The Myth of the "Fiscal Conservative."

I thought it was funny how Republicans were planning to put the Democrats on the spot for the midterms, by forcing a vote to make the middle-class tax cuts permanent instead of phasing them out to pay for the corporate tax cuts. I guess that passes for strategy these days.

Yet I think most Americans are wise to the scam:

1. The Republican-controlled Congress followed up their corporate tax cuts with a massive omnibus budget that boosts spending past previous budget caps by $300 billion over two years.

2. Most Americans have not noticed a larger paycheck since the law was enacted, according to a CNBC poll released in March.

3. A recent analysis from the pro-reform group Americans for Tax Fairness found that 433 corporations out of the Fortune 500 have not offered any bonuses or wage increase to employees since the passage of corporate tax cuts. Instead, the analysis found, companies spent 37 times as much on stock buybacks.

4. Just 27 percent of Americans think the GOP tax cuts were a good idea, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Monday. In other words, the Republican tax plan has actually gotten less popular with voters over time. But popularity was never really the goal, was it? The point was to starve the federal government of tax revenue in order to justify slashing the social safety net — something Republicans in Congress and the White House began to address in earnest last week.

5. On Tax Day 2018, just one week after House Speaker Paul Ryan announced his retirement at the age of 48 — after spending his entire adult life on the government “dole” — Republicans have once again laid bare their true intentions. Passing a deficit-busting tax bill was intended to explode the national debt and thereby endanger future funding for the tattered remnants of the social safety net that survived welfare reform in the 1990s — including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Scott Walker's Act 10 and Emergency Teaching License Increases!!! Walker's own "manufactured crisis."

Wisconsin was a leader in vilifying the teaching profession thanks to Act 10, and taking education down a peg or two on accountability:

Teacher Shortages Getting Worse: Act 10 is now collapsing the teaching profession, as predicted, just in time for Scott Walker to run for reelection. It seems rural support might be slipping too, as they scramble to approve referendums and deal with teacher shortages:

In 2015, four years after the law’s collective-bargaining limits reshaped the profession, the smallest group of juniors and seniors in two decades was enrolled in teaching programs at the state’s public universities. Some 25% of school districts are reporting an “extreme shortage” of job-seekers for key positions. Wauwatosa Superintendent Phil Ertl told parents at a meeting: “People are being driven away from the teaching profession. It’s not a lifelong career anymore.”

JS: The “Order of the State Superintendent for Public Instruction Adopting Emergency Rules” (is) causing big concern in perhaps every school district and independent school in Wisconsin … Who’s going to fill the remaining open teaching jobs we have? Are we really getting the best people we feasibly could to work in our classrooms?  

"Not Doing much to Increase the Quality:" This is not the kind of quote you want to hear from a principle when you've got kids in school, like in Bangor, WI.



Beyond Walker's Act 10 Teacher Shortages: The shortages go beyond teachers and their substitutes. And to think, this was all about Walker defunding unions and the Democratic Party to get an edge up in state elections:

Some critics put a considerable amount of the blame on political forces opposed to teachers’ unions and in favor of using public money to pay for private schools. One outspoken advocate of such views is Tim Slekar, dean of the School of Education at Edgewood College in Madison.

He called the teacher shortage “a manufactured crisis” and said that changing licensing requirements “will do nothing except dramatically increase systemic inequity and genuinely harm the teaching profession.”

“Softening teacher license policies or doing away with the license altogether will kill the profession and turn teaching into a low-wage service sector,” Slekar said.

With all this in mind, it seems we're now having to deal with a whole new set of problems. The effect was predictable. And yet, even after the mass longtime teacher retirements:

No known poll has asked Wisconsinites about Act 10 in the months leading up to Walker's statement on April 1, 2014, and his staff did not cite one.

Walker, Republicans trying to turn Wisconsin Scenery into Frac Sand Mining Hellscape.

It can't be this easy for the Scott Walker campaign to go unscathed after what he's done, especially to his rural voting base. Walker's environmental teardown? What the hell do rural voters see in him?

The Walker Hurt-List Grows: Environmentally, Republicans will stop at nothing to privatize, destroy, and turn state land over to any and all business interests. This is ugly:

Road Side Attraction off 94?

DNR Staff Felt Pressure To Approve Wetland Fill For Frac Sand Mining Project. Emails Show Frustration Over Lack Of Information From Company And Tight Deadlines Set By DNR Administration:

A judge will decide if the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources followed the law when it approved the project last year. Atlanta-based Meteor Timber bought 50,000 acres of Wisconsin forestland and became the largest private landowner in the state. After discovering 137 million tons of frac sand on property it purchased the company proposed building a mine.

Emails ... show staff felt rushed to issue the permit even though they didn’t have basic information about the site of Meteor Timber's planned mitigation project ... staff were told to approve the company's permit no matter what and were even told what questions they could ask and what data they could collect. 

The DNR approved Meteor Timber’s application ... That day former DNR Wetland and Waterways Section Chief Martye Griffin sent an email congratulating his team for writing permits for the wetland fill and a creek realignment just two days after getting new information from the company.

What was in the email? You won't believe this...but under Walker, maybe you will:

"For these staff to set aside the questions, uncertainty, and confusion stemming from the new information and cope with the stress and expectation of delivering high performance resulting in not one but two heavily complicated permits written in 48 hours is an achievement that I don't think can be equaled and that achievement should be properly recognized as such," wrote Griffin.

Late-night Behind the Voters Back Scheme: Sneaky trick on constituents?

A real rural friend? 

State Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, slipped in an amendment to exempt the frac sand project from state wetland regulations into an unrelated wetland bill in a late-night maneuver ... but state Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay, blocked it from moving to the Senate floor ... On March 28, Tusler tried again to get an exemption for Meteor Timber. This time he tacked his amendment to a Senate bill aiming to make it easier for convicted criminals to get jobs. That bill also died in the Senate. Tusler didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story. Cowles told the Associated Press the attempt to exempt Meteor Timber from state laws was "outrageous."

Time with the family...?

Steamed Brats?

Ag Schimel appeals to base bragging up scheme to suppress voting.

Scott Walker's simpleton lackey AG Brad Schimel just admitted voter ID was meant to suppress certain targeted voters from casting a ballot. Sometimes these guys forget that everyone can hear them. 

Based on decades of research, we already know our elections were "clean" and "honest," Schimel's slip of the tongue and concluding lie confirms what we already knew...he's a tool:

"We battled to get voter ID on the ballot for the November '16 election," Schimel told conservative host Vicki McKenna on WISN (1130 AM) on Thursday. "How many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Senator (Ron) Johnson was going to win re-election or President Trump was going to win Wisconsin if we didn’t have voter ID to keep Wisconsin’s elections clean and honest and have integrity?"

Funny thing, the "Soros" money used to challenge voter ID laws is simply being used to find out if they're constitutional. What is Schimel or any Republican afraid of? I guess if the money dried up to make these challenges, all would be well? 

He has fought in court to keep the law in place and his opponent, Josh Kaul, is the lead attorney challenging it and a host of other election laws. Kaul "works for George Soros going across the country suing states that have voter ID laws," Schimel said.

Apple sells drooling fans HomePod junk!

The smart speaker market is dominated by the Amazon Echo and Google Home.

And yet Apple had the balls to think their HomePod wasn't just a good idea, but a hands down competitor right out of the gate. LOL.

My god I hate Apple, and here's why. They really thought their HomePod was another great Apple "innovation" that people would just fall in love with?

Three weeks after the HomePod launched, it nabbed only 4 percent of sales.

See if you can spot the problems:

1. The limitations around Siri.

2. It works directly only with Apple Music.


3. The $349 price could also be turning some prospective shoppers off.

4. It doesn't help that the HomePod was found to damage furniture, leaving an unsightly ring. 

Ya think? But those in the Apple bubble have another takeaway:

Apple pitched the device not necessarily as a competitor to Amazon's Echo, but rather as a high-end speaker. Apple has long viewed HomePod as a speaker first and internally viewed the device as an accessory that would work with other Apple products rather than a standalone product.

Oh sure, that's the ticket. 

Republican blames Deficit Explosion on "the thing that Washington always does," not Massive Tax Cuts!

Here they go again. Remember when Republicans distanced themselves from George W. Bush because of the Great Recession and endless wars? They never really liked him I guess.

Republicans Regret Deficit-Increasing Tax Cuts? Yup. Republicans never intended to increase the deficit with their massive tax cuts, believe it or not. Even after the CBO warned them.

Best and Most Embarrassing Tax Cut Walk Back: Republican Rep. Jim Jordan's laughable regret is a wonder to watch:

Jordan: "I'm very bothered by it...yet we did the thing that Washington always does, the swamp always does, we just said let's just spend more money on everything, push the bill off onto someone else in the future. Yea, I'm very concerned about it, every member should be concerned about it. 

Retire nonsensical "Letting People Keep more of the Money" bullshit: Jordan goes over the top justifying the upcoming huge $1.9 trillion dollar deficit by claiming to "let people keep more of their money?" Uh, until they have to pay that and the rest of the debt back?

Jordan: "So I don't buy into the idea that letting the American people keep their money is somehow a cost to the government. I think it is just good policy letting you keep what you earn, letting the economy grow...

...ready for it? Take it away Jim Jordan...

Jordan: "The problem with the deficit and debt is spending, it's not letting people keep their money, it's not tax cuts, it's spending. Those tax cuts are good, they are going to produce better economic growth, we know that, and people are going to keep more of their money...the problem is spending."

And who did the spending? Jordan already said it; the Republican swamp.

Walker's "Unelected Bureaucrats" to Trash Northern Wisconsin's Scenic Water Areas!!!

How many times have you heard Republicans whine about "unelected bureaucrats" making policy? Too many times, I know. So guess what...? 

Ah, the sound and smell
of nature...

WSJ: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is trying to open up another quiet northern woodland to motorized off-road vehicles. But this time the DNR plans to use a less-formal approach that allows an agency administrator to make the decision rather than running it through the department’s policy board ... (telling) an association of area property owners that an agency administrator would decide whether to approve a trail in the Turtle-Flambeau Scenic Waters Area. That’s a switch from a previously announced plan...

Poof! Can't use "Unelected Bureaucrat" anymore? The party claiming to have a higher calling isn't messing around, and won't be stopped:

Department spokesman Jim Dick (said) “The department is still talking through the master planning process...” Dick didn’t respond when asked specifically ...

A public meeting on the proposed amendment was scheduled, but in a March 15 email the DNR ... canceled and said another would be scheduled ... When members of a lakefront association asked why the change was made, the DNR said in a March 23 email obtained by Bewley’s office that the proposed trail “meets the definition for a variance but not an amendment” based on the state administrative rule that governs park planning.

In other words, "unelected bureaucrats" will decide anyway, for ATV special interests of course, despite public opposition:

The Turtle Flambeau Flowage and Trude Lake Property Owners Association opposed the trail, saying it would run counter to the recreation area’s objective of preserving a natural and scenic landscape.

“We believe that an amendment to this plan to allow for additional motorized trail development would radically alter the entire scope of the management plan and go contrary to the #1 objective,” association president Jeffrey Malison told the DNR in a Jan. 25 letter.

Hear those ATV's Engines Roar: Wouldn't it be great to drive through scenic areas once intended to preserve the states natural habitat and showcase Wisconsin's great outdoors?

The Turtle-Flambeau Scenic Waters Area covers more than 8,000 acres of submerged land and about 200 islands in Iron County near the border with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The state purchased the land in 1990. It is popular for hiking, primitive camping and fishing for walleye, muskies, bass and perch. The area is home to the state’s largest populations of bald eagle and osprey, the DNR says.

What Far-Left "Hate" and "Anger?"

Just once I'd like the news media to get a slick politician like Scott Walker to provide an example, just so the voting public can see for themselves, what he considers liberal anger and hate.

Just one example please from any one of the candidates running for governor? Or maybe just one of the candidates running in the special election or upcoming November elections?

Criticism...Hate, eh, it's all the same? We may not be asking Walker about "anger" and "hate" and his campaigns sharp focus on that ol' divide and conquering strategy, but WKOW's Emilee Fannon did question Walker's comment by asking NextGen America's Tom Steyers about it:

Steyer: "There's no anger and there's no hatred involved, in fact, we're trying to pull the country back together."

Steyer defended the tweet by asking when the last time the Koch Brothers were on a college campus.

“When’s the last time the Koch brothers were on a campus and explained what there doing or explain what their spending and how and why. Fact of the matter is that I do believe money is very corrupt in American politics, I personally show up and also make sure everything we do doesn’t benefit me or impact my personal income."

It's easy to see from Steyer's comment above that he's an "extreme billionaire activist" pushing his "far-left" agenda. Those outside billionaire's and their money, what could be worse...?

In an email from Kate Doner, who was raising money for Walker, to Gilkes, Johnson and Walker, she spells out the fundraising plan: “Take Koch's money -Get on a plane to Vegas and sit down with Sheldon Adelson. Ask for $1m now. -Corporations. Go heavy after them to give. -Create new c4. Club for Growth name has issues."

No one wants these outside billionaire activist donors pushing their agenda in Wisconsin...right?

In addition to Adelson, there was business magnate Carl Icahn who was approached for $100,000 though nothing in the files indicates that he donated; the hedge-fund billionaire Stephen Cohen, who arranged a wire transfer of $1m; and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone who gave $25,000.

Maybe voters are catching on? It's been public knowledge now for a while...

And the money keeps pouring in from out of state:

The Republican Governors Association says it booked the television ads throughout Wisconsin for five weeks leading up to the Nov. 6 election. Walker, who was the group’s chairman in 2017, is running for his third four-year term as governor.

Walker is aware a lot of this has been publically documented...sorry, showing his millionaire/billionaire donor list must be what he calls "hate:"

And about that out-of-touch "far-left" agenda, which must be everything not far-right, the angry special interests must be stopped?

But the American public said...

As for Wisconsinites...

One more thing about Wisconsin's homegrown presidential material....

The Unpredictable John Bolton...

Paul Ryan can't take the heat...quits with huge Taxpayer Funded Pension.

Running from a fight? Yes. Apparently, Paul Ryan can't defend running up huge deficits and then blaming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Wonder why? Perhaps the CBO's recent report had something to do with it? Here's Paul Ryan's legacy?

Ryan in retirement? Get this...at 50, Ryan will get his $75,000 taxpayer-funded pension for life. 

...(as Speaker) his annual salary will get a healthy bump from $174,000 to $223,500. The Republican from Wisconsin is worth millions, according to his most recent financial disclosure form.

While Ryan leaves the U.S. in deep debt:

As the House prepares to vote this week on a largely symbolic balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, its own budget watchdog delivered a stark reality check Monday that forecasts the return of $1 trillion-plus annual deficits and a ballooning public debt that will approach $29 trillion by the end of the next decade. the latest report is the first since the GOP enacted a $1.5 trillion tax cut ... The tax law that President Trump and congressional Republicans passed in December will cut government revenue by $1.3 trillion from 2018 to 2028 ... When the costs of paying interest on that debt are included, the tax cuts’ total addition to the deficit comes to $1.9 trillion,

The national debt is on track to approach 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028, said the nonpartisan CBO, which analyzes legislation for Congress. “That amount is far greater than the debt in any year since just after World War II,” CBO said. The expiration of lower individual tax rates at the end of 2025 will add to slowed economic growth then, the CBO added.

There were $1 trillion deficit spending years most recently under President Barack Obama, primarily due to the economic downturn during the Great Recession, but deficit spending had been decreasing in recent years.

The analysis “confirms that major damage was done” by the new tax law and the spending bill, said Michael Peterson, head of the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation. “This high and rising debt matters because it harms our economy,” said Peterson, whose group backs fiscal conservatism.

“During a time of low unemployment and economic expansion, we should be taking reasonable steps to put our debt on a sustainable path – but instead we are piling up trillions of bills,” he said. 

Republicans keep Americans from being Happy!

Why do Republicans keep making life more complicated, unbearable, and cruel? It's crazy but Republicans have oddly targeted life's bigger events with Rube Goldberg "solutions." There's got to be a better use of our time.

So "what do Democrats stand for?"

Thanks to the United Nations 2017 World Happiness Report, Democrats can riff off the 3 biggest changes this country can make to make everyone happy again. Look, 19th place is a big drop from 2007's third-place ranking.

Let's help Americans live again:

All of the top 15 countries have progressive/socialist governments whose policies contribute to the contentment of their citizens. The three most significant policies for these countries are:

1. Universal free health care for their citizens.
2. Outstanding free public education.
3. Strong environmental standards and access to public lands such as parks and refuges for their citizens.

Simple, isn't it? But Republicans hate these things, which runs counter to polling:

Health and happiness are inextricably linked. All the top-ranked countries have socialized medicine so that the average citizen doesn’t have to worry about not being able to afford insurance and necessary medical care. The U.S. is the only developed nation in the world without universal health care. Compared to other developed countries U.S. citizens pay far more for their health care, and yet the U.S. ranks near the bottom in quality of their health care. In Costa Rica the death rate for heart disease is one-third less than in the U.S., even though Costa Rica spends one-tenth as much per capita on health care as the U.S.

Quality public education is the great equalizer. With a good education the poor can rise to the top; without it out their opportunities are limited. In Norway, university students draw a government stipend as well as free tuition. Compare that to the U.S. where middle-class students can finish college encumbered with almost insurmountable debt.

People are simply happier and healthier when they live in an environment with clean air and water; all of the top countries have tough, strictly enforced environmental regulations. The top-ranked countries also have large areas of public land set aside for the public to enjoy. Costa Rica has 25 percent of its land set aside as parks and refuges, whereas the U.S. has only 14 percent. Much of the public land in the U.S. is open to mining, oil drilling, logging and livestock grazing, which are not allowed on public lands in the happiest countries.

Again...:

In summary, the top-ranked countries have a social system that takes care of most people’s needs, leaving them feeling safe, comparatively healthy, and free of most of life’s biggest worries, while providing an environment where most people can make a living.

The U.S. is headed in the wrong direction ... Much of the change can be blamed directly on the impact of the Republican Party on government policies. If you’re still voting Republican you evidently feel that Americans are just too darn happy. If we can just increase American’s anxiety over health care, destroy our public education system, and return to the days when the air in our cities stunk and our rivers were flowing sewers, we can move the U.S. out of the top 50 happiest countries. Seems like an admirable goal for the Republican Party.

Thank you, Scott Walker: Back here in Wisconsin, where the Republican extreme is playing out under career politician Scott Walker (for god's sake he raised a family, from cradle to college, on taxpayer money):

The closest the U.S. has ever come to universal health care is Obamacare, but Republicans are enraged over the government doing anything at all to help its citizens obtain quality health care.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has led the nation in attacking public education both by dismantling teachers’ security through Act 10, and through the use of vouchers to divert funding from public schools to private schools, including many for-profit schools.

Walker in Wisconsin and Trump on the federal level have been a two-man wrecking crew on environmental protection. In Wisconsin, Republicans have disemboweled our once-proud and effective Department of Natural Resources and reduced protections for the environment on every front.

Rural Republicans voters realize environmental regulation not so bad...

When Wisconsinites have to spend large amounts of money to defend the value of their properties and to try and keep their water supply clean against the Republican administration's irresponsible actions, you know something is terribly wrong. GOP politicians still work for us, right?

For rural Republican voters who think government regulations are suffocating their growth, well, maybe they've changed their minds...I hope.

While Republican legislators complain wind farms are unsightly and hurt property values around them, they're perfectly fine destroying property values with very large smelly dairy farms drawing down nearby water levels with their high capacity wells and spreading manure that eventually pollutes nearby residents drinking water. Oh, and they can now take their tax cut savings and spend it saving their communities by going to court to cancel out those high capacity wells. What a deal? 

This is a rural American horror story:

Pleasant Lake in Waushara and Marquette counties ... 120-acre lake — located mostly in the town of Coloma about 60 miles west of Oshkosh — is ideal for swimming, fishing, boating and other simple pleasures. For more than a century, full-time and seasonal residents and tourists have enjoyed the central Wisconsin lake, which can be accessed from public boat landings.

However, the issuance in 2016 of two permits by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources — for a high-capacity well on a nearby farm and a new dairy farm — posed imminent threats to the lake’s water level and even the lake itself. That’s why owners of lakeside and other nearby properties decided to purchase and conserve the 105-acre Bula Farm to protect Pleasant Lake and its watershed lands — and to challenge the DNR permits in court. In May 2017, Pleasant Lake Management District members voted to purchase the land for $400,000 through a 20-year loan.
The proposed Richfield Dairy has not yet been built, but ... the Bula Farm was registered as a designated receiver of manure from the dairy — another concern for the residents. Manure spreading has been found to cause groundwater and surface-water pollution from nitrates and other contaminants of concern, especially in vulnerable areas such as Wisconsin’s Central Sands.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported Nov. 16, 2017, that the “Wisconsin Department of Revenue has found that homes near large dairy operations have been selling for as much as 13 percent below their assessed value in Kewaunee County, where odor, noise and water pollution from the sprawling feedlots have been a big problem.” PLMD president Tom Kunes said that either a high-capacity well or manure spreading “would have destroyed natural habitats and the quality of the lake. That would have been very destructive.”

Kunes noted long-term issues at stake: “Loss of lake water levels and contamination of private wells will result in degradation of both water quality and property values. This causes lake districts to spend money unnecessarily on legal actions to prevent water degradation and on purchase of nearby croplands to protect water resources.”

Justice Dallet on MSNBC...and the Millennial Student Movement a takes off!

Even after being asked specifically about Democratic support over and over by Lawrence O'Donnell, Justice Rebecca Dallet remained incredibly neutral. It was impressive, and apparently a quality that even many conservatives voted for:



The voting maps are also changing, especially in the more politically independent parts of the state. WKOW:



And we can thank the energized Millennial movement:

Voter turnout exceeded expectations in Dane county on Tuesday with Madison recording 32.2 percent. Madison Mayor Paul Soglin also says the turnout is breaking records for millennial's casting their ballots.

Mayor Soglin believe a big reason behind it is more voters are invested in the issues around them like gun reform, student loan debt and affordable housing.

“We haven't seen anything like this since the period of elections between 1968 and mid 1970's,” said Soglin. “There's a new block of voters and they showed up and they showed up in significant numbers.”

Another factor for big turnout is the NextGen American campaign that spent millions to encourage the youth to register to vote and former attorney general Eric Holder’s group the National Democratic Redistricting Committee investing $165,000 in digital ads.

NOTE: WKOW's Emilee Fannon's reporting has been impressive, considering how rough her first few weeks looked. I was worried after Greg Neumann left, but not anymore, I'm impressed.

Vukmir's fight against Union Thug Teachers, but wants to arm them?

With one son in 10th grade and another a UW freshman, I know more about schools than most Republican legislators. They're still acting out in anger over how it was "way back when" when they were in school. Uh, no comparison...lots have changed.

Leah Vukmir, warrior against Union Thugs-Teachers: Believe it or not, Republicans have unearthed the image of union thug teachers again, even after the teacher heroics we saw during a number of school shootings.

AP: Wisconsin Next PAC, with close ties to Gov. Scott Walker, has launched a $575,000 television advertising campaign running statewide in April. The TV spot also credits Vukmir with leading the fight to pass Walker's Act 10 law in 2011 ... The ad calls opponents who protested against it "union thugs" who tried to "bully Wisconsin conservatives."

Poor Wisconsin conservatives, bullied by "self-esteem" "protecting" teachers...

Five months after Columbine, Vukmir wrote that massacres would continue until educators and parents overcame their “preoccupation with protecting [teenage] self-esteem.”

Check out Lawrence O'Donnell's piece on the "union thug" teachers who became the frontline defense for OUR students. A powerful piece that is still sad and difficult to watch. Wisconsin Next PAC and Vukmir are shameless:



Oh, and Walker isn't endorsing Vukmir?

...but his wife Tonette Walker backs Vukmir and their son works for her campaign.

Vukmir against "Self-Esteem"? It's must make Vukmir angry to see these confident, civic-minded outspoken students simply trying to feel safe within their schools:



Wait, Students Love Vukmir's Plan? Vukmir tried to distract from this nationwide movement with this, despite public opposition to arming teachers and having guns in schools:

...rather than heeding the students' calls for commonsense gun safety reforms ... Leah Vukmir endorsed arming teachers and putting guns inside classrooms -- a position opposed by 56% of Americans. Vukmir doesn't believe that guns are a leading factor in school shootings. Instead, Vukmir insists, the real problem is "school programs aimed at coddling teens" and what she calls the "self-esteem movement."

Oh wait...

Vukmir is simply echoing the following incredibly surreal position of hard-right conservatives below who want the benefits of being an "adult," but none of the responsibilities:



Yikes, Vukmir already outraged over Kindergarten Reading, wanted Proof it Worked? State Sen. Vukmir's own Facebook video shows her superficial and skewed impression of public education. She voice outrage over a reading program for...kindergarteners? Really? Vukmir already knew more about the childhood reading curriculum than the school's educators.

Leah first became politically active when her daughter was learning to read. As an involved parent, Leah asked her daughter’s kindergarten teacher a question that seemed like common sense: “Can you show me the research behind this reading program?” That question landed her in the principal’s office, and then the superintendent’s.

With privatization on her mind, she apparently never respected or understood the teacher explanations that may have conflicted with her own agenda. And by the way, what Vukmir describes is the kind of public accountability we expect from teachers, principals, and superintendents, and they came through with flying colors despite Vukmir's lack of appreciation.

Walker's Tree Ring Circus...

Legalized Marijuana reduces Opioid Addiction Rates and Government Spending!!!

It's both frustrating and amusing to watch Republicans cut every business tax they can find and then offer taxpayer handouts on top of that. And yet, what Republicans ideologically steer clear of is one of the biggest drags on business; employer health insurance. If they really wanted to help business, they could pass a nationwide all-payer system that takes insurance off their backs completely.

Business Paying More for Opioid epidemic, which isn't doing anything to help control the rising cost of insurance. It'll cost large employers $2.6 billion a year;

On average, inpatient and outpatient treatment for opioid addiction and overdose added about $26 per person to the annual cost of health benefits coverage for large employers in 2016, up from about $3 in 2004.

Marijuana Reduces Opioid Addiction Rate: Wrong way Republicans are also against legalizing marijuana because...well, Dragnet 67's Joe Friday said so. It was laughably wrong then and still is:



Republicans again want to just add to the problem:

Making medical and recreational marijuana available may be one way to help fight the opioid epidemic. Two new studies published yesterday found availability of marijuana is linked with lower rates of opioid prescription rates, our colleague Christopher Ingraham reports.

The first study found the passage of medical and recreational marijuana laws led to reductions in Medicaid opiate prescription rates of 5.88 percent and 6.38 percent, respectively.

That's a huge saving, and yet Republicans are again willing to waste lots of money staying true to their backward principles:

The Trump administration has taken an adversarial stance toward states that have legalized marijuana in some fashion. The Justice Department rescinded an Obama-era policy of noninterference for state-legal marijuana operations, and the attorney general has expressed an interest in prosecuting medical marijuana providers.

Overspending is not the issue for Republicans. They've got outdated cliches to cling to:

President Trump called on researchers to “come up with a painkiller that’s not so addictive.” The latest studies suggest that such a painkiller already exists — it is called marijuana, and it is legal for medical use in 29 states and for recreational use in 9 states plus the District.

The second study found that at the state level, medical marijuana laws were connected to an 8.5 percent drop in the number of daily opioid doses filled under Medicare Part D, a 14.4 percent reduction for states with medical marijuana dispensaries and a 6.9 percent drop in states that allowed pot cultivation at home. That’s compared with states that don’t have medical marijuana laws.

“The studies are the latest in a long line of research showing that marijuana availability is associated with reductions in opiate use and misuse,” Christopher writes. The first study, by Hefei Wen of the University of Kentucky and Jason Hockenberry of Emory University, is significant for finding a link between recreational marijuana and opiate use, as most previous research has focused on medical marijuana.

"There is widespread agreement among doctors and public-health experts that marijuana is effective at treating chronic pain," Christopher writes. “These findings suggest that medical and adult-use marijuana laws have the potential to reduce opioid prescribing for Medicaid enrollees, a segment of population with disproportionately high risk for chronic pain, opioid use disorder, and opioid overdose.”

Conservative Judicial Activism on trial!

Conservative judicial activism is shredding our advancing civilized society. Just a few examples come to mind...

1. Money is Speech: Citizens United was an amazing overreach, surreal.
2. Corporations are People, with constitutional Religious Rights since Hobby Lobby.
3. The Second Amendment reinterpreted. Overturning a century and a half of established law.
4. Voting Rights. A stake through the heart of the core provision of the Voting Rights Act.
5. Supreme Court ruled police officer cannot be sued for shooting Arizona woman in her front yard. This opens up a free wheeling justification to shoot first by law enforcement.

...just to name a few. Wisconsin's court is a conservatives wet dream, with laughable GOP moments like these...

1. The unresolved 2012 complaint of misconduct by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission against Justice David T. Prosser, Jr., one count towards a lack of proper decorum and civility by telling the Chief Justice”—then Abrahamson—“in the presence of other Justices, that ‘you are a total bitch.’ ” The other count involved Prosser putting his hands around the neck of Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. (he “put his hands around my neck, holding my neck as though he were going to choke me.”)

2. The conservatives on the court eviscerated its standard for recusal ... A justice is not required to disqualify himself from a case even when one of the lawyers or the parties made a campaign contribution to him or an independent expenditure on his behalf during an election. Chief Justice Patience Drake Roggensack wrote for the conservative majority, “We elect judges in Wisconsin; therefore, judicial recusal rules have the potential to impact the effectiveness of citizens’ votes cast for judges. Stated otherwise, when a judge is disqualified from participation, the votes of all who voted to elect that judge are cancelled for all issues presented by that case.”

Wisconsin's a Leader - Running Strict Conservative Constructionist Judges: Armed with well established far-right mindless "truths," righteous Republicans poisoned the judicial branch with politics. WPR's Shawn Johnson found some amazing clips documenting just how this happened. Here's the audio, featuring these now forgotten nonpartisan words from former Justice Louis Butler back in 2008:

Butler: "I think it is inappropriate for a judge or a justice to tell you I'm a conservative or a liberal or I'm a candidate of big business or law enforcement or labor or whoever...because you're trying to send a signal that if you vote with me I'll vote with you. And that's not what the justice system is all about."  

Because the law is strictly a conservative thing now, Screnock can say the most outrageous Republican cliches without hesitation. And Walker voters love smearing this sh*t in everyone face:

Screnock: "She is not only dancing along the line, she's crossed the line...what she is calling values is a liberal activist agenda."  

Will the now Borg-like WOW counties valiantly support another judicial attack on our system of law? You bet.

Reeling out of control...