The morning news just told me that we have a swine flu emergency status in the Milwaukee area right now. They just listed about 11 schools that have been closed in Milwaukee County and yesterday Governor Doyle officially declared a statewide emergency, freeing up the needed resources to address the situation. I can't tell you how many times that my normal TV watching has been interrupted by breaking swine flu news with the Milwaukee mayor and public health officials commenting on the situation. Even this morning's paper has a big picture of Mayor Barrett answering questions about this issue and detailing the city response. The one thing that I noticed is the complete and total absence of one public official – Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran an editorial saying that all levels of government should be involved in dealing with the swine flu, yet I have no idea what the Milwaukee County government has been doing. I'm sure there have been front line workers doing their job, but it would be nice if the "leader" of Milwaukee County seemed to at least be in the loop somewhere. Scott Walker has never been one to shy away from publicity or from holding a press conference or media event. So where in the world is Scott Walker? I was beginning to wonder if he was one of the two people in the Milwaukee area that came down with swine flu.
Thanks to the work of the new blog Heartland Hollar, thankfully I can now say that Scott Walker's silence during this emergency is not because he is sick. He has just been too darn busy twittering about his campaign for governor. Since this public health emergency first surfaced locally, Walker has been twittering from a sub shop in Kohler, reminiscing about his homecoming prom date, and giving us every boring detail from the campaign trail.
Where in the world is Scott Walker? He is setting the twittering world on fire! The question is whether that is an appropriate way to spend all of your time, when we have a full fledged public health emergency going on in the county? Since he was such a strong supporter of John McCain's presidential bid, I wonder if he will follow his example and suspend his campaign to deal with this emergency? Heartland Hollar asks if he will still attend the Republican State Convention this weekend. His complete silence on the issue makes that highly unlikely, in fact he is so busy twittering about his campaign, that I wonder if he even knows that there is a public health issue in Milwaukee County?
Where in the world is Scott Walker? He is busy running for higher office again and apparently can't be bothered with something as "small" as a possible pandemic.
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18 comments:
Cory, cut the guy a break....he's busy showing the people of Wisconsin what a real leader does in these situations....
Oh...and I also wonder if he was too busy stuffing the ballot box over at the online poll on wisopinion...he was behind Neumann on that for days and suddenly over night he has a couple hundred vote lead? organizing such a ballot stuffing operation is much more important than the swine flu issue.
He's probably tuning up the Harley for the campaign , I mean, the tourism promotion ride.
Man, it's really going to suck when Walker is our next governor. I don't know if I would be able to hear all of the whining.
Btw, where was Doyle when we had emergency flooding last year? Oh yeah, he was on a golf course raising money for his future reelection campaign.
I'll tell you what, I'll look at the archives real quick to see if there was much whining about that.
famous last words...i'm sure you said the same thing about mark green, john mccain, randy koschnick and rose fernandez. how did those work out for you?
just face it...everyone else is doing their job on this and walker is awol...politics and self promotion has always been most important to him and milwaukee can go to hell.
Everyone else is doing their jobs on this?
What might that job be Cory?
Sending people into full blown panic mode because a strain of flu has :gasp: mutated?
Sending people who sneeze once into the ER in a full blown panic, believing their dying?
I had to wait 5 hours yesterday, to have a piss test done at a health clinic in New Berlin because the people in fromt of me all believed they had the swine flu.
EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! 250 people to be exact.....
I agree that this issue is probably being way over-hyped, but that doesn't mean that he can abdicate his responsibilities. Can't he bother himself to even put out a press release to let the public know what the county is doing or prepared to do should this be the real deal? Maybe he could (at the very least) tweet a message pretending that he gives a crap about something other than his political carreer. I don't think that it is asking for too much.
So far, this new flu is not terribly worse than a usual one. It is also predicted to lessen by itself as warm days are ahead. So, why do we need all this full-panic mode? To make our new President and our old Governor look good?
I love how this works.
Doyle does anything: He's serving the people of the great state of Wisconsin.
Walker does anything: It's all a political stunt to further his Machiavellian scheme to run Wisconsin, then the nation, finally the known universe! (MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!)
Love to hear what bathroom time's gonna be called.
that is the problem...walker hasn't done or said ANYTHING...he is too busy running his campaign. come on, try to stay focused.
Cory:
Is this REALLY about Milwaukee County or is this more about a personal hatred of Scott Walker?
Because it seems to me that you should be calling on ALL the mayors of every community in Milwaukee county to be doing the same thing...
And so far I haven't heard anything coming from any of them.
And really was is the point of EVERY Community leader coming out and telling people things that they have already heard a hundred times an hour for the last 4 days anyway?
local mayors and such are not the people asking to run the entire state. they are not ignoring their jobs because they are too busy in a constant run for higher office.
btw, many local officials are addressing the situation...one of the latest is in waukesha county...what about Milwaukee County? I don't know and that is the problem no matter which way you try to spin it.
So just because Scott Walker is ASKING to be running the entire state, he should be issuing press releases left and right telling people things that they should already know regarding this?
And you know -or could very easily find out- what exactly Milwco is doing about this. i have read your work and ignorant (or not knowing) is not one word I would use to describe you. (I do think you are feigning ignorance in that last comment though)
You are NOT that ignorant.
But just in case you are: Milwaukee County Residents that have questions or concerns may contact County Health Programs 289-5949.
Turns out the Flu Epidemic is only a mild strain. This was known by the time your op ed piece. Frankly Scott Walker did exactly what he should have done, not worried or said anything about it. Those politicians that did were only pandering for votes. Closing whole schools because of the flu is irresponsible. The CDC estimated that during 9 influenza seasons from 1990-91 through 1998-99, an annual average of 36,000 flu-related deaths occurred. Several people getting the flu is not important. Are we going to close the schools next flu season too. That is silly, much like your facts.
Scott Walker should be doing his job...plain and simple. He has a responsibility to show that Milwaukee County is addressing potential issues like this. He didn't know how severe this flu was going to be when he decided to ignore it. As usual he is too focused on campaigning for a new job at the expense of his current one. His lack of action had nothing to do with what the actual threat level was, it had everything to do with his campaign. That is no way to govern, but that is Scott Walker.
Cory:
I'm sorry, but before you said he should be doing his job as a candidate for governor and now you say he should be doing his job as Milwaukee Cty Exec. The latter is true, he has no responsibility to do or say anything as a candidate (ie addressing the flue issue), especially this early in the campaign. Make up your mind.
The facebook world is already getting against this guy.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55868686754
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