Radical Liberal Assaults Wisconsin Lawmaker

Posted on September 16, 2011 by J.R.

Remember a couple months ago when Wisconsin Liberals protesting in Madison said they would be on their best behavior and set an example in civility? Yeah, me neither.  Well it looks like they’ve decided to step it up a notch and start assaulting lawmakers directly.

A report from the Madison Police Department identifies the victim as a 43-year-old state lawmaker from Burlington, a description that matches Rep. Robin Vos (R-Burlington), co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee. Vos’ office confirmed he was the victim but would not say anything else about the matter, since it was being investigated by police.

The incident happened at the Inn on the Park, 22 S. Carroll St. Witnesses said a man came into the tavern and swore at three lawmakers, calling them criminals. A bartender said the man used the words to the effect of “money” and “damn Republicans,” according to the police report.

Another man was recording the incident with a video camera when the bartender asked him to stop. That’s when the person who had been yelling dumped the beer on Vos’ head, according to the report.

The police report says beer splashed onto two other lawmakers, Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette).

Vos told police that the man has been harassing him since February, though previous encounters had not involved physical contact. The representative did not know the suspect’s name, but a female State Capitol employee, who was with the group, gave police a name and said Capitol Police would have his contact information, according to the report. Police believe he’s a 26-year-old.

Police said that when they find the beer pourer, he will likely face a tentative charge of disorderly conduct.

The protestor has been identified as Miles Kristan, a model of liberal civility.  Apparently he is well known around Madison for his violent left-wing behavior.

A source present at the incident and who wished to remain anonymous has identified the perpetrator as Miles Kristan, a well-known fixture of the recent protests in Madison and elsewhere in Wisconsin. Kristan is also well known to the MacIver News Service. He has harassed our interns and our investigative reporter in attempts to prevent us from providing coverage of events in Madison and Janesville.

UPDATE – The MacIver News Service have discovered a video, posted online, of Kristan and another protester harassing Representatives Vos and Suder just last week. In the video, which is apparently shot by Kristan and can be seen here, the representatives leave the Capitol and head over to check into the Inn on the Park. This video corroborates allegations that these two individuals have repeatedly harassed Vos, Suder and others.

“I am somebody and you will listen to me,” the agitator screams at one point in the six-and-a-half-minute video. Earlier, he warns that he was giving Vos “five business days to respond.”

The video was posted on September 9, five days before last night’s incident.

   I’m still waiting for just one Madison liberal to condemn the assault on an elected official.  Unfortunately all I could find was liberals rooting for him. This must be the new civility we’ve been hearing about. Jim Hoft at Gatewaypundit has more.

 

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AttackWatch.com

Posted on September 14, 2011 by J.R.

From the Washington Post:

As the 2012 presidential campaign heats up, President Obama’s campaign team has set up a new Web site, AttackWatch.com, to challenge negative statements about the president made by Republican presidential candidates and conservatives.

Obama for America national field director Jeremy Bird told ABC News that the site’s goal is to offer “resources to fight back” against attacks. Mostly, that means fact checking statements from the likes of GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and conservative commentator Glenn Beck and offering evidence to the contrary. The site is designed in bold red and black colors, and uses statements like “support the truth” and “fight the smears.”

The response to the site has been less than stellar.

Less than stellar?  When you use the same design theme as a Communist propaganda poster and encourage people to snitch on others, how do you think it will come across?  Still, I think attackwatch.com needs something to help get the word out. Something to let the world know, big brother is here to help. Being the good citizen that I am, I decided accept that responsibility.  Feel free to post the following posters wherever you see fit. We can still win the fight!

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UW-Madison’s Diverstity Problem

Posted on September 13, 2011 by J.R.

Apparently the folks at UW-Madison are up in arms over a perceived threat to the perfect diversity they have created at The People’s Republic.”

Whites and Asians aren’t getting a fair crack at being admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

That’s what two studies released late Monday night by the Center for Equal Opportunity indicate. The organization states in a press release accompanying the studies that there is “severe discrimination based on race and ethnicity in undergraduate and law school admissions” at Wisconsin’s flagship institution of higher education.

The CEO — a conservative think tank based out of Sterling, Va., that pushes “colorblind public policies” and backs the elimination or curtailment of existing racial preference and affirmative action programs — reports that UW-Madison gives “African Americans and Latinos preference over whites and Asians” in admissions. The studies, which initially were embargoed until Tuesday morning, were released late Monday on the CEO website.

Just how far off is it? A bit more than you might think.  I like the odds playing the quarter slots at the casino better.

A CEO press release states the studies outlining discrimination at UW-Madison “are based on data supplied by the schools themselves, some of which the university had refused to turn over until a lawsuit was filed by CEO and successfully taken all the way to the state supreme court.”

The CEO studies found that the “odds ratio favoring African Americans and Hispanics over whites was 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively, using the SAT and class rank while controlling for other factors. Thus, the median composite SAT score for black admittees was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and the Latino median SAT score was 100 points lower. Using the ACT, the odds ratios climbed to 1,330-to-1 and 1,494-to-1, respectively, for African Americans and Hispanics over whites.”

The CEO adds that for law school admissions, the “racial discrimination found was also severe, with the weight given to ethnicity much greater than given to, for example, Wisconsin residency. Thus, an out-of-state black applicant with grades and LSAT scores at the median for that group would have had a 7 out 10 chance of admission and an out-of-state Hispanic a 1 out of 3 chance — but an in-state Asian with those grades and scores had a 1 out of 6 chance and an in-state white only a 1 out of 10 chance.”

CEO chairman Linda Chavez said in a news release that “this is the most severe undergraduate admissions discrimination that CEO has ever found in the dozens of studies it has published over the last 15 years.“

I’m still trying to understand why UW-Madison would want to hide the statistics on their “diversity.” Usually when someone in Madison is hiding information from the rest of the state it’s for good reason (you cant let those ignorant Wisconsin tax payers know how their money is being spent, those mindless rubes wouldn’t understand). Perhaps this is yet another case of “social justice” run amok that sought to “protect diversity” at whatever the cost.  The irony of “protecting diversity” by systematically discriminating against another race is perpetually lost on these people.  Well, the reaction from the Madison crowd is to be expected when its a conservative organization pointing out the errors of the liberal utopia.

“These organizations have as their mission to systematically dial back the gains from the Civil Rights era,” Damon Williams, UW-Madison’s vice provost for diversity, told a group of student leaders Monday night at the Red Gym in a segment recorded by WKOW.com.

I’m honestly surprised they didn’t find someone to claim that conservatives are “trying to bring back slavery.”  Then again, this story was just published at 1:30 am.  I’m sure they’ll find someone tomorrow.

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A Decade After September 11

Posted on September 11, 2011 by J.R.

I was sitting in class at the Dunwoody Institute of Technology in Minneapolis. It was a regular Tuesday morning, and the professor was lecturing about some web development assignment. Being the not-so-studious student that I tended to be (I was barely 21), I was chatting on AOL Instant Messenger with a friend of mine in New York City. We had met when ESPN’s Great Outdoor Games were held in Lake Placid, New York, and she worked for the media company in charge of the website covering the event. She worked four blocks from the Empire State building. We occasionally chatted, talked about random stuff, and swapped e-mails back and forth. This morning was different. Around 8 a.m. (my time) she started frantically sending strange messages. “We’re under attack! New York City is under attack!” I thought she was joking. I asked her what she was talking about. “They’re flying planes into buildings! Go look on CNN!” I try to go to CNN.com, or any other news source I could think of. Nothing. The entire Internet had clogged from the sheer number of people trying to find out what was going on. It had bottle-necked to the point of shutting down almost completely. I told her I couldn’t get anywhere, so she e-mailed me a picture. It was a grainy image of a large passenger plane flying into the World Trade Center. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

My professor and my fellow classmates were oblivious to what was happening. I felt the need to say something, so I interrupted his lecture. “Mr. Haluska, I’m sorry to interrupt you but I need to tell you something. New York City is under attack. They are flying airplanes into buildings. I’m not making this up. I have a friend in New York City who I have been chatting with. They are under attack. I’m not making this up.” He didn’t believe me. He tried to check the Internet for information on what was happening. Nothing. When he said he couldn’t find anything, I carried my laptop to the front of the class and showed him the picture my friend had sent me. After that he said, “All right, everyone take a 10 minute break.” I ran downstairs to the student lounge where there was a TV. A large crowd had gathered. On the screen was the World Trade Center with smoke pouring out of it. Everyone was in disbelief.

We went back upstairs to class, and the professor attempted to get back into his lecture. My friend kept relaying information from New York City. For a while she was saying that a plane had hit the White House. It was later revealed that it had hit the Pentagon. A friend sitting next to me told me when the first tower collapsed. Shortly thereafter my friend in New York said that they were evacuating her building and she had to leave. As bits of information became available it spread around the classroom like wildfire. Eventually the professor gave up on lecturing and sent everyone home early. He said he couldn’t focus anyway and wanted to find out more information on what was going on. As we walked out to the parking lot, I said to a fellow classmate “This is fucked up man.” He replied, “Shit… you’re telling me man.”

As I drove through downtown Minneapolis, I remember staring up at skyscrapers like the IDS Tower, the Wells Fargo building, and all the other spectacular buildings that made up the skyline. Downtown Minneapolis was like a ghost town. Other than a couple city buses, I was only car on the road. All the buildings were empty, having all been evacuated earlier. I turned on my radio to 93X, and heard a short speech by Governor Jesse Ventura asking people to remain calm and cool in this difficult time.

I would spend the next five days and nights glued to the TV, living on the couch of the rundown campus house that we rented. The next day when I drove to class there were F15s circling Minneapolis. The Federal Reserve building that I drove right by every morning was now surrounded by concrete barriers. To uparmored suburbans were parked on the perimeter. There were men in suits and dark sunglasses carrying fully automatic machine guns.

Nothing had hit me quite like this. I was another naive, bulletproof, twenty-something college kid. Nothing affected me in my world. Before 9/11 history was only in the past. Now I was living it.

————————————————————————————–

In the past I have followed the above with a description of how the event spurred me to join the military.  On this 10 year anniversary of Sept 11, it is important to stress that it is not about my, or any one individual’s sacrifice. Its about the lives who were lost, the heros of the day, and the attack on America that awakened the sleeping giant.  My heart and prayers go out to all those affected by 9/11.

 

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10 Years of Blogging

Posted on September 10, 2011 by J.R.

Somewhere along the line I forgot to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of my blog. How long ago did I forget? Well, I think its been 11.5 years now since I started blogging so I guess it slipped my mind.  A lot has changed here in the last decade. When I started blogging no one even knew what a blog was.   Evan Williams was a lowly programmer hosting a computer out of his house in California.  When he made updates to the Blogger code he posted a notice on the webpage saying the site would be down for a couple hours.  When it was time to upgrade computer equipment or add a second server he raised funds any way he knew how. I still have a blogger tshirt in my closet somewhere when Evan was raising funds for a database server.  Don’t know who Evan Williams is?  Well you probably know his latest creation. Its a little app by the name of Twitter.

My blog has gone through a number of changes over the last 10 years.  The posts are spread across no less than four databases over the years, fracturing the integrity of my blog history each time. Now you know why half of them are missing. Its never been very high on my priority list to add them all back. Maybe someday. At the very least I want all of the posts from Iraq added to the database.

As you might have noticed, I have done very little blogging over the last year or so.  This was mostly due to the schedule and time constraints of finishing my teaching degree and being a new parent. But part of it was because of a clash of ideology.  You see, I was told by a number of individuals that if I ever expected to get a teaching job in Wisconsin I needed to shut up and pretend that I am a Democrat.   I was told to bite my tongue and nod my head in acceptance whenever politics came to light.  We were warned by school administrators visiting my college that young teachers should expect to be Googled and have their past dredged up.  Anything that showed up would be fair game in the hiring process.  So I did what any naive unemployed teacher-in-training would do: I censored myself.  I went through my blog and hid any posts that were overtly conservative in nature. I hid direct criticism of Democrats.  I made it look generically military with little political affiliation.  I bit my tongue. I withheld stats and facts that popped into my head whenever someone tried making a dishonest claim about how much teachers make, or how much “the rich” are taxed, or any of the other outrageous claims that were freely propagated. I sat idly by and said nothing when teachers were arrested for making death threats, or got phony doctors slips so they could skip off to protest in Madison. I was appalled by the lack of moral fiber present in the behavior of those who are supposed to be the most morally upstanding people in our society.

After a lot of self reflection I finally realized that if I have to pretend to be someone else, if I have to pass a political litmus test, if I have to constantly be censored, if I have to constantly look on and bite my tongue to pursue a teaching career then perhaps this career path is not all it is portrayed to be.

Now please understand me here. I’m not looking for the opportunity to slander or badmouth teachers for the sake of disagreement. I’m not looking for the opportunity to air dirty laundry or disagreements with faculty or administrators. I do not have the right to resort to personal attacks on another person’s character.  But I do have the right to engage in friendly, civil debate without being called an asshole, a “Walker plant,” a “Koch sucker,” or have my chances at a career threatened, or the tires on my car slashed, or my personal finances and political donations printed off from the internet and passed around school like a rap-sheet for pedophilia.  If I cannot engage in friendly debate, be respected for my own views, or be hired and employed on my own merit and not on my political affiliations then perhaps I chose the wrong career path.  And perhaps this whole teaching thing is not the all inclusive, multicultural, and benevolent endeavor that it is portrayed to be.

Posted in Blog, Democrats, Education, wisconsin | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Project Healing Waters

Posted on May 20, 2011 by J.R.

A Soldier from my old unit recently informed me that my photo was gracing the front page of Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood. There is a writeup on Project Healing Waters, the organization that consumed much of my time and effort during my 9 month stay in Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a fundraiser to create a documentary about the organization.

As Memorial Day weekend approaches and we make plans to celebrate with family and friends, there are so many who will not be celebrating. They will, instead, be visiting Arlington Cemetery and hundreds of other cemeteries across the country where their loved ones, who paid the ultimate price for our freedom, have been laid to rest.

And then there are the “lucky ones” who made it home.

Go read the whole thing.

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Busyness

Posted on May 17, 2011 by J.R.

I know I haven’t posted in forever.  I’ve been busy trying to finish up my teaching degree without going insane from the work load. On the plus side I’m almost done. On the downside I’m rolling (pun intended) into log rolling season. So unfortunately I will be trading one set of busyness for another. Yes, I am glutton for punishment.

 

I’m tired of my plain old website that has sat unfinished for years now. I may do something with it. Don’t be alarmed if it changes.

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Walter Reed Officers Disciplined For Hasan, Fort Hood Shooting

Posted on March 12, 2011 by J.R.

Finally some good news from this whole mess.

Maj. Nidal Hasan went on a November 2009 shooting spree that left 13 dead and 32 injured.Nine Army officers received reprimands for missing the warning flags raised by accused Fort Hood killer Maj. Nidal Hasan as he rose through the ranks of the military.

The nine officers – all ranked lieutenant or above – were sanctioned with either oral reprimands or possible career-ending written letters of censure, said Army Secretary John McHugh.

The secretary said the officers failed to meet the “high standards” expected of Army officers when they supervised Hasan at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

The harsh sanctions “send a clear message to everyone that the Army will not tolerate such negligence and passivity in reaction to clear signs that a soldier is radicalizing to Islamist extremists,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)

Photo credit to AP.

Read the whole thing.

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Caregivers of Wounded Soldiers Still Waiting For Benefits

Posted on February 25, 2011 by J.R.

Problems with the VA?  Join the club:

Nine months after President Obama authorized a broad expansion of benefits for those caring for service members severely wounded in the nation’s two current wars, none of the assistance has materialized and it is caught up in a bureaucratic tangle that could shrink the number of families eligible for the help.

Obama made care for military veterans and their families a priority in his role as commander in chief, and in May he signed into law a measure that for the first time would give cash assistance, counseling and fill-in help known as “respite care” to people overseeing the convalescence of wounded troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

What could be the holdup?  Lack of funds? Lack of participation? Nope, just the usual.

But the Department of Veterans Affairs has since missed the Jan. 31 deadline for fully implementing the program, leaving the families of wounded troops to wonder when the promised help will arrive.

Veterans Affairs officials say designing the law has involved months of consulting with veterans groups, congressional leaders, families and others, and that some progress has been made. But determining who qualifies for the new benefits – including whether veterans of pre-Sept. 11, 2001, wars should be eligible for all of them – has been a complicated, politically fraught process.

The VA continually proves itself incapable of properly caring for our nation’s Veterans.  Why would it prove different with Veteran’s families?

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Wounded Soldiers Stuck in Limbo, Addicted to Meds

Posted on January 27, 2011 by J.R.

Well color me unsurprised.

Medical officials estimate that 25 percent to 35 percent of about 10,000 ailing soldiers assigned to special wounded-care companies or battalions are addicted or dependent on drugs — particularly prescription narcotic pain relievers, according to an Army inspector general’s report made public Tuesday.

The report also found that these formations known as Warrior Transition Units — created after reports detailed poorly managed care at Walter Reed Army Hospital — have become costly way stations where ill, injured or wounded soldiers can wait more than a year for a medical discharge.

Some soldiers have become so irate about the delays in leaving the Army that doctors, nurses and other medical staff say they have been assaulted in their offices and threatened, or had their private cars damaged or tires flattened, the report says.

While I cannot vouch for the doctors receiving threats, I can vouch for the addiction to pain meds and the endless wait time while enduring the Army Med Board process.  I left Walter Reed after “only” 9 months, a relatively short wait considering the normal length of time.   My prescription to Methadone (from Walter Reed) unfortunately lasted longer. It took 3 weeks of horrendous withdrawal to finally quit.  Had I known the withdrawal effects of Methadone I would have said no thanks and endured the pain instead.

After nine years of war, the Army medical-discharge process has become a bureaucratic backlog where nearly 7,800 soldiers wait for their cases to be reviewed. That’s nearly a 50 percent increase since 2007, according to the investigation.
The “process is complex, disjointed and hard to understand, and takes approximately seven to 24 months,” the report says. For the high-care warrior units, it means many of their soldiers wait more than a year for a medical release from the Army.
“Not only is this bad for the Army,” the report says. “It [is] also bad for the individual soldier. He or she languishes in a system that, despite the best efforts of commanders, medical providers and social workers, delays their return to civilian life.”
The warrior units were created across the Army in June 2007 in response to news media reports that the processing of wounded and ill soldiers at Walter Reed was poorly managed. The warrior units — where many ill, injured or wounded troops are temporarily assigned — have nurses, case managers and squad leaders to guide each soldier through the health care system.

After nine years of war, the Army medical-discharge process has become a bureaucratic backlog where nearly 7,800 soldiers wait for their cases to be reviewed. That’s nearly a 50 percent increase since 2007, according to the investigation.
The “process is complex, disjointed and hard to understand, and takes approximately seven to 24 months,” the report says. For the high-care warrior units, it means many of their soldiers wait more than a year for a medical release from the Army.
“Not only is this bad for the Army,” the report says. “It [is] also bad for the individual soldier. He or she languishes in a system that, despite the best efforts of commanders, medical providers and social workers, delays their return to civilian life.”
The warrior units were created across the Army in June 2007 in response to news media reports that the processing of wounded and ill soldiers at Walter Reed was poorly managed. The warrior units — where many ill, injured or wounded troops are temporarily assigned — have nurses, case managers and squad leaders to guide each soldier through the health care system.

I was at Walter Reed during the so-called scandal.  Let me make this clear (again).  The medical care you get at Walter Reed is (for the most part) great.   I had some of the best surgeons in the world patching me back together.  The same goes for prosthetics.  And I cannot say enough positive things about the  physical and occupational therapy I received.

The problem is with the overall Army Med Board process.  Its a nightmare.  I bounced around from one strange office to the next trying to find people in departments I had never heard of so I could get their signature so I was “cleared” to be discharged from the military.  My PEBLO (physical evaluation board liason officer) was a burned out hippe who - on a couple different occasions - was caught  sleeping at her desk in the middle of the day.  (The office had a “check-in” office you were supposed to go to first.  They would then call into the “main office” (right across the hall, behind a closed door) to try and contact your PEBLO.  Some of us eventually said screw the check in desk (we figured they were avoiding us) and started walking right into the main office. Thats when she was caught napping.)

The Med Board process needs a fix.  When I was there in 2007  there was no manual to help, no map to follow. The only way to learn the process was to keep asking people who were there longer than me and keep hounding the people in charge of my Med Board (see sleeping burned out hippe PEBLO).

Sadly, it doesn’t sound like much has changed.

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