Monthly Archives: January 2009

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Racine Mayor Arrested

Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Racine Mayor Gary Becker was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, including solicitation of a minor and child pornography.

Becker was arrested Tuesday in a shopping mall outside the City of Milwaukee, said Ben Hughes, city administrator.

Becker was arrested on multiple felony counts, including solicitation of a minor, Hughes said.

Upon the arrest he was transported to the Kenosha County Jail, where he is being held on a $165,000 cash bond.

The arrest was made by officials from the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigations.

The Racine Police Chief Kurt Wahlen called City Council President David Maack at about 12:20 a.m. this morning, Maack said. Wahlen indicated there was an ongoing investigation and Becker had been arrested for charges involving child pornography.

Maack then called all of the aldermen to let them know.

“I thought as a courtesy they needed to be aware,” Maack said. “Considering most were woken up out of a deep sleep I think most of them were just stunned.”

He, himself, was “shocked and disappointed,” he said.

Maack will serve as acting mayor while the mayor is incapacitated, he said.

He is uncertain what the succession plan is if the mayor could not finish his term.

Additional coverage from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here. From the charge of attempted second degree sexual assault of a child, it appears that this is not just your average Internet sting.

Becker picked Brookfield Square as opposed to, say, Regency Mall no doubt to avoid being recognized. Most people know who he is here. There’s been no indication as to whether it was a boy or girl he was attempting to hook up with, but either way it’s damning.

Summary from the Racine Post via RDW.

Regardless of how one feels about the presumption of innocence, Becker should resign immediately. The citizens of Racine deserve a fulltime mayor, not an acting mayor or one crippled by a criminal investigation.

Update: here’s the booking information on Becker.

The mug shot:

Once again, not one mention in either the Journal Times or the Sentinel Journal on Becker’s political party (hint: it begins with a “D”).

Once again, like in the indictment of the corrupt mayor of Baltimore, contrast it to the Drive By Media coverage of the Jim West scandal in Spokane, Wash. Or Larry Craig. Or Mark Foley.

Some community reaction of the arrest can be found here.

Video of the morning press conference following Becker’s arrest featuring City Administrator Ben Hughes. Interesting observation from Hughes … in the wake of Becker’s arrest, garbage will continue to be picked up, streets will continue to be plowed, yada yada yada.

Well, duhhhhhhhhh. The mayor doesn’t have anything directly to do with garbage pickup and snow removal. Just how childlike do these people think we are? The condescending tone meant to reassure the little people that everything will be all right was unnecessary but a product of being part of that culture.

Here’s the release from the state Department of Justice.

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Repealing The 22nd Amendment

I predicted this would happen. I’d say “See, I told you so,” but Rush may have that trademarked.

The drumbeat to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which limits a president to two terms, has begun in the House of Representatives.

Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) has introduced H.R. 5 to repeal the term limits on presidents.

And as Ed Morrissey points out:

Maybe I’m just being too cynical, but somehow I doubt that Rep. José Serrano introduced HJ Res 5 in order to allow George W Bush to run for a third term in office.

The goal, of course, is to make Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama, Our Messiah, the Second Coming of Christ, our ruler for life.

Alarming thing is, this has a decent chance of passing the constitutionally mandated ⅔rds of both houses of Congress — dominated by Democrats and girlie men Republicans — and get passed by 38 state legislatures within seven years. Given there is absolutely no chance The Messiah won’t win a landslide re-election bid in 2012 — I wouldn’t be surprised if the Republicans nominate Him as their candidate too — He could be in power for 25 years or longer.

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Guess Who’s Moving In

Here’s someone with a death wish.

The latest girlfriend of Drew Peterson has moved in with him.

Drew Peterson’s latest love interest has moved in with him, according to distraught friends and family members of the 23-year-old mother of two. “It’s unbelievable,” said Joe Raines, the uncle of Peterson’s alleged fiance, Christina Raines. “I don’t get it, but what are you going do? She’s an adult.”

Peterson is the 55-year-old former Bolingbrook police sergeant who is the sole suspect in the disappearance of his current wife, Stacy. Authorities are also re-examining the mysterious death of Peterson’s third wife, Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in an empty bathtub in her home in 2004.

Let’s see. Peterson murders Wife No. 3, makes Wife No. 4 vanish without a trace and prospective Wife No. 5 puts herself in harm’s way. Just what is she thinking?

How long until she winds up the unfortunate victim of an “accident” or just simply is never heard from again?

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Another Teacher Charged With Sex Assault

This is becoming far too common: female teachers sexually assaulting their students. What’s worse is the double standard society applies to them in comparison to the outrage when the assaulter is male and the victim female.

This time, the victim is a 13 (now 15) year old boy. Over a two year period, the boy was assaulted 300 times, say prosecutors.

Christine A. McCallum, 29, who is on leave from her job at an Abington elementary school, was charged yesterday with seven counts of statutory rape for the serial liaisons in Rockland and Abington from February 2006, when she allegedly took the boy’s virginity, to November 2007.

McCallum, a waifish bespectacled blonde who tightly clutched her husband’s hand in court yesterday, declined comment.

But her alleged teenage conquest told police they had sex more than 300 times – almost “every other day” while he was 13, 14 and 15 years old. The boy told police they had sex for the first time Feb. 7, 2006, on a couch at McCallum’s Rockland home while her husband slept upstairs, according to a police report.

McCallum and the boy had unprotected sex in the shower, on the kitchen floor and the living room floor on a green shag rug that was seized yesterday as a result of a search warrant, court documents say.

Reading the article, one might wonder if there is a chance the boy is making up the allegations. There’s always that chance, until this surfaced in the article:

In a MySpace message, McCallum wrote that she struggled with her desires, Scott said. “It’s hard to be with you and set boundaries,” she allegedly wrote. “It’s hard to kiss you and tell you no.”

Why would she — or anyone — write about this on the Internet? This pretty much nails her, but don’t expect much more than a slap on the wrist.

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The Lifestyle Nazis In Japan

Coming soon here as well, once the government gets control of the health care system.

Say “Sieg Heil!” to the nice people. And try to tell yourself … it couldn’t happen here.

Sedalia, Colo. – Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further “reeducation” and their communities subject to stiff fines.

Is this some nightmarish dystopia?

No, this is contemporary Japan.

The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens’ lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of “universal healthcare.” Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens’ health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a “nanny state on steroids” antithetical to core American principles.

Other countries with universal healthcare are already restricting individual freedoms in the name of controlling health costs. For example, the British government has banned some television ads for eggs on the grounds that they were promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. This is a blatant infringement of egg sellers’ rights to advertise their products.

In 2007, New Zealand banned Richie Trezise, a Welsh submarine cable specialist, from entering the country on the grounds that his obesity would “impose significant costs … on New Zealand’s health or special education services.” Richie later lost weight and was allowed to immigrate, but his wife had trouble slimming and was kept home. Germany has mounted an aggressive anti-obesity campaign in workplaces and schools to promote dieting and exercise. Citizens who fail to cooperate are branded as “antisocial” for costing the government billions of euros in medical expenses.

Is this really the type of fascism we want to live under here in the United States? It can and will happen if we succumb to the lure of government-run health care. Remember what Ronald Reagan said: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

The American Founding Fathers who fought and died for our freedoms would be appalled to know their descendants were allowing the government to dictate what they could eat and drink. The Founders correctly understood that the proper role of government is to protect individual rights and otherwise leave men free to live – not tell us how many eggs we should eat.

If we still value our freedoms, we must reject both the nanny state and universal healthcare. Otherwise, it won’t be long before the “Waistline Police” come knocking on our doors.

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An Unabashed Socialist

And a proponent of global government as well.

Carol Brownshirt has been unmasked as a member of a socialist group pursuing a “sustainable” world society with “global governance.”

In line to be the “global warming czar,” Browner’s information was scrubbed from the group’s website once it had been revealed.

[Browner] was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for “global governance” and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.

By Thursday, Mrs. Browner’s name and biography had been removed from Socialist International’s Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group’s congress in Greece was still available.

Socialist International, an umbrella group for many of the world’s social democratic political parties such as Britain’s Labor Party, says it supports socialism and is harshly critical of U.S. policies.

The group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, the organization’s action arm on climate change, says the developed world must reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

This is one of the more frightening figures in an entire assembly of frightening figures, people who are a direct threat to our freedoms and our way of life.

Gateway Pundit has screenshots of all the webpages before they were scrubbed of Browner’s socialist ties.

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Where The Hardin Money Could Have Gone

Journal Sentinel columnist Dan Bice takes a look at where the money wasted on the junket taken by school board member Charlene Hardin to Philadelphia for a conference she blew off and didn’t attend could have gone.

The money came from Milwaukee High School of the Arts, a school with a run-down library and whose librarian has had request after request rejected for lack of funds.

But they certainly had enough money to send Hardin and a secretary to Philadelphia on what amounted to a personal vacation.

To anyone who would dismiss School Board member Charlene Hardin’s junket to Philadelphia as an insignificant amount of money, Karen Ruehl would suggest a visit to her school.

Ruehl, a 33-year veteran of Milwaukee Public Schools, is the librarian at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts.

Her library is in desperate need of help. She has repeatedly asked her boss at the city arts school to drop a few dollars to allow her to make improvements to it for the benefit of the students.

But nearly all of her proposals have been rejected, she has been told, because there was no money.

Ruehl is now having trouble squaring her experience with the news that her school blew thousands of dollars to send Hardin and a secretary to a national conference in Philadelphia last summer – a series of meetings that the pair ultimately skipped. Hardin, who was bumped off the spring ballot last week, is now under investigation by her colleagues on the board.

“I saw that money, and I thought, ‘That should have been for me,’ ” Ruehl said Friday from the school library.

A portion of the funds used to pay for Hardin’s excursion could have gone to buy, for instance, arts-related magazines. Earlier this school year, Ruehl asked for but didn’t get $600 worth of such periodicals.

On the school library shelves, students now will find a single magazine, Newsweek.

That’s it.

Or, Ruehl said, the library could have used the money from the junket to purchase book collections for classroom use, a file cabinet, bookends for shelves or a bar-code labeler, all things she could use immediately. The 56-year-old librarian said she also has proposed creating an after-school book club or setting up a reading area – with a chair or two and lamps – in a corner of the largely empty room.

But all of these suggestions have been turned down or ignored, she said, by Barry Applewhite, who runs the arts school.

Applewhite is the same guy who was responsible for dropping about $2,500 from the school budget to pay for Hardin to fly off to Philadelphia in apparent violation of district rules. Schools are not supposed to cover the cost of travel by board members. Officials have not disclosed how much it cost to send Lolita Pearson, a secretary at the arts school who also went on the trip.

Again, remind me this isn’t a government operation. Worse, it’s MPS.

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Fired Tech Expert Rehired By State

This is brilliant. Someone tell me this isn’t a government operation.

A tech worker fired by the state Legislature after his management abilities were questioned and engaged in awarding no-bid contracts has been rehired and awarded a job with a six-figure salary.

After his firing, Mark Wahl worked briefly for the state Department of Administration and then took an extended military leave. Officials say they were required by law to provide him a job with a comparable salary after the leave.

Wahl this month became a state policy expert on cyberterrorism, at a salary of $107,258 a year.

Five years ago, he was fired as the Legislature’s top technology official after legislative leaders received an audit that said he did not seek bids before entering into a deal worth more than $1 million with a temporary employment agency headed by an acquaintance.

A liberal Madison judge had previously ruled that Wahl had been fired improperly. However, the judge did not rule that Wahl merited being rehired.

Nice job evaluation for Wahl:

The audit also said Wahl lacked people skills, had a quick temper and treated some employees poorly. Workers also were concerned about conflicts of interest because Wahl dated – and later married – his top assistant, the audit said.

One of the incidents involved Wahl ordering a state technology worker to remove a bumper sticker from a car that referred to Mother Teresa simply because Mother Teresa was pro-life and Wahl felt it could be interpreted as a partisan political statement.

Simply amazing how politically tone deaf whoever decided this guy merited receiving more of my money.