Happy Friday and welcome back to the Leader’s weekly news roundup. We’ve got bad news and good news. First, the bad news: the Crew got swept in LA and fell to only two games ahead of Cincinnati for the top spot in the NL Central. Now, the good news. Oh what’s this? Looks like it’s not good news at all. The economy and planet are still controlled by cannibalistic plutocrats who rule the fate of billions with shit-eating grins stapled to their faces. While we figure out what went wrong there (it’s capitalism), why not check out some of these Milwaukee news stories that might have flown under your radar? As always, thank you for reading The Leader.
Lead Pipe Replacement
Milwaukee, like other cities of its age and region, struggles with the continuing plague of lead pipes that contaminate drinking water. These pipes, installed many decades ago, disproportionately impact the most marginalized neighborhoods in the city, with the highest concentrations in ZIP Code 53206. Exposure to lead is particularly harmful to children, as even relatively low concentrations have been linked to intellectual disability, brain damage, kidney damage, and other life-threatening conditions.
A program to replace lead laterals in Milwaukee (which received much of its impetus from local organizations like Get The Lead Out MKE) is seeking federal funds to upscale its activities over the next several years. The program uses city funds to pay for the replacement of lead lines with copper ones, with a focus on area of critical concern such as daycares and homes with young children. One cannot help but reflect, however, upon the bitter reality that these funds also go into the pockets of predatory landlords who have in many cases willfully neglected their properties and tenants at the expense of public health and basic dignity. The city’s program is an admirable one, and should continue, but in future perhaps Mr. Berrada could forego another in-ground swimming pool and cough up his own fucking money to remove the poison from his properties. (WUWM)
FoxConn Revealed Again To Be Corporate Equivalent Of Three Raccoons In Trench Coat
Beloved Taiwanese Potemkin village purveyor and land speculation conspiracy Foxconn is divesting itself of properties in Green Bay and Eau Claire that it had once promised would bring hundreds of jobs to struggling communities in Wisconsin. Foxconn is most famous for constructing a giant glass orb in the middle of former cow pasture in Mount Pleasant, thereby answering the immortal question, ‘What if we lived in alternate universe in which the EPCOT sphere was in the Midwest and extremely stupid?’. The properties have sat vacant for years, a decaying testament to the hubris and sleaze of the Walker administration’s botched attempt at pro-capital industrial policy. (WPR)
Board of Supervisors to Review Jail After Spate of Horrifying Inmate Deaths
The Milwaukee County Jail has been a site of criminal neglect and shocking violence for decades, most notably under former sheriff and local fascist clown David Clarke. The problems, however, have not gone away with new management. In the last nine months alone, four incarcerated people have died while under the supervision and custody of the Jail, a disgusting record of barbarism that has sparked a formal investigation on the part of the County Board.
Whether or not this investigation will produce meaningful results, of course, is another matter. “All this resolution does is ask nicely for the sheriff to give us information which should already be publicly available,” said Milwaukee socialist County Supervisor Ryan Clancy. Threatening to reduce the funding to the incompetent sheriff’s department is not on the table; under the strictures passed along with shared revenue during this summer’s budget in Madison, the county and city are banned from reducing funds for cops. (WTMJ)
Milwaukee To Play Host To Republican Debate, Disproving Speculation That Milwaukeeans ‘Can’t Possibly Engage in More Sad Binge Drinking’
Milwaukee’s downtown next week will feature deranged screeds targeting LGBTQ+ people as demonic, erratic behavior not entirely in keeping with typical definitions of social decency, and a preponderance of spittle on the street outside the Pfister. What is different about this week is that not only is Brother Ron’s car out of the shop, Milwaukee will also be playing host to the assorted freaks and losers trying their best to come in second to a man under three federal indictments. In other words, the Republican presidential candidates are coming to huff at Brett Baier for 90 minutes while McKinley fills with the world’s most tedious police presence. Oh, joy.
Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said that “the enthusiasm we’ve seen from the people of Milwaukee has been really exciting.” One supposes that Chairwoman McDaniel is right in the same way that a massive black mold outbreak in my basement enkindles a certain ‘enthusiasm’ of temperament. This is all just the preview of what will be a truly intolerable display of reactionary chudlust during next year’s Republican National Convention, all under the aegis of Mayor Johnson’s grating boosterism. Plans to fortify Puddler’s Hall with tank traps and barbed wire and stock canned goods enough to wait out the storm under the pingpong tables could not be confirmed at press time, but stay tuned to the Leader for updates, and may God have mercy on our souls. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
