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Tag: Mark Belling

Feds Investigate Milwaukee Government for Corruption

by | 0945, 13 Nov 2323 | , | 1 Comment

Broken by Mark Belling:

An ongoing investigation, first reported by me on Friday November 10, is focused on a pair of Milwaukee aldermen. Sources familiar with the federal investigation say it is premised on whether the aldermen in question have been improperly rewarded for their positions on issues.

 

I am not naming the aldermen. They have not been charged. Federal investigations sometimes lead to charges and other times do not. They can be based on concrete allegations or be fishing expeditions.

[…]

I had earlier reported that the concert venue issue was an area of focus of the investigation. In addition, there has been intense discussion in city government circles about the issue. No one has publicly stated that anything inappropriate has happened but opponents of the project have bitterly complained about the approval of the facility. City approval does not mean the facility will be built and the developers still need to get financing which is currently difficult given the interest rate environment.

 

The Common Council approved the concert venue proposal despite adamant objections from operators of other local concert venues. The approval came after developers dropped a proposed 800-seat venue at the complex. The two aldermen in question had originally opposed the project but went on to support it.

 

Neither of the aldermen in question have commented to me about the investigation. Federal grand jury investigations are secret and it can be a crime to disclose them. However, when a probe begins and people are questioned, word of these investigations can get out.

Open Everything and Let People Live Their Lives

by | 0736, 2 Dec 2020 | , | 5 Comments

I completely agree with Mark Belling.

Those of us who have had it with COVID hijacking our lives (and American life) have weighed the risks and want us to return to “normal.” But the other half thinks we are nuts for “ignoring the science” and risking our lives and doing our part to keep spreading the virus.

So, we have a country, and a state, at odds with one another because we are on different timetables with different perspectives and different priorities. There is only one way to resolve these differences and that is for government to butt out and let people make decisions for themselves. One size fits all never works but it especially doesn’t work when you have a country of two sizes. Businesses that want to open at full capacity ought to be allowed to do so. Those that want to close, or limit their clientele, should be free to do that as well. If public schools want to close because of a virus that doesn’t make kids sick, that’s the prerogative of their school boards. But if private schools in the same community want to stay open because they understand the downside of not educating children is worse than the risks of COVID, they ought to be able to do that as well. That’s why the Racine case headed to the state Supreme Court is so critical. The Racine health department has issued an order closing all schools in the city (and some adjacent to the city) whether they are public or private. Wisconsin Institute For Law And Liberty (WILL) is suing. The right of the leaders of private schools to make their own decisions has to trump the rights of bureaucrats to take away those basic rights. Parents silly enough to send their kids to the mediocre (I am being generous) Racine Unified district have opted to exile them to another year of “virtual learning” in which they are going to fall even farther behind their peers. But the moms and dads who have opted to send their children to private schools shouldn’t be stuck with the decision made by leftist government officials afraid of their COVID shadows.

We all know the risks and ways to mitigate the spread of the virus. If you need to stay home, then do so. You are not harmed if I go to a restaurant with other people who are willing to accept the risk.

Marxist Movements Attack Police

by | 0807, 22 Jul 2020 | , , | 146 Comments

Mark Belling has a good column today that goes into the atrocious reactions of public officials in Milwaukee and Wauwatosa as they cave to Marxist attack mobs and abandon their police. In part, he says:

Many Americans sincerely want racial justice, which is why we fight so hard to replace rotten public schools with outstanding private, religious and choice schools. It’s why we support law enforcement that tries to control high crime in minority communities. But this movement is unconcerned with those things. It is singularly focused on attacking police, shrinking their ranks and destroying the lives of people who try to serve their communities by becoming police officers.

This is true. I think many of us are shocked at just how many of our otherwise mild-mannered liberal neighbors truly hate the police and are willing to support the abandonment of law enforcement in their communities. Many of us are still firm supporters of law enforcement and our police departments, but we seem to be a shrinking percentage of the populace.

At the same time, I think many of us were equally shocked by how aggressively some of our police were willing to enforce unconstitutional lockdown orders and the crackdown on our civil rights in response to a health concern. As communities consider and enact further lockdown orders, I would remind those officers who would enforce them that the will erode support in the community from the few of us left who are still supporting them. If we see cops breaking up birthday parties and harassing old ladies to wear a mask, I could see myself agreeing that they are over-funded.

Workplace Weapon Bans Put People In Danger

by | 0721, 5 Mar 2020 | , , | 30 Comments

Mark Belling nails it with his column.

Molson Coors bans weapons in the workplace. Most employers do the same, including my radio company. They generally announce these bans by plastering a silly sign on the door. I guess Ferrill wasn’t deterred by the sign.

The workplace weapons bans are counterproductive. They make all of us easy targets. The only way to have minimized Ferrill’s carnage was for somebody else with a gun to shoot him before he shot anybody else. Occasionally, armed security guards at a few workplaces may be around to do that. But the rest of us are reduced to begging for mercy.

[…]

Almost every mass shooting in America occurs at a “soft target” where the gunman knows nobody will be able to defend themselves or stop the slaughter while it’s still in progress. (Schools are a perfect example of this.) Until somebody figures how to stop people like Ferrill from going off the rails and slaughtering people he’s mad at, allowing a level playing field is the best approach.

We are allowed to carry weapons legally in Wisconsin in our cars, our homes, on the sidewalk and in a lot of parks. But most of us can’t carry them into work. Or the mall. Or a school. It’s not a coincidence that’s where the mass killings usually occur.

Belling Slams Realtors for Anti-Christian Bigotry

by | 0830, 27 Feb 1919 | , | 169 Comments

Looks like Belling and I were on the same wave length this week. He brought up a couple of angles that I did not in regards to the ugly anti-Christian bigotry running through the Left these days.

The Realtors positioned themselves as being against bigotry but the action was, in and of itself, an act of overt bigotry. The Realtors made it clear that a candidate for public office who holds traditional Christian beliefs can forget about getting the organization’s support. This is vile anti-religious bigotry. The Realtors, in their attempt to take a stand against bigotry, in fact engaged in bigotry. The Supreme Court election is critical. If Hagedorn loses, the court is only one seat away from flipping to a liberal majority. When that happens, look for all of the reforms passed during the Walker era to be struck down. The stakes are very high. The Realtors’ gratuitous trashing of Hagedorn damages his campaign and makes it likelier that Wisconsin’s highest court will eventually flip to the left.

The attack on Hagedorn’s religious beliefs is part of a concerted liberal effort to block Catholics and some other Christians from serving as judges. The nomination of Gordon Giampietro to a federal judgeship in Milwaukee recently died because of the opposition of Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who objected to an interview Giampietro gave in which he defended his acceptance of Catholic teaching. Baldwin’s stand was publicly criticized by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki and all of the state’s other Catholic bishops but Baldwin prevailed. Now, a similar attack is aimed at another would-be judge, Hagedorn.

It is unimaginable that anyone could get away with attacking a Muslim candidate’s religious beliefs. Someone who ripped a Jewish candidate for following that religion’s teaching would be labeled an anti-Semite. But it is now standard operating procedure to attack the beliefs of conservative Christian candidates.

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