Political Heat

A young girl lies motionless as members of her father’s Bible study group surround her. She’s unable to speak, to drink fluids, to eat, to even sit up. Prayers from these people surround her, but it’s too late. Hours later, she dies. This gruesome scene would make sense if it happened in a hospital; if a young girl were dying, we could understand why her loved ones would surround her there with prayers and last minute tidings of hope. Instead, this scene took place at her parents’ home, and took several days to develop. Madeline Neumann was 11 years old when she died of complications from untreated diabetes . According to her mother, she exhibited symptoms as early as two weeks before her death. Rather than take their daughter to the doctor, Dale and Leilani Neumann enlisted the help of their Bible study group to pray her ailments away. In his sworn testimony earlier this week, Dale stated that, “If I [went] to the doctor, I am putting him before God.” This from a man who had once burn...

Gay and lesbian couples statewide can begin filing for domestic partnership benefits starting on Monday. These benefits include hospital visitation rights, sick leave for when a partner becomes ill, and inheritance rights upon the death of a partner, among other basic privileges common for couples. Domestic partners will be required to live with one another to prove partnership and will have to pay a fee of $115 in cash. They must also file for partnership benefits within the county they reside in. It sounds like a pretty good compromise, in terms of the gay marriage debate in Wisconsin -- same-sex couples gain some benefits (but not all they would like) while opponents of gay marriage keep the supposed "sanctity" of marriage intact (at least, sanctity in their eyes). There's still a long battle ahead for gay marriage in the future, a battle still worth fighting for that should be continued. Even so, domestic partnerships are a step in the right direction in terms of gra...

Responding once again to the claim that President Barack Obama is not a naturally-born citizen (a key requirement for anyone seeking to become president), state officials in Hawaii have inspected and confirmed that Obama was indeed born in their state...for the second time in less than a year. "I...have seen the original vital records...verifying that Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born citizen," said Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukimo. He issued the statement earlier this week hoping to stave off the influx of phone calls his department has been receiving as of late. " Birthers " -- those who assert that Obama is not a natural-born citizen -- will also be disappointed to hear of a resolution that passed unanimously in the House of Representatives this week commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood. Within the resolution is a significant clause that asserts the following: Whereas: the 44th president of the United Stat...

Sarah Palin officially resigned from the Alaskan governorship this week, ending her tenure with a scathing critique of the media . "How about in honor of the American soldier, you [the media] quit making up things. And don't underestimate the wisdom of the people. And one other thing for the media -- our new governor has a very nice family, too, so leave his kids alone!" Palin's comments address many of the controversies she has had within the year since she was picked to be John McCain's vice presidential running mate. To be fair, those controversies that have shadowed her since then have caused the public to view her negatively -- her approval rating has dipped significantly since emerging onto the national scene -- thus allowing Palin to make a claim of bias in the media. But is it biased to report on the facts? Ethics complaints dogged (and continue to haunt) Palin, including the substantially significant accusation that she abused her power by firing the sta...

A new Gallup Poll released late last week shows that Americans want health care reform, with a substantial number calling for reform to come sometime this year. In total, 71 percent of Americans would advise their representatives to pass "legislation now being considered in Congress." More than half of those who want reform -- 41 percent of all Americans -- want it done sometime before the year's end. Only 24 percent would advise their representatives to oppose reform outright. That Congressional Republicans and "Blue Dog" Democrats continue to stall on the issue speaks volumes, and is a figurative spit-in-the-face of every American who is depending on this legislation to pass in order to survive. Reform is needed; reform is wanted; but reform won't come, if this coalition of moderate Democrats and conservative Republicans has its way. Listening to the radio today, a progressive DJ asked a female caller if she had insurance. She replied that she was one of ...

When you get right down to it, it's clear that the Republican Party is an uncaring, obstructionist party bent on keeping the status quo intact. They care not for the welfare of the people, but rather for the welfare of corporate America -- and themselves. And if millions of Americans must suffer so that insurance companies can make an obscene profit, so be it -- all the better for the country, conservatives argue, while Republican lawmakers' wallets fill up with contributions from influential lobbyists. To be fair, some Democrats are just as guilty -- they, too, have received sizable "donations" from the insurance lobby, which is spending $1.4 million a day to maintain a system of health care in this country that benefits their profit margins, not their customers. But Republicans in particular have had a stance of "politics first, citizens last" -- a far cry from their rallying point and slogan of "Country First" during the failed campaign to elec...

Have you heard of these Obama "birthers?" A sizable movement on the internet is demanding that the president be removed from office unless he can provide his birth certificate, proving he is indeed an American citizen. These are the same people who claimed during the election that Obama was a Muslim and/or an Arab American working to destroy the country from the inside. Pushing aside for a moment the blatant bigotry inherent in believing a Muslim or an Arabic president would be a bad thing, the fact remains that Obama is neither of these; he is a Christian and an American citizen, born in Hawaii in 1961. Copies of his birth certificate have been provided to officials who have vouched for its authenticity. Certification indicating that a birth certificate exists is readily available for anyone seeking to find it in Hawaii. And newspaper clippings from days after Obama's birth show that his mother and father placed a birth announcement in the paper celebrating their new a...

The Wisconsin State Supreme Court issued a decision yesterday regarding the hiring practices of religious schools. In its decision, the Court found that private religious schools had the right to terminate current employees or discriminate against potential hires without concern for the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act. The specific case before the Court dealt with a first-grade teacher who had claimed she was terminated unfairly from a Catholic school in Onalaska, Wisconsin. Wendy Ostlund, 53, was fired from St. Patrick's Elementary School, which operated under the Diocese of La Crosse. She filed a complaint, and throughout the legal process won judgments affirming her case of discrimination. But in a 4-3 decision, the State Supreme Court ruled for the school and the Diocese, stating that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1 Section 18 of the Wisconsin Constitution trumped the state's fair employment laws. The ruling allows private religious schools the righ...

I try not to become too overwhelmed when it comes to polls. Granted, like many other political pundits out there, when I see a poll that works in my favor, I tend to play it up. When I see a poll that doesn’t, I’ll be the first to admit, I try to see if there’s any reasoning behind why that poll is flawed. However, I don’t do it too publicly; rarely will you see me make any comments towards polls unless they are really out of touch with what America really believes in, or in how they’ve conducted themselves. This is one such occasion where I take issue with a polling company. Rasmussen, who does a daily presidential poll, claims today that President Barack Obama has a net approval rating of negative eight percentage points, meaning that more Americans strongly disapprove of his job performance than strongly approve. Take a look again at how that was calculated: Rasmussen subtracts how many Americans strongly disapprove from how many strongly approve. The formula totally ignores all tho...

Beloved newscaster and cultural icon Walter Cronkite died yesterday. He was 92. Cronkite's legacy will forever be remembered. He was the one who brought us the news that a president had been assassinated, that a man had landed on the moon, that perhaps, just maybe, that war going on in Indochina was going to end, at best, as a stalemate. Never afraid to infuse his opinion -- but rarely stepping over that threshold of journalistic integrity -- Cronkite was welcomed into the homes of literally millions of Americans nightly. It's no wonder that this man was the most trusted in the country. His sincere demeanor is widely missed today, in an age when integrity is exchanged for ratings in the news department at the various networks. RIP Walter Cronkite.

The Democratic-led Senate committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) has finally passed a health care bill ready for full consideration within Congress. All ten Republicans in the committee voted against its passage, though they did slip in 161 amendments to the bill. Seems like bipartisanship is only a one-way street for the GOP, who scream for cooperation while digging their feet into the ground when its their turn to give a little. Sen. Chris Dodd expressed to his colleagues that there were no hard feelings : "Even though it wasn't a bipartisan vote, it was a bipartisan effort," said Dodd. "There were numerous contributions made, not just technical amendments, that our Republican friends were able to add to the bill. And they made it a better bill. That's the way it's supposed to be and I regret they didn't feel it was significant enough to support our effort this time around." So, without Republican support, a health care bill advanc...

Much is made about the "empathy" factor in Sonia Sotomayor's judicial belief structure and Barack Obama's ideal qualities in a judge. I want to expand on that idea for a bit. When applicable, precedent must be respected, unless law is passed or previous precedent was somehow flawed. That is the common law tradition in our nation, adopted from Britain when we were just colonies who later became states under a common union. There does arise, however, times when precedent does not present a just ruling; for that reason, an empathetic judgment is better than the precedent that lies before us. One of the most famous rulings of the 20th century deals directly with pushing precedent aside in favor of an empathetic ruling. In Brown v. Board of Education , the Supreme Court disregarded the established "separate but equal" guideline in order to tear down the destructive walls of segregation in America's schools. The ruling had far-reaching consequences, including ...

Ok, so it isn't really a music video. For that reason, I'll have two videos here, one of the Tiger song from "The Hangover," the new comedy out from the guy who made "Old School." But in case you're a stickler for REAL music videos, here's a great one I know you'll enjoy...Cracker's "Teen Angst."

Republican lawmakers are complaining over the amount of money being spent on the stimulus bill, and how the bill has done little to create jobs thus far. I’ve pointed out in the past , actually, that the bill has created or saved quite a few jobs, considering how short of a time it’s been implemented. However, I do agree that too little is being done right now, with most state governments opting to cover their budget deficits rather than use the money for its intended use -- to create jobs. But the thing is, not all of the money has been spent yet. The GOP is trying to fool the American public into believing that all of it is already spent, when in actuality less than one-tenth of that total has been doled out. In fact, most of the spending won’t come until fiscal year 2010 . I could understand why some would be frustrated with the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress were the GOP’s lies actually true. But they aren’t -- they instead show how desperate the Republicans are, re...

The Capital Times published a great article this week, responding to those who oppose the new protections afforded to same-sex couples in the state's budget, and labeling such opposition as what it is: blatant bigotry. In particular, the article pointed out the clear, hateful agenda of the Wisconsin Family Council , a group who pushed for a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil union rights for same-sex couples, which passed in a 2006 referendum. The group is now spearheading a plan to challenge the constitutionality of this year's budget protections for gay and lesbian couples, which include " the right to take family leave to care for a sick or dying partner, the ability to access a partner's medical records, and the right to inherit a partner's property ." (Source: The Capital Times) The budget, however, falls short of granting gay and lesbian couples marriage rights, a titular privilege that would bestow literally thousands of other benefits for sa...

The legacy of Robert S. McNamara is a mixed bag. On the one hand, you have the architect of the Vietnam War, the man responsible for the buildup of forces in one of the most tragic and ill-fated wars in American history. On the other hand, the man also helped keep the peace between the U.S. and its Cold War adversaries during a very tumultuous time. McNamara was an instrumental player in the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event in which the United States and the Soviet Union came closest to direct nuclear warfare. McNamara, some historians assert, was responsible for averting a proposal to hit Russia with an air strike, a move that would have undoubtedly led to retaliation with the U.S.S.R. Following his "stint" at the Pentagon -- McNamara served the longest term as Defense Secretary since the post was created -- he became president of the World Bank, where he championed the idea of improving lives of others around the world as a means towards peace rather than the militaristic met...

How is it that we are satisfied with a system of health care in this country that kills more than seven times the number killed on September 11 every year ? I ask that question because I am disgusted. I am fed up with the conservatives in this country who want to assure me that “socialized medicine” is the greatest evil we face today from Democrats in Washington. When we talk about this “evil,” however, we neglect the evils that are perpetrated daily in order to preserve the status quo for health insurance companies, who are more concerned with making a profit rather than helping those they supposedly serve. I write this in conjunction with a statement I recently read on the internet. While perusing Scott Walker’s election website (the Milwaukee County Exec is running for governor), I came across this anecdote regarding the health care crisis we currently face : “We must make quality, affordable healthcare available to hardworking families, through market based solutions like competiti...

Gov. Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential nominee to John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, will not seek reelection to her Alaskan post when her term expires in 2010. She also announced that she plans on resigning from office at the end of the month rather than face a "lame duck" session within the Alaskan government. Announcing that you won't seek reelection is usually a strong indication of higher aspirations, such as a potential run for President in 2012 against Barack Obama. Resigning from office completely, however, is a move that isn't common for anyone to do unless they have been caught up in a scandal. It's possible that Palin is seeking to avoid fallout from the recent controversies she's been a part of during her tenure as governor since the election. It's a move that she probably hopes will allow her to avoid being called a "do-nothing" governor since she won't be seeking reelection. It also gives her a chance to say ...

Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin will not seek re election, a strong indicator that the former VP nominee has higher aspirations. More tonight...

With the Democrats landing a monumental victory in gaining the disputed Minnesota Senate seat (thus attaining the 60-person supermajority needed to break Republican filibusters), many long-time supporters of progressive causes are expecting a great deal of work to pass through Congress with relative ease. They shouldn’t hold their breath. Democrats are stalling, with some in Congress remaining skeptical over spending packages and “controversial” bills that are the very reason supporters voted for them in the first place. Constituents want health care reform, economic recovery, a sound foreign policy and so much more. But what they’re getting is much of the same from Democrats of years past -- that is, disappointment, appeasement to conservatives and bills lacking substance. It’s discouraging that, while Congress was controlled in both houses by conservatives during the tenure of President George W. Bush, an enormous overhaul of laws were rubber-stamped by the Republicans that the right...