Abusrdity of Walker's "bow" claim goes beyond the lie

Governor questions our intelligence with comparison between dangers of bows versus guns

Gov. Scott Walker is a darling of the gun lobby. It’s not exactly a secret.

The NRA gave Walker nearly a million dollars to help him win his recall election last year. No doubt that contribution was in recognition of Walker’s efforts to bring about gun legislation that catered to the organization’s likings.

A concealed carry law allowing gun owners across the state to have weapons in public areas, as well as a “castle doctrine” law that allows you to shoot a person dead when you feel threatened (even when the supposed “assailant” is unarmed), have given Walker a boost to his already conservative credentials, especially among gun enthusiasts (and manufacturers).

It’s not all-too surprising, then, to see Gov. Walker making outlandish statements about guns. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, however, many conservatives have tried to avoid the issue, while others have defended the Second Amendment wholeheartedly, believing the right to be an absolute one that can never be regulated.

Reject changes to Wisconsin's electoral vote allocation

The move to allocate based on district winners is entirely political

The recent push for states to change how they allocate their electoral college votes should be soundly rejected. The move is nothing more than an attempt by Republican lawmakers to diminish the outcomes that are favorable to Democrats while empowering their own electoral achievements. 


Were it any different, were this truly a sincere gesture toward ensuring districts hand out votes in a fair way, we would be seeing this move enacted in state legislatures where Republicans are the clear winners instead of battleground states. Why don’t states like Texas, with 34 Electoral College votes that typically all go to the Republican candidate year after year, have similar legislation being proposed?

The answer is because the Republicans aren’t interested in fairness. Instead, we’re seeing this plan hashed out in swing states where the races have been close but won by Democrats in recent elections. The move allows those votes to be split, while Republican-leaning states that would also be split under a similar model remains intact, with a winner-take-all system of allocating votes still the preferred method.

The move is clearly political. And it’s not just happening in states like Virginia or Pennsylvania -- the Badger state is a target, too.

Gov. Scott Walker, himself a Republican, has called the idea “intriguing.” Current Assembly Speaker Robin Vos previously co-sponsored a bill in 2007 that would have allocated Wisconsin’s electoral votes along these lines. And current GOP national chair Reince Priebus, formerly the chair of Wisconsin’s Republican Party, publicly backs the change in how battleground states should set their votes out.

If Wisconsin become the next state to do encourage this change, and if it is successful, it will diminish our state’s importance in future elections. With the electoral votes split up, candidates would no longer feel the need to come to our state but rather travel to other states that have kept the old way in place -- it makes more sense, after all, to spend more time in a state where a winner-takes-all system would get them more votes. Campaigning in either Madison or in Waukesha, on the other hand, would each only grant you one electoral college vote if you influence minds there.

Of course, the ultimate goal should be eliminating the electoral college altogether. The president should be elected by a system that allows every vote to count, to hold equal weight to another individual’s choice, whether they be from the same state or otherwise. Only through a popular voting mechanism is this possible.

But until that goal is realized, splitting up the electoral votes in one state while keeping the winner-takes-all system in others only lessens the importance of the former. And it works entirely to the advantage of a single party alone -- the Republicans.

This is nothing more than a power grab by the GOP. It should be rejected by any decent legislature, vetoed by any governor with half a spine and even an ounce of moral judgment.

The choice should be clear: say no to state voucher expansion

Studies indicate that choice schools do little to improve, on average, students' marks

U.S. News and World Report recently reported on rankings for graduation rates across the nation, released by the National Center for Education Statistics. While 78 percent of high schoolers nationwide completed their four-year degree (the best since 1974), Wisconsin saw an even better rate of completion, with more than 91 percent of students graduating high school in 2010.

That rate puts Wisconsin at number two across the nation, just behind Vermont. It’s a distinction that we should be proud of, one that demonstrates as a prime example our dedication towards education in the Badger state.

Unfortunately, that distinction may not be around for long: the data comes from graduates in the 2009-10 school year, before Gov. Scott Walker made the largest cuts to schools in our state’s history.

Now, with class sizes increased and resources cut in schools across Wisconsin, Gov. Walker and legislative Republicans are set to embark on expanding a new set of “reforms” they say will help our children: school vouchers.

Expansion of voucher program, proponents argue, would allow students to take the funds ordinarily given to their public school district and use them in private schools of their choice. The idea here is entirely capitalistic: parents will select only the best schools for their children to go to, and those that “fail” will see less enrollment.

But that idea removes much needed funds from schools already burdened with cuts. Having already lost hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue statewide, how much more can our public schools take?

Aside from that, there’s little evidence to suggest that voucher schools do better than public schools. The largest piece of evidence comes from Milwaukee, where a voucher program has been in place for more than twenty years.

Studies have shown that, overall, the students who qualify for a voucher and enter a new school have shown little-to-no improvement when compared to their counterparts who stayed in the Milwaukee Public School district. In fact, more evidence points to the contrary: that students in the voucher system performed worse.

When you compare reading and math scores from the 2010-11 school year (PDF), MPS schools show the same or better performances than average choice schools. In reading, the number of students who scored “proficient or advanced” in MPS were 60.7 percent, and 56.2 percent for students in MPS who were lower-income. Choice school students (who are all lower-income) had 52.3 percent of its students score “proficient or advanced.”

Green indicates measures where MPS students who are economically disadvantaged outperform choice school students. Red indicates measures where choice school students outperform MPS students. Blue indicates measures where neither MPS students nor choice school students outperform by more than three percent.

In eighth and tenth grades, the choice school students did outperform their MPS-counterparts in reading, but not by a statistically significant amount.

Overall, in fourth, eighth, and tenth grades, the number of choice school students who scored “proficient or advanced” in testing was only greater than MPS students who were economically disadvantaged in four categories: eighth grade reading and science, and tenth grade reading and science.

MPS students who were lower-income, meanwhile, outperformed their choice school counterparts in five of the categories: eighth and tenth grade math, and all three fourth grade subjects tested (math, reading, and science).

When looking at the numbers closer, it reveals that the differences where the choice school students fared better were particularly negligible. Of the four categories listed above where choice schools had a higher percentage of students performing at “proficient or advanced” testing levels, three of those categories are within only three percentage points, meaning that they performed at basically the same levels.

Choice schools outperformed MPS students facing economic challenges by more than three percent in only one of the nine categories listed above; those MPS students, on the other hand, outperformed choice students by more than three percent in four of the five categories they did better in.

Choice schools don’t make MPS students do better -- at best, the students who enter the voucher program do about the same as their MPS peers do. At worst, their marks go lower than desired.

Now, poised with an insurmountable majority in both houses of the state legislature, Gov. Walker has a choice of his own. Expand the voucher program, or fund the public schools he recently gutted.

Which choice do you want him to make?

The Coddled Child -- Israel, and America's Unconditional Love

The conflict between Palestine and Israel cannot be summed up in a single news article, or for that matter, a small blog post such as this. The subject is far too great to give it justice all at once, especially in this age of 30-second news. However, this is where we hope the freedom of press coupled with business competition can come in. We would hope to expect to get extended stories from many angles, which could eventually grasp a pretty full understanding of something as complex as the situation in Palestine and Israel. This would be in an ideal world.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Even in our times of endless information, we can still find ourselves lost at sea with the wind only blowing in one direction. It’s not surprising that our daily media giants direct their currents of information towards the US – the country and citizens they best represent. Though, usually with minimal effort, a person can navigate through these different currents and eventually reach their ideal informational destination. But then again, some currents are stronger than others.

Some currents of information are taken up by too many sources, converging so efficiently that finding differing information takes more effort than most people are willing to give. The Israel – Palestinian conflict is one of those currents.  In the US, it is easy to find yourself caught in the Israel-victim current – going one direction – and it gets really tough to take down the sails, and paddle against the current.

In the US, most people have heard of Israel, less people are aware of Palestine, and even less people know that lives are being lost daily in both, due to military actions funded by us – the US taxpayers. The US coddles Israel like a wealthy absentee parent. We throw money by the billions at our child from afar, thinking that our baby can do no wrong. But in school, when it needs to learn respect and interact with others, Israel turns into the entitle, spoiled, only child, where even though he hasn’t accomplished anything, he thinks Everything is his, and absolutely Nothing is his fault. But when things go wrong, as they usually do – talking back to the teacher lets say, or not doing their homework, or even getting in fist fights for trying to take from another what was not his to begin with – the absentee dad simply gives a slap on the wrist and throws some more money to the child, hoping if they can buy what they want, they won’t need to keep taking from others.

Of course, an analogy such as this leaves much to be desired with regards to centuries of religious and cultural conflict, but for the sake of time we must proceed.  

Maybe it is this sense of parental obligation and unconditional love that we feel as a Nation that governs the information we receive. Maybe as a collective conscious we still feel such overwhelming guilt and sadness with regards to the holocaust that we simply do not want to think of Israel as anything other than the victim.  Maybe it is the wealth of both the Jewish, and evangelical Christian faiths that pay lobbyists and politicians to keep Israel in good faith and well funded, and that is why our public opinion is so one sided. My guess is it is a combination of these and more – the two later concluding in the former.

Whatever the case may be, the general information about the conflict is jaded to say the least, and it is jaded not just by FOX, or MSNBC, but it is jaded by a sweeping majority of American news outlets – most with a common thread, Israel the victim.

Yesterday, I stumbled across an article written by Omar Baddar back in November, 5 Lies the Media Keeps Repeating about Gaza. I understand I am late on this, and we have gone through a tumultuous time since Baddar’s article was written. Sandy Hook and many similar attempts of unprovoked school violence since (including today at Lone Star College in Texas) has intensely focused the public eye, rightfully so, on gun control, and mental health. However, if you do have the time, and the mental capacity for more negative and dangerous news, I urge you to read Baddar’s quick post, that I have linked above. There is no need for me to paraphrase the entire article, as it is already quite short.

Short and sweet as it is, however, it does provide a surprisingly strong counter current to the onslaught of Israel-victim information. It does not only address the latest conflict in Gaza and the perpetual bias by our media, but also addresses past lies and biases, and will certainly make us more conscious and questioning the next time around. As with everything, it does not give an all-encompassing view, but for those of us that seek both sides of the equation, it can shed some light on Israel that you may have not yet seen. 

(Photo is Public Domain, Courtesy of The Library of Congress)

We honor Dr. King by keeping his dream alive

The fight for equality is a long road faced by many

Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision for America is not yet fully realized. Not when so many still judge a person on their skin color, their gender, or their preference for whom they choose to love.

We have come a long way since 1963, when King made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. But we have a long way to go before the tenets of that speech are fully realized. Roads still lie ahead to be traveled, hearts and minds to be won, before the King’s words ring true in our land.

His vision for America didn’t stop at race -- he fought hard for equality not just among whites and blacks, but for many other people who had been victimized by stigmas and lack of power in society.

I have no doubt in my mind that today, King would be on the side of encouraging rights for others beyond just racial discrimination. His words would be hypocritical were it otherwise. The man who is profiled based upon his skin color, the woman who is passed over for promotion despite having stronger credentials, and the couple who can’t express their love in a legal fashion, all face similar struggles against a wall of unyielding hatred. That wall must come down, their struggles overcome, if we are to call our nation a tolerant and just one.

Should we judge a man based on his color or heritage? Should we discriminate him based on his apparent upbringing, on the stereotypes and lies conjured up by a bigoted few? King lived his life fighting against such ideas, believing that the content of a man’s character, and not his family lineage, should be the sole judgment of who he was.

So true were his words then -- and they remain true today, for classes of people King had yet to fight for before his death.

His struggle in his own time, he knew, would not come easily -- “We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied, until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

And so it is that, even today, nearly 45 years after his assassination, we still strive to make our nation a nation of equality. The struggles continue, but they are struggles well-worth fighting for, until every person sees justice and is treated fairly.

The “promissory note” that King described and that our founders issued in our nation’s birth promised us a nation that would bestow justice FOR ALL, the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness FOR EVERYONE. And though that promise has taken more than two hundred years to be realized, and is still yet to be fully realized, the path that our nation has taken has shown that the American promise of equality should continue to be our goal.

For what better barometer of equality exists for our nation to have, in terms of how it treats its citizens, than to say, “We shall judge you based on your merits -- based on your personal story, and not that of your skin color”? What better form of judgment is there to have, based on how a person conducts him- or herself, rather than whom they choose to love? What better way to say we truly believe in equality than to pay a person, regardless of gender, a decent and equal wage for the work they have done?

Yes, inequalities still exist -- and they will linger for years to come. But for as long as they exist, we as a just people must resist them. We as a just people must fight for equality, for a day when our children can soundly say that their lives were not affected by the whims and prejudices of the people who surrounded them, but by the actions and abilities that they themselves possessed.

That day will truly be a day when we can celebrate Dr. King’s words and his vision as complete. But until that day comes, we must never stop working towards progress, bringing about justice for all. The fight for equality must live on -- and we honor Dr. King every day that the fight endures.

In God We Lust

I have re-watched the President’s speech on gun control three times now. I couldn’t pin it, but there was something Wednesday that felt genuine. This is not a feeling I get too often with national politics, but Wednesday, was one of those days. The reason I had a hard time pinning it was because the difference in this speech was not what he was saying, but what he was not saying.

He still had the soothing, calm delivery, and those strong, inspirational, charismatic lines. However, this was not his casual repetitious campaign speech. What was missing Wednesday was that political lust for votes. On Wednesday it felt like he meant it, and not for numbers, but for the people.

Obama wasn’t apart of the middle class on Wednesday; he wasn’t hope for the poor; he wasn’t a taxman, policeman, or firefighter. And the reason I felt like this? He wasn’t even a Christian. Unlike his campaign speeches, God, was not mentioned once.

 Unfortunately we are a Christian nation. Somehow, we are still stuck in this God, Policy, and Nation conundrum that we simply cannot shake. Separation of church and state; In God We Trust. Freedom of religion; One nation, under God. All men are created equal; not women, not blacks, not homosexuals, not Muslims, not even Catholics. Since our founding, every civil rights battle has been opposed by one Christian group or another (though some, namely slavery, also had it’s economic opposition to be sure). However, as we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century, the church is dying.

Church attendance has been steadily declining for years now, with only 48.8 percent of Americans being members of the churches they claim to be attending (Sited from Ph.D John Shook’s May 24th article for the Huffington Post). But even as God plays less of a roll in the lives of the citizens, politicians can’t get God out of their speech. Between the DNC and the RNC, God was said 180 times. Words that were said more? Obama, Romney, Leadership, Jobs, Families, Business, Government, Economy, Women, Better and Tax. God was said more than Education, War, Energy, Vote, Health, or Middle Class – to name a few. Every primetime nationally aired speech mentioned God at least once.

Obama referenced God five times in his 2008 inauguration speech. George W. Bush referenced God three times in his 2001 inauguration speech. Clinton also mentioned God three times, if we include the scripture reference at the end of the speech. Even on December 14^th, the day of the shooting at Sandy Hook, the President asked for God.

Now, to take a politician for what they are, an American citizen, we can assume that less than half have church memberships. However, how many on both sides speak, mention, or reference God and scripture? Lets just say, quite a bit more than half. Granted, church attendance is not an all telling tale of someone’s strength of faith, but listening to people ask for God’s Blessings, or God’s presence constantly feels not only contrived but lustful, and at its worst, irresponsible. While scripture feels phony, calling on God is a cop-out.

We may pray for these families, may God visit the victims, may God bless America. In day-to-day context, supposedly, these requests of God are asked when there seems to be no other option, however, this is rarely the politicians’ case. God bless America makes change passive, rather than active. If God will step in and change America, why must I? With God Bless America a politician can appeal to the almighty, keep votes, and not actually try to change anything because that would be God’s will. When will we decide to stop waiting for God to bless us, take it upon ourselves to bless one another.

Wednesday, we didn’t get the phony, generic speech that lusted for voter support, but rather we got the real, emotional and meaningful speech that ended with “lets go sign these orders.” No, God Bless America. Finally it was no longer up to God, it is up to us, the people – one nation, as the people, with liberty and justice for everyone.

Digging deeper into the "Choose your own crime stats" video

Viral video chooses its OWN stats in gun debate

I recently was asked to watch a video called “Choose your own Crime Stats,” in which the host of the video tells you a myriad of murder and violent crime stats that are meant to shock you. Mostly, they’re meant to make you skeptical of gun control legislation.

Many of the points that are made in the video do, at first glance, cause you to pause and consider the host’s point of view. Which is what any of us should do when we have a rational discussion about any topic.

But what I found fascinating about the video was the fact that it went ahead itself and “chose its own stats.” It disregarded several aspects of the debate, glossing over a whole decade of crime stats, as well as making unfair comparisons of the United States to Britain.

I had three main criticisms of the now-viral web video. Please consider them each, and make up your own mind: who really is choosing their own stats here?

Electoral reform needed at the state legislature

Current electoral outcomes yield unrepresentative control

More citizens in Wisconsin voted for Democrats than Republicans in Assembly races. Yet Republicans have a significant majority in that chamber.

The same is true on the national stage: more voters across the country endorsed Democratic candidates, and still the House of Representatives has a Republican majority.

The way our elections are set up enables each district to have a single representative, someone who is meant to represent a single geographical area in the legislature. Which is what we want -- people in the state and national legislatures representing our concerns, understanding the challenges that their constituents have.

But at the same time, it’s possible for a minority to reign over the will of the majority -- and that’s indeed what’s happening within both the state and national stages.

NRA ad deplorable, even for NRA's standards

Using the president's daughters, gun organization misleads the public

The gun debate seems to have brought out the worst in some people. While most Americans try to have sensible debates and rational discussions on the matter of guns, others have gone an entirely different direction.

Some have errantly called the actions of the president -- even before he made his announcement today calling for stricter gun regulations -- tyrannical.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul even likened President Obama to acting like a king.

Obama’s actions are hardly monarchical -- indeed, the president has issued the lowest number of executive orders out of all the past presidents of the last one hundred years. None of his executive orders today imposes new policy, merely enforcing laws already passed. And he’s even recognized that his call for a new assault rifle ban requires passage through Congress.

But none of that seems to matter to the fringe right. It’s frightening that those opposed to his call for reasoned restrictions are going so far, with some calling for outright civil war if they are imposed. Nothing that Obama has done warrants such dialogue, much less any action of such magnitude.

Criticism of the president’s plan is one thing -- calling him a tyrant or advocating secession over his proposals is completely uncalled for.

Taking their own brand to even lower levels, the NRA is not lost from the list of the president’s critics who have crossed the line. Just a day after releasing a new shooting App video game (while previously claiming video games were the problem), the NRA has released an ad claiming the president is a hypocrite for being uneasy about guns in schools while his children are protected by armed guards.

That would be hypocritical -- were it not for the fact that the president’s life is constantly threatened. The president’s daughters warrant protection because Obama is receiving threats on a daily basis. Were your children receiving threats the likes of Obama’s family, it’s likely, too, that you’d receive some sort of police protection in your own community.

So the analogy that the NRA is trying to make is a far cry from reality. But that isn’t the real issue -- what’s really mind-boggling is how low the organization is prepared to go in order to score politically.

Using the president’s daughters in a deceptive ad like this is unprecedented. The NRA is acting shamefully, misleading the American public while taking the danger the president’s daughters face lightly.

For anyone to support such an organization, to endorse these opportunists who try to influence policy in such a disgusting way, truly boggles the mind.

Introduction

Hello,

My name is Alexandra Yahnke, but I go by my middle name; that name is Rose. I am a contributor on the Yahoo! Contributor Network (Rose Yahnke) and I occasionally submit articles to art-city.org. I am a senior double-majoring in Linguistics and African Languages at UW-Madison in addition to raising my one-year-old daughter. I'm a bleeding-heart liberal and I will be contributing on this blog about twice a week.

I look forward to being a part of this. If you have any questions, let me know.

-Rose

Responsible gun owner concerns of a non gun owner

During the blow back of the recent Connecticut tragedy I have heard the term "responsible gun owner", bandied around recklessly. Who are these people? According to the way people who are responsible can procure and use firearms today a "responsible gun owner" can cause a great deal of harm to their neighbors. I will overlook the obvious for now. Violent situations are only escalated with firearms involved. Furthermore I can guarantee no one will ever be shot if there are no projectile weapons available. No, let us set this aside for a minute to address the more plaguing verse of this dialogue.

The lefties in the politisphere almost unilaterally allow the righties to drive the dialectic distinctions in any fire bed of political activity. Obamacare, deathpanels, fiscal cliff, are just a few of the ideas that come from the focus groups and special interest that work for the right. In the debate on 'gun-control' the righties crafted this idea of "responsible gun owner". There are some serious flaws with this idea.

A "responsible gun owner" presumably is an individual whom for better or worse has a weapon for their individual protection, hunting, or target practice. This responsible individual does no harm to another human as an ethical principle and has a purpose to whatever else they shoot. They acquired their firearms through the scrutiny of legal government supervised channels, and do not violate any law while they possess the firearms. These responsible types suffer from no case of "mental illness" or temporary lapse. In addition no person every convicted of any criminal act beyond a misdemeanor is responsible enough for gun ownership.

This would seem to explain to me who these responsible gun owners are. Now I have some questions to put the them. Can you guarantee to me you will never violate these rules and laws that would presumably negate your ability to continue to own a gun, or to continue to be considered a responsible party?  Second can you merely guarantee me you will not become an individual who the previous descriptions or ideas would lead us to believe is a sufferer of mental illness? Finally can you guarantee me you will not accidentally or through lack of information injure or harm another person in a way which would be considered inexcusable?

The obvious answer to these questions in "no!" Unless responsible gun ownership or NRA membership includes a crystal ball (not Crystal Ball of the Spin Cycle), but a fortune teller's tool. There is no practical means of providing a guarantee that an individual in there right mind today will not have a break from life and reality tomorrow. My second issue is the driving motive behind this debate is to absolve the gun owner of culpability in a social sense, while the dialogue demonizes the mentally ill. An unfortunate and unfair consequence. Whether unintended or intentional castigating those who struggle with illness beyond their control seems a harsh means of protecting a privilege.

It reminds me of someone who pushes a child out of their way to get the last item for sale on a display on Black Friday at Walmart. Self serving in the extreme. I suggest we would be a better class of neighbor if we could offer a hand of brotherhood to the least of us, not a shove out of our way. I am ashamed of "responsible" people who do nothing to better a situation which is terribly terribly out of place. This is an irresponsible act to simply allow those message crafting agents to injure the mentally ill or reformed of criminal malfeasance.

My last insight on this debate is this. Over 65% of these same gun owners polled agree certain restrictions need to be in place. Many of these people are NRA members. In either case, member or non member, the NRA purports to be an advocacy group for these people. However a close examination to this debate exposes something. The NRA does not agree with the people it is supposed to represent. The truth is the NRA is only concerned with the representing the gun manufacturers. This is a sham on Farmer Dave, and Huntmans Steve, who invest their assets on the voice it purports to provide.

Explain to me how I; a college graduate, business manager, home owner, church member, and neighborhood volunteer cannot be permitted to own a gun while, up to this point Lindsay Lohan can own a gun? Something is wrong with this picture. Either or cultural values need to be reconsidered or the messages are obscured.

Glad to be Here -- New to Wisconsin and New to Political Heat

Hello everyone,

My name is Kabir Martin Leeper Moss, and I am a new writer for Political Heat. Not only am I new to the blog, I am also new to Wisconsin. Though my family considers Wisconsin to be our base, this is the first time I am personally able to call Madison home. 

My grandmother Midge Miller was a Wisconsin Assembly member for 14 years, from 1971 to 1985. Though I was raised in Northern California, I have been conscious of politics, and Wisconsin politics specifically, from a very early age. In grade school, the day we first learned about our democracy – that it was actually a republic, and there were parties – I went home, and asked my mom how she voted. She said there are Democrats and Republicans, “what do you think I am?” I had just learned what a republic was – governmet for the people – and since I knew that was what I was for, I said “Republican.”

Of course, I was technically incorrect, but why I thought I would vote Republican remains how I vote today. The gap between Democrats and Republicans in national politics is small, but I vote Democrat because the Republican view of who the people are, is far too small.

I am liberal because my grandmother didn’t think men were the only people that deserved a voice, and so she fought for female participation in politics. I am liberal because my parents didn’t believe whites were the only people that deserved quality education, transportation, political representation and so they marched, voted, and preached for racial equality. I am liberal because I don’t believe heterosexual people are the only people that deserve to love; or only the wealthy deserve access to healthcare; or only Christians go to Heavan; or only American citizens deserve to pursue the American Dream. I am liberal because humanity didn’t start, and certainly does not end, with people that look like me or talk like me or have the same beliefes that I do.

The people run the gamut of humanity. And humanity doesn’t end with white men, heteralsexuals, Christians, or the borders of the United States. It is far greater than what I know and understand, but this does not mean it doesn’t deserve to be a part of humanity.

I am excited to contribute to this blog, and look forward to not only my own writing, but I am also excited to learn more about the new state I live in – how it runs, how it votes, and how it contributes to the nation. I am glad to be here.

-- Kabir 

Barron Co. Republicans should apologize to Pres. Obama

Notions that the president staged the Sandy Hook shooting should not be entertained

In light of the terrifying events that took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last December, I wrote on the need to assess the Second Amendment for what it was: a right protected to individuals to defend themselves, but a right that, nonetheless, comes with reasonable restrictions, as do all rights.

Several gun owners across the country have shown that they disagree with such a notion. Alex Jones, who appeared on Piers Morgan’s CNN show to defend his beliefs, stated that “1776 would commence again” if the government attempted to institute any regulations. Others have (errantly) compared the push to regulate with Adolph Hitler, whose gun reforms actually increased access to weaponry during the Third Reich, making that comparison seem rather foolish.

But what’s most remarkable among the gun-toting maniacs out there (not responsible owners, mind you) who oppose any action whatsoever are those who place blame of the Sandy Hook massacre on the president himself, believing that the event was a “false flag” scenario, completely staged to garner support for gun regulation.

A couple of university professors have come out and stated such a theory, and other conservative bloggers have voiced their “concerns” as well.

Conspiracy theorists have forever been involved in describing such events as “something more,” with little or no evidence to prove their case. “Birtherism” has previously plagued President Obama, but was never taken seriously by the mainstream -- and nor should this idea, this idiotic belief that he was somehow involved in the shooting and killing of children, be entertained.

What’s puzzling is that, for how horrendous and outrageous an accusation this may be, some on the right have actually taken it seriously, including official members of the Republican Party.

The Barron County Republican Party recently posted a link on its Facebook page to a blog by a right-wing writer that described the Sandy Hook shooting as a plot by President Barack Obama to help him confiscate guns. They made that post on December 19, and though it has just received attention this week by mainstream audiences, they have since left it on their page without edit of any kind.

Dissemination of such radical ideas without basis or regard for fact like this is irresponsible, even for a small group of Republicans in northern Wisconsin. In a political climate that’s already hyper-charged in a negative way (in regards to ethics and etiquette), the last thing that a political party like this ought to do is add fuel to the fire...especially when it’s not based on any remote semblance of truth.

Rumors and innuendo are one thing. Blatantly entertaining the idea that the president was part of a greater conspiracy that took the lives of 20 innocent children (or of staging the whole thing) is, by contrast, a completely reprehensible action.

A proper debate on gun ownership and rights, and where those rights might end, cannot take place when those involved accusing the president of such outlandish crimes. When mistrust is perpetuated, when it is endorsed by a political party (even at the county level) and actively disseminated in an attempt to discredit opponents’ characters, the debate has nowhere else to go but down.

The Barron County Republicans have no courtesy, no respect whatsoever, for the office of the president. They should be ashamed of themselves, and if they wish to be taken seriously ever again, they need to remove that post, issue a statement explaining their actions, and apologize directly to President Obama.

You can contact the Barron County Republican Party by calling them at (715) 651-1684.

---

As of this posting, the Barron County Republicans have removed their posting from their Facebook page. There has not yet been a formal apology or acknowledgement of wrongdoing at this time by those involved.

Note to Gov. Walker: avoidance is not “moderation”

Walker would rather we call him a moderate than actually be one

Gov. Scott Walker recently told the Wisconsin State Journal that he and his Republican allies in the legislature would be pushing for a more “moderate” agenda in the second half of his first term in office.

“We're not going to do things that are going to bring 80,000 or 100,000 people into the Capitol,” Walker told the State Journal in a recent interview. “It's just not going to happen again.”

While it’s commendable that Walker should seek out a more “moderate” agenda, saying he's moderate and actually sticking to it are two different things. Time will tell whether Walker’s agenda will truly be more inclusive, or whether it will turn out to be just as extreme as the first two years of his term.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Walker and Republicans aren’t proposing moderation for the right reasons. In fact, it seems more likely that it's being done in order to “save face” in the eyes of moderate voters.

Gov. Walker tries to portray himself as a "moderate."

Gov. Walker wouldn’t be the first to use “moderation” as a means to garner greater appeal. But his characterization of moderation is flawed, and not a true definition of the word.

For example, consider Walker’s “moderate” stance on eliminating same-day voter registration. Following the election last November, Walker was convinced that the decade’s-old practice of allowing Wisconsinites to register to vote on Election Day was worth getting rid of, despite having no shred of evidence that the practice did any harm to the voting process.

But Walker changed his mind when it was revealed that doing away with same-day registration would cost the state more than $5 million initially and several million dollars in subsequent years.

A moderate stance on the issue of same-day registration wouldn’t be changing your mind because it conflicts with your fiscal agenda; rather, it’d be changing your mind (or not even opposing the practice in the first place) because it conflicts with your beliefs on allowing people greater access to the polls.

Walker also came out strongly against a so-called “right to work” (for less) law reaching his desk. Though he didn’t say he would veto such a law, Walker did insist that it would be a distraction for the state, possibly creating protests much like those seen at the start of his tenure when he sought to destroy public sector workers’ rights.

While it’s good news that Walker won’t be actively pushing “right to work” in Wisconsin, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence to hear him base his reasoning on such a battle being too much work for him to handle. It’s also important to keep in mind that, before he was governor, Walker once proposed a “right to work” law when he himself was working in the legislature.

Being a moderate isn’t saying you won’t do something because it’s too hard, or because it’d create too much of an uproar. Indeed, avoiding the subject rather than taking a definitive stance on it is in no way the definition of “moderation.”

Instead, a moderate considers the positions of two or more distinct ideologies, taking into account all points of view that are involved, and makes a rational decision on the subject that appeals to everyone, at least in some way.

Most important, a “moderate” is typically someone who isn’t a radical or extreme, in one direction or the other. They do take a stand on issues, but theirs stances aren’t usually the kind that cause the left or the right to be flabbergasted. Their de facto position, however, isn’t doing nothing at all on a matter, hoping to avoid confrontation from the public, as the governor is trying to make it seem.

If we take anything from this, it’s that Walker wants to be called a “moderate” more than actually being one. His stances aren’t in the middle -- and hiding those stances from the public’s eye doesn’t make him any less of a right-wing ideologue.

Why political compromise should inspire hope for 2013

From America's founding and onward, cooperation helped create a nation the envy of the world

2012 was a year of many things. We saw a man sky dive higher than anyone has ever jumped. We survived a few “end of the world” events, including the latest “scare” of the Mayan calendar. Technology in the palm of our hands grew, and our hearts swelled at the catastrophic events our minds could never have imagined.

Politically speaking, 2012 was a strange and frustrating year, one that encompassed contempt from the people for their lawmakers -- but specifically, disdain for the uncooperative among them.

The political winners of 2012 were mostly Democratic -- President Barack Obama cruised to re-election, Senate Democrats grew their majority, and Congressional Democrats took over many seats in the House that were lost in 2010. While most state governments remained Republican, much of that is attributed towards conservative gerrymandering -- even in Wisconsin, where the Assembly remained in GOP hands, more people in the state voted for Democratic candidates than Republican ones.

Yet even in winning, Democrats aren’t truly victors -- there remains to be a lot of work ahead, and plenty of challenges for lawmakers to face in the coming months, if not weeks.

The past year opened the eyes of many Americans to the political happenings that surround us. The people are starting to understand something important, a fact that frankly terrifies some Republicans: when it comes to having a cooperative spirit, towards working with one another, many on the right have no intention whatsoever of listening or sharing ideas. Even in our own state, Scott Walker’s “Talk with Walker” tour was a blunder, exposing that the governor only wanted to talk with certain people who had already aligned themselves for the most part with him, closing the events off to the general public.

Nationally, Republicans are in danger of splitting their party in half, with Tea Party representatives and traditional, sometimes-moderate Republicans clashing over the simplest of notions -- of whether working together, of making a divided government function, is in their best interests. The extremist elements of the GOP have firmly planted their feet in the ground, while the realists have acquiesced to the idea that the American people deserve better than this.

It’s a positive sign that some Republicans are willing to work with others, but it’s troubling to see Tea Partiers act so brash to such basic ideas. In their ardent struggle to emulate some made-up semblance of what our founders stood for, they forget the most important element of all that made our nation’s founding so important: compromise.

It took several years for the formation of our country to complete itself, two separate charters before things finally clicked in America, at least in a lawmaking sense. It didn’t come from one man’s ideas, one man’s proposals, but from a set of proposals and counterproposals, critiques and debates, oftentimes leaving lawmakers of that time in heated arguments of their own.

But through it all, they came up with a compromise that worked, that culminated in the creation of our national Constitution, followed shortly by a Bill of Rights that worked to protect the god-given privileges of the people. This document wasn’t perfect; indeed, slavery remained within its clauses, though the word itself was never mentioned, and protections for minorities’ rights weren’t always practiced or cherished from the start.

Yet that framework helped mold our nation, steered it in the direction it was soon to take. A Civil War, a few recessions, a Great War, a Great Depression, and a second World War still weren’t enough to thwart the cause of representative democracy in America. And though it wasn’t always perfect, we endured to the point of becoming the envy of many around the world.

2012 caused many to doubt the way our nation worked. It caused us to call the system “broken,” and for many of us to lose faith in the way our government was meant to function.

But we mustn’t lose that faith -- our frustrations must motivate action, and from that action our lawmakers must in turn be moved to act themselves.

This weekend we witnessed that action taking place. Lawmakers who wouldn’t have ordinarily been moved, who wouldn’t normally budge on even the simplest of issues, did their duty and worked for cooperation with other lawmakers of opposing ideologies.

It was because of the people that they did so. They said to hell with pledges to political purists, and began to understand why they were sent to Washington in the first place: to deliver on what the people wanted to be done. It wasn’t through apathy that these lawmakers changed their ways: it was through considerations of what the people needed, and the voices of those people rising up to say “NO MORE” to the politics of “us-versus-them.”

There will still be frustrations; and there will still be arguments. Debate won’t ever end, but it’s not supposed to either. The strength of our nation isn’t in one side’s ability to defeat the other, but rather to have differing coalitions and ideologies come together to get real work accomplished.

It isn’t often that I’m motivated by Republican lawmakers -- but those who chose compromise over stubbornness should be commended for doing what was best for America overall. The enduring spirit of our democratic experiment lives on because of leaders from the past who were willing to work together in tough times, even with their adversaries.

Though we still have a long ways to go, this week’s acts of compromise and of willingness to set differences aside provide reason to hope once again that America can continue to endure, can push forward for generations to come, no matter what challenges we may face in the future.