Political Heat

Alternative sentencing guidelines should be offered for young adults as old as 21 The way in which Genele Laird, the 18-year old African-American teen whose arrest video went viral last week, was treated during her ordeal will likely remain controversial for quite some time. But the way in which Dane County authorities, including District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, City of Madison Police Chief Mike Koval and Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney (among many other leaders) handled how to respond to Laird’s actions deserves to be commended. Laird will be entered into a restorative justice program, where she’ll have engage in a process dedicated toward demonstrating her social behavior is adequately adjusted through communications with her victims and law enforcement officials. Laird’s actions that day warranted her arrest . She allegedly threatened the lives of other individuals, presented a knife to those she threatened, spit on officers and refused to comply with their orders. That...

The governor tries to make a point on teacher pay, forgetting NFL players have a union that helps them get minimum salaries While speaking with reporters in western Wisconsin this week, Gov. Scott Walker made some interesting comments on education, specifically on teacher pay. Walker said that teachers, like NFL players, should be treated like free agents, and paid based on merit, not how long they’ve been teaching. From the La Crosse Tribune (Emphasis in bold mine): When asked whether he thought such incentive-driven salary programs would be a hindrance to allowing school districts to keep quality teachers, Walker compared teaching to being a player in the NFL. “If the Green Bay Packers pay people to perform and if they perform well on their team, (the Packers) pay them to do that,” Walker said. “They don’t pay them for how many years they’ve been on the football team . They pay them whether or not they help (the Packers) win football games.” Except that’s not true. The NF...

He also changes his justification on why he signed unconstitutional ban from what he said in 2014 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that restrictions on abortion clinics, including requiring providers to have “admitting privileges” to hospitals within thirty miles of their facilities, are unconstitutional burdens on women seeking medical assistance . The 5-3 ruling today will also have implications here in Wisconsin, as Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans passed similar restrictions here in 2013. Walker expressed his disappointment in the ruling . “Today's decision from a divided court is a prime example of activist jurists imposing their will on the people,” he said. He added, “These issues should be left up to the democratic process. I believe in the sanctity of life and will always fight to protect it.” In 2014, however, while campaigning for re-election to his position as governor, Walker said he signed these laws for the purposes of protecting women’s health, de-empha...

GOP state representative's gun doctrine relies on rational actors, while our gun laws do not. State Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) is at it again. This time, he’s introducing legislation that would make businesses liable for injuries incurred on their premises if they are a gun-free site. Current law allows individuals the right to carry a concealed weapon in public, but written within that law is an exception that allows businesses the right to say concealed weapons aren’t allowed in their doors. Gannon maintains that’s inviting trouble. “There are violent thugs in our midst, some homegrown, some international, who are determined to cause us harm,” he said in his press release . But rather than find a way to stymie would-be offenders, Gannon goes on the attack against Wisconsin businesses. The bill would allow victims of gun violence and their families to collect three times the amount of damages typically allocated in these situations. It would also allow victims to sue b...

Walker is happy to make the right decision, when opportunity coincides with doing the right thing In March I took Gov. Scott Walker to task for refusing to denounce presumptive Republican nominee for president Donald Trump. At the time, Walker said he would remain true to his word , and support whoever the nominee for president would be for the GOP. I disagreed with that notion: Some pledges are worth breaking. A woman who endures abuse from her husband is right to break her bonds of marriage, to dissolve the promises she made on her wedding day, for the betterment of her well-being. And Republicans, who have endured months of mistreatment from Donald Trump, should likewise follow their consciences and refuse to support the candidate that spouts hatred and cruel ideas that would turn America’s treasured ideals upside down. ... It may not a rewarding position to take politically, but Scott Walker and other Republicans ought to show true leadership and say unequivocally that t...

Radio Heat Episode - June 20, 2016

Outcomes are better in states and other countries where 17-year olds aren't tried as adults Wisconsin has a juvenile detention problem. Recent reports have detailed issues with centers focusing on young inmates, including a long list of abuses and procedural miscues from Lincoln Hills School for Boys, and its companion site Copper Lake School for Girls. Reports on abuses dating as far back as 2012 were largely ignored by the state. A Racine County judge sent warnings to Gov. Scott Walker at that time detailing alleged problems with the Lincoln Hills facility, and the county stopped sending juvenile offenders shortly after. Yet those warnings went unheeded, and problems at the facility persisted. A federal investigation into civil rights violations, including child neglect, sexual and physical abuse, and excessive force is still ongoing. In one instance, a youth’s toes had to be amputated after being slammed in a doorway. Clearly changes need to be considered for how w...

Since concealed carry passed in 2011, state's crime rate has jumped 22 percent The tragic shooting in Orlando, Florida, last weekend, in which a man armed with an assault rifle took the lives of nearly 50 individuals in a gay nightclub, behooves us to take a serious look at our laws regulating gun ownership. Many are calling for a more restrictive process, including ensuring that no person on the “do-not fly” terrorist watch list is capable of purchasing a deadly weapon like the AR-15 used in last weekend’s attacks. Others are going further, insisting that the type of weapon used should be illegal for purchase outright. The debate has reached Wisconsin, with many Democratic leaders calling for a renewed discussion on tightening our state’s gun laws. Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) gave an impassioned speech Monday about the dreadful state of gun politics today -- and how nothing gets done about it. ”What is going to be the point of action?” she asked ...

Program head for Oshkosh radio station wrongly foresees grim future if freedoms get "whittled" away by common sense proposals On Monday, June 13, Jonathan Krause, the News and Program Director for WOSH Radio in Oshkosh, published a portrayal of the direction he believes our nation is heading toward following the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida over the weekend. “Someday several decades -- maybe even a couple of centuries -- after all of us are dead and gone,” he began, “historians will look back at the United States and marvel at the personal freedoms and individual rights that it once granted to its citizens. And then they will look at how those rights and freedoms were whittled away over time.” He added: Take for instance the Fourth Amendment right to freedom from search without a warrant. That was freely given up after 19-religious zealots hijacked four aircraft and crashed them into buildings. Or the First Amendment right to freedom of expression and practice o...

Radio Heat Episode - June 13, 2016

Differences in median household income and weekly wage increases demonstrate it's likely the top 1 percent are skewing numbers A common theme of Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is to gloss over bad job reports with finely-spun numbers that are meant to paint a rosier picture. Sometimes this includes ignoring one set of jobs numbers in favor of a separate report -- Walker has frequently switched back and forth between his preference for monthly reports on jobs versus quarterly reports , depending on which provides him the better numbers. At times, though, neither report sends him good news. When that happens, Walker & Co. have to get a bit creative with their spinning. So they look at other figures, like weekly wages. And, it appears at first sight that the spin works -- when you can say that the average wage of a Wisconsin worker has gone up by $51, it has a positive ring. The Department of Workforce Development made this argument in March 2015 , and recently Gov...

Walker scoffs at state jobs rankings, but hails dubious CEO rankings of states My sixth grade gym teacher used to have a sign over his door that aptly read, “RESULTS, NOT EXCUSES.” To the adolescent mind, it was corny and the butt of many jokes among my group of friends. But his methods worked, and the expression has stuck with me. It’s clearly not a mantra that Gov. Scott Walker is familiar with. The latest quarterly jobs report was released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics this week, detailing how each state performed over the entirety of 2015. Wisconsin didn’t fare too well, creating just 31,670 private sector jobs over the course of the year. That sounds like a lot, but contextually it’s a big let-down. When compared to the rest of the nation we rank 36th in private sector jobs creation , and second-to-last in the Midwest ahead of only Iowa. The state’s rate of jobs growth was 1.3 percent , significantly slower than the national rate of 2.1 percent . We aren’t...

I still love Bernie, but I recognize that Clinton needs, deserves my support going forward I voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin’s Democratic Party primary back in April. I stood fervently by my candidate beyond the ballot I cast, and continued to promote his candidacy well into the spring and into summer. The writing on the wall, however, is perfectly clear: Hillary Clinton will become the Democratic Party’s nominee. And I am equally thrilled to back her going forward. I never saw Clinton in this race as a “bad” candidate. I simply preferred Sanders over her, and did my best to promote the candidate I liked more. But I did my best to do so in a way respectful of Clinton. Being “for” someone doesn’t necessarily make you “against” someone else; it merely means you have a preference. With Hillary Clinton as the presumptive Democratic nominee, we see history in the making: the first female nominee of a major party to top a presidential ticket. That is not something tha...

Radio Heat Episode - June 6, 2016 This week's episode -- the first! (well, the triumphant return of Radio Heat) -- features commentary on homelessness in Wisconsin, Scott Walker "trolling" the WisDems convention on Twitter, and a reading of my blog post, "Assume every state besides WI created zero jobs in 2015 -- we’re STILL behind most of the nation . Featuring music from 4 Aspirin Morning .

A short list of grievances makes it clear that history books won't be kind to Gov. Walker It was four years ago this week that the recall election, aimed to remove Gov. Scott Walker from his office, failed. But though the recall itself didn’t succeed, the rationale for its necessity continues to become evident to this day. Scott Walker was, and still is, a destructive governor , and history will likely remember him poorly for his time served in office. To mark this anniversary, the governor took to social media, expressing his delight in winning the recall: And as far as electoral victories go, Walker should be proud. He won, after all, and is the only governor in U.S. history to survive a recall attempt. Yet electoral victories do not a good leader make. In 1952, at the height of the Red Scare that he was instrumental in fomenting, Joseph McCarthy won re-election to serve in the U.S. Senate for the state of Wisconsin. His crusade, eventually exposed as a fraud , was...

UW has consistently been a top-tier university; Walker has failed to invigorate Wisconsin economy Gov. Scott Walker suggested he might be open to providing more funding to the UW System, but with a catch -- the funding might be tied to jobs performance-based measures . Gov. Scott Walker is indicating he may increase funding for the University of Wisconsin System and technical colleges, possibly tied to performance measures. Walker and the state Legislature previously tied a larger portion of technical college funding to performance in multiple areas, including placing students in jobs related to their fields and degrees awarded in high-demand fields. The value of our universities and colleges, however, cannot be arbitrarily tied to what jobs graduates find themselves in after getting a diploma. A degree may be only one factor that those who are hiring may consider with an applicant. Besides, there’s already a clear measurement of how valuable the UW System is to our state. Th...

A recent comment prompts me to address an important point -- I don't "hate" Gov. Walker It’s not common for me to comment on something said to me on social media. Sure, I will quote political leaders and talking-heads when it’s appropriate; but as far as tweets from regular folk go, it’s not my place to put their opinions on this blog. I do want to address one thought that was suggested of me recently, however. It’s not necessary that I mention the person by name, but what they said is enough for me to respond in full. This person was trying to antagonize me, and could fit under the definition of an internet “troll.” By that, of course, I mean their purpose in engaging others “is to seek out people to argue on the internet over extremely trivial issues.” Nevertheless, I want to address their words, or rather what their sentiment was. They believe I hate Republican Gov. Scott Walker simply because he’s a Republican. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ye...