(Readers may appreciate the background information contained in the nine previously published “Mayor Gunfumble” diaries.)
Part two of three. Part one described how fifty four residents submitted a petition asking the Common Council of Hartford, Wisconsin to allocate funds for an investigation into the Mayor's March 9th gun fumble in the Washington County Public Safety Building. The city's least informed residents, conservatives who support double standards, then stepped up to the public mic at the May 10th Common Council meeting to perform a daffy, rambling defense of their serial gun fumbler.
Another speaker stepped up to the public microphone to share her nebulous comprehension of events:
“I'd like to say that I support Mayor Michalak, despite his lack of judgment.”
You mean, despite his consistent and repeated lack of judgment. Three gun fumbles at public meetings is a pattern. Why did fumble number two ever have to occur? Responsible, safety-minded residents could have gotten rid of Michalak years ago, after the first fumble, or last October, after the second fumble. And then, incredibly, Michalak commits fumble number three, and is still in office! Let me remind you that you and your fellow conservatives have a right to plead the fifth, and avoid self-incriminating speech.
“Lack of judgment,” as you casually misuse the expression, now becomes a euphemism deployed to deflect attention from the investigation now underway into his alleged Class A felonies.
So let's revise your opening remark:
“I'd like to say that I support Mayor Michalak, despite his lawbreaking, despite his reckless and arrogant disregard for public safety, despite the fact he acts on psychosexual urges that compel him to flash his Trouser Trumpet in public.”
But her rationalizing and minimizing preamble aside, the speaker stumbled on.
“I would like anyone to tell me, if they haven't had a lack of judgment, or, let's say like, an overdue bill that they forgot to pay, or they accidentally threw away a renewal notice and didn't pay that.”
My head is starting to hurt.
Minimize much? False equivalency much? Seriously, you want to minimize the importance of legal documentation that allows someone to transport lethal force on his person? It's not just the expired Conceal Carry permit that has your neighbors outraged. Even if it hadn't been expired, the permit still did not allow him to carry a firearm in a Public Safety building. The issue is also the gun fumbles. Three of them. And possibly even more. Read my lips: “Public Safety.” Michalak is a “Public Menace!”
Also at issue is Michalak's whopping sense of Entitlement.
You know, throwing away a renewal notice in a Public Safety Building won't get you a visit from Sheriff's Deputies, or get you investigated for breaking state law. Throwing away a renewal notice is, surprisingly, not a Class A felony that could see you sentenced to up to nine months in jail, or subject to a $10,000 fine....just so we're clear. You are not making an apples to apples comparison by any stretch of the imagination. There is just no equivalency there.
Uh, not to make too fine a point of this, but you also don't need a permit to carry an overdue bill because it isn't possessed of lethal force.
“But I would just like to say that, um, these people who signed this petition and, just, just calm down. I think the mayor has proven himself that he's not some kind of gun-wielding maniac who's gonna come out shooting at any moment.”
The fifty four signatories to the petition that asks for an investigation into Michalak's latest gun fumble don't need to calm down. What they need is for Hartford conservatives, people like you, to awaken from perpetual moral and civic stupor. The twenty-plus mayors who preceded Timothy C. Gunfumble somehow survived Common Council meetings without a handgun to suck on or to fondle. Timmy can put on his Big Boy pants and do likewise. Gun-Wielding maniac? Well, with three public gun fumbles behind us now, and possible criminal charges facing him, I think we can say that, yes, Timmy is, in fact, a gun-wielding maniac.
If that’s the best that can be said about Michalak, you have damned him with faint praise.
But, having sunk this low, the speaker put her head down and plunged deeper.
“And exactly what needs to be investigated? I think it's pretty cut and dried what happened.”
Yes. It is. And you seem genetically incapable of recognizing just what that is. Seriously, trying to characterize Michalak's three (and likely more) gun fumbles as “just accidents” is pretty dysfunctional, dangerous and irresponsible behavior on your part.
It's pretty cut and dried that Michalak kept on fumbling his gun out of some bizarre delusion that it wasn't dangerous to do so, that it was no big deal. This fool is campaigning to normalize public gun fumbles. What is also cut and dried is that he takes a perverse pleasure in flashing his Pocket Rocket. He wants people to know he is carrying a loaded weapon. He doesn't particularly care to keep it concealed.
The fact that you and so many other ideologically-constipated people (“conservatives”) refuse to see the antisocial component of his behavior is disturbing in its own right. The guy needs psychiatric help. But casting our glance in the other direction, at the people whose “values” Timmy represents, we have to ask, “What other offenses, indeed, which other violations of law, are people like you already overlooking? What other dangerous and illegal activities do you keep quiet about? Is it okay for your neighbors to abuse their children, cheat on their taxes, commit wire fraud? (A Hartford woman was recently indicted for wire fraud, by the way.) And what criteria do you apply when you adjudicate these matters? I shudder to imagine the rationalizing...
Juggles is being investigated for the commission of two felonies. If he carried his firearm into government buildings after his Concealed Carry permit expired, then he committed even more felonies. He may have been racking up felonies for over three months. An investigation would shed light on these events. An investigation would reveal that Michalak's violations of state law are more numerous. Michalak's campaign of lawbreaking is looking more and more “cut and dried.”
“So I wonder why we're still dwelling on this.”
Well, you could ask the Dodge County DA's Office why they are still dwelling on “this.” (The alleged felonies took place in the Washington County Public Safety Building, but the Washington County DA asked the Dodge County DA's Office to handle the investigation to preclude any conflict of interest.)
“This,” the gun fumble, the sensational revelation that Michalak was breaking state law, is what forced him to resign from his County Supervisor post. “This” is what the rest of Washington County said “No!” to, as in “No, not in this County Government! No, not in this government building!” “This” could land him in the county jail for nine months, and subject him to a $10,000 fine. Yes, “this” could.
Well, look at that. It seems the good people of Washington County have a different set of “values” than the conservative kooks in Hartford. The former value actual Public Safety. Wonder if you could learn anything from them.
“Now the mayor was elected after this incident.”
Yes, to your shame, and the shame of every pinhead who voted for him. Hartford, Wisconsin is now a laughingstock, whether you shut your eyes and plug your ears to the well-deserved ridicule or not.
The last speaker defines the kind of willful blindness found in conservative cesspools:
“I guess I would ask, 'Is it really a controversy?' Or is it the media using it to drum up clicks and increase their revenue?”
Ah, there it is, the old conservative ploy. If you don't like what the media reveals about conservative misdeeds and conservative hypocrisy, attack the messenger. There is, in fact, a controversy. A conservative minority in Hartford, Wisconsin chooses to shut its eyes to the danger posed by an inept, gun-juggling fool. Click that.
He goes on to say that a man's character is built over years of dedicated service,
“...not by a few minutes that are sensationalized by the media.”
A few minutes? Uh, no. Four years of gun fumbling shows...uh, yeah, it shows some kind of “dedication.” Mayor Gunfumble has dedicated himself to proving he is incapable of concealed carry. He's done it! I believe him! He's dedicated himself to proving he is an incompetent fool who should not be allowed to carry a firearm. Again, he's done it! I believe it! Stop this idiot from juggling his handgun at public meetings!
Sensationalized? It wasn't the media who committed a sensationally stupid act. It was your arrogant mayor, Michalak. He owns that sensational stupidity. The media didn't force him to conceal-carry a loaded weapon into a place where such an act is specifically and unambiguously forbidden by state law. Michalak also flashed some sensational arrogance, the kind that made him insinuate to Sheriff's Detectives that as an elected official he believed he was exempt from the law. Well now, who is sounding sensationally too big for his britches?
The only thing sensational about the media coverage was the behavior of the elected official concerned.
Now the speaker was not interested in seeing an investigation into Michalak's fondness for firearm-related felony. He used a Straw Man argument.
“It would tell us the media get to bully us around, and tell us who our elected officials should be, instead of the citizens of our community.”
Well now, a majority of voters actually voted against Michalak. Are you going to blame the media for reporting facts like that, too? The media is reporting irresponsible and dangerous behavior. The perp is your mayor. You still gonna stand there with your fingers in your ears and your eyes squeezed shut, whining because the perp is from your political and ideological clan?
The Dodge County DA is now deliberating charges against your idiot mayor. The Dodge County DA is not an agent of the media. Your attempt at spin is noted. Your lack of integrity is also noted.
Part Three will feature quotes word-salad topped with generous dollops of spin sauce, served up by Hartford's “Good Buddy Gubmint,” AKA, the Aldermen. If you thought these members of the public were playing fast and loose with the facts, hold on to your seats. These Sleepy White Wonders will amaze you with their verbal feats of folly.