Wisconsin Republicans' Voter-Suppression Project Stopped 10,000s in 2016

Human Being, Gladys Harris of Milwaukee,
stopped by Wisconsin Republicans
from voting in 2016. From photo by
 Carrie Antlfinger, Associated Press.

2,976,150 Votes Is Less than 3,068,434 Votes
- "They prevented us from voting," says human being.

Update - See Berman, The Nation.
Fitchburg, Wisconsin — When Wisconsin Republicans began their massive voter-suppression project in 2011, mandating a new voting qualification in photo voter IDs, the prospect made Republicans "giddy," noted a staffer, Todd Allbaugh, present at a Republican Party caucus, (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sommerhauser, Wisconsin State Journal).

Associated Press writers, Christina A. Cassidy, Ivan Moreno, have a piece out showing Wisconsin Republicans' transformation of election law yielded significant results in stopping people from voting, lowering the total vote in Milwaukee and statewide, (Wisconsin State Journal). [See also Mal Contends, Mal Contends, Chris Carson and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

"Overall, nearly 3 million people in Wisconsin voted last November, about 91,000 fewer than in 2012. Milwaukee, a power center for Democrats, reported that 41,000 fewer people voted there than in 2012," note Cassidy and Moreno.

The 41,000 voting decrease in Milwaukee alone, where "urban" types reside as noted by Rep. Paul Ryan in 2012, nearly doubles Donald Trump's 2016 victory margin of some 22,000 votes.

In 2012, some 3,068,434 votes were cast for president in Wisconsin. In 2016, this figure is 2,976,150 votes.

The Republican voter suppression project, not often acknowledged, extends to the polling place where voters are harassed in a corruption of the voting process.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin

Today, at 5:00 p.m. (Central), this writer, a Wisconsin voter and a current, 11-year election inspector, will attend the Fitchburg, Wisconsin Municipal Court to challenge a bogus civil citation for disorderly conduct, issued in retaliation for years of sticking up for voters obstructed and harassed in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, an increasingly racist and toxic city of some 25,000 people.

I urge you to attend the proceeding, or view on on of these Charter Communication cable channels: Fitchburg City Channel 985, Fitchburg City Channel 986, or Fitchburg Access Community TV, (FACT) Channel 987, as possible.

A small number of white citizens in Fitchburg, Wisconsin aspires the community to become a white-dominated police state, and is making consequential strikes.

Fitchburg, Wisc Poll Worker Violates Voter Privacy with Letter, Following Voter Obstruction

Fitchburg Star column in November 2016 issue. Column is
written by Michael Leon, a writer and resident living in Fitchburg,
Wisconsin.

Anatomy of Harassment from Pernicious Poll Workers

Update: A reader asked, "What's Ron Johnson's deal?" Ron, The Racist, Johnson's deal is he is feigning a causal interest in this matter, after participating in a ridiculous voter-obstruction incident on Aug. 9. Ron left a message, (a comment), at this site in August, and is now following my work in different periodicals, leaving behind defamatory commentary. Ron really, really is interested in stopping voter fraud, so interested he lies about this voting-rights activist.
---
Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Ron Johnson is a veteran Fitchburg poll worker who has long-championed Wisconsin's obstructionist photo voter ID law intended to hinder the disfavored people from casting their preference at the voting booth.

Johnson has numerous like-minded colleagues on the Fitchburg election inspector roster.

Johnson, and three other white poll workers, personally obstructed this writer at the polling station on August 9, as chronicled in subsequent communications by me to the Dane County District Attorney's office and the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Unfortunately for me, Ron Johnson is an escalating racist as indicated in Johnson's official conduct as a Fitchburg poll worker. Johnson's status as a white and racist poll worker is not frowned upon by Fitchburg City Hall election officials, and complaints of harassment and discrimination are routinely ignored. I can verify these dynamics as a nine-year sworn Fitchburg election inspector.

Now, Johnson has taken to this site, and the Fitchburg Star, (Woodward Communications), to violate this voter's privacy at the polling place in defamatory editorial comment that chronicles this voter's personalized voting experience on August 9, violating my right to cast a ballot privately in Wisconsin, (Wisconsin Elections Commission).

Wisconsin election officials have a duty to administering elections in a fair, impartial manner that ensures voter privacy.

Ron Johnson didn't get that memo about voters' privacy.

In a letter to the Fitchburg Star, Johnson responds to this writer's column, (column reproduced above-right and below), challenging the racial animus in Fitchburg culture and Fitchburg City Hall. In my Star column I specifically cite the "sacrosanct nature of the booth" vis a vis incursions by Fitchburg election officials.

Putting aside the defamations and inaccuracies in Johnson's letter to the editor, Johnson offers his version of the voter-obstruction incident in a step-by-step chronicle that identifies me as a voter, describes my specific and personalized issues I experienced on Aug 9, and concludes with a chronicling of Johnson's attempt in August to comment at this site. (This site does not run defamations by racists in comments.)

To understand this appeal to privacy in this matter, consider scenarios when a voter enters a polling site and experiences an issue such a spoiled ballot, a 30-minte delay in voting, or the use of a disability apparatus. Now, consider Ron Johnson working a poll worker and publishing a personalized narrative of the voter's experience using this voter's name, replete with invective. This conduct violates privacy expectations, and is pernicious activity committed by a Fitchburg election official.

This conduct does, however, casts light on the state of mind and attitudes of some Fitchburg poll workers towards another poll worker and voter who writes disfavored political analyses and commentary in Newxtex, (now ACI Information Group), and client periodicals.

Am meeting with Fitchburg City Attorney next week, though I am pessimistic with respect to outcomes as racial animus appears to the official and unchallenged policy of Fitchburg City Hall.

Stay tuned.

Above is Fitchburg Star column in November 2016 issue. Column is
written by Michael Leon, a writer and resident living in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—An Exercise in Social Domination, Emboldened White Supremacy

Villainous Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, Wisconsin

Blacks will not replace us

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Municipal politics have been long racist in this suburb of 25,000, just south of Madison since the city's incorporation in 1983.

White entitlement, entrenched racism, Evangelical Christians, an ascendant Republican Party and white supremacists coalesce with the dim bulbs of white municipal bureaucracy generating a toxic concoction that is bubbling over now.

Lived in and worked in Fitchburg since the late 1980s, serving then as a correspondent for the The Capital Times, (Madison, Wisconsin).

Recently, Fitchburg has crossed a threshold as the Republican-dominated and white Fitchburg Police Dept efforts have been unsuccessful in driving out minority residents, a longstanding enterprise known and confirmed, but not acknowledged by any City official. [Ex-cops who know won't object and confirm publicly out of fear for their careers. Ratting-out follows cops and it's a rare breed who blows the whistle on the blue gang.]

Non-whites and non-Republicans comprise strong numerical majorities here so Republicans are desperate to crack-down on citizens outside of their political coalition through the use of public office. In a manner of speaking: Scott Walker and Donald Trump are in charge, Fitchburg is for whites, this is our community; and there ain't no John Doe statute anymore for a DA public integrity investigation.

The signs of the back-lash against people, mud people, are obvious and to a non-racist mind the system is blinking red.

It's business as usual as police target minorities with traffic citations, white poll workers discourage the wrong types of voters in aldermanic dist. one. [Emboldened whites actually blacklisted me, Mal Contends as a voter, obstructing me from for some 30 minutes on Aug. 9, 2016, followed by two non-traffic civil citations totaling $626, two 1:00 a.m. harassing visits to our home by Fitchburg police with voiced and deceitful claims crimes had been "traced" those early mornings, and repeated conspicuous tail-gating of our car by police.]

But the latest in Fitchburg is perhaps the worst.

That enemy of proper, white society, the villainous Boys and Girls Club of Dane County Wisconsin, is too friendly with non-Republicans and non-whites, way-too-heavy on civil liberties and they have been making atonal political noise for too long.

The Fitchburg Common Council has announced it's dropping all City funding for this community organization.

The new Fitchburg mayor, Jason Gonzales has decided to go with the Republicans on the eight-member Common Council, as he and his former campaign manager, alder Tony Hartmann, have lowered the boom on the uppity black Community group, per an evolving series of justifications.

Hartmann claims no funding elimination, no removal of expenditure but rather the instituting of a new and "better process," as written in an email to Dane County resident, Tonya Ellis.

Actually, Hartman is lying.

Reads p.22 in a the Mayor's Proposed 2018 Budget, (Facebook): "The $60,000 allocated to the private charitable partners was removed from the 2018 budget. The $50,000 in property tax funding for the CEDA, (Community and Economic Development Authority), community grant program was also removed."

Tony Hartmann and Jason Gonzalez' attitude is captured in Rob Schultz's reporting in the Wisconsin State Journal this morning.

Both don't like Michael Johnson of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County getting uppity and voicing views publicly.

Both Hartmann and Gonzalez display the plantation attitude of greater-white Fitchburg deigning to "gift," (Schultz's paraphrase), funding to the Dane County Boys and Girls Club, aka them, the others, the dark folks living on King James, Allied Drive, Fish Hatch, Post and Leopold.

Gonzalez and Hartmann conceive investing in our community as a different proposition when it's investing in initiatives serving folks in hoods where dark folks live. King James, Allied Drive, Fish Hatch, Post and Leopold are not places of 'us'-inclusive.

To white Fitchburg, they are different, separate from the white homeland envisioned by the Fitchburg City geniuses who named my neighborhood, Jamestown, after a 17th century Virginia slave colony.

Doubt I'll see a change in my lifetime from these chucks relating to and identifying with black people. To serve on the Fitchburg Common Council means: Nobody breathe, careful, and go along.

No matter, now it's getting really uppity in Fitchburg, Wisconsin:

Many children above are black, hence a problem in
Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Fitchburg, Wisc Mayor's Remarkable Public Apology Rings Hollow

Wanda Smith is a popular community activist and child-care
activist against whom Fithcburg Ald Dorothy Krause began
a character assassination project, attempting to enlist
the Fitchburg City Manager, the Fitchburg City Attorney's
office, and the Fitchburg Police Department. A subsequently
contrite Fitchburg Mayor issued an apology to Ms. Smith on
behalf of the City of Fitchburg on Nov. 17, throwing
Ald Krause under the bus, and opening the City to a
possible federal civil rights action by Smith. Smith is speaking
at the apology press conference above.

Fitchburg—the city's name is an imprecation, a curse against democratic norms and generations-long commitment of the progressive state, Wisconsin

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—The bullshit piles up so high here, you need wings to stay above it.

The Fitchburg, Wisconsin mayor issued a well-conceived PR apology for cutting off a commenting citizen in mid-sentence and then instructing the Fitchburg City Administrator to phone the police about this disturbance at a budget hearing last week, (Wisconisn State Journal, Fitchburg Star).

This mayoral apology directed at multiple citizens—Kaleem Caire, Amelia Royko Maurer, Nate Royko Maurer, and Wanda Smith for First Amendment-protected speech—fell flat last Friday, (Nov. 17).

No citizen reached was surprised the Fitchburg police were contacted as a complaint against a citizen attending a Common Council meeting, ejecting citizens from a public meeting, that a Fitchburg alder would engage in a character assassination scheme against another citizen, or that Mayor Jason Gonzalez' effort at damage control would be so transparently disingenuous.

"There was some … improper exercise of discretion by myself when I interrupted two speakers. When I ran, I ran on a platform of inclusion and bringing our city together. It appears I’ve gone astray, and I apologize for that," said Gonzalez, (Fitchburg Star, City of Fitchburg). Gone astray?

Voter obstruction will continue in Fitchburg, and as most young and minority voters in alder district one know, the polling place here is hostile to their presence on Election Day.

This is Fitchburg, and the norms prevailing in other municipalities do not apply here where retaliations by elected and appointed Fitchburg officials against whistle-blowers, black people, and assorted progressives (they're a perceived problem), are routine.

Some take-aways from the last few weeks of life in Fitchburg, Wisconsin:

• Nicholas Garton deserves recognition for his investigative reporting at the journal, Madison.365.
• Fitchburg Alder Dorothy Krause has been thrown under the bus after the mayor issued his remarkable public apology on behalf of the entire City of Fitchburg specifically citing Krause's character assassination project against citizen Wanda Smith. Krause is now an alder without a district, and resides in political no-woman's land.
• Kaleem Caire, a commenting citizen at the budget hearing who was subjected to public abuse and an outrageous police call, has been revealed as an opportunistic pol who can be expected to use this outrage for his own political benefit, against the benefit of the community. Caire isn't fooling anyone and standing up for Caire is just, is the consensus among progressives here.
• The Recall-the-bums campaign is still on, and the mayor's public dumping of Krause and his apology change nothing.
• Former mayor Steve Arnold is a keeper of valuable voting lists. 
• City officials still feel entitled to treat the Fitchburg Police Department as a political hit-squad for corrupt purposes such as defaming citizens.
• Wanda Smith is a political force to be reckoned with.
• Wisconsin State Journal columnist, Chris Rickert, who penned a racist, black parents-should-feed-their-kids piece in his coverage of Fitchburg earlier this month, is now working at a new position to improve local coverage at the daily, what used to be the life-blood of newspapers.
• Fitchburg is racist to the bone, and any young and minority person locating here should be prepared to fight for your rights, perhaps more than folks have ever had to before.

Progressives, Neighborhood Activists Want Jason Gonzales for Mayor in Bellwether Wisconsin City

Jason Gonzalez is running for mayor in Fitchburg Wisconsin.
Jason is pictured with James Kilgore who helps people
traumatized by the prison-industrial complex try
to reclaim their lives, (Gonzalez for Fitchburg mayor).
Gonzalez is the first Latino to sit on the Fitchburg Common
Council and would be the City's first Latino mayor.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Jason Gonzalez is running for mayor in this small, fast-growing city in south-central Wisconsin, in the most progressive county in the state.

Gonzalez has amassed a broad coalition—typical in Wisconsin municipal campaigns—that includes Bernie Sanders progressives and independents, Democrats, Republicans, Greens, neighborhood activists and labor unions, (Wisconsin AFL-CIO).

Fitchburg is a bellwether, part of Dane county's jobs-creating engine that powers the state, socially liberal, activist and in the middle of a hot real estate market.

Gonzalez preaches "inclusion" and "collaboration," and would become the first Latino elected as Fitchburg mayor.

He's running against incumbent Mayor Steve Arnold, who calls himself a populist.

The progressive label seems ironic for a mayor who wants $100s in property tax increases, (nine percent), for working-class homes, higher rents for tenants and who seeks to privatize City services for those living in cul-de-sacs.

As though living in a cul-de-sac, a small home, or on a rustic road were a bad thing. Arnold also apparently doesn't like the bucolic look of residents' front yards, so he has divined a grand vision to pave over people's front yards. Walkable urban neighborhoods and pedestrian approaches, he says, (Wisconsin State Journal), (Fitchburg Star).

Arnold is fighting a City and a grassroots-backed candidate in Gonzalez that does not react well to commissars working to decide what front yards and neighborhoods should look like.

Word from the campaign front is Gonzalez is the on-odds favorite to defeat Arnold.

In the February primary Gonzalez won 47 percent of the vote to Arnold’s 37 percent. Marc Jones finished with 13.8 percent of the vote. Jones has since endorsed Gonzalez. The election is April 4, early voting begins March 13.

The Pocan Problem

In a dynamic that has progressives shaking their heads, an increasingly corporatized U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, (D-Madison) decided to endorse Arnold in early March.

The move echoes perhaps the worst image of 2016 broadcast from the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last July. It features Pocan reprimanding the Wisconsin Bernie Sanders delegation for wearing "silenced by the DNC" tape over their mouths. Hundreds of Sanders supporters walked off the floor as Pocan and DNC hacks preached "unity," a heavy-handed move that did not work out well in November.

Corporatized Democrats like Pocan have not seen the April 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary results from Fitchburg that saw Sanders win easily. If they knew and cared about the results, likely they would be backing Gonzalez.

"This is our community. I know there is no easy fit for which member of the political spectrum supports a candidate for mayor in Fitchburg. But this is a strength of our campaign. We need wide collaboration now," said Gonzalez last January after knocking on a door. "I'm proud of the wide support we have received. People need to know they are being listened to. That's the basis of my campaign."

It's a little rich to read give-me-more-money Mark Pocan endorse Steve Arnold for Fitchburg, Wisconsin mayor. What attracts Pocan: Nine-percent property tax increases, higher rents or privatizing cul-de-sacs? (WISC-TV).

What is clear is that residents of Fitchburg are looking pretty small now-a-days from the D.C.-based, money-infused world of Mark Pocan.

Come to think of it, that's the problem with Arnold as well: People just don't seem to matter so very much anymore.

Jason Gonzalez is working to change this.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin Pols and City Officials Veer into Misconduct Against Citizens, Again

Kaleem Caire, president of One City Learning Centers,
in Madison, Wisconsin, attended the Ftichburg
Common Council hearing at which funding for non-
profits was addressed. The Mayor of Fitchburg instructed the
City Administrator to call the police on Mr. Caire,
while testifying at a public hearing on the budget last night.
The mayor, city administrator and several alders
walked out of the meeting and ordered the police
to remove Kaleem Caire from the building or they
would not return. This is Fitchburg, Wisconsin.
Via Facebook

'Never seen anything like this before'

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—There is no apparent bottom to how low the Fitchburg Common Council, City officials and Fitchburg Police can sink.

In Fitchburg, police harass and fine residents objecting to this municipal, seemingly socio-psychological experiment on how far city bureaucrats, racists, white poll workers, and cops will go to silence, (and this is in an American city in Dane County Wisconsin), citizens objecting to municipal public policy such as obstructing voters, harassing black residents, and cutting public funds for non-profits serving minorities.

The latest from Fitchburg.

At a public hearing on the proposed 2018 budget last night, Mayor Jason Gonzalez decided he did not like Kaleem Caire, CEO and founder at One City Early Learning Centers, asking a question of Gonzalez.

So, naturally Gonzalez called the police. [Note: This is Fitchburg, Wisconsin, so again this type of absurdity is SOP.]

Reports, Michael Johnson, CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Dane County and all-around scary black man on Facebook last night:

The Mayor of Fitchburg instructed the City Administrator to call the police on Kaleem Caire, President and CEO of One City Learning Centers while testifying at a public hearing on the budget tonight. The mayor, city administrator and several alders walked out of the meeting and ordered the police to remove Kaleem Caire from the building or they would not return. Kaleem was respectful, raised valid points and was the first person of color to speak to only be threatened to be arrested for speaking up for local kids.

Kudos to the Fitchburg Police Department for their professionalism and telling the city leaders they had no grounds to remove Kaleem for raising issues during the testimony session of the meeting. He then told a white community leader who spoke up for the kids to leave and to 'get out of here' or he would be arrested. I have never seen anything like this before from a city leader.

Putting aside Johnson's erroneous description of the Fitchburg Police Dept, no one contacted today is surprised by the Fitchburg Common Council which rejects democratic norms such as citizen input, unmolested attendance of public meetings, and promotes the use of the machinery of public government against citizens.

Writes Cindy Johnson, a Dane county resident in Facebook this morning "[This] is insane but not surprising. Years ago when I lived there the corrupt mayor yelled 'this is MY meeting' when a room full of us were trying to save the Green Prairie."

Another illustration: In August 2016, Mal Contends entered the voting place to cast a vote some four months after alerting state election authorities, the new, (a racist), white chief election inspector refused to place a polling place sign outside the polling place on Election Day, April 5, 2016 in voting district one, and short-staffed a polling station on the 2016 presidential primary election featuring the heaviest turn-out to date. In retaliation against me, after being obstructed at the poll on a false pretense in August 2016, the City Clerk's office phoned police and contrived with the City Attorney office in what became two bogus disorderly conduct citations, rubber-stamped by the Fitchburg Municipal Court.

It is insane, and it's Fitchburg.

Meanwhile, the Council cut funding for non-profits serving black and brown-type humans, and installed a new City funding mechanism to assist the corrupt Ald Julia Arata-Fratta's professional career in a seedy move that is the new Fitchburg Idea.

Still, as seedy as municipal policy is, the idea that Council members and City Hall bureaucrats feel it's standard and acceptable, much less Constitutional, to phone police whenever they encounter objecting citizens raises a host of public integrity, Constitutional and concerns involving ongoing public misconduct under Wisconsin statutes.

In a related story, a Ftichburg alder, Dorothy Krause, continued an outrageous smear campaign and character assassination of a black woman, Wanda Smith, whom Krause said, in ludicrous public statements, should not be allowed around children.

Writes Nicholas Garton in Madison365:

A Fitchburg alder released more than 70 pages of unredacted police reports that Fitchburg police had clearly marked as not to be re-released Monday, posting the documents in a Facebook group and emailing them to a reporter in an ongoing feud with community volunteer Wanda Smith. The documents were removed from the Facebook group by an administrator.

Smith said she has consulted a civil rights attorney but has not decided on whether to pursue any legal action. ...

Smith, who runs the Peace Network, meets three times a week to help at-risk youth with homework, meals and a safe environment. Krause told Madison365 in an interview two weeks ago that she wasn’t sure if Wanda Smith had the right temperament or educational credentials to run such a club.  Krause said she would seek police reports on Wanda Smith and hoped to draw a conclusion about Smith’s abilities from those reports. ...

In addition to several pages listing police contacts, Krause obtained more than 56 pages of officer written synopsis of police contact at Wanda Smith’s address covering 176 calls between 2015 and 2017 to the building Smith’s apartment is in.

None of those incidents involved Wanda Smith as a target of police action or intervention. At no time was she arrested or questioned by police concerning her conduct. Smith was never detained, investigated or reported as having been the target of a police response to that area. 

Ftichburg being Fitchburg, accusation, innuendo and character assassination of citizens are the norm from police, from the Common Council and from City Hall bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, the political party, Progressive Dane, has issued a press release supporting Wanda Smith against attacks on her from the city of Fitchburg.

Reads the Progressive Dane release:

In Spring 2017, Progressive Dane endorsed Wanda Smith’s candidacy for Fitchburg City Alder based on her commitment to public service and strong record of leadership within the Fitchburg community. As Founder and President of the Peace Network, a local mental health service provider, Smith serves area youth and adults through one-on-one group workshops and seminars to equip them with the skills necessary to fulfill their potential as individuals in the community. At the Peace Network, Smith runs a homework club, which meets three times per week to provide students with academic supports, meals, and a safe environment. She also works with youth in the Middleton, Cross Plains, and Monona Grove school districts as a substitute teacher, and has mentored hundreds of youth throughout her career. As a locality that harbors some of the worst racial disparities in the country, Dane County needs to support more service providers led by people of color such as the Peace Network, and support progressive leaders like Smith, to begin counteracting the systemic racism that plagues our Greater Madison community.

Progressive Dane appreciates Smith’s work in the Fitchburg community, especially her compassion for youth and ongoing commitment to their success. We also support her advocacy for the restoration of 2018 budget funds to support local non-profit organizations that provide local services to many children of color in the King James Way area and Fitchburg at large.  Progressive Dane has been working with our members in Fitchburg, including Smith, to draft a City of Fitchburg platform.  Similar to our other policy platforms, we are drafting a Fitchburg platform that strongly supports civil rights, including the rights to assemble and protest, making decisions with an equity analysis, funding safety net programs, affordable housing, and neighborhood organizations, and economic development planning that prioritizes neighborhoods most in need of investment.

Progressive Dane is committed to racial justice, equity, and inclusion throughout Madison and Dane County. Any elected official endorsed by Progressive Dane is expected to support and demonstrate these values and implement policies laid out in our platforms. Progressive Dane electeds who fail to do so should expect to be held accountable by the elections committee and membership.

Progressive Dane is an independent, progressive political party in Dane County, Wisconsin. Progressive Dane believes that ordinary citizens should control public policies at the community and national levels. We support tax justice, better social services, equality in public education, affordable housing, and public transportation. Progressive Dane helps community members organize around issues that are important to them and also works on the grassroots level to elect progressive political candidates.
#

Voting Rights Battle in Fitchburg, Wisc; Pursuit of Poll Worker, Civil Rights Activist Proceeds

Fitchburg, Wisconsin Municipal Judge
Hamdy Ezalarab is a popular figure on the
 bench in Dane County, Wisconsin.
Photo is from 1969,
(Schmidt, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Memorial Union TerraceViews)

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Who knew advocating for voters would provoke the wrath of a handful of white bureaucrats of a small Wisconsin suburb?

If you knew Fitchburg aldermanic district number one like I do, you would know.

I've worked roughly 10 years as a poll worker in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, and voted at the same polling place for some 18 years.

Fitchburg is heavily segregated, stained by open racism, and my voting district's poll workers include a handful of white racists who loathe me, I calculate, roughly to the degree I regard them as miserable, xenophobic and deceitful.

The all-white Fitchburg City Clerk's office backs the racists, fervently.

On August 9, 2016, I was obstructed from voting by this group, and after I objected, citing election law and election authorities, I received a civil citation for disorderly conduct.

Why did this happen? The full context is I regularly embarrassed the City Clerk's office by pointing out defects in the operation of my polling place. I'll get specific in Dane County, (Wisconsin), Circuit Court.

The United States and Wisconsin Constitutions and state election law are diminishing under the white-power banner predominating among this small number of racists in our city.

On May 10, 2017, Fitchburg Municipal Court, (a fine, municipal judge), found me guilty of the civil citation, ordering no fine. No fine.

Clearly, I will avail myself of a jury trial in Dane County Circuit Court and appeal this bogus citation.

Not easy to hear racists, whom I explained are the "White Power Caucus," lie repeatedly in open court but at trial I followed advice of friends and more or less went along with a few objections.

I will prevail in Dane County Court in front of a jury, Dane County Circuit Court is a different forum.

Of note, before defamations from the City Clerk's office were ruled inadmissible, the City Attorney's office in the person of one asst. City Attorney Valerie Zisman, threatened in a conference in the hall to write a new citation for August 9, 2016, which is precisely what happened after court adjourned.

I am confident.

Now, however, I have two disorderly conduct citations, one going to Dane County Court, and the new citation in limbo for now.

The second citation was indicated by the City Atty's office in court, to which the judge replied, not in my court. The judge also stated, he was finished with the citation and the matter was closed, stating he had enough, (not a direct quote).

Stay posted. This may appear light stuff from a small, corrupt Wisconsin city. It's not light stuff. From an email sent by me to the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Aug. 5, 2016, four days before I was obstructed from voting on Aug 9, received the first two of four visits to our home by armed Fitchburg Police, and received the first of now two civil disorderly conduct citations:

From: Mike Leon [ ...]
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2016 8:42 AM
To: Lowe, Diane - ELECTIONS
Subject: Polling Place
Importance: High

Diane,

Could you email me a URL or GAB (WEC) memo that would indicate how many election inspectors are supposed to hand out ballots at a table in a polling place? I believe it to be two.

A ... chief election inspector in our polling place, where I worked on April 5, positioned one election inspector at the ballots table, and predictably quite a voter bottleneck ensued.

Other elections to my memory featured two inspectors on ballots.

I need a memo or other publicly available authority on this two-people-on-ballots question.

I emailed our election and city clerk, around late April on this but no one got back to me. They are not too crazy about questions RE what they regard as their apparent turf, though I believe myself as a resident and long-time election inspector to be a stakeholder.

Administering elections should be about rules and regulations, to my view.

Mike
--
More to come. Much more.

Veteran Wisconsin Election Inspector Resigns, Cites Voter ID

Al Potts of Fitchburg,Wisconsin - Resigned chief
election inspector position because of Wisconsin's voter
photo ID law that obstructs voters from voting.
Photo Credit: Potts family

Updated - A veteran election inspector, Al Potts of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, said partisan-inspired changes to Wisconsin election law in the last five years caused him to call it quits before the presidential primary.

“I won’t help perpetuate a fraud on voters," said Potts.

The Fitchburg Star has the story.

Potts has it right.

Tierney Sneed of Talking Points Memo reports today:

A former top staffer for a Republican legislator in Wisconsin suggested this week that GOP legislators were motivated to pass the state’s tough photo voter ID law because they believed it would help them at the ballot box, an account he expanded on in a Wednesday interview with TPM.

Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff for state Sen. Dale Schultz (R) until the legislator retired in 2015, first made the claims in a Tuesday Facebook post that caught the attention of national voting rights experts.

In the post, Allbaugh recalled a 2011 caucus meeting of GOP state senators about the voter ID legislation. Allbaugh said during that meeting, some Republicans were 'giddy' over the legislation's "ramifications" and the effect it would have on minority and young voters.

Once he left politics, Allbaugh opened a Madison, Wisconsin coffee shop, where TPM reached him over the phone and he elaborated on those claims.

'It just really incensed me that they started talking about this particular bill, and one of the senators got up and said, "We really need to think about the ramifications on certain neighborhoods in Milwaukee and on our college campuses and what this could do for us,'" Allbaugh said. 'The phrase ‘voter suppression’ was never used, but it was certainly clear what was meant.'

While Schultz, Allbaugh’s former boss, has notably spoken outagainst more recent restrictions on voting, he voted for the 2011 bill. According to Allbaugh, at this point in the point of meeting, Schultz brought up his own concerns with the voter ID legislation.

'He was immediately shot down by another senator who said, ‘What I am interested in is getting results here and using the power while we have it, because if the Democrats were in control they would do they same thing to us, so I want to use it while we have it,'” Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh said Schultz left the meeting in frustration after that, while he stayed behind to continue taking notes.

'It left a pit in my stomach to think that a party that I had worked for for years and years and years was literally talking and plotting to deny someone, a fellow citizen, their constitutional right,' Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh told TPM he was stirred to write the initial Facebook post after one of his young employees, who had moved from California to Wisconsin, was unable to vote Tuesday. Albaugh said that because the employee's California ID did not meet the state’s requirements to vote, he was told he needed to show his California birth certificate, which the employee was not going to be able to produce in time.

'When you see the real world ramification, it just sickens you,' Allbaugh said. 'I have to tell people what’s going on.'

Schultz was asked about Allbaugh’s Facebook post on Wednesday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Meanwhile the Republican Wisconsin DoJ is busily defending the voter photo ID law in U.S. appellate court in Frank v. Walker, (Wisconsin DoJ).

Reads a Wisconsin DoJ press release in part dated this morning:

The Wisconsin Department of Justice will argue today in front of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case of Frank v. Walker to uphold Wisconsin’s Voter ID law. ...

[T]he Seventh Circuit will decide if Wisconsin’s Voter ID law holds up against the plaintiffs’ new, narrower challenge.  The plaintiffs claim that this narrower challenge is not new because they had asserted these claims in their arguments in the original Frank v. Walker.  The Attorney General argues that this is not true and that the plaintiffs’ narrower challenge consists of new claims which the plaintiffs are not allowed to raise after the Seventh Circuit’s final decision in 2014. Even if plaintiffs are allowed to raise these claims, Wisconsin’s law is still constitutional under Crawford and the original Frank v. Walker decision.

Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin will make these arguments to a panel of three judges from the Seventh Circuit.

Stopping Wisconsin voters from voting is a project Wisconsin Republicans will see to its completion, if not acceptance from the Wisconsin people.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Creating a Slush Fund in the Scott Walker Era

Fitchburg, Wisconsin is a freak show.

Corruption in Plain Sight in the Rats' Nest of Dane County Wisconsin

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—This isn't about the money; it's about making a "better way" to fund community non-profits, said Fitchburg ald. Tony Hartmann in an October email to Mal Contends.

It is about the money.

What Hartmann calls media "misinformation" about a proposed Common Council scheme to fund nonprofit groups draws laughter, anger and the start of a recall-the-Mayor initiative in this politically progressive community with the Republican-dominated City Hall, police department and elected municipal government.

With growing minority and young populations here, Fitchburg civil and elected officials have accelerated a Republican program to consolidate political power as this city becomes a flashpoint as Gov. Scott Walker kicks in 2018 reelection mode.

In Fitchburg, Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has been defeated at
the ballot box. Above are the results for Fitchburg in the 2014
general election. First column is the total votes, second column is
Dem. nominee Mary Burke's votes, and third column is Walker's.

Gov. Scott Walker, (R), made numerous public visits to Fitchburg since becoming governor in 2011. At the ballot box, though, Walker was clobbered here in the 2014 general and 2012 recall elections. In ald dist one, (one of four voting districts composed of 19 wards), Mary Burke defeated Scott Walker with 1,528 votes for Burke and 410 votes for Walker out of 1,966 votes cast for a 77 percent to 20 percent defeat of Walker in the 2014 general election. Since 2014, incidents of voter obstruction and harassment of voters by white poll workers and white Fitchburg City Clerk staff, Patti Anderson and Tracy Oldenburg, have increased in wards one-four, district one, as has been documented and stated publicly at municipal civic trials by former Fitchburg poll worker, ((2007-2016), Mal Contends).

On the Fitchburg Common Council, Hartmann, Ald Julia Arata-Fratta and Mayor Jason Gonzalez, (after amassing a wide coalition in his 2016-17 campaign), have thrown in with Republicans on the eight-member Council, and are eyeing money in the city's Community Development Grant Program, (CEDA), to be used as a slush fund [information describing the city's CEDA including how to apply, was posted on the city website Aug. 18, 2017 some five weeks before Mayor Jason Gonzales posted his proposed 2018 budget calling for the "removal" of $110,000 in non-profit funding, (The Capital Times)].

We want that money

"Fitchburg Alds. Julia Arata Fratta, Dan Carpenter and Dorothy Krause are sponsoring an amendment to the proposed 2017 budget that would remove club funding from the city budget and put it under the control of the Community Economic Development Authority, whose eight members would decide how to allocate it," notes The Capital Times in 2016.

Many Fitchburg residents are watching whether Arata Fratta-linked non-profits have become new applicants for the slush fund, if the budget proposal gets passed.
---
Meanwhile recall alders and mayor efforts continue as political observes gaming out scenarios fish around for mayoral candidates in a possible 2018 recall election, including perennial mayoral candidate Jay Allen, a supporter of several Republican Party congressional nominees, including John Sharpless, Dave Magnum and the far-right fringe candidate, Ron Greer. 

Fitchburg, Wisc Alders Up Attack on Non-Profit Supporters, Launched Character Assassination Move Against Black Citizen, Report Shows

Fitchburg Wisconsin City Hall and Common Council alders
really do not like black people. Above is a press conference at
City Hall in October 2017 conducted by scary, blackish people
objecting to a scheme by the Fitchburg Common Council and
Mayor to defund non-profits too cozy with urban types. Black
people congregating in Fitchburg, Wisconsin have long caused
consternation and anxiety among whites here who see danger
and a threat to public safety when they gather.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin Officials Keep up Battle Against Citizen Critics; Includes Unprecedented Character Assassination Campaign Plot Hatched by Common Council Alders

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Ald. Julia Arata-Fratta amped-up a crusade against the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County by calling for the Fitchburg City Manager and City Attorney's office to investigate and ultimately seek revocation of the popular non-profit's 501(c)(3) status under Internal Revenue Code regulations, a news report reveals, (Garton, Madison 365).

The move by a Republican-leaning alder is part of a long effort by Fitchburg City Hall staff and the Common Council against minorities and those working for minority citizens.

Boys and Girls Club of Dane County is a non-profit, tax-exempt, non-stock entity assisting all children in Dane County and a move on the Common Council this autumn to defund Boys and Girls Club and another non-profit has highlighted the long hostility of Fitchburg City Hall against minority citizens.

Writes Nicholas Garton in Madison365:

On October 3, the same day the (proposed recall the Common Council idea) was announced, Alder Julia Arata-Fratta, a close ally of [Mayor Jason] Gonzalez, used her private Gmail account to direct City Manager Patrick Marsh to inquire with the IRS, according to emails obtained by Madison365.

Non for profit (sic) cannot do political activities otherwise the IRS can revoke the tax exempt status,' Arata-Fratta wrote to Marsh. Check with Valerie or Mark and send an inquiry to IRS.'

Marsh forwarded the question to City Attorney Mark Sewell and Assistant City Attorney Valerie Zisman, telling Arata-Fratta they would 'provide next steps.'

The City of Fitchburg with Sewell and Zisman's active participation has also worked recently against voting rights in Fitchburg aldermanic district one, as chronicled at Mal Contends.

Garton's investigative reporting in Madison365 has also uncovered a political plot by Fitchburg Alder Dorothy Krause, another Common Council member working against funding non-profits, that proposes to enlist City officials in a character assassination project against Wanda Smith, a former aldermanic candidate who works to help black families through informal homework clubs, recreational outings and community events.

Smith is a critic of the racism of the white-dominated Fitchburg City Hall and Common Council and has frequently engaged in First Amendment-protected political activity against racism in Fitchburg on social media and at her attendance at Fitchburg Common Council meetings.

Reports Garton:

Fitchburg alder Dorothy Krause wanted to use police records and licensing requirements to shut down the after-school homework club run by longtime community volunteer Wanda Smith, who she considers 'not someone who should be in charge of groups of children,' according to emails obtained by Madison365.

An open records request into internal communications between Fitchburg Common Council members revealed that Krause sought potentially damaging and explosive information about the fitness of Smith to supervise the club.

In an October 9 email to City Manager Patrick Marsh, Krause wrote,'From what I’ve witnessed firsthand at the fire station, at city hall, and online, among others, she is not someone that should be in charge of groups of children.'

Krause wrote that she had sought police records about how many times officers have responded to the residence or adjoining residences of Wanda Smith, who previously ran for a seat on the council and has publicly supported a recall of Mayor Jason Gonzalez.

Online court records indicate no criminal convictions against Smith. One charge against Smith was dismissed in 1999, court records show.

In the email, Krause also asked whether the city could require a homework club like Smith’s to obtain a daycare license. She also inquired as to whether children could be removed from a Common Council meeting 'if and when bullying and abusive language is used.'

Marsh responded that he didn’t think the City could require such a license, or ask that children be removed from the Council chamber.

Smith spoke forcefully in October at the Fitchburg Common Council’s budget hearing about Gonzalez’s decision to remove more than $100,000 in the 2018 budget to support local nonprofit organizations that provide services to Fitchburg residents, and how the removal of non-profit funds would impact children of color in the King James Way area and Fitchburg at large. Smith was rebuked by Marsh for personally attacking council members Dorothy Krause and Anne Scott by name during the hearing. 

As a long-time Fitchburg resident, Mal Contends can confirm the toxic, racist climate in Fitchburg, and the past efforts of City Hall officials to use the municipal government as a legal tool against political opponents, including Alder Dorothy Krause in 2011-12.

Said Smith:

'For them, (the Common Council and City Hall staff] to try to lower my reputation is a total disgrace. All I’m trying to do is serve these kids. I didn’t even know that they could go this low. I’m appalled right now. My track record when it comes to kids is proven. They went this low over 50 grand?' she said, referring to the amount cut from the budget that would fund the Boys and Girls Club. 'They don’t like the fact that I came to City Hall and I stood up to them to their faces. I cannot believe this. Dorothy Krause is supposed to be supporting the children in this community.'

Fitchburg resident Monica Howard has worked with Wanda Smith for many years and is described by supporters of Smith as "deeply offended" by Fitchburg officials' work against this Smith.

Writes Howard on Facebook:

I have worked with Wanda for over 10 years. She has been amazing not only with my own daughter but several other children. She is passionate about children’s rights and advocacy for advancement. Her passion is mistaken for hostility and that’s not the case. She is dedicated to the success of youth and this is highly unnecessary. Why all of the sudden is a homework club a problem. It hasn’t been all this time. This is where the City needs to separate their personal feelings and allow a great program to continue.

Contacted this weekend by phone, Smith said she is contemplating legal action against the City of Fitchburg for defamation.

Effort to Rename Fitchburg, Wisconsin City Hall Is Politically Correct Theater

Commentary

Update: The Fitchburg Star is out with the story and guess what Frances Huntley-Cooper deigns to offer as comment: Nothing. As in, "Huntley-Cooper did not immediately respond to a Dec. 2 email from the Fitchburg Star asking for comment."

The narcissism and anti-democratic attitude towards the Fitchburg people of Ms. Huntley-Cooper are astounding. C'mon, don't we the people of Fitchburg deserve even a comment? Guess not.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Emily Hamer reports in the Wisconsin State Journal on an effort to change the name of Fitchburg City Hall to the Frances Huntley-Cooper Municipal Building, (Madison365).

Ms. Huntley-Cooper is the first African American mayor in Wisconsin history. She served one term, unremarkable, from 1991 to 1993.

The effort reportedly is the brainchild of Michael Johnson, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County, and others. Johnson told Madison365 he has considered his decision for about a year.

Johnson is not a resident of Fitchburg, and was not a Wisconsin resident when Huntley-Cooper served one term as mayor beginning in 1991.

Renaming City Hall is a foolish idea on too many levels to itemize here.

It seems redolent of the compulsion to establish a Ronald Reagan monument in every county in the United States, or plastering someone's face on public structures to honor their greatness, like Stalin, Mao or Saddam Hussein.

But characterizing, honoring or debasing any human being on the basis of skin color, even a one-term mayor who served some 30 years ago, honors racial classification schemes leading anti-fascist writers, such as Norman Cohn, Ashley Montagu and Marvin Harris, to note similar enterprises as meaningless myth, an idea that 'race' enjoys a status as anything but irrational, nonsensical and demonstrably false.

I don't know why Frances Huntley-Cooper endorses this effort.

Thirty-one years ago, I broke the news in The Capital Times that Ms. Huntley-Cooper would become Wisconsin's first black mayor in Nov. 1990 when she declared for a mayoral run.

Huntley-Cooper downplayed the fact of 'Wisconsin's first black mayor' in a phone conversation then, and I had to rewrite a draft incorporating her comments and stated campaign priorities before I filed the piece.

What has changed since then, in my view, is the rise of woke identity politics that glorifies and validates 'race' as a system purporting to have non-zero scientific status.

I don't think the liberals raising this flag of the cancel culture have the faintest clue how toxic and ridiculous is their performative theater in this proposed renaming, not seen since the great removal of the 42-ton boulder from UW-Madison because the pre-Cambrian rock was deemed racist.

Hey, nothing against Frances Huntley-Cooper, but I think I can make a good case for renaming City Hall after Doug Morrissette, Mark Vivian, Roger Tesch, Jay Allen, Tom Clauder, Dave Herbst or current Mayor Aaron Richardson, among dozens of others who have served our city honorably.

We could even emblazon the front of City Hall with a likeness of the chosen's face.

If we are going to brand and rename monuments, buildings and parks, then I want Western Hills Park by our home renamed after my wife, Jackie Captain, for her outstanding work on anti-fascist artists, Ben Shahn and Eugene Higgins.

Further, I want to rename my street, now Monticello Way in the Jamestown neighborhood — named after a seventeenth century indentured servant-cum-slave colony — renamed Don Kosterman Way in recognition of this Fitchburg resident's academic work on the Milwaukee Police Dept's unconstitutional effort to sabotage the publishing of Kaleidoscope in the 1960s-70s.

See what I am getting at here?

Representative democracy and municipal policy are not about one person, or even one body of elected persons.

Especially on the municipal level, democracy is about the people and their liberties that make democratic processes a breathing monument that lives forever for future generations.

If we are truly to rename a such a vital public building as City Hall, the process being contemplated — a Common Council resolution — is inadequate.

We need a much more deliberative process that would include and invite extensive public input, a long list of nominations, including a referendum that offers no-name change at all, because every present and future Fitchburg resident has a stake in this enterprise.

Light Shines on Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Insular, Provincial, Without Adult Supervision

Fitchburg Mayor Jason Gonzalez walks out of the Common
Council meeting November 14.

Fiefdom of Fitchburg to citizen "human beings": 'You're done. Please leave'

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—A relative in rural Georgia reminded me this summer about the problem in Wisconsin few acknowledge.

'Mikey, Wisconsin is way more racist than rural Georgia, sweetheart."

Yes, Wisconsin is, and the city of Fitchburg, the focus of increased local media attention is among the worst offenders against citizens voicing concern about public policy at public meetings, especially black citizens, (Pasque, The Capital Times,

In Fitchburg local bureaucrats routinely call the police on citizens expressing concern about the municipal budget, reporting voting obstruction, and caring for black children, (care-givers are the worst problem).

Common Council members contrive with the City Attorney's Office and City Administrator, Patrick Marsh, to phone police when a citizen, like me for example, point out unlawful public conduct.

Kaleem Caire, president and CEO of One City Learning Centers, found out the hard way that citizens can not count on Constitutional and democratic norms to publicly voice concerns at public Council meetings.

Reports Lisa Speckhard Pasque in The Capital Times:

During Tuesday's public hearing, Caire began his statement by saying that community services should be part of the city budget, as those who would benefit from the services 'are human beings' and taxpayers. He then criticized council members, saying 'I saw you all, members of this council, who refused to meet with people in this community, Mayor Gonzalez as much as I --'

At that point, Gonzalez interrupted him and called him out of order, saying 'We’re here to talk about budget amendments.' Caire kept trying to finish his statement, and said he wasn’t done and hadn’t said anything offensive.

Gonzalez continued to interrupt him, saying 'You’re done,' and 'Please leave, sir.'

City Administrator Patric Marsh then called the police. 

Notes Chris Aadland in the Wisconsin State Journal:

Caire said the message the [Fitchburg] budget sends is that the city isn’t welcoming and doesn’t value community input.

'I thought for the last several years they were trying to change that image, but these people are taking them backwards,' he said.

Mayor Jason Gonzalez claims that the performance of the Common Council on the municipal budget cannot be articulated by citizens commenting on the budget at a budgetary public hearing, or Gonzalez will rule the citizens "out of order," contact the Fitchburg Police Dept, who will escort the citizen out of the Council.

Jason Gonzalez, and Ald Julia Arata-Fratta and Ald Dorothy Krause cannot operate beyond the norms of democratic society without the explicit support of City Administrator Patrick Marsh, asst City Attorney Valerie Zisman, and ultimately the Fitchburg Municipal Court which will rubber-stamp any civil citation the police issue, any action of the Council and the cloistered racists who populate City Hall, no matter how absurd. Mal Contends advocates citizens voice their concerns with appropriate Fitchburg public official as listed in the public Fitchburg public directory.

On a personal note, as long-time Fitchburg resident, I sometimes wonder if I had veered into a Cassandra complex, after years of alerting election officials to unlawful practices of Fitchburg city officials.

One thing is clear: the urgency of the moment lives forever in the present.

Writes Dane County resident, Amelia Royko Maurer last night as rights, open meetings and democratic norms are dieing in Fitchburg. [Royko Maurer was also thrown out of the Common Council meeting, ( The Capital Times, Wisconsin State Journal)]:

I’m utterly stunned by the lack of response from Fitchburg citizens to the behavior of their elected representatives. Politeness and silence have never, ever brought about necessary change in fact, quite the contrary.

The question to ask yourself is, are you part of the firing squad or are you for equity and justice. *There is no middle ground.*

This column is from the 60s so it contains racial terms that may trigger some, as it has me, but the overarching point should hit home hard for Fitchburg residents.

Royko links a column, Millions in his firing squad, on the assassination of King penned by the late, great Mike Royko, reading in part:

FBI agents are looking for the man who pulled the trigger and surely they will find him.

But it doesn't matter if they do or they don't. They can't catch everybody, and Martin Luther King was executed by a firing squad that numbered in the millions.

They took part, from all over the country, pouring words of hate into the ear of the assassin.

The man with the gun did what he was told. Millions of bigots, subtle and obvious, put it in his hand and assured him he was doing the right thing.

It would be easy to point at the Southern redneck and say he did it. But what of the Northern disk-jockey-turned-commentator, with his slippery words of hate every morning?

What about the Northern mayor who steps all over every poverty program advancement, thinking only of political expediency, until riots fester, whites react with more hate and the gap between the races grows bigger?

Toss in the congressman with the stupid arguments against busing. And the pathetic women who turn out with eggs in their hands to throw at children.

Let us not forget the law-and-order type politicians who are in favor of arresting all Negro prostitutes in the vice districts. When you ask them to vote for laws that would eliminate some of the causes of prostitution, they babble like the boobs they are.

Throw in a Steve Telow or two: the Eastern and Southern European immigrant or his kid who seems to be convinced that in 40 or 50 years he built this country. There was nothing here until he arrived, you see, so that gives him the right to pitch rocks when Martin Luther King walks down the street in his neighborhood.

They all took their place in King's firing squad.

And behind them were the subtle ones, those who never say anything bad but just nod when the bigot throws out his strong opinions.

He is actually the worst, the nodder is, because sometimes he believes differently but he says nothing. He doesn't want to cause trouble. For Pete's sake, don't cause trouble!

So when his brother-in-law or his card-playing buddy from across the alley spews out the racial filth, he nods.

Give some credit to the most subtle of the subtle. That distinction belongs to the FBI, now looking for King's killer.

That agency took part in a mudslinging campaign against him that to this day demands an investigation.

The bullet that hit King came from all directions. Every two-bit politician or incompetent editorial writer found in him, not themselves, the cause of our racial problems.

It was almost ludicrous. The man came on the American scene preaching nonviolence from the first day he sat at the wrong end of a bus. He preached it in the North and was hit with rocks. He talked it the day he was murdered.

Hypocrites all over this country would kneel every Sunday morning and mouth messages to Jesus Christ. ...