics trail culture and there is a significant cultural movement that not only accepts more crime, but views its destabilizing effect as necessary to drive social change. Until our culture rejects that movement for the cancer it is, there will always be political support for the policies that empower criminals.
Second, assuming we actually want to change it, we must drive change in local elections. Most of the decisions about funding law enforcement, use of force policies, prosecutions, etc. are made by local governments, elected district attorneys, elected sheriffs, and elected judges. People make policy and we must elect people who will make policies that protect our communities.
Most things that happen are not the result of some mysterious force. They are the result of decisions that we make. Until we decide that we want to have less crime, it will not happen.
Milwaukee is in the grip of the worst violence in its modern history. There were 189 killings here last year, a 93% increase from 2019 and the most ever recorded.
The jump reflects a nationwide trend. In one study, researchers from the nonprofit Council on Criminal Justice looked at 34 cities and found that 29had more homicides last year than in 2019. The overall rise was 30%, though in most places killings remained below their peaks in the 1990s.
Among the 19 cities with more than half a million people — including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago — none saw a bigger surge than Milwaukee. With 127 killings through the first half of September, the city is nearly on pace to match last year’s record. Hughes was the 78th person killed this year.
[…]
Black officers now make up 18% of the force, which has downsized considerably over the last two decades and become much less diverse. The homicide unit has shrunk to two dozen detectives.
[…]
Milwaukee police have solved 58% of the homicides committed last year, down from 68% in 2019. The rate so far this year is 34%.
America is increasingly becoming a country where if you work hard, play by the rules, take care of your family, and live up to your responsibilities, you are a chump. Not only are you a chump, but you are held in contempt by those who want what you have.
Many of us grew up in an America where we were expected to build our own American Dreams. In our teens or early adulthood, we would enter the workforce in some low wage job to work our way up the ladder. Without any real skills or experience, entry level jobs were compensated accordingly. Those first jobs were grunt work, but they taught us responsibility, diligence, work ethic, and the value of a day’s work.
Now the thought of a crummy first job has become taboo. Some people expect their first jobs to be “family supporting” even when there isn’t any family to support. Convinced that they posses a personal dignity that wafts above the demands of menial labor, they sit home and sponge off others while waiting in their lobby of their own future.
Some of us chose the path of college to gain an education necessary for our chosen careers. We worked, scrimped, and chose a college within our means. Many of us also borrowed money with the full understanding that it was a debt we were incurring as an investment in our own futures and would pay the money back with the wages of that future.
Now we are being told that we must also pay off the bad investments in others’ futures too. When that neighbor kid took out massive loans to go to a college she could not afford to get a degree in something that had little market value, she made a bad investment. But instead of being responsible for her choice, she tells us that we must pay for her bad choice with a righteous entitlement that is only learned in our most esteemed universities.
As we began our families, many of us grew up in an America where we were expected to be responsible for them. We had to feed, clothe, house, and educate our children so that they would become responsible adults who could build their own futures and contribute to their communities. This often meant making personal compromises. We scaled our living expenses to live on one income so that one parent could stay home or worked overtime to afford help. We bought the store brand food, took “vacations” to the neighboring county, lived in modest homes, and became masters of the thrift stores.
Now we are being told that all those compromises we made in our own lives to care for our own families cannot be expected of others. Instead, we must pay to feed every kid in school whether their families can afford it or not. We must pay for child care for other people’s kids. We are not permitted to question the choices of parents who enjoy their steak dinners and vacations as they expect us to feed, clothe, and provide child care for their children. To ask such questions is deemed insensitive and inappropriate.
As we thought about getting older, many of us put money away to care for ourselves in our dotage. We have spent a lifetime pulling money out of our earnings to stash away with the hope of growing old. Again, we made compromises. We ate out less, bought cheaper houses, made that old couch last another year, and just lived with that dent in the car door instead of fixing it. A lifetime of little compromises is the price borne to afford an independent old age.
Now we are being told that if we have managed to save a nest egg for ourselves that we must share it with those who never made those compromises. Even now, the liberals in Washington and Madison are eyeing retirement funds as “wealth” to be taxed and taken for those who lived as if they would never grow old.
Now President Joe Biden is mandating vaccines, but only for Americans who are working and being responsible. If you are an illegal alien, are on the dole, work for Congress, are a refugee, or refuse to work, you do not have to get vaccinated. Only Americans who are gainfully employed are being forced to choose between getting vaccinated and pauperism. Irrespective of your opinion on federal vaccination mandates (I vehemently oppose them), only Americans who are being responsible, working, contributing members of society are feeling the heavy jack boots of Biden’s mandates.
So what kind of chumps are we? Why work hard, make personal compromises, and invest in a future that you will never be able to enjoy?
These questions are why socialism always fails. People are compassionate and want to help care for those in our society who are truly not able to care for themselves. When, however, people are forced to work harder to pay for those who are unwilling to care for themselves, they become chumps. And when the chump’s burden of paying for their lazy neighbor becomes too heavy and robs them of the rewards of their labor, then the chumps give up and look for some other chump to pay the bills. The cascade continues until there aren’t any more chumps left to pay.
I heard rumblings about the West Bend School Board’s meeting last night, but the video of parents sharing their views is incredibly compelling. Check out the Washington County Insider for more.
Quite a few parents asked the board to call an emergency meeting to remove the SEL and CRT curriculum from the West Bend School District.
“Stop teaching SEL in Badger and the high school and take emergency action to remove it now. You are causing harm to our children,” said parent Corine Freund. “It is not safe in our school. My son got beat up last week in your school district and I am tired of it.”
Nicole Casper has two children and already removed one from the district opting for homeschooling. “Why do you think it’s ok to continue teaching something parents don’t want,” she said. “Why is there such a pushback against parents who are concerned to have this stopped?”
Jamie Dutcher read from SEL curriculum that promoted a website for 13-and-14-year-old children. The website loveisrespect.org reminded students to “clear your history after visiting this website.”
“Sex can be a fun and gratifying activity for you and your partners to enjoy together. Five tips for your first time. … You can live chat your questions to us.”
Dutcher said she asked superintendent Jen Wimmer about the site and Wimmer told her the website was stricken from the curriculum.
America is increasingly becoming a country where if you work hard, play by the rules, take care of your family, and live up to your responsibilities, you are a chump. Not only are you a chump, but you are held in contempt by those who want what you have.
[…]
Now President Joe Biden is mandating vaccines, but only for Americans who are working and being responsible. If you are an illegal alien, are on the dole, work for Congress, are a refugee, or refuse to work, you do not have to get vaccinated. Only Americans who are gainfully employed are being forced to choose between getting vaccinated and pauperism. Irrespective of your opinion on federal vaccination mandates (I vehemently oppose them), only Americans who are being responsible, working, contributing members of society are feeling the heavy jack boots of Biden’s mandates.
So what kind of chumps are we? Why work hard, make personal compromises, and invest in a future that you will never be able to enjoy?
The Health Secretary revealed he’s already asked officials to get rid of travel testing rules, as they shouldn’t be in place for a second longer than “absolutely necessary.”
I truly mourn the America we’ve lost. If we allow our president to use the violent power of the federal government to force needles into the arms of hundreds of millions of Americans, then we are definitely no longer in the America that previous generations enjoyed.
He said he had directed the US Department of Labor to require all private businesses with 100 or more staff to mandate the jab or request proof of a negative coronavirus test from employees at least once a week.
Nearly 17 million healthcare workers at facilities receiving federal benefits will also face the same requirements, he said.
[…]
The time for sweet-talking, for cajoling Americans to take the Covid-19 vaccine is over. The time for government mandates has arrived.
That was the blunt message Joe Biden delivered to the nation on Thursday afternoon. While many Americans have received at least one jab, the president laid the blame for the continued US health crises squarely at the feet of the 25% of the public who are unvaccinated and the politicians who he said were “actively working to undermine the fight”.
Mr Biden said his new vaccine orders were not about freedom or personal choice, but that’s exactly how some Americans will view them – as a forced choice between vaccination and continued employment. And while the mandates will increase the number of vaccinated Americans, it will also enflame a debate already rife with political tension.
Good for them. America could use some policies like this.
Some migrants in Denmark will now be required to work 37 hours a week in order to receive welfare benefits.
It will be a requirement for those who have been on benefits for three to four years, and who have not reached a certain level of proficiency in Danish.
[…]
The prime minister said that the rules were aimed at migrant women. The government says six out of 10 women from the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey are not in work.
“It is basically a problem when we have such a strong economy, where the business community demands labour, that we then have a large group, primarily women with non-Western backgrounds, who are not part of the labour market,” she said.
Employment Minister Peter Hummelgaard said the jobs could range from picking up cigarette butts on the beach to working in companies.
Before you cheer this… think it through. If your doctor is deciding whether or not to give you care depending on your personal health decisions, then get a different doctor.
In a letter to her patients, Linda Marraccini said she will no longer continue in-person services for unvaccinated patients beginning Sept. 15, NBC Miami reported.
Marraccini wrote that her practice will “no longer subject our patients and staff to unnecessary risk.”
It is this commitment to each other that is the foundation of small-“r” republicanism. If each of us takes responsibility and ownership for our homes and communities, then we end up with much stronger communities. Strong communities build stronger nations and stronger nations build a stronger world.
It is easy for compassionate people to get caught up in the woes of the world, but we can best make that world better by working locally. Get involved. Stay involved. Make the world better one community at a time.
Someone wants a pay day. The age of great album covers has been over since the advent of online media, but this was one of the most iconic (although, the music was terrible).
Spencer Elden, the man who was photographed as a baby on the album cover for Nirvana’s Nevermind, is suing the band alleging sexual exploitation.
The cover depicts Elden as a four-month-old in a swimming pool, grasping for a dollar bill that’s being dangled in front of him on a fishing line.
Now 30, Elden says his parents never signed a release authorising the use of his image on the album.
He also alleges the nude image constitutes child pornography.
“The images exposed Spencer’s intimate body part and lasciviously displayed Spencer’s genitals from the time he was an infant to the present day,” legal papers filed in California claim.
Non-sexualised photos of infants are generally not considered child pornography under US law.
Out-of-control school board meetings over COVID-19 protocols has the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Office of School Safety warning if people go too far in debates, that speech can become criminal.
The Office of School Safety spoke to school leaders about what kinds of speech are protected and when police involvement is appropriate. This comes as school board meetings have turned heated around issues like mask mandates.
[…]
Devitt says if people go too far in a school board debate, it could mean facing criminal charges.
“When it goes into threatening a person, threatening to harm someone or something, that is when we see it move into criminality,” said Devitt.
The guidance is not wrong. When speech turns to threats or violence, it does become inappropriate and even illegal. But where was this guidance when BLM was disrupting public meetings? Where was it when teachers were protesting Act 10? Where was it when lefties were disrupting Sensenbrenner town halls?
Nowhere. It’s OK for lefties to scream threats because they do so for the cause of justice and right. This is the perpetuation of the narrative that Democrats and leftists have been perpetuating since January 6th (or before). The message goes something like this… conservatives are a violent domestic terrorist cell that we should fear and quash. So we see leftist activists on elected boards running to the media to tell everyone how afraid they are. We see every conservative who may raise his/her voice in public or stand with a Gadsden flag be labeled an insurrectionist. We see leftist government institutions, like the Wisconsin DOJ, issue stern warnings about conservatives going to far. All of this comes after we endured a year of violent unrest from leftist organizations where these same people sat in silent approval.
Don’t buy it, conservatives. Show up. Be vocal. Be loud. Don’t be violent or stupid, but don’t let the leftist power structure silence you.
So the same people who want to empty prisons, defund the police, and are cool with fake papers for illegal aliens want to throw you in federal prison if you get a fake vaccine card. I guess that says where we are…
NEW YORK — The Senate’s top Democrat says federal law enforcement officials need to crack down on fake COVID-19 vaccination cards being sold online.
Sen. Chuck Schumer’s announcement Sunday comes after The Associated Press reported how people are cheating the system and buying counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards online, worrying officials at colleges and universities across the country that are requiring proof students received the vaccine to attend in-person classes.
Schumer is demanding U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the FBI team up with officials from the Department of Health and Human Services to launch a crackdown on the counterfeit cards and start a campaign to make clear that forging the cards could land people in federal prison.
People with a PhD are the most hesitant when it comes to getting the Covid-19 vaccine, according to a paper by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Researchers surveyed just over five million US adults in an online survey, with 10,000 reporting that they were educated to PhD level.
The report showed a surprising U-shaped correlation between willingness to get a Covid vaccine and education level – with the highest hesitancy among those least and most educated.
Don’t you kind of wonder why this isn’t already the law? Or, at least, the policy in every district in the state? And why, pray tell, are the Democrats fighting so hard to prevent the prohibition of teaching racism in schools? They are fighting anti-racism racism like they did in the 1960s.
The legislation would require teachers to post their syllabuses online and districts to provide copies of curriculum under the state’s open records law, without charges or delays, and would establish a complaint process for parents, staff or groups who object to the materials being taught.
[…]
Under the bills, violations include teaching that one race or sex is superior to another; a person is inherently racist by virtue of his or her race or sex; a person’s moral character is determined by race or sex; a person should feel guilty for past acts committed by people of his or her race or sex; and systems based on meritocracy are racist or sexist or designed to oppress people of another race.
Whether or not one agrees with the activists’ message, there is a time and a place. I don’t want to have to support activism or make a political statement just to order a sandwich. I just want a dang sandwich. Hold the onions.
Owners of Subway franchises are asking the company’s bosses to pull adverts featuring soccer star Megan Rapinoe, because customers are complaining about her political activism.
Rapinoe, 36, is as well known for her outspoken views and purple hair as she is for her soccer skills.
In Tokyo for her third Olympics, Rapinoe took a knee during the National Anthem, before their bronze-winning game.
[…]
At the end of July, a Wisconsin franchise operator shared a note from an angry customer with a discussion forum hosted by the North American Association of Subway Franchisees (NAASF).
The note, taped to his door, read: ‘Boycott Subway until Subway fires the anti-American Megan Rapinoe, the creep who kneels for our beloved National Anthem!’
The Wisconsin owner said: ‘The ad should be pulled and done with. It gets tiring apologizing.’
Subway does not own any of its nearly 22,000 locations, but it charges franchisees 4.5 per cent of their revenue for a national advertising fund, and controls how the money is spent from its Connecticut headquarters.
An Arizona owner said on the NAASF blog: ‘Spending our money to make a political statement is completely and totally out of bounds.’
We have watched the last week unfold in abject horror – observing our government institutions and leaders failing our children at every turn, again. Your renewed calls for lockdowns, enforced mask mandates, and masking in schools is not rooted in science and is objectively cruel to the most vulnerable
in our society, our children. We believe that you are in fact aware of this and continue to play political games with our children, despite our efforts to work with you over the last twelve months.
We are here to inform you that this ends today.
Effective immediately we will not:
1. Mask our children in schools
2. Allow you to use your private sector counterparts to enforce invasive mask mandates on our children in various stores or at community activities
3. Subject our children to any further local, regional, or national lockdowns or movement restriction
Simply put, these are not your children. They are ours and they too, are Americans with rights. They are
our responsibility and our most beloved. They are not yours.
Given the miniscule chance that children will be significantly harmed by COVID and the proven detrimental effects that masks and lockdowns cause on their mental health and education, it is bordering on child abuse to impose those things on kids.
Once again… if you are vaccinated, then why would you be concerned over the vaccination status of others? You made your choice. They made theirs. Let’s get on with living.
(CNN)More than 99.99% of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 have not had a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization or death, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The data highlights what leading health experts across the country have highlighted for months: Covid-19 vaccines are very effective at preventing serious illness and death from Covid-19 and are the country’s best shot at slowing the pandemic down and avoiding further suffering.
The CDC reported 6,587 Covid-19 breakthrough cases as of July 26, including 6,239 hospitalizations and 1,263 deaths. At that time, more than 163 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
Divide those severe breakthrough cases by the total fully vaccinated population for the result: less than 0.004% of fully vaccinated people had a breakthrough case that led to hospitalization and less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people died from a breakthrough Covid-19 case.
But with Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations now surging again and officials across the US suddenly reimposing restrictions after a summer of semi normalcy, McCullough and many other vaccinated Americans are becoming increasingly angry at those who are refusing the shot.
“I did what I had to do,” McCullough told CNN. “Now, these people who are making this selfish decision are going to make me suffer the consequences.”
First, notice how they have all switched to using percentages instead of actual numbers. Why? Because percentages are scarier. If 2 people died yesterday and 4 died today, that’s a 100% increase. But looking at the actual numbers, we aren’t seeing anything close to what we saw at the peak of the pandemic. Here are Wisconsin’s numbers:
That doesn’t look as scary, does it? But our government overlords have fallen in love with their power fueled by the pandemic. If the pandemic isn’t scary anymore, then we don’t need them to take extraordinary measures like multi-trillion dollar spending sprees, do we?
But back to the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated… follow the logic. If you are vaccinated and the vaccines are effective, then why do you care if your neighbor chose to not get vaccinated? Because they might spread it to you? But you are vaccinated, right? And if you are vaccinated, you might (although it appears to be extraordinarily difficult) spread the virus to someone who is not vaccinated. So? Why is that your concern? They weighed the risks and made their own choice. If they get the virus and have a bad case or die, then it sucks for them. Stuff happens. We’re all going to die sometime.
The politicians and media are stoking division because it gives them power. Don’t fall for it. Love your neighbor whether they are vaccinated or not.
