Political Heat

This isn’t a Goodbye. It’s just, “see you around.” When I began Political Heat in 2009, it had been with the idea that writing would be my hobby. I’d submit my thoughts to be considered, have people comment on them maybe a few times a month, and hopefully use the site as a springboard into becoming a trusted voice on the left in the state of Wisconsin. This year, I embarked on a brand new adventure: I began writing as a profession. Freelance writing, like this blog, had always been a “side gig.” But I had the opportunity to make it my full time job, and in March that’s what I did. I’ve enjoyed doing it since then, and don’t intend to stop. There have been very few downsides to writing as a career, but chief among them has been the neglect of my home site, Political Heat. The writing has been on the wall for a few months now, especially since the number of blog posts per month I was making had gone down significantly since I started writing elsewhere. Now, it’s time to say goo...

Doolan provides an inspiring vision of citizens campaigning to keep democracy in the hands of the people The 2018 gubernatorial election season in Wisconsin is fast approaching, and I find myself being inspired by two candidacies. Mike McCabe is announcing his run later this month as sort of an Independent-Democratic option that will challenge both parties to make change. His candidacy inspires me because it makes me feel as though a second wave of the Progressive Movement could be coming to Wisconsin (and possibly the nation) in the years ahead. Doolan, via YouTube But I am also inspired by a second candidacy because it demonstrates that citizens are beginning to rise up, to take back their government out of the controlling hands of corporate interests, and put it right back where it belongs in any democracy: within the care of the people. Michele Doolan, a Wisconsinite with roots all across the state (currently in Cross Plains ), is running for governor with a very limi...

Walker's past comments show a willingness to take the low road against political adversaries, cowardice to condemn allies when necessary Gov. Scott Walker, who briefly ran against Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican primary, is taking a weak stand against the comments made by the president regarding violent white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump suggested that “many sides” were to blame for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville. Several examples serve to demonstrate that is not the case — in one instance, an African American was beaten by several white supremacists with pipes. In the most notable example, Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old woman who was protesting the presence of white nationalist in Charlottesville, was killed by a supremacist who purposefully drove his vehicle into her and more than a dozen others. Walker spoke out against the bigotry, but stopped short of being critical of the president’s reactions. “My comment on this is I de...

Wisconsin Governor fought for countless reforms, and was ahead of his time on several issues An editorial on Right Wisconsin , a conservative-based blog in the state, is apparently advocating that we should remove the statues of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette, beloved governor and U.S. senator from Wisconsin’s Progressive era, from the state Capitol building and U.S. Capitol. A bust of La Follette’s head sits in the Capitol in Wisconsin, while a full-sized statue is in the National Statuary Hall in DC. The editorial from Right Wisconsin is making light of recent Confederate statue removals (by cities themselves or by force from citizens) and trying to suggest there is an equivalency somehow in removing figures that are from the past. That is a false equivalency, to say the least — La Follette stood for empowering the people, while the statues being removed elsewhere in the country stood for keeping entire races of people defined as second-class citizens. But br...

Mitch Henck complains about complainers, and I give my thoughts on that Local commentator Mitch Henck doesn’t get why people are upset with the new Foxconn deal that was recently brokered by the state and the tech company. “Alright, would you rather have the jobs not be here?” Henck asked rhetorically in his latest video column. “Understand that jobs are very vital, and we need them. [The state] is bringing up to 13,000 jobs" as a result of the deal, he argues. Henck is fine to defend the deal if that’s his opinion, but he makes a lot of assumptions throughout the video. The idea that 13,000 permanent jobs could be created is a fiction. In fact, that number is only estimated by the company itself to be around 3,000 jobs to start with the potential to bring more in the future. Much has been said, too, of the billions of dollars we’re giving away in tax incentives to Foxconn. The $3 billion in tax incentives isn’t even all of it — according to state Senator Kathleen V...

Why President Trump Is Wrong To Block Chrissy Teigen (Or Anyone Else, For That Matter) I, like many individuals in the Millennial age bracket, do a lot of thinking in the shower. So-called shower thoughts are altogether profound and yet very simple in reasoning. They produce an “aha!” moment in your head as you have them, and then oftentimes, hours later, you end up saying to yourself, “Well, yeah, that’s so obvious now that I think about it.” (Don’t even try explaining them to your significant other.) My most recent shower thought involved President Donald Trump. I’ll get to it in a minute, but it involves his habit of blocking people from his Twitter account, which I’d like to explain a little bit more first. The latest (famous) victim is supermodel Chrissy Teigen, who has provided years of commentary to Trump’s tweets, yet was only blocked this past weekend for such a ridiculous reason. Teigen wasn’t blocked for her pointing out a hypocrisy made by the president, or for ...

Are Consumers Being Trumped by Policy? The following is a guest post authored by Lindsey Pasieka, a Consumer Rights Investigator with ConsumerSafety.org. If you are interested in doing a guest post with Political Heat, please click the Contact link above.   The metaphor is gruesome, I know. But today, so is the outlook for consumers in America. With the AHCA vote put on hold once again (because not everyone thinks it is okay to strip 22 million Americans of their healthcare) our nation sits on the fence between defending and decimating consumer protections. Donald Trump, however, has already made his stance clear. He stands to the side with Big Business, Big Pharma and Big Losses for the public. Already, President Trump has shown his disregard for the average American in his FY18 budget , which presents cuts to some of our most important health and safety agencies. For example, the FDA’s budget stands to be cut by $854 million, a deficit that would be covered by in...

Underemployment remains a problem in Wisconsin — and that’s why jobs numbers matter Scott Walker is making much ado about the unemployment rate in Wisconsin. And at first glance, it does look pretty great. Here’s his latest radio address spot, courtesy of the Capital Times’s Jessie Opoien: Here's what @GovWalker is talking about in this week's radio address. pic.twitter.com/X1VotGqhCX — Jessie Opoien (@jessieopie) June 22, 2017 A 3.1 percent unemployment rate, again, sounds great. But there’s important things to remember here...first, that the unemployment numbers count people as employed even if they’re working part time. There isn’t a reliable measure of part time workers that we can look at. So, it’s important to look at the underemployment rate also when we look at how much things have improved. That rate, also known as the U-6 rate, is actually hovering around 7.7 to 8.0 percent, meaning that nearly 4 to 5 percent of the workforce that Walker is to...

Ironworker and activist hopes to win Paul Ryan’s seat Ironworker and activist Randy Bryce has announced his intention to run for Congress . He faces a daunting task: running against the current Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. But if any candidate is going to be able to put up a fight worth writing home about, it’s Bryce. His no-nonsense style of wit, along with his lifelong connection to southeastern Wisconsin, will make him a formidable opponent for Ryan, who has held the district since 1999. And Bryce, in announcing his bid for the seat, has come out swinging. He released his first campaign ad to great fanfare yesterday (just search “Bryce” on Twitter to see the people who have lauded this ad). One noteworthy message of praise simply states that Bryce was “genetically engineered from Bruce Springsteen songs.” But you should really see the ad for yourself. And then you should share it with whoever you can, especially if they live in the First Congressional District of Wisc...

The building, which sits on MLK Blvd, would be incredibly symbolic of the 44th president’s importance The City-County Building in downtown Madison should absolutely, without any reservation whatsoever, be named after the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama. Local leaders from both the city of Madison and Dane County are hoping to do just that, Madison.com reports . Important names of presidents frequently adorn schools, buildings, and other monuments, and it makes perfect sense that the first African-American president should have his name on an official building in Madison — especially given its location. The City-County Building sits on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Madison. It was King who spoke of “his dream” in 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. that justice would one day become “a reality for all of God's children.” “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold t...

In weekend tweet, Walker neglects (purposely?) how much worse GOP plan for healthcare would be Scott Walker issued several tweets this weekend from his official governor’s account, one of which caught my eye for being extremely disingenuous. Walker argued that keeping the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in place would leave tens of millions uninsured over the next decade. Obamacare is collapsing. If nothing changes, 28 million Americans will lack insurance by 2026 under Obamacare (according to CBO) — Governor Walker (@GovWalker) June 10, 2017 Walker’s words echo President Donald Trump’s statements that claim Obamacare is in a “death spiral.” That assessment, however, has been found false on many occasions. Obamacare isn’t failing — sure, it can use a tune-up, but it’s negative aspects don’t justify dismantling all the positives it has accomplished. But Walker’s tweet goes even lower, trying to instill fear that the law is failing using numbers that are highly misleadin...

Younger workers see no motivation to stay in a state with bad economic conditions, conservative politics A new study suggests that Millennials in Milwaukee are starting to leave the big city, and probably the state in general. From WISN : According to a new article on Time magazine's website, most urban centers saw an increase in millennials from 2010 to 2015 and 11 cities saw a decline. The Urban Land Institute said Milwaukee's urban millennial population saw a negative change of 1.8 percent. Much of the blame for the loss of young talent rests with the fact that there aren’t enough jobs available to millennials, the article goes on to say. In January of 2016, I wrote a post in response to a letter to the editor I had read in the Stevens Point Journal. The letter writer suggested that, “Millennials and younger voters are likely not in sync with Walker’s and Republicans’ policies,” and I further asserted that economic opportunities (or rather, the lack thereof) hin...

UW should protect all speech, but proposed bill in the legislature isn’t necessary Just a quick rant this afternoon... The question of the so-called “free speech” bill making its way through the state legislature has me thinking a lot about the idea of what speech is tolerable or not. I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I even own a flag that was flown over the U.S. Capitol Building in 2010 to honor that amendment, which includes speech rights. I’m a huge proponent that any political thought or opinion should be defended — even if it’s deemed an intolerable idea by most. So bigots do have a right to speak their mind, and they do have a right to demonstrate their ideas. But that doesn’t mean that others can’t argue against them. Speech that some deem intolerable can be protested against, and this type of speech shouldn’t be regulated either, except to prevent violence and harm to others. If protests limit the ability of people to speak in a p...

Even by Walker’s standards, Wisconsin has failed under his “leadership” In my earlier post this week about the latest Wisconsin jobs report , I mentioned how Walker has failed to create conditions to help the economy reach the 250,000 jobs promise he made for his first term in office. We’d have come closer to that promise if we had just kept pace with the jobs created during the first year of recovery in Wisconsin, under former (Democratic) Gov. Jim Doyle. This failure on Walker’s part hasn’t gone completely unnoticed. In fact, just a couple of months ago, Walker changed the metric of success, saying that manufacturing wages was the real measure to look out for. This post will focus primarily on that issue, so here’s the background of what Walker said in March from WPR : "It's not just how many jobs — it's are those jobs paying at a significant level," Walker said. "If we see wages go up in manufacturing, to me, that's my ultimate goal." So ...

To reach failed goal of 250,000 jobs would take more than two years from today I’m late to the game here — Wisconsin’s latest jobs numbers came out on Friday — but I have a good excuse: I was heading to the northwoods, making an early getaway on this Memorial Day weekend to spend time with family. Which I suspect is what Gov. Scott Walker and his administration was hoping for, but on a grander scale. Dropping bad news on the eve of a three-day weekend makes it less likely that people will pay attention to what’s happened. And what has happened? Wisconsin’s latest jobs numbers show a dismal 0.48 percent growth in jobs from December 2015 to December 2016, amounting to less than 1,000 jobs created per month, or around 11,590 jobs created total. We can’t yet compare that outcome to what happened around the rest of the country — Wisconsin releases its jobs numbers a full month ahead of the federal report on jobs. So we’ll have to wait and see what this means when compared to ou...

Sharper decline of unemployment occurred under Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle Scott Walker made a powerful tweet this morning, alleging that his administration was responsible for a substantial drop in unemployment. Except, there’s one glaring problem. Take a closer look at the tweet: The unemployment rate in WI peaked at 9.2% before we took office. Now it is 3.2%. — Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) May 22, 2017 Walker states that unemployment “peaked” at 9.2 percent “before we took office.” It then ignores the fact that A WHOLE YEAR PASSED BY before he assumed the governorship. That's a slight of hand that Walker is hoping you don't notice. But even that ignores another important fact: Walker’s first budget didn’t take effect until July of 2011. So there were six additional months of Walker’s predecessor’s policies in play before Walker’s budget took hold. In those 18 months, the unemployment rate sank to 7.8 percent. That’s an unemployment rate drop of 1.4 percen...

Lawmakers should look at citizens from cities AND rural areas as equals I wrote last winter about the idea of a “rural elitism” taking shape across the nation and Wisconsin — that some individuals from rural areas believe their political beliefs and needs are more important than the beliefs and needs of people in cities and suburban locales. My concerns with rural elitism aren’t so much that I believe city people are better or more deserving of attention. The needs of those who live out in the country should be addressed. And the Democratic Party, in Wisconsin particularly, ought to consider ways to reach out to voters who haven’t identified with them in recent elections. But I do take issue with the idea that the cities should be ignored, or that the opinions of those in urban areas aren’t even worth discussing. Recently while browsing through Twitter during the state Republican Party’s convention, I saw that GOP state Sen. Roger Roth made a very curious statement. Ac...

The Milwaukee Co. Sheriff conjures an imaginary bogeyman, and argues that criticism nullifies the will of the people Give Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County his due: he was an early supporter of Donald Trump during his campaign for president. And now, the sheriff (himself embattled) is doubling-down on his support for the the controversial commander-in-chief, even as Trump faces mounting criticism and possible impeachment for a plethora of issues. Clarke sent this tweet out on Tuesday evening, defending the president against the so-called “establishment” that’s trying to ruin his presidency. The continued attacks on our President is the establishment trying to nullify the will of We the People who elected him to lead this country pic.twitter.com/sJO1Akvn2s — David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 17, 2017 “The continued attacks on our President is the establishment trying to nullify the will of We the People who elected him to lead this country” — that’s quite a m...

GOP’s concerns need to turn into definitive actions against this reckless president Far too many Republicans are accepting of President Donald Trump’s behavior. This goes beyond his term in office — as a candidate, the GOP begrudgingly accepted him as the leader of their party, even as evidence surfaced that he assaulted women sexually. That alone disqualifies the president from being a leader we can trust. But now, reporting from the Washington Post indicates the president gave top-secret classified information to Russian officials, information that compromises an Ally of ours and greatly delegitimizes the standing of the United States in the world as a leader. Trump’s communications team categorically denied the report, but Trump himself this morning on Twitter seemed to confirm that he did indeed share this information with the Kremlin. One Republican member of Congress from Wisconsin, Mike Gallagher from District 8, has actually said that the president ought to be held...