Political Heat

TWENTY-SEVEN WISCONSINITES DIED FROM coronavirus in a single 24-hour period, according to numbers released by the state Department of Health Services website on Wednesday. It's the highest number of deaths the state has seen from the disease since the pandemic reached our borders. But for some, 27 might be a small number.  Let's put it into perspective. Wisconsin has approximately 5.8 million residents. If you extrapolated the number of deaths reported in the state on Wednesday to a population equivalent to the country's (328 million), there would be approximately 1,470 people who had died. According to the New York Times, as of yesterday the U.S. was seeing a 7-day average of 733 deaths per day . In other words, Wisconsin's death rate from coronavirus, as of Wednesday, is more than double what the nation is seeing at this time. We need to do better. Unfortunately, too many Republican leaders in the state legislature don't agree, do not believe that any action is ...

THE PASSING OF Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the subsequent battle that is being set up as a result, is a consequence of a failed system that demonstrates how, in recent years, we've made an institution that shouldn't be political into just that. With Sen. Mitt Romney's (R-Utah) announcement on Tuesday that he will support the nomination process for a new justice ahead of the presidential election — bucking the precedent that was set by Mitch McConnell and other Republicans in 2016 when former President Barack Obama had sought to name Judge Merrick Garland to the High Court — there's a high possibility that a "lame duck" appointment by current President Donald Trump will be named to the Supreme Court, likely after he has lost the presidential race itself in November. If that happens, many Democrats will make pleas to "pack the court" after Joe Biden gets sworn in, assuming he does indeed win the election; and, given the highly-par...

  WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN allowed time to grieve and reflect upon the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; but alas, we live in abnormal times where, mere hours after her death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would push to vote on replacing her swiftly , as soon as President Donald Trump put forth a nominee to do so. Trump, less than one day after Ginsburg's departure, announced he would do so sometime within the next week . So we have little time to grieve and must react to this newest development.  McConnell's actions are, as many have pointed out, hypocritical : he had blocked a judicial appointment for Barack Obama in 2016 because it was nine months out from an election, arguing that the next president should have a say in who gets to sit on the High Court.  Presently, we are less than 6 weeks away from Election Day 2020. Some have already cast their ballots for president in early-voting states (with the understanding that the next president was to...