Political Heat

Wisconsin sees higher rate of children in poverty level under Walker’s tenure A new report released this month sheds some light on some disturbing news. The number of children living in poverty in the state has gone up. Between 2008 and 2013 there was a five percent increase in child poverty in Wisconsin, according to the Kids Count survey conducted this year. A growth in poverty within the state can be found elsewhere as well. Those numbers are reflective in the number of Foodshare recipients, as an example. From 2010 to 2014 the number of Foodshare recipients went up significantly . There was a 10.6 percent increase in the number of non-duplicated recipients of the program, signifying a greater need for assistance across the state. These rising numbers likely had to do with the global recession of 2008. So the blame cannot be placed squarely on Scott Walker for this trend. What we can say for sure, however, is that Walker’s policies have done anything but help stave of...

Childish behavior is unwelcome during presidential process Donald Trump apparently doesn’t get how newspapers work. His campaign is reportedly refusing press credentials for the largest newspaper in Iowa, the Des Moines Register . His reasoning? The Register published an editorial that was critical of Trump’s behavior. Among other points, they described Trump’s recent comments about John McCain as making him “unfit to stand on the same stage as his Republican opponents.” In response to the scathing opinion piece, Trump’s people made it clear that the Register was no longer welcome to cover his events. Trump’s national campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, told Obradovich in a phone call that the Register was being excluded from the event because of the editorial. ... “We’re not issuing credentials to anyone from The Des Moines Register based on the editorial that they wrote earlier in the week,” he said. Trump certainly has the right to refuse access to his campaign ...

Gwen Moore predicts Walker's gun deregulations will result in more crime. That may already be true. U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) recently penned a widely-read op-ed about guns, Scott Walker, and the inevitable rise of violent crime because of the governor’s attitudes on deregulation of weapons . Her words are eloquent and prophetic; anyone with the time to do so ought to read the piece , which foretells the problems that will come about because of the rapid changes to gun laws in our state. “Unfortunately for our constituents, Gov. Walker has made it abundantly clear that the concerns of Wisconsin residents will always take a backseat to those of the extreme pro-gun groups that have spent millions of dollars supporting him,” Moore wrote. Her prediction that crime will rise as gun laws are deregulated is entirely plausible. In fact, it might have already happened. Following Gov. Scott Walker’s signing of the concealed carry law in the state of Wisconsin at the end of...

A humorous tale helps explain a bigger problem A man in Portage was recently arrested -- for a second time -- for spreading the “Good News” of Jesus Christ to his neighbors. The first occurrence of his arrest was reportedly for doing so in the nude. The second occurrence was different (and is why I bring it up) -- Scott Salzman, the person in question, was knocking on neighbors’ doors at 5:30 in the morning, trying to spread the Gospel to the people of Portage. Officers told Salzman that he can’t preach to neighbors at such early hours. He was charged with disorderly conduct under Wisconsin Statute 947.01(1) . Salzman or anyone else is certainly free to go door-to-door to promote their religious message. That right is enshrined in the Supreme Court case Cantwell v. Connecticut . But his First Amendment rights -- specifically, his speech rights -- are not absolute. He’s free to hold his opinions and to disseminate them to his neighborhood and beyond. But he is restricte...

Move is clearly political payback against an agency that looked into his illegal campaign coordination Would Scott Walker want to dismantle the Federal Elections Commission if he’s elected president? That’s kind of what he’s proposing, on the state level, in Wisconsin. Walker is backing a plan that would effectively transform the state’s nonpartisan watchdog on elections , a move that would likely make it easier for politicians to get away with more shenanigans on the campaign trail. Why would Walker call for making such a change? Because he was the recipient of an investigation from the Government Accountability Board. The second John Doe investigation looked into whether Walker unlawfully directed donors to give funds to third party organizations in order to avoid campaign finance limits. Leaked documents from that investigation indicate that Walker had likely committed an illegal act, but court judgments from conservative judges required the investigation to halt. Last w...

Walker campaign allows candidate to say one thing, and explain away the consequences to the media later on ...don’t believe me? Here’s the most recent example of how Scott Walker operates. This week the Boy Scouts of America Executive Committee unanimously approved of ending the ban that restricted gays or lesbians from serving as employees and volunteers of troops across the nation. The changes wouldn’t be overwhelming, nor uniform across the country. It would allow individual troops the choice to determine for themselves whether they should allow gay or lesbian leaders to enter their ranks. But it’s a significant change nonetheless . Whereas before gay and lesbian individuals were expressly forbidden from being hired or volunteering, following these changes they will at least have a chance to serve at several locations across America. That doesn’t bode well for many conservatives, including Gov. presidential candidate Scott Walker, who lambasted the policy change . ...

Iran concedes a lot in new deal, which doesn't fit the definition of appeasement in diplomatic relations President Barack Obama announced today that we have reached a deal with Iran regarding their controversial nuclear program. The deal allows Iran to continue using nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes. But it requires current use of nuclear material to drop by two-thirds , and is contingent on allowing inspectors  in to verify that usage is indeed for energy. Not everyone is happy with the deal, however. Former Florida governor and current Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush had something interesting to say about the it : “This isn’t diplomacy – it is appeasement,” Bush said in a statement. He also condemned the Iranian regime, noting: “The people of Iran, the region, Israel, America, and the world deserve better than a deal that consolidates the grip on power of the violent revolutionary clerics who rule Tehran with an iron fist.” Characterizing the land...

A growth in demand would benefit workers/consumers AND business owners Raising the minimum wage will grow jobs. No, really, it will. Wage growth and job creation are inherently tied together. But conservative talking points tell us it’s an inverse relationship -- as wages go up, we're told that business owners are forced to pay employees more, which under conservative logic means costs have to be cut somewhere -- either prices go up or payrolls get cut. In the real world, however, that just isn’t the case. Take a look at Australia , for example. The minimum wage there is the equivalent of around $16 or $17 US dollars per hour. Their economy must be in ruins, right?

 Well, not exactly. Australia hasn’t seen a recession in nearly 20 years . They even avoided most of the fallout from the 2008 economic collapse. And their unemployment rate is comparable to the United States, at around 5 to 6 percent. But it’s consistently been that way over the past five years or so, too. B...

Will Walker "stick to his guns" on the issue of gun safety, or will he act hypocritical in the months ahead? Curiosity recently got the better of me, and I began to look closely at the event information for Scott Walker’s presidential announcement next week. It was all pretty straightforward, but when I got to the “restricted items” list something struck me as peculiar. It seems that Scott Walker’s event is a “gun-free” zone . No large bags, sharp objects, signs, umbrellas, liquids, aerosol containers, guns , ammunition , fireworks, electric stun guns, mace, selfie-sticks, martial arts weapons/devices, or knives of any size will be allowed in the venue. Emphasis in bold added. To be honest, this policy is perfectly acceptable and reasonable to me. At an event where a highly controversial political speaker is going to be present, his safety and the safety of his attendees ought to be of highest concern. But all the gun proponents that support Scott Walker, inclu...

The current process is too partisan, restricts voters from having a voice in the legislature A new redistricting lawsuit is taking hold in the state. Here we go again... Calling the current state legislative redistricting "one of the worst gerrymanders in modern American history," a group of 12 Wisconsin Democrats sued the state Wednesday, asking that the 2011 district map be thrown out as giving an unconstitutional advantage to Republicans. ... The lawsuit also points to the way that district lines were drawn in secret by the Legislature's Republican leadership, without consulting Democratic leaders or rank-and-file of either party, then pushed through the Assembly with little debate. Redistricting, of course, whether done by Republicans or by Democrats, is wholly a partisan process. It needs reform, desperately, that allows a neutral party or panel to submit redistricting borders that can then be approved by the legislature, rather than allowing the politica...

Walker needs to "evolve" on the issue, and get over his anti-equality biases Scott Walker is so wrong about the marriage equality ruling that his two sons don’t even understand his father’s reasoning . “I believe this Supreme Court decision is a grave mistake,” Walker said on June 26, when the Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage. That response didn’t sit well with his two sons, Matt and Alex, who are taking time off from college to help their father with his upcoming presidential campaign. In an interview with The Washington Post, Walker’s wife, Tonette, said she immediately heard from her sons about their displeasure with Walker’s comments. “That was a hard one,” Tonette said. “Our sons were disappointed. ... I was torn. I have children who are very passionate [in favor of same-sex marriage], and Scott was on his side very passionate.” Walker is on the wrong side of marriage equality, and will be remembered in 2016 as a candidate pushing for rest...

Republicans in legislature shun media requests to discover just who wants to end open records legislation The blatant attacks on open records legislation in Wisconsin are nothing short of an attempt to stifle the public’s ability to become knowledgeable on the lawmaking process. State Sen. Jon Erpenbach  says it best: "Somebody in this building, somewhere, wants to hide something." The proposal, attached to the all-important state budget bill, would allow lawmakers in the legislature to restrict access to the drafting notes and records on how (and who) requests to changes in laws are made. Several journalists rely on this information in helping them shed light into how controversial bills are made. The Capital Times has a short list of recent examples : In January 2014, the Wisconsin State Journal used drafting records to report that a controversial bill to allow high-income parents to avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in child support was written ...

Walker uses one metric (and ignores a slew of others) when attacking POTUS On Thursday the staff that manages Scott Walker’s Twitter account released a statistic meant to poke fun at President Barack Obama’s jobs record. Obama was visiting La Crosse to tout his plan to increase the number of Americans eligible for “time and a half” overtime pay. So, just hours after Gov. Walker and President Obama shook hands, it seemed like the most opportune time for Team Walker to tweet something out against the president: At first glance that statistic seems to say that Walker did a better job than Obama on unemployment, specifically in La Crosse County where he was speaking at. But the stat doesn’t look at anything beyond the unemployment rate, and doesn’t take into account the number of people who stopped looking for work . And when you look at other measures, the statistic ceases to be relevant. Take a look at total private sector jobs created in La Crosse County from the time G...

Political Heat Radio returns: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and the Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling