Political Heat

But Clarke disregards murder rates in his home county, which mirrors Chicago's numbers There should be no doubting about whether Chicago experienced a surge in violence this year. More than 750 murders took place in the Windy City this year, attributable to a rise in gang violence. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, not one to miss an opportunity to peddle his right-wing views on guns, blames Chicago’s rise on their restrictive laws. “It’s time Democrat (sic) ghetto hellholes like Chicago pay attention to what’s happening in their pro-gun controlled cities instead of learning the hard way that criminals don’t care what laws are on the books,” Clarke wrote . Yikes. There is, of course, some glaring problems with Clarke’s assertions – namely, that it isn’t Chicago’s gun laws that are at fault. In truth, Chicago’s notorious gun restrictions have been watered down substantially over the past five years. And similar assertions by Donald Trump – who said Chicago has th...

Democratic legislator recognizes that, on the issues, Wisconsin citizens support progressive values Melissa Sargent, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin State Assembly representing parts of Madison, recently wrote a poignant op-ed that was published in the Capital Times. It provided great insight into what progressives need to stand for in the aftermath of the 2016 election season. Her essay included reasoned arguments in favor of pushing for progressive policies, and (dare I say?) sounded very... ... gubernatorial . “People support strong progressive values and legislation,” Sargent wrote, giving examples to back her case: ”Progressives support public education and Republicans cut from it," Sargent wrote, singling out how the GOP gutted over a billion dollars from schools. Public education is clearly a priority for most Wisconsinites, and progressives are leading the charge on providing it the funding it needs statewide, Sargent points out. On gun policy, Sargent ...

Nobody's opinion is better than anyone else's on the basis of geographical location If you don’t count Texas, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by more than 3.6 million votes in the popular vote totals for president last month. That statistic is misleading, though, because of course Texas voters count. Every single voter who cast a ballot in the state of Texas is a citizen of the United States, and discounting their preferences is a stupid way to make sense of, or otherwise qualifying, the results of an election. So, too, is discounting the worth of “blue” states votes that went for Clinton. But conservative sites like the Daily Mail and Drudge Report are peddling the idea that, if you don’t count New York and California, Trump won the popular vote by more than three million votes. FINAL TALLY: Trump won by 3 MILLION votes outside California, New York... https://t.co/3eVKo4rr3a — DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) December 21, 2016 All of the voters in those two...

Walker’s so-called “focus” on jobs, and “trickle down” economics slowed the state’s performance President-elect Donald Trump came to Wisconsin earlier this week as part of his “thank you tour” across the country. Trump was greeted by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Gov. Scott Walker, and presented by these three with Green Bay Packers jerseys, probably dooming any remaining chances that the green-and-gold had of making the playoffs this year. What can I say, I’m a bit superstitious when it comes to football. Trump did his part in thanking his Wisconsin hosts, through the only medium he seems comfortable using: Twitter. Thank you Wisconsin! My Administration will be focused on three very important words: jobs, jobs, jobs! Watch: https://t.co/vatXZb3oM2 pic.twitter.com/87TyY7CG0X — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 14, 2016 “Thank you Wisconsin!” Trump wrote . “My Administration will be focused on three very important words: jobs, jo...

Kremer wants guns in campuses, but evidence shows concealed carry doesn't make state safer State Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) really wants guns to be allowed in college classrooms. Current policy at university campuses across the state allows students to carry weapons to classes and about campus itself. But universities are granted discretion on whether concealed carry within buildings will be tolerated. Many have opted to place signs outside of their buildings stating that no concealed weapons would be allowed indoors. This is the right of the universities to do. But Kremer wants to change that. Last year, he introduced a bill that would have done away with the right of campuses to discourage concealed carry inside their buildings, but the bill went nowhere. He intends to submit the bill again this year to an even more conservative state legislature. He defended his position in a forum recently in Madison. From the Daily Cardinal : Kremer argues students might face...

State would have created 55,000 100,000+ (see update) additional jobs if it had kept pace with US average UPDATE : I'm not a statistician by nature, but I do like to look at numbers from time to time. Still, when I mix up the numbers, I'll admit to it -- and Jake made sure to correct me . See why the state is actually 100,000 or more jobs behind at Jake's Economic TA Funhouse (and thanks for the catch!) Scott Walker made a very ambitious claim more than six years ago during his first campaign for governor. He claimed that, if elected, his policies would create 250,000 private sector jobs in his first term in office . It’s important to remember a promise like that because Walker was elected, in large part, because of it. At the time his critics lambasted him for pulling the number out of thin air . Walker chose the number specifically because it had been done in the past, but his six-point plan didn’t explain specifically how he had arrived at the number for himsel...

The law is meant to give every candidate assurances of a sound and fair election After attending the Christmas tree lighting at the state Capitol, Scott Walker spoke to reporters on the need to change the recount process in Wisconsin. “It’s certainly something to look at,” Walker told reporters . Here we go again. Walker has, in the past, spoken on the need to change the John Doe law and the Government Accountability Board (though only after he received what he deemed as unfavorable treatment from those respective institutions). Not that’s it’s news to anyone who pays enough attention, but when Walker (or any of his surrogates) says “let’s change something,” it’s expected that his Republican-run legislature will go after it on command. The bells are ringing, and it’s only a matter of time before GOP legislators react to Walker’s recent calls for changing the recount. On that issue, Walker added to his comments above , “To me, it seems like a recount is most valuabl...

Concealed carry on school grounds makes little sense, given its failure to deter crime elsewhere in WI so far Perhaps because of their big electoral wins in November, several voices on the right are now calling for an even stronger conservative agenda, including even more loosening of gun laws in the state of Wisconsin. Among them is Owen Robinson of Boots and Sabers , who is advocating for concealed carry to be legal on school grounds across the state. He recently wrote in the West Bend Daily News : There is no rational justification for continuing banning guns on school grounds… Despite the dire warnings of opponents of the Second Amendment, Wisconsin has not turned into the Wild West and neither has any other state that permits concealed carry. Of course, the notion that Wisconsin must turn into the “Wild West” in order for something to be seen as a failure is utterly preposterous. Concealed carry itself was sold on the idea that it would deter crime in Wisconsin. It has...

Latest release demonstrates the worst second quarter jobs report yet under Walker’s administration Wisconsin’s jobs report for the second quarter of 2016 came out last week, detailing how many actual jobs were created from June of 2015 to June of 2016. The numbers are not that inspiring . The state added 25,656 private sector jobs during that time period, a rate of growth of about 1.04 percent. The current rate of jobs growth pales in comparison when compared to the previous governor’s last budget. Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, passed his last budget in 2009. Since budgets in Wisconsin are two years in length, his last budget lasted until June of 2011 -- six months into Gov. Scott Walker’s first term in office. In the final year of Doyle’s last budget (from June 2010 to June 2011) Wisconsin created 39,909 jobs, a 1.7 percent rate of private sector jobs growth. The latest jobs report, then, demonstrates a 40 percent slowdown in jobs creation since Doyle's budget expired . W...

So-called “conventional wisdom” about the effects of changing to a popular vote vs. keeping the Electoral College are veritably false It didn’t take long for Donald Trump to change his position on the Electoral College. Just days after the election this year, Trump had implied he preferred abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a popular vote system selecting the president. In prior years, Trump expressed the same distaste for the current system. After winning last week, Trump  told 60 Minutes’s Lesley Stahl , “I’m not going to change my mind just because I won. I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.” But earlier this week, Trump did change his mind... ...and suggested he’d have an easier time campaigning under an alternative, popular vote model: The argument Trump is making here is a common one made by defenders of the Electoral College, tha...

A migration of less than two percent of Clinton voters to the Midwest would have won her the race Here is a quick little note about the absurdity of the Electoral College. If just 1.8 percent of Hillary Clinton voters from the state of California -- less than one in every fifty voters who cast a ballot in her favor -- had instead moved to one of three states just thirty days earlier , we could have seen a Clinton victory over Donald Trump. Wisconsin’s ten electoral votes would have required an additional 27,000 votes from California in her favor. Michigan would have required an additional 12,000 votes. And in Pennsylvania, Clinton would have needed 68,000 of those additional California votes votes to win. That’s 110,000 ballots that Clinton actually had, but that she needed in three different states. Had the voters in California -- again, just 1.8 percent of the total she won there -- lived in those three states instead, she would have won the presidency. But simply becau...

We must condemn racism, whether invisible or overt, before it becomes normalized in our communities You would like to think that these reports of racial-based graffiti can’t happen in your town. When they do, it’s terrifying. In my hometown of Monona, Wisconsin, incidents of graffiti came to the attention of some residents who went to a small playground in the community of under 8,000. From the social media site Nextdoor , an eyewitness account: Someone has tagged a bunch of swastika's and "Trump" signs with a sharpie in multiple locations on the nice playground gear in Oneida Park. Pretty sad seeing our children play here. When my son told me about it, I went and tried to clean it off but the product I was using wasn't the right tool for the job. Might go back later with a stronger cleaner. Please keep an eye out. Anybody know who you'd report this to for proper cleanup? I myself, living not far from where the incidents in question happened, had to se...

Arguments in favor of preserving the Electoral College are flawed I’ve already said a bit on the Electoral College this week in my most previous post, after it was revealed that more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump for president. But because Trump won more Electoral College votes, he technically won the election. Image via USA.gov My commentary in that post was not meant to imply that Trump should be denied the presidency; both he and Clinton were playing by the same set of rules before the election took place. But I do fear that future elections could play out the same way, and that it’s necessary to get rid of the outdated method of selecting -- rather than electing -- our president. Another bit of commentary, taking the opposite view, caught my eye this afternoon. Jonathan Krause , Programming and News Director of radio station WOSH in the Fox Valley region of Wisconsin, felt that the preservation of the Electoral College was necessary. On his...

Your vote matters less than other people's votes across the country -- and that's a system we should no longer endorse I could dissect and examine the reasons why Hillary Clinton lost what should have been an easy, by all means winnable election against Donald Trump. But I don’t think it’s necessary for me to do so -- thousands of commentators have already lamented the results of the election, and I want to take a look at it from a different angle. Namely, that Hillary Clinton didn’t lose at all. She lost the Electoral College, to be sure, but she won a majority of support among voters across the nation. Clinton outperformed Trump among the electorate by more than 300,000 votes (at the time of this posting). That’s a small number, to be sure, especially when you consider that hundreds of millions of Americans voted. But it’s a number that shouldn’t be ignored nonetheless. Yet because the rules state that our president gets selected by the Electoral College -- a syste...

A vote for Ron Johnson is a vote for irrational thinking; Feingold brings intelligence to the Senate Image via RussFeingold.com The race for the White House is taking center-stage, and all signs are pointing towards a win for Hillary Clinton. But even if Clinton defeats Donald Trump, she’s going to need a change in Congress to get her agenda passed. Several Senate seats across the country are competitive, and FiveThirtyEight.com is presently predicting a 60 percent chance that the Senate will flip over to Democratic Party control . That will allow a President Clinton the chance to push some of her agenda, and give her some leverage when dealing with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. It will also allow her an easier path to filling her appointments within her cabinet and on various federal courts. But she’ll need every senate victory she can get on Tuesday night. One of those competitive seats is right here in the Badger State, between incumbent Sen. Ron Joh...

Governor’s attempts to convince voters to oppose Hillary pushes more toward her Scott Walker has been taking to Twitter during the last few weeks of the campaign. OK, that’s not news -- the Republican Governor of Wisconsin has always been a fan of social media, though he has often been ridiculed for some of his more “interesting” tweets . But his recent presence on the social media site has been snarkier than usual. Take his recent tweet earlier this week about former Sen. Russ Feingold’s support of the Affordable Care Act. Thanks, Sen. Feingold: "Rates for Obamacare plans jump in Wisconsin” #WISen https://t.co/32kNeFi84u pic.twitter.com/5ox9QYGGgw — Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) November 1, 2016 Walker’s snarkiness is effective here, but it misses the broader point. The Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” has done a lot more good than harm for the country. Yes, premiums have gone up. But Russ Feingold has recognized that problem, and has promised to work with bo...

Gallagher’s moral courage is lacking, especially after crafting a deceptive campaign ad Republican candidate for Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional district Mike Gallagher is running a political advertisement calling out his opponent, Democratic candidate Tom Nelson, for saying he lacks courage. Gallagher has a U.S. military background. “Joining the Marines the day he graduated college, two combat tours, yet Nelson questions Gallagher’s courage?” the ad asks . Certainly Mike Gallagher has shown tremendous courage in serving his nation dutifully overseas. No one should question that service. Yet Nelson hasn’t questioned that service. The quote that the Gallagher campaign used in its ad deriding Nelson’s words is taken wildly out of context in an attempt to distort what Nelson was really talking about during a television interview. Tom Nelson did not question whether Gallagher served valiantly or not; rather, Nelson asked whether Gallagher demonstrated moral courage in conti...

His failure to take the issue seriously makes him unfit for a second term in office To hear Sen. Ron Johnson put it, global climate change isn’t a problem at all. Humans will actually thrive under the warming temperatures, he says. “Climate has already changed, always will. I’m just not an alarmist. We will adapt,” Johnson told a Wisconsin radio station recently. He was certain that the warmer temps would be welcomed. “How many people are moving up toward the Antarctica, or the Arctic?” he asked rhetorically. “Most people move down to Texas or Florida, where it’s a little bit warmer.” Johnson doesn’t want to do anything about climate change either, calling those who bring it up “alarmists,” adding that their actions and proposals will do “a great deal of harm on our economy.” He acts as though climate change is a propaganda tool for some hidden agenda. Ron Johnson, in short, has become Dale Gribble. But that sort of thinking is just plain idiotic. Yes, people love th...

Conservatives are inconsistent with their outrage, forgetting about governor's similar comments on instigators UPDATE : Scott Foval just released this statement : "This scheme to cast legitimate organizing activities as a sinister plot is nothing but a ruse. When O'Keefe's team of grifters attempted to find illegal activities going on , they were disappointed to discover, in fact, that I and my associates were only involved in above-board, legal, legitimate organizing work to counter Trump's campaign of division, misogyny, hatred, and xenophobia. Despite our attempts to redirect the conversation and actions towards positive, results-oriented, legal and ethical political organizing, O'Keefe's crew of imposters continued to walk down a path of deception and manipulation. Our team took the high road, deciding to not indulge the imposters in their dubious scheme, rather attempting to put our energies and intentions towards positive activities that garner ...