Political Heat

Wisconsin's freshman senator is clueless about hardships single moms face Sen. Ron Johnson, who is up for re-election against Democratic challenger and former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, has a novel idea for women struggling to pay daycare bills across the state and nation: just become a daycare teacher yourselves! “Let single moms actually work in day care to support each other,” [Johnson] told WIZM, a Wisconsin radio station. “We have prohibitions against that, providing day care for a facility that has your children in it. I think we need to reduce some of these policies. Let’s work smart, let’s rethink all of these programs, all the laws. Just about everything has got to be rethought.” We do indeed have regulations against allowing single mothers from working at daycares where their children attend. Those regulations exist because of fraud that occurred when daycare centers tried to collect federal subsidies in those situations, according to Channel 3000 . But Johnso...

The Inclusive Excellence Center’s goal to educate on disrespectful words does not equate censorship Students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are upset with an organization that is attempting to dissuade people from using certain terms in their everyday language. Words and phrases like “thug,” “crazy,” “ghetto” and “man up” are being discouraged by the Inclusive Excellence Center, in their “Just Words?” campaign . “Through ‘Just Words?’ we seek to raise awareness of micro aggressions and dismissive terms, their impact, provide an insight into their meaning,” their website states. They add: “We are not seeking to tell people what they can/cannot say.” The campaign has its detractors, however, and some students are saying that their free speech rights are being threatened . That is hardly the case. Raising awareness about the negativity that these words have is a far cry from restraining personal freedoms , and the Inclusive Excellence Center should be free to promo...

Schimel temporarily drops appeal to early voting challenges, but he should do so permanently Early voting is not a danger to democracy. But eliminating early voting is. This is especially true in urban areas, where people who work long hours aren’t necessarily able to make it into the polling booth on the first Tuesday after the second Monday in November. Allowing communities to let people vote weeks in advance, or on weekends, is common sense. Laws passed by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican legislature changed that. They curtailed the ability of communities to offer early voting , barring completely early weekend voting. They also shortened early voting time, from 28 days before the election to 10 business days (the Monday before election day excluded). And laws mandated that early voting, if it were to take place, could only be done in one location, and not offered anywhere else within a given community. That meant that early voting in larger Wisconsin cities could on...

Walker administration keeps using year-to-year wording, hoping to fool you into buying his bogus jobs claims Wisconsin released its latest monthly jobs report, and the news is stellar -- if it’s to be believed. The problem? It’s not believable. “Based on preliminary data, the state added a statistically significant 45,700 private sector jobs from July 2015 to July 2016,” the press release reads. But those numbers are based off of monthly jobs estimates -- they are not verified, and are based on a sample of under 4 percent of businesses statewide. If that sounds like I’m being petty, don’t blame me: that criticism comes from Gov. Scott Walker himself , who made the case AGAINST using monthly jobs estimates during his run-up to the recall election in a piece titled “What is the Best Way to Count Jobs?” While it is understandable that jobs estimates are often discussed when they are released, because they are the most recent job statistic, the actual job count data [relea...

GOP presidential candidate chose to "speak" to black communities in one of the whitest cities in Wisconsin Donald Trump came to Wisconsin this week to address the problems of racial disparity and violence in black communities. No, really. Stop laughing. He did so in an unusual place: West Bend, Wisconsin, where 19 out of every 20 citizens are white (the rest of Wisconsin is similarly mostly white, although West Bend is more so than the state overall, which is 17 out of every 20 citizens). From the Journal Sentinel: "I'm asking for the vote of every African-American citizen struggling in our country today who wants a different and much better future," Trump said in Washington County, which has a black population of 1.2% , according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Emphasis in bold mine. Trump is struggling especially with African-Americans. Some state polls show he’s garnering zero percent support among black voters, a terrifyingly low number even for...

Assembly and peaceful protests are justified; violence and destruction must be rejected The violent actions that occurred in Milwaukee this past weekend , in response to a death of a citizen at the hands of a police officer, were not justified. Violence is never a proper way to demand justice, and what happened this weekend won’t produce positive outcomes. I say this as someone who is sympathetic and supportive of the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement. I believe there exists systemic racism in our society, and that Milwaukee in particular has many related problems that need to be dealt with. City and county leaders, as well as leadership at the state level, need to address the problems of racial disparity in Milwaukee (and frankly, in the rest of the state also), both economically and with regards to equal protection under the law. I also believe that some officers’ actions need to be examined, and that while the vast majority of police officers act with the community’s b...

Favorability ratings among Wisconsinites sits higher with statewide Democratic leaders than Republican counterparts For Republicans looking to win statewide elections in Wisconsin, it’s not looking too pretty. The Marquette Law School Poll released Wednesday shows some bad numbers for Republicans. Presidential party nominee Donald Trump is sitting with a 27 percent favorability rating. Gov. Scott Walker is at 39 percent favorability (and 38 percent job approval), and Sen. Ron Johnson has a favorable rating of 34 percent. Compare those numbers to Democrats, and it’s clear that Wisconsinites are aching for a different path forward. Hillary Clinton’s rating sits at 43 percent. Russ Feingold, who is challenging Johnson for the seat he once held himself, is at 44 percent. And President Barack Obama? His favorability rating is 54 percent in Wisconsin. While no one is yet running against Scott Walker for his governorship, more than half of registered voters (51 percent) say the...

Documents shouldn’t be denied on the basis of incorrect wording It is disturbingly evident that huge problems exist at the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth correctional facilities in northern Wisconsin. Guards routinely engage in behavior with youths that would have resulted in disciplinary action even in an adult prison. Image via Wikipedia The overall goal of these facilities is to rehabilitate these children so that they may successfully re-enter society. But the actions of those placed in charge of their care demonstrate that goal isn’t on their minds at all. The latest escapade involves a guard who allowed inmates to fight with one another . The guard didn’t intervene, as he should have done, letting them duke-it-out in an area where security cameras couldn’t document the incident . Other actions are similarly disturbing. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , in one instance guards restrained a youth and proceeded to douse them with pepper spray “for safet...

Republican leaders need to put the priorities of the country ahead of their party for the sake of the nation's future The actions and temperament of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have some people very worried. Among them are key members of the Republican Party itself, who have had to deal with the fallout directly from a candidate who is making them look bad -- up and down the ticket. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was thrown some major shade (as the kids like to say) by Trump when the latter refused to give his endorsement to the former. “I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country,” Trump said . “We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not quite there yet.” The comments mirror those of what Speaker Ryan said earlier this year, when he said he wasn’t ready to endorse Trump yet. “I'm just not ready to do that at this point’” Ryan told CNN in May . “I'm not there right...