The rock has been lifted. The moonbats are out and running wild.
The talk of the town is the lengthy and detailed threats and list of demands leveled against Althouse and Meade. The threat includes their home address and reference to places the couple frequent, including coffee houses and liberal (ahem) use of the F bomb.
We will take it from the internet right to [their specific address]. Do you have any idea where you live? Let us spell it out for you. We understand that you like ... the Baked Potato at the Old Fashioned, do you? There were five of us in there last Tuesday. You like to eat at Fresco? ... You like to f***ing drink at FAIR TRADE do you? At FAIR TRADE? You are citizen-BANNED from Fair Trade. We will Walker you straight out of the place whenever you show up. We are at every coffee shop on State, open to close, all the time. We will hang up wanted posters of you everywhere you like to go. We will picket on public property as close to your house as we can every day. We will harrass the ever loving sh** out of you all the time.
We are NOT radically nonviolent. ... WE WILL F*** YOU UP.
ITS US VS YOU ON THE STREETS OF THE CITY GOING AS FAR AS IT HAS TO GO UNTIL A) WE WIN OR B) DOOMSDAY.
Meade and Althouse sinned by holding up to public scrutiny the ridiculous and self-centered primping and posturing of the public sector "victims" of Scott Walker and the new Republican majority. So victimized, it seems, that many are taking early retirement. Yes, it's got to be bad when you can retire at age 55 with no worries about income or health insurance!
The urban terrorist turns out to be one Jim Shankman, who is a mostly unemployed adult-child living in a commune off campus. It is a profile that, from my observation during the four-week siege of the Capitol, fits a good one-quarter to one-third of the demonstrators and overnight sleepers -- maybe not at any one time, but in the aggregate because they are there every day and night. It is what accounts for there is of their so-called lives.
Dan Riehl, who blogs at Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website, scores an exclusive interview with this Shankman, who calls himself a "radical progressive" and his economic philosophy as "distributionist." He believes we should divide the wealth of America across the population "so that everyone can buy a house."
Kind of like John Nichols without the constant references to Thomas Jefferson and Old Fighting Bob.
Industrial Workers of the World unite!
Shankman's screed is a weird mixture of specific threats, self-justification, screwball theories, and a whole lot of creepy -- not altogether unlike that of Jared Loughner, come to think of it.
Like the kidnapper played by Alan Rickman in the original Die Hard movie, Shankman makes an extensive list of demands but sets it in a "Let's make a deal" context, Door One or Door Two.
They actually offer two "packages." Package 1:
- That Althouse and Meade publicly retract every word spoken or written about the Big Gummint Union thugs trying to intimidate the state taxpayers who pay their generous salaries and benefits.
- That Althouse and Meade each donate $5,000 to each of the following groups: the Industrial Workers of the World general fund, the Bradley Manning Defense Fund, the Recall Alberta Darling effort and a revolutionary group of their choice. [IWW is an international Communist organization.]
- That Althouse and Meade silence themselves and refrain from any further public comment on the Big Gummint Union revolt.
- That Althouse and Meade stay at least 20 feet away from the statue of Col. Heg that is near the State Capitol. [Blaska: Meade had torn down signs defacing the memorial.]
Package 2 has the advantage of being short: Althouse and Meade must leave the city of Madison.
The screed is alternatively hilarious (He threatens to throw baseballs on their lawn) and creepy. Here is the full rant, under the Breitbart heading, "Nothing says 'Freedom' like 'Do what we say or we'll F*** you up!'
We could perhaps dismiss the Shankmeister as a witless outlier if his screed did not so resemble the typical Havens Center paper, if there were not a long and growing list of intimidation, boycotts, death threats, and property damage. We have Sen. Kapanke's car window smashed, nails strewn in the driveway of his home, his life threatened. This is on top of the death threats issued to multiple legislators.
Also at Breitbart, John Nolte recounts 20 Days of Left-Wing Thuggery in Wisconsin: When Will Obama, Democrats, and MSM Call for Civility?
Unionized teachers don't indoctrinate?
Some of my liberal interlocutors contend, with an apparent straight face, that teachers are not indoctrinating their students on the pro-union position.
-----Original Message-----
From: C Swenson
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 8:14 AM
To: XXX
Cc: board@madison.k12.wi.us; comments@madison.k12.wi.us; Subject: Teachers picketing at Jefferson Middle school
Hello,
I am not sure who to email this too, but I felt this would be a start. My child attends Jefferson Middle School. I have seen the teachers picketing on the side walk every AM, so yesterday I asked them a simple question. I asked them if they planned on taking off any more days to protest what they see as objectionable to their job welfare. I have no problem with doing so on their own time, except they shut down the school system 4 for days. They all starting saying it was their "right" to do so, really? As a professional, private sector, small business owner, if I were to do what the teachers did, I would most likely not have a job in the private sector if my boss saw my out protesting and I turned in a doctors note saying I was out sick. OK. So today I tried to ask another question and the robust large guy kept telling me "they" didn't want to hear my drivel and to keep moving, never giving me a chance to speak. As this is what my child gets out of this? http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/node/9134
Bottom line: as a civics lesson what I see is intimidation by numbers. Thats my FIRST impression and I feel today was a perfect example. I do not see someone who honestly wants a good conversation or debate of each others views on the issues. What I see is "my way or the highway" from unions and as a tax payer in WI I am all for keeping property taxes from being the never ending coffer for unions. I am also getting together "taxpaying" parents to protest out front of Jefferson. The unions have a voice by numbers, but the "taxpayers" do not. I believe that unfair representation is about to change real quick.
Althouse/Meade capture more teacher indoctrination
Random thoughts
I am truly sorry to read that Ben Masel has Stage 4 lung cancer. He is sui generis Madison who never takes himself too seriously.
Never could figure why the Senate couldn't wait 24 hours to do the bargaining bill. Now a Dane County judge has issued an injunction on lack of public notice grounds. Don't worry about the courts, Senator Fitzgerald, just put the entire bill up before the full Senate, schedule two days for debate, then take the damn vote. The Fugitive 14 are back.
Write in Thuy Pham-Remmele for Mayor of Madison on April 5.
Hey kids! Follow the Squire in the Twittersphere: twitter.com/MrBluster9
