Study says Mass Shootings mostly Domestic Violence targeting Women and Children.

Guns aren't like knives or cars. The fact that we even have to make that distinction should tell you how far down the rabbit hole we've gone over concealed carry in Wisconsin. So it shouldn't be to much of a surprise that Republicans here are now pushing the right to carry a gun without a background check and training:

Republican State Sen. David Craig introduced legislation this week that would allow Wisconsinites to carry concealed firearms without training or a permit ... Giving citizens access to those constitutional rights has panned out well in the past, he said. 

“And if other states are doing this without ill effect, and we’ve had the level of permitless carry in Wisconsin without ill effect, why would we not break down that barrier?

"Without ill effect?" Overall, the GOP backed culture of guns has had a profound effect in Wisconsin. If only the dead could throw their two cents in now:

Even worse, Republicans seem more concerned about protecting supposed responsible gun owners with new laws that give them a pass for being reckless, like carrying a gun on school grounds.

A new report on mass shootings says it all. Everytown for Gun Safety inventoried all mass shootings between 2009 and 2016. The black bar represent child deaths, the green represents total deaths per year 2009-2016:

The majority of mass shootings——were related to domestic or family violence.

The connection between mass shootings and domestic violence ... 54 percent of cases ... domestic violence mass shootings resulted in 422 victims being killed—more than 40 percent (181) of whom were children.

About 4.5 million American women report that they have had an intimate partner threaten them with a gun. (4) And guns make it more likely that domestic abuse will turn fatal—when a gun is present in a domestic violence situation, the likelihood that a woman will be shot and killed increases fivefold. (5)

But for Sen. Craig, the fate of threatened women and children...is sealed:

The bill makes it easier for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, he said, and those intent on using guns for illegal purposes will do so anyway.

“And at the end of the day, people who are hell-bent on conducting violence with a firearm are going to do that,” Craig said.

The Everytown study also found: 

Additionally, there is not a single mass shooting in Everytown’s database in which the shooter was stopped by an armed civilian—even in cases where there were armed civilians present.

Wisconsin now has a well deserved reputation for its crackpot legislators. Like Rep. Bob Gannon, who recently wanted to pass a law penalizing businesses with "gun free zones" for their customers. That's a very bad idea, according to the new research:

Only ten percent of incidents took place in “gun-free zones”, or areas where civilians are prohibited from carrying firearms and there is not a regular armed law enforcement presence (armed security guards, for example). The vast majority of incidents—63 percent—took place entirely in private homes.

Instead, Gannon's use of "Republican logic" flipped reality on its head:

WSJ: Gannon’s proposal, dubbed the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act,” would go a step further in discouraging gun-free zones by allowing a victim of gun violence to sue businesses with such bans and recover triple the amount of damages without regard to who was at fault.

Gannon: "Just so you know, my state business, my other job is selling property and liability insurance. Wisconsin does not have a death penalty law, but with significant practice and careful aim, law-abiding citizens can help clean our society of these scumbags ... If you’re going to allow somebody to come in and put a bullet in my brain, you should have some liability ... If one in twenty at that mall had the ability to drop the creep, it would sure bring it to a close in a hurry. I refer to that as self defense. If it happens to terminate the bad guy, too bad, so sad-dy."

"The reason I put this out today is because we're getting all this baloney with the Democrats singing along again. You see Democrats think they can deal with this violence by having sing-a-longs, and having big food buffets in the House of Representatives in Washington D.C....they do that in Milwaukee too you know, they march around, they sing, and then they stop and have lunch and they think that's dealing with violence...instead of babbling about it on the radio, or in your marching circles, in your sing-a-long at the state Capitol..." 

And for those "fiscal conservatives," well, that's a laugh?

The University of Chicago Crime Lab has issued a new report, “Gun Violence Among School-Age Youth in Chicago." [1] The Chicago Tribune, March 3, 20009, reports:

“The social costs of gun violence in Chicago total about $2.5 billion each year, according to a report released Tuesday by an academic group formed to research effective ways to reduce violent crime … used interviews, focus groups, police data and social research to characterize factors underlying Chicago's escalating murder rate.

Expanding upon previous research that every crime-related gunshot wound causes around $1 million in social costs, the report's four authors calculated the annual cost of gun violence at $2.5 billion, or $2,500 per Chicago household.” $2.5 billion dollars just for Chicago. Imagine how much gun violence is costing our entire country.

Republicans ignore Jobs, Wages, Business Startups...dream up ways to stay in Power.

Imagine finally electing a Democratic governor, bringing to an end one party Republican rule. Well, that's not going to make much difference if Republicans get their way.

The scheme is simple and costly to taxpayers: Our Republican gerrymandered legislature is planning to insert their own partisan “inspector generals” into the governors agencies to supposedly stop what they would call “waste, fraud and abuse.” Hey, it’s just oversight of the executive branch, that’s all, a not so separation of powers grab.

And it would cost every budget tight department hundreds of thousands of dollars. LaCrosse Tribune:

Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill that … could cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars and open the door to cronyism, according to critics.

Not mentioned in the article? How this proposal sets up an earlier Republican idea that would get rid of the Legislative Audit Bureau. That didn't go over very well, but who knows, maybe no one will notice this time.

And with their partisan “inspector generals” in place for 6 years, they could muck up and delay state agencies until another election cycle.

Craig

Rep. David Craig and Sen. Stephen Nass’ proposal calls for 13 inspectors general … assigned to investigate waste, fraud and abuse across 16 state agencies, including the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and the departments of Administration, Corrections, Natural Resources and Public Instruction.

And what about conveniently timed “investigations:”

Legislative leaders also could direct the inspectors general to investigate agencies.

Of course they could. 

The inspectors general would be more pro-active than the Legislative Audit Bureau, which typically launches its reviews after the fact, they said. The party that controls the Legislature can further entrench itself by placing its inspectors general appointees within state agencies for six years. The inspectors general may feel beholden to launch or drop investigations according to partisan wishes.

Matt Rothschild, executive director of government watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, warned “This could increase cronyism. It could increase corruption. It could entrench one-party rule. All three of those things are bad for democracy.”

You might have noticed the enemy of public education and the UW, Sen. Steve Nass, will have his inspector hitman inside the university to dig up another convenient phony outrage to cut even more funding. 

Republican Fiscal Clowns Propose Politically Filtered Audits.

So, Republican voters would rather not know if their hard earned money is being spent wisely by their party leaders? I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised after seeing how easy it was for Walker to just keep borrowing money for transportation with no constituent outrage.  

Tweedledee and Tweedledumb!!!

I also wondered why I didn’t hear a peep out of “stand with Walker” trolls when Scottie wanted to change WEDC again, but this time with no financial oversight whatsoever.  

When that happened, Walker and his band of legislative pirates took their cue, and thought, “what the heck let’s get rid of the Legislative Audit Bureau.” After-all, they catch bad management after the fact, when it’s too late, embarrassing for them, at when no one cares anymore. Check out the pretzel logic:

Wisconsin Republicans propose abolishing the Legislative Audit Bureau: The Legislative Audit Bureau has been the source of some bad news lately for Republicans and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation they created in 2011. Now, two GOP lawmakers have a solution: eliminate the bureau.

State Reps. David Craig and Adam Jarchow, are looking for co-sponsors for their proposal to abolish the audit bureau and replace it with independent inspectors general who would be placed in state agencies … an email the two representatives sent to fellow lawmakers; "Unfortunately, the statutory process under which the LAB operates focuses more on retrospective examination rather than proactive fiscal action and bad practice deterrence. In many instances, by the time an audit has occurred the political will (or new legislative composition) necessary to change a state program has diminished." In recent years, the audit bureau has uncovered numerous problems with the state's flagship job creation agency, which is chaired by Gov. Scott Walker. 

So why not give politicians complete control over the messaging, the audits…or concealment of the data? I'll bet there won't be a peep from the conservative peanut gallery we know as low information voters:

"Why would legislators want to do away with the Legislative Audit Bureau?" said state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, the Democratic caucus vice chair. "Could it be they don't want to know what's happening?" Vinehout said the bill would put audits under the direction of the leaders in the GOP-controlled Legislature, as opposed to the current system of having the LAB overseen by a bipartisan legislative committee. "The breadth of their ignorance of the LAB is staggering," Vinehout said. "It shows a complete unfamiliarity with the skills of the auditors, the efficiencies in government that the LAB helped create, with the fraud, waste and abuse that the auditors have discovered, and further prevented through their oversight."

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha called the proposal one of the worst ideas in a legislative session fraught with bad ideas. “Changing the nonpartisan, award-winning Legislative Audit Bureau into partisan appointees continues the Republican efforts to reduce oversight of state government," he said.

This letter to the editor says it all:

I cannot but express my utter embarrassment to be a registered Republican. Already a rarity in Madison and Dane County, I would hope Republicans would value my vote enough to be mindful that I vote based on rationality and that eliminating a government post in retribution for its doing a good job is one of the most counter-intuitive proposals I have read in years. Politics play a role but when a quality organization such as the LAB is subject to petty attempts at retribution for pointing out the obvious failures of one of the governor’s pet projects, the politics have gone too far.

Esquire columnist Charles Pierce wrote this wonderfully insightful piece: 

First, they went after the state's Government Accountability Board, the eight-year old watchdog agency that, among other things, allowed the citizens to attempt to recall Walker and some of his more conspicuous lapdogs. And now, because it is doing what it is chartered to do, and is investigating whether or not Walker's campaigns illegally coordinated with "outside" groups in his past few campaigns, the pet legislature is proposing to "restructure" it. Keep that phrase in mind.

Then, in the wake of Walker's having been fired from his own economic development corporation, the pack of poodles descended on something called the Legislative Audit Bureau, which was central to demonstrating what a waste of cheap cronyism said agency was. This is especially egregious in this case because Scott Walker never has held a political office that he has not so deformed by his political ambitions that people actually went to jail over it. This is a singularly corrupt man, even by the standards of the our new era of decriminalized influence peddling. He never has run a campaign in his life that wasn't shot through with penny-ante grifting. There is no reason to believe this one is any different.

Vos and Fitzgerald prepare for Walker loss, block future governor from creating state ObamaCare exchange.

With a possible loss of the governorship, Republicans are now scrambling to block a Democratic winner from having the same kind of control Scott Walker’s had the last 3 years.

In another sign of panic, state Republicans don’t want to see the following happen here:

WaPo: An Ohio board has voted to accept $2.5 billion in federal funds to expand its Medicaid program. The Republican-controlled legislature declin(ed) to approve the expansion, [Ohio Gov. John Kasich] instead sought the expansion on his own … Some Ohio House Republicans are prepared to sue the Kasich administration for moving forward on the Medicaid expansion after they did not approve the program.  

Anticipating continued control of our legislature via gerrymandered districts, the GOP hopes to strangle the governor’s power. Remember the names of the rightwing authoritarians listed below:

WSJ: Creating a state-run health insurance exchange in Wisconsin would require legislative approval under a bill being circulated by Republicans. Gov. Scott Walker opted for the federal government, not the state, to run Wisconsin's exchange under the Affordable Care Act. 

"We as a legislature must ensure that any attempts to setup an exchange in the future have legislative input," said Rep. David Craig, R-Big Bend, and Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa. The bill would prohibit the state from requesting federal money or using state money to create an exchange.

So much for their typical fall back line of defense, "carrying out the will of the people."

Wisconsin Proud to pass a law supporting Race Based Mascots!!!

Rep. David "haggis-hunter" Craig (R-Vernon) wants to make sure race based mascot names, now and in the future, proliferate and become just another proud fixture of our state image.

"Haggistani" Craig would make it almost impossible to ban an offensive mascot. "(It) violates the basic foundations of due process that our nation holds so dear."

Forget about the name, let's focus on due process…! "Bloody jock" Craig has a few supporters too, like "bog trotter" Shawn McNulty, Mukwonago's school superintendent, who defended the schools American Indian name by saying it “amounts to a guilty-until-proven-innocent policy that ‘hasn't been used since the Salem witch trials.’"

State Representative Steve "the Kraut" Nass, is another big supporter of racial mascots.

From this WISC coverage, watch Craig do his best "Fat Bastard" impression responding to the argument reversing the law would "set(s) an acceptable level of discrimination in state statute," putting the state into a tailspin:

"Talk about a tailspin this state has been in. The state was put in a tailspin when you all had the majority economically and otherwise."  

In a sad piece of press from NorthJersey.com:

DPI Superintendent Tony Evers said it wouldn't be proper to transfer name-change orders to the Department of Administration, which is controlled by the governor. He said no one would be able to meet the minimum signature requirement, allowing race-based mascots to remain in place forever.

Barbara Munson, an Oneida Indian who chairs the Wisconsin Indian Education Association's Indian Mascot and Logo Task Force, called the measure racist.

"That's terrible. That's anti-educational. It's racist," she said. "For 21 years I've avoided that term. But it's almost impossible to ... describe this particular action in any other way."

Barbara Munson, an Oneida Indian who chairs the Wisconsin Indian Education Association's Indian Mascot and Logo Task Force, called the measure racist.
"That's terrible. That's anti-educational. It's racist," she said. "For 21 years I've avoided that term. But it's almost impossible to ... describe this particular action in any other way."
- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/sports/225382552_Wis__bill_would_guard_race-based_school_nicknames.html#sthash.87lqoIba.dpuf

Have a problem with State planned Roundabouts? Have the state Transportation Department fix it.

Sure, a lot of us hate roundabouts, but over time they're really not so bad. Yet when you have 3 or 4 round-a-bouts in a row, in the middle of nowhere like you'll find just outside of Mt. Horeb, it can be frustrating. I'm assuming Mt. Horeb has a reason for their roundabouts, perhaps plans to become a major metropolitan city at some point in the future.

It's the Walker Authority's transportation department's problem if you don't like what they're doing. Maybe the administration should take some responsibility and address the issue.

Instead, and so typical of our freeloading Republican politicians, Rep. David Craig would rather pass the problem off onto local communities under guise of "local control." Oh sure, now they're for it after trashing local sick pay laws, tenant/landlord regulations, local taxes, local voucher schools...etc.

At least one guy, in a community that has had roundabouts longer than anyone, says take some responsibility, fix it on the state level:

WBAY: Howard has the longest history of the circular intersections in Wisconsin. "We're always clamoring for local control, so I'd hate to be hypocritical and say we shouldn't have local control," Paul Evert said. But that's just how Howard Village Administrator Evert feels when it comes to roundabouts: Let the State decide where they should go.

"There's a huge public benefit. You won't have T-bone accidents and you won't have a head-on collision which are really the most fatal and damaging of all accidents, so to actually kind of throw this out there, when you have good solid statistics and engineering and opinions that they're the way to go is a little bit of a concern," Evert said.

But to Rep. David Craig, this sounds like a whole lot of work, and not something he's going to find readily in his "government for dummies" ALEC manual.