Political Heat

Students who excel deserve educational opportunities, no matter what their family's income levels are There once was a state that believed in some pretty important things, among them that education was paramount to producing thriving economies and communities . It utilized the university system as a place to concoct political ideas, and to put them into practice to improve the process. And it promised its students that if they worked hard, they too could get a college education, regardless of family income level. Wisconsin was that state at one point . But since he came to office, Gov. Scott Walker has cut education at all levels, and our priorities have changed drastically. In addition to millions of dollars in cuts to K-12 schools and higher education , the Wisconsin Covenant was also discontinued under Walker’s watch, a program which promised students earning a “B” average in high school the chance to go to a public university, no matter what their economic back...

Clinton pledges to "do something" about gun violence; Walker, not so much After a shooting tragedy left two news crew members dead in Virginia today, politicians from both left and right offered their perspectives on the matter . Look at these two reactions from presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Scott Walker. Here’s Clinton: And here’s Walker: Notice the difference? Clinton offers her prayers and says the time for action to stave off gun violence is now . Walker simply offers his prayers, and is deafeningly silent on what should or can be done. Which isn’t all that surprising. Walker, who has received an “A+ gold star sticker” rating from the National Rifle Association, has deregulated gun laws in Wisconsin since the start of his tenure. We’ve since seen a rise in violent crime overall , and a murder rate in our state’s largest city that will undoubtedly be higher than Chicago’s by the year’s end. Walker’s condolences are obviously genuine. B...

Help fund a Scott Walker documentary film crew If you get a chance..check out this really well done documentary and project about what the state of Wisconsin has had to endure under Scott Walker since 2011. My friend Leah Duckert is a teacher in the West Bend School district and is featured in the video. The project is also to warn the rest of the US what would happen under a Walker presidency and why this guy needs to be stopped. If you can spare a few bucks send some their way or check out their Twitter page and give them a share. Nicely done guys! #ScottFree2016

Walker continues streak of hypocrisy in his run for president When highly edited videos came out of Planned Parenthood organizers allegedly trying to pay for harvested fetal tissue, Gov. Scott Walker did his best to come out against the organization. He highlighted his moves in Wisconsin to defund the organization, and said that videos like those that recently came out justified those actions . “We defunded Planned Parenthood, which is particularly important these days in light of what we’ve seen on video,” Walker said during a campaign stop at Joey’s Diner. Conservatives of all stripes -- and not just Walker -- continue to decry the videos as proof positive that Planned Parenthood is a rotten organization. But just the opposite has come to light in recent days, as statewide investigations across the country have found absolutely zero evidence of any wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. Even the Department of Health and Human Services has found that the organization is “in ...

Donald Trump is dead on in his criticism of our Governor: “Well, I’m not worried because his state is really in trouble,” Trump told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.” “I mean, it’s a fantastic place,” he said. “I love the people of Wisconsin, but if you look at what’s going on, they have a $2.2 billion deficit. They were supposed to have a surplus of $1 billion and they have $2.2 billion.” “There’s tremendous divisions throughout the state,” Trump added. “He stopped a lot of work because he didn’t want to raise taxes. So instead of raising taxes, he’s borrowing to the hilt and his state is overleveraged.”

Hypocrisy runs rampant from Scott Walker's lips Scott Walker said on Friday that he won’t speak to leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement because he doesn’t know who that would include. His response to questioning on the matter was interesting  to say the least, and included comparing the group to the Tea Party: "I'm going to meet with voters ... Who knows who [Black Lives Matter] is?" Walker said in response to a Daily Mail reporter in New Hampshire who asked whether he would meet with the representatives of the group. "I'm going to talk to American voters, period. It's the same way as saying, you're going to meet with the tea party. Who is the tea party? There's hundreds of thousands of people out there." Apparently BLM activists aren’t voters by Walker’s standards, but let’s ignore that faux pas for now, as terrible as it might be. Essentially Walker says it’s impossible to speak to BLM activists because it’s a disorganized ...

Preliminary evidence suggests some harm still exists in e-cigarette usage There are a lot of “unknowns” when it comes to using electronic cigarettes , or e-cigs. The practice of “vaping” e-cigs has only been around a relatively short number of years, and any long-term effects of use can’t be definitively provided on the product yet. E-cigs are different from conventional smoking. For starters, the tobacco is completely removed from the product. This gives users a sense of “safeness” on e-cigs, and some have even suggested that vaping has helped them quit smoking (although there is still conflicting data on that idea  as well). While the product is safer than conventional smoking, it is not without its own harms . E-cigs still contain nicotine, the addictive chemical found in cigarettes. And that's created its own problems: the number of calls to poison control centers related to nicotine and e-cigs has gone up substantially in the past five years as a result (with kids bei...

Selective citations portrays subject in different light -- and is negligence in reporting Like many others I’m sure, I’ve felt a bit of a void since Jon Stewart stepped down from the Daily Show earlier this month. But I’ve taken one thing he mentioned on his last show to heart: the importance to “sniff out” bulls--t whenever it’s apparent , and to increase its visibility whenever possible. There’s certainly no shortage of it here in Wisconsin, including among the various news media across the state. Media Trackers, a conservative reporting outfit that has a record of attacking left of center politicians and public figures has gone on the attack once more, this time against a UW professor named Michael Bell. Bell teaches a series of classes within the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology . Some of the elements of his teachings touch upon problems of unfettered capitalism and its effects on society, which, of course, is simply unacceptable to organizations l...

Walker says Wisconsin is doing better in unemployment, but employment rate compared to rest of the country tells a different story Hours before the start of the first GOP debate, Gov. Scott Walker tweeted out an interesting statistic. Walker is implying that his leadership in Wisconsin led to a better jobs recovery versus the rest of the nation. But unemployment rates are tricky things – they don’t always lead to the reasonable conclusion that things are better. A drop in the labor force – the total number of people who either have jobs or are looking for work – can lower the unemployment rate, even if the number of people working doesn’t go up. So let’s just look at employment totals – that is, the total number of people working. An interesting thing happens when we do that: Wisconsin pales in comparison to the rest of the nation. From June 2011 (when Walker’s first budget went into effect) to June 2015, Wisconsin saw a growth of around 104,037 people working. That’s ...

Letter to the governor details problems with budget cuts in school district funding If the principal of your child’s school held a meeting to tell parents that the school’s funding was inadequate, you might be alarmed. So how will Wisconsinites react when 35 Wisconsin principals of various school districts say the same thing? In a letter addressed to Gov. Scott Walker last month, teachers from across the state made it clear that the cuts to education were having dire consequences . Most notably, the letter said, the cuts were creating separate classes of students: the “haves and the have-nots.” “We are burdened by the cumulative effects of budget cuts resulting in increased class sizes, cut programs, and deferred maintenance plans,” the letter states. “Our districts are struggling to maintain our current educational and co-curricular programs, while recognizing we need to expand educational opportunities and choices for students and families to prepare students for 21st cent...

We need to work towards reducing carbon emissions and increasing renewable energy sources President Barack Obama released his plans this week for combating climate change. The plans center largely on reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released into the atmosphere. CO2 is a large contributor to the greenhouse effect , which allows energy from the sun to enter our atmosphere but traps the heat inside without being able to escape. Some greenhouse effects are a good thing. Without some carbon in the atmosphere, our globe would become an ice planet. But the levels of carbon dioxide and other harmful elements in our environment is reaching dangerous levels. Just this past year, CO2 levels reached 400 parts per million particles in the atmosphere. That may sound like a small amount, but it actually means a lot more to our survival than meets the eye -- a sustainable amount of carbon is closer to 350 parts per million .  Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist with N...