(Readers may appreciate the background information contained in the eight previously published “Mayor Gunfumble” diaries.)
Part One of Two
Mayor Gunfumble supporters staged a piece of political theater at the May 10th meeting of the Hartford Common Council. Herded into the council chambers like cattle at an abattoir, five of the least incoherent among them attempted to moo speak coherently at the public mic.
As each speaker finished, the Conservative herd lowed, outgassed and stomped their hooves. To objective observers, it appears that a substantial percentage of Hartford residents have contracted Entitlementitis...that or they've succumbed to Mad Cow Disease. The symptoms of each present in near-identical fashion.
To the larger world, outside the Hartford bubble, the attempts were humorous - unintentionally humorous. At Hartford Union High School, a video of the meeting is now used to teach forensics. The coach is certain that if his team does none of the things they saw adults do in the video, the HUHS Forensics Team will advance to the state finals this year.
I'm not saying the caliber of the, uh, “arguments” in favor of letting Mayor Gunfumble remain in office were bad. No. They were awful. Well, okay, they fell on a spectrum that began at awful and ended at nonexistent. Let's just say it's time to get the tap water tested.
The object of adoration at the Common Council meeting was, yes, Timothy C. Michalak, Mayor and three-time gun fumbler of Hartford, Wisconsin. Mr. Mayor conceal-carries a sidearm. Or rather, he tries to. Sorta tries to. His giggling ID keeps shooting such efforts in the foot, chucking his chattel, as it were. Or maybe his inner child is afraid of the responsibility that attends packing heat, and jettisons his loaded baggage.
Hartford's pistol-purging paranoiac has just jettisoned some career-related baggage, too. You see, he formerly held two elected offices, simultaneously serving as Hartford Mayor and as a Washington County Supervisor. But his ambition to perform on a larger political stage was assassinated by an epic gun fumble. Call it a self-inflicted wound. It happened in the Washington County Public Safety Building.
Every elected official in Wisconsin possessed of a molecule of maturity and responsibility knows it is against state law to carry a firearm into a public safety building, whether you have a Concealed Carry permit or not. ( ) (Place the previous set of parentheses under a microscope to view covalent-bonded molecules of Maturity and Responsibility. Even such minuscule amounts induce adult behavior.)
But Mayor Man-Child retains infantile immunity to mature and responsible behavior. If he ever ingested a few molecules of such grownup stuff, gag reflex would keep his system pure, i.e., trapped in arrested development.
On the morning of March 9th, 2022 wearing his County Supervisor hat, and toting a concealed holster loaded with Entitlement, Michalak strolled into the Washington County Public Safety Building. And there, in the hallway, just before the County Board meeting began, while he was talking with another county employee, Timothy C. Michalak fumbled his firearm. It hit the floor with a “THUD!”
Dope, meet Destiny.
Juggles the Conservative Clown had struck...again!
Questioned later by detectives about his little pistol pantomime, Mr. Soon-to-no-longer-be-a-County-Supervisor “...implied to detectives that as an elected official he believed he was exempt from the law and could carry his firearm inside police departments and the sheriff’s office. Both charges are Class A misdemeanors and if charged and convicted would be punishable up to nine months in county jail, and a $10,000 fine.” This quote is taken from a press release by the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
Now the County Board Chairman was having none of these preening, puffed up rationalizations for breaking the law, and said so in an open letter. And with the Chairman's demand for accountability came a promise to hire an outside attorney to investigate how to remove Michalak from his County Supervisor post.
Any Entitlement that Timothy C. Michalak imagined he had suddenly scuttled for cover like a corpulent cockroach. The sane residents of Washington County wondered if there would be forensic fireworks at the next meeting of the County Board of Supervisors. There were not. The day before the meeting, in the evening, at the last possible minute, the County Board Chairman received Michalak's one-sentence long resignation statement.
Notably absent from our serial gun fumbler's farewell was any admission of wrongdoing, any remorse, any offer to repair the public trust he had destroyed, or any promise to perform public service, at his inconvenience, for his alleged crimes and for his betrayal of the public trust. Because it is abundantly clear (“THUMP!”) that Juggles does not trust his constituents.
This paradox is lost on conservatives who live in Hartford. Is this paradox too subtle for closed minds?
Also notably absent from the farewell sentence was the courage Michalak needed to face those he has betrayed. You need to know that. This gun fumbling Man-Child who puppets the part of a “conservative,” didn't have the integrity to fully, openly, publicly admit his wrongdoing. And he lives in a city where too many other adults, well into their fifties and sixties, function like spoiled, petulant children. They refuse to hold him accountable. You see, if they did hold him accountable, they would then have to hold themselves accountable, too. Looking at you, Aldermen...
“Why?” you may ask. Because this March 9thgun fumble in front of eyewitnesses and innocent bystanders is Mayor Michalak's third, yes, his third gun fumble at a public meeting. This is the third time he has placed others in danger. Hartford residents could have gotten rid of Michalak after the first fumble. But eyewitnesses kept quiet. Then, last October, he committed his second gun fumble. At a Common Council meeting on the 26th, as he was about to present an award to a volunteer arborist, Michalak raised his right hand to offer a congratulatory handshake and “THUMP!”
Eyewitnesses, who included several of the Aldermen, could have made sure that Michalak stepped down after this fumble, “Strike Two” in this Toddler's Unholy Trinity of Trespasses. But the mayor's Aldermen, AKA his Bloc of Bovine Buffoons, just laughed it off. Even the YouTube video of the meeting attracted little attention. “Conservative Values,” you see....
After he resigned his County Supervisor post, the Mayor of Wisconsin's “Duck-and-Cover” city ducked under cover. Reporters could not find him (They should have turned their attention to the enabling Aldermen). Social media rightly roasted Mayor Manslaughter’s gun-fumbling proclivities, and his infantile compulsion to carry a handgun he cannot control. Michalak is now ridiculed as a hypocrite who baldly demonstrates that he is an elected official who, incredibly, does not trust his neighbors or his constituents. The mayor, in short, holds his city in contempt.
Pundits also shot his reasoning to pieces: an armed Hartford police officer is always present at Common Council meetings, so the presence of a gun-juggling clown does nothing to make anyone safer. Indeed, the mayor makes every public meeting a public hazard. It is dangerous to be around this inept fool.
This is a quandary for sane residents of Hartford. How can they protest or speak at a Common Council meeting if the gun fumbling idiot they want to remove from office is present...and packing? I mean, Juggles has a track record! His preferred performance space and his modus operandi are known quantities. Which parents are going to attempt to restore sanity to city government by speaking at a Common Council meeting if they risk making orphans of their own children?
Michalak supporters, smug idiots of the lowest caliber, ignore this quandary. The idiots are winning the battle. But Hartford is losing the war. The city is a petri dish, a case study in how the absurdities and hypocrisies of so-called “Conservative” thinking, or rather, the absence of thinking, destroy a community. The insular ideological idiocies committed to date have a nearly incestuous inclination.
Or, you can just allow that the shallow end of the gene pool has been poisoned.
Now plenty of Hartford's sane residents were pissed off about the Mayor's infantile behavior. A majority voted against him in the recent mayoral election. Only the fact that the opposition vote was split among five last-minute write-in candidates kept Michalak in office. A more organized opposition would have made Hartford a safer place. Instead of fumbling his gun at City Hall, or in the Common Council chambers, an ex-Mayor Michalak would then be free (because Freedumb!) to fumble his gun at home in the garage, or the bathroom, or the kitchen, surrounding by his loving family. Comforting thought...
But despite reelection, Mayor Gunfumble managed to keep angering a majority of the voting public. It takes a toxic combination of Entitlement Mentality, low intrapersonal intelligence, and notable narcissism, to do that. Sane citizens fumed when they read about Michalak's feigned surprise at “learning” from Sheriff's Department detectives that he was breaking the law (“I am shocked, shocked to learn that there is gambling going on in here!”). Residents were further tweaked by his vague, terse, non-apology “apology” at the subsequent Hartford Common Council meeting.
Fifty four Hartford residents signed a petition asking the Common Council to discuss hiring an outside attorney to investigate the March 9th gun fumble. This move echoed the one made by the Washington County Board of Supervisors. It set the stage for some amateur theatrics that turned the May 10th Common Council meeting into a farce. Because sadly, Hartford is a bizarre ideological bubble, forming a clot in the socioeconomic bloodstream of Washington County.
The first speaker to approach the public microphone fumbled a quote from Teddy Roosevelt:
“It's not the critic who counts.” (Here he paused, his train of thought derailed...)
While you ponder your point, my friend, let's note that citizens do count, and so do their legitimate criticisms of idiotic behavior. Serial gun fumbling is not, and should never be, normal. Liken it to the antisocial behavior of flashers and exhibitionists. But juggling a gun to get your thrills is dangerous. And ask yourself this: why does Michalak keep exposing his trouser trumpet at public meetings? Something sick and dysfunctional is being “flashed” here. (A moment later, the speaker found and reconnected his missing thought-caboose:)
“It's not the critic in the audience who pointed out how the man in the arena stumbled. (He points at the Aldermen.) You gentlemen in the arena, you face the fire every day.”
This is a ludicrous analogy. Mayor Michalak didn't stumble in some arena like a wounded gladiator. Nor did his Aldermen, a pack of enabling weasels if ever there was one. No, the Mighty Michalak fumbled a handgun in a Public Safety Building, idiotic Man-Child that he is. Sorry, no heroics here. Only stupidity and arrogance. And this after he had already fumbled his gun in October of 2021. His Concealed Carry permit expired not long after that October Surprise, but he couldn't be bothered to renew it. Instead he spent months bumbling around in government buildings, conceal-carrying a firearm illegally, committing more felonies. That kind of behavior reeks of Entitlement, not heroism. Learn the difference.
And that hero analogy of yours also fails big time for this: Hartford's gun-juggling clown and that Brainless Brigade of imitation Aldermen are nothing like Teddy Roosevelt and his Roughriders (unless you are insinuating that Michalak and the Aldermen are both racist and imperialist). To suggest that Hartford’s elected representatives are heroic for ignoring Public Safety, which Michalak mocks with every gun fumble, is worse than ludicrous. It is despicable. These clowns are not heroes. They are cowards. Michalak should have been history after his first fumble. And any Alderman who witnessed either the first or second fumble, or both, and said nothing, should have resigned. It’s called integrity. Now we witness idiot-citizens defending Michalak after his third fumble. Unbelievable.
“I thank you for facing the fire, for answering the questions.”
You mean ducking the questions. Here's one of those questions: The mayor's Concealed Carry permit expired in November, 2021. Detectives discovered that fact when they questioned him about his March 9th, 2022 gun fumble. So, between November, 2021, and March, 9th, 2022, how many times did Michalak walk into a government building with a concealed handgun? Because every single time he did, he committed a felony. So, are Michalak supporters trying to sell the lie that there are “only” two felonies, the ones he committed on March 9th, 2022?
I can only imagine the conversation at China Garden Restaurant after the meeting:
Alderman #1: Well, two felonies ain't so bad.
Alderman #2: Yup. I got more speedin' tickets than that last year. Pass the soy sauce, there, will ya?
Because equivalency. Because Idiocracy.
The so-called Conservatives in Hartford are squirming and irritable. It's hard to ignore all those other possible felonies that are facing Michalak like a firing squad. Three months worth. December, January and February...hell, maybe a few in March, too. Your Pistol Pageant is over, Timmy.
Hartford residents who aren't suffering from Mad Cow Disease, or from IICC (Ideologically-Induced Cognitive Constipation) are wondering, “Two felonies...or, actually, more like twelve?” Or wait, has Michalak committed more than twelve? Keeerist on a cracker! How many felonies does Michalak get to commit before it starts to matter? Just give us a number, you oh-so-Principled Conservatives. Twenty?”
I apologize for the following promise: part two of this dairy is larded with quotes from other Hartford residents who spoke at the meeting. The perps will include some Hartford Aldermen. So grab a pair of forks and prepare to feast on heaps of word-salad. Your eyeballs will roll 'til they hurt...
'Murica.