A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.      Throughout American history, there have been some solid presidents. Washington through Monroe served in the American Revolution and established the U.S. as a world power. Polk brought the nation to the Pacific, Lincoln presided o

  In the United States, more than 200 schools are named after Confederates. Such figures include Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, etc. The good news is that, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, nearly 1/3 of these institutions have committed to changing or are considering changing their names. These schools are located in places such as Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, California, Virginia, and West Virginia. Schools named after Confederates are located in 18 states, mostly concentrated in 7. Governer Ralph Northam wrote a formal request that all schools in Virginia with such names change them, and Florida and Texas have begun instituting mass change as well. In the wake of the Charleston shooting and Charlottesville massacre, in 2015 and 2017 respectively, 44 schools changed their names, reducing the number from 252 to 208. If all of the schools working toward change were to implement it, 144 would still be named after racists. That is still far too

     The muder of George Floyd shook the world to its core. Seeing a man plead for his life and four police officers watch as they drain it from him is absolutely revolting, but, unfortunately, it is the furthest thing from a rare occurrence. The Minneapolis Police Department alone has a long, ugly history of brutality against citizens.      In 1989, an elderly couple was killed by a stun grenade after the police raided a house relying on false information from an informant, and, in 2011, they paid $1 million in a settlement for injuring an innocent person with a grenade in another botched drug raid.      An officer named Jeffrey Jindra was investigated for sodomizing a black prisoner with a toilet plunger, and the police chief celebrated when the FBI refused to file charges. He had previously been sued for over $100,000 for breaking a suspects jaw in several places, but never faced disciplinary actions and retired with a pension. A reporter who covered that case among dozens of othe

Why do black band-aids matter? People have scoffed at recent announcements that Live PD and Cops were cancelled (while ignoring that Live PD covered up the death of a black man), Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima would no longer grace store shelves, Walmart unlocked their minority hair care products, the Washington Redskins changed their name, and black band-aids would be produced. Surely more pressing matters face minorities in the United States? The truth is, that is absolutely correct. Black people care more about police reform and attainable housing than black dolls. However, while changing brands and store policies will not address the issues emblematic of racism, doing so will help address the racism itself. We have learned a lot about the system from how we reacted to these changes. People care more about syrup than the fact that Aunt Jemima is a minstrel character from the 1890s and more about some team spirit than they do about the fact that our capital's football t

     According to the U.S. Census Bureau, less than 2% of the population of the U.S. is Native American, meaning about 320 of the 330 million Americans are the descendent of immigrants. I could understand Native Americans taking umbrage with immigration, but the vast majority expressing such discontent are ignorant and racist white people. Immigration literally built this nation!      However, we have not yet learned our lesson, for this anti-immigration sentiment is nothing new. In the mid 1800s, in the wake of the Great Patato (or "potatoe," as Dan Quayle would say) Famine, a wave of Irish immigrants came to the United States and became a source of cheap labor for corporations. Rather than blame the corporate mechanism, Americans blamed the immigrants, and a nativist party called the "Know-Nothings" famously ran former president Millard Fillmore in 1856, seeking to prevent Irish Catholics from holding public office. Once again, in the 1860s and 1870s, resentment a

     Although systemic racism and police brutality are pervasive problems, there are places that have earned infamy for their particularly-high-profile cases and sometimes even high numbers of high-profile cases. The examples are numerous and varied. Tamir Rice, Timothy Russell, and John Crawford were murdered in Ohio; Andy Lopez, Alfred Olango, and Ezell Ford in California; Walter Scott in South Carolina; Breonna Taylor in Kentucky; Philando Castile and George Floyd in Minnesota; Atatiana Jefferson and Botham Jean in Texas; and countless others.      Now, Wisconsin joins the Police Brutality Hall of Shame. Back in 2015, Tony Robinson was murdered by Madison police officer Matthew Kenny, who had previously murdered another man on his own front porch. In neither of the cases was the waste of human flesh prosecuted. Tony Robinson's case came in the wake of many other incidents, and, while locally a large story, it never gained the coverage of cases like Michael Brown or George Floyd.

  America, like Europe, has an ugly history of imperialism. While we famously passed the Monroe Doctrine that banned European interference in America, we had no problem doing so ourselves. We spent nearly a century working on a canal across Central America (Zachary Taylor's Clayton-Bulwer Treaty ended plans for a canal across Nicaragua). President James K. Polk intentionally started the Mexican-American War and in exchange earned America California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada. Franklin Pierce's Ostend Manifesto sought to take Cuba and make it a state using military force if necessary. The Spanish-American War, most-likely started under false pretenses, gave the United States claim over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The United States suppressed a revolution in the Philippines in the oft-forgotten Philippine-American War that can only be called genocide. Nearly a million citizens were killed by disease and famine and the entire culture was

     Certain issues facing the nation are apolitical. Each decent American can sympathize with the plight of their fellow citizens and agree that when lives can be saved, they should. Among these issues, and one I'm particularly passionate about, is the issue of organ donation .       From lungs to the heart, the brain, the liver, and the kidneys, one individual can save the lives of up to 8 people with their donations. Should they choose to become an eye or tissue donor, they may impact the lives of up to 75 people affected by burns, blindness, and other ailments. Choosing to register is easy, is in violation of no religious principle, does not affect your quality of care, and is completely free. Less than 2/3 of registered drivers are organ donors, and, in Wisconsin alone, nearly 2,000 people are waiting for life-saving donations. While the number of donors is increasing, there is always room for more.      One such touching story is that of Charlie, a baby born with only 5% func

  In October 2016, video surfaced of Donald Trump, in 2005, saying, "Grab [women] by the pussy... they can't do anything about it." It was thought that this was the end of Trump's chances at the presidency. But America decided their sexist tendencies superceded the prospect of having a man who admitted to regularly committing fourth-degree sexual assault, a felony that can land one on the sex offender registry for 10 years-life. His attempts to dismiss the vulgar chat as "locker room talk," must originate from some locker room that I've never been to and would never wish to visit. Unfortunately, this is just a scratch on the surface of Trump's history of sexual impropriety. He has been accused of varying degrees of sexual assault by more than 30 women and girls, and I say girls because some of the victims were underaged when the alleged events occurred. His wife Ivana accused him of marital rape in the 1990s, a very serious sex crime that is

  Donald Trump is not an idiot, but he sure as hell makes some idiotic statements. Rather than try to explain them as Trump's team of media whores does, I will simply leave them at face value for anyone with the slightest degree of common sense to see. 1. "I love the poorly-educated." 2. "[Blacks and Latinos] are too stupid to vote for me." 3. "There's my African American." 4. "[About a gun-toting police fanatic who murdered 2 peaceful protestors in Kenosha and then fled across state lines to avoid prosecution, commiting numerous federal and state crimes] We all do stupid things at 17 [as if he got caught spraypainting a school wall]." 5. "And they say the noise [from windmills] causes cancer." 6. "Can we look into the idea [of buying Greenland]?" 7. "I am the chosen one." 8. "[While president] We can have a lot of fun tonight. I have nothing to do." 9. "The buck stops with everybody [about

     Nobody in the United States is more worthy of respect than veterans. While I am fundamentally against much of war itself, veterans who have answered the call of duty and tried to return with very little help are heroes. I despair when I see veterans hold the false belief that the Republican Party is the party that fights for them, and vice-versa.      A prime example of this is the relationship between John McCain and Donald Trump. The former, who lost a battle to the same brain cancer that killed Joe Biden's son Beau, served in the House of Representatives and the Senate from 1983 to 2018. During his 35-year congressional career, he voted his conscience with no fear of upsetting his fellow party members, even casting a critical vote that saved the Affordable Care Act. During the 2008 election, he dismissed racist jabs against Barack Obama and ran a clean campaign, which has fallen out of fashion in the modern political landscape. Before this, he fought in the Vietnam War and

Benghazi was a travesty that never should have happened. How many Americans did it kill? 4. The COVID-19 pandemic? Nearing 200,000. The difference? Donald Trump can easily be traced back to the mismanagement and spread of this virus. A brief summary is all that is necessary, for I have written on the issue extensively in previous posts. Donald Trump dismantled the pandemic response team in 2018, pulled the United States out of WHO, and sat on the report for 4 months before claiming the virus was a hoax for a month. He now continues to claim it will magically disappear and has pushed for reopening, threatening to cut funding to states that don't while simultaneously bragging about using federal funds to put kids in private schools. The GOP has sued to stop mask mandates and stay-at-home orders, and Trump has made racial remarks that led to an increase in hate crimes, suggested using a flu vaccine or injecting oneself with disinfectant, tried to buy the vaccine development, br

  Topping the agenda of LGBTQIA+ activists is banning so-called "conversion therapy," and for good reason . This practice has been discredited by every major mental and physical health organization, yet persists due to misguided hatred. Most susceptible to this practice are minors who have no choice but obeying their parents. This attempt to change who they are, as if it is a choice, causes depression, anxiety, and even suicide, and already-major problem in the community. Mental health issues are 8 times as likely and drug use and STDs 3 times as likely in minors who received conversion therapy. Banning this practice and protecting America's youth is a bipartisan issue. Of the 20 states that have banned the practice, 8 bans were implemented under Republican governors. Gerald Ford's dream was that all sects of the party would embrace these rights, and the party that prides itself on protection of individual liberties should surely agree with one's right to

  The story of what African-Americans have had to endure is horrifying. Taken from their homeland in crowded ships in which many died of disease, they emerged as slaves who were separated from their families, beaten, whipped, muzzled, and publicly sold like cattle. The few who were free were often the subject of harassment and kidnapping with false claims that they were escaped slaves, and they weren't allowed to speak in court on their own behalf. After slavery was abolished, most lived in sharecropping, a form of debt slavery, and discriminatory laws prevented them from voting and going to school, while the practice of lynching was common until 1980, and, as demonstrated by the death of Ahmaud Arbery, is still far from impossible. Discrimination in police-involved shootings, prison sentencing, and election reforms continues. The indigenous peoples of this country have gone through an equally-horrifying experience. When the Spanish conquistadors first came to this nation,

America has an irrational fixation with terrorism . While acts of terrorism can be catastrophic and tragic, less than 200 Americans have been killed in a decade. 200 people too many to be sure, but 20 deaths a year is far from a threat to America's fundamental institutions. Comapre that to 34,000 firearms deaths in the U.S. each year, from mass shootings to suicide. As a matter of fact, America's gun suicide and homicide rates as well as its mass shooting rates are through the roof. The same party that decries terrorism for its affront on American liberties chooses to ignore gun violence.      An even more telling statistic involves the statistics regarding terrorism itself. Of the approximately 200 planned terrorist attacks in the past 10 years, 115, or 60%, have involved right-wing terrorism; only 63; or 30%, have involved Islamic terrorists, and, of these, the majority are born in the United States. In essence, by banning Muslims from entering the country, Trump ha

     Since the beginning of his presidency, Donald Trump has made nearly 25,000  false or misleading statements, the equivalent of nearly one every hour. Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg for a man we were supposed to trust. This does not just follow him, but the greater body that surrounds him. His campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted of campaign fraud, Roger Stone had his sentence commuted by Trump, and Steve Bannon defrauded donors to the foolish wall project. Even worse, Trump's conduct in office has been tainted by fraud. Trump famously faced impeachment earlier this year after he tried to blackmail Ukraine into interfering with the American election, and the Mueller report revealed collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Now, Trump has set about destroying the USPS to interfere with this year's election and has called for his voters to commit voter fraud by voting twice.      This type of criminal behavior typical of a multibilliona

     People often claim that Trump has "presided over the longest economic growth in history." And that is partially true. In 2019, the economic growth officially became the longest in history, and it lasted until March 2020. But, with a little simple math, one can see that the economic growth actually began in 2009, specifically in October. What happened that year? Barack Obama was inaugurated in January, and by that summer he had bailed out the auto industry (with loans that were soon repaid with interest), signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and overhauled financial regulations regarding Wall Street. The growth continued throughout the Obama administration.       The economy was not, in fact, a mess when Trump inherited it, but on the rise. The economy, when growing, can be left alone for some time, and it will continue to grow. Trump's only real impacts on the economy were negatives: he cut taxes for the rich; he worked to dismantle the clean energy ind

      If there is hypocrisy in the way Biden and Trump are treated and criticized, then the way Obama and Trump are treated exemplifies this even more blatantly.  Barack Obama was criticized for not having experience. He was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, worked as a community organizer and a civil rights attorney, taught constitutional law for 12 years, wrote 2 best-selling books, served in the Illinois Senate and the U.S. Senate, and delivered the 2004 DNC keynote speech. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is the only president to come to the White House with no military or political experience.      Donald Trump's presidency has been plagued with scandals; from sex scandals involving prostitutes to ethics scandals involving foreign nations, he has disgraced the office more, perhaps, than any other in its position. Rightfully so, he has been criticized by many, and, rightfully so, he was impeached earlier this year. He tries to claim that he has been treated

  Christianity has been a part of my life on and off. I haven't gone to church since middle school save the occasional baptism, but I know enough about the values of Christianity to realize that Donald Trump fits none of them. In fact, if one chooses to paint the moral picture of a man with the seven deadly sins, it becomes clear that Donald Trump is the epitome of how a good Christian should not act. He is on is fourth wife, three of whom have been immigrants and three of whom he cheated on with the sebsequent spouse in the most characteristic example of a serial adulterer. He paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, he has been accused more than 30 times of rape, he has admitted to groping women, he has befriended a number of convicted sex offenders, and he has commented the physical attractiveness of a number of women, including his daughter. Lust. He has the spare time to tweet 90 times a day during impeachment while a pandemic is building. He has spent more ti

     It is astonishing that this needs to be said, but, while the BLM protests have faded from their height in June and July in terms of media coverage, the glorification of traitors and racists continues in a very public fashion, and Confederate monuments have no place in any country that dares call itself civilized.       The Civil War was indeed about states' rights, but states' rights to what? The North tried to compromise in 1820 with the Missouri Compromise and 1850 with the Compromise of 1850, but the South only saw a path of dominance rather than coexistence. They insited and were granted in the Fugitive Slave Law that slave catchers could come to Northern states, blacks were allowed no right of due process, judges were paid more if they ruled a black an escaped slave rather than a free man, and people who refused to participate in slave posses were tried for treason, a capital offense. Still, the South, which only represented 20 percent of the population, demanded that

  The Indiana Democrats, the source of much of the information below, have an especially-heinous and worthy adversary in Vice President Mike Pence. In particular, his track record on LGBTQIA+ issues is ugly. For 20 years, he has misinterpreted the Christian text and made a poor stereotype of religious hate in his dishonorable political career. Fox News published an article claiming Mike Pence isn't anti-LGBTQIA+, supposedly stemming from a gay man. As a person with firsthand knowledge of history, politics, and this issue in particular, I know that using fake letters, such as one allegedly written in 1840 by an American Indian in which it was claimed that William Henry Harrison instilled fear in all of his people, is a common political tactic to try to gain support. Even if the defense of this one ignorant individual were true, it doesn't erase Mike Pence's actions. Since 2000, he has been involved in a number of hateful actions. In 2003, he sought to stop fund

  Two events have remained as the deadliest in the course of American history. The Civil War, a bloody conflict in which all fatalities were American, claimed an estimated 650,000 lives, as did the Spanish Flu from 1918-1920. However, despite significant improvements in science, medicine, public sanitation, and global cooperation, it appears that COVID-19 , under Donald Trump's casual watch, is poised to surpass these horrific monuments in human suffering as the deadliest event in American history. My prediction is that this pandemic will claim the lives of more than a million Americans, for with another obligatory "despite" improvements in how information is received, or perhaps because of this, Americans have an inflated sense of self-importance and a convoluted belief in their own brand of science rather than that that is offered by, well, scientists. This is no mere flu: it has already taken 10 times as many lives as an average flu season and it has a fat

  Donald Trump has not responded in the fashion of a leader to any of the crises that have faced the nation this year for one simple reason: a leader is able to relate to the plight of their countrymen and respond with an appropriate sense of urgency and purpose. Trump has come from wealth. The fact that his grandfather worked his way to success is far from justification for calling him a self-made man. Anyone who has started a small business knows that the process is arduous and risky. Approximately half will fail, and almost all are started with business loans of several hundred thousand dollars that can be defaulted on and result in bankruptcy and financial ruin. Trump incurred none of that risk. He famously said that he accepted a "small loan of a million dollars from [his] father" and worked in the family real estate business. Besides the fact that such a tremendous initial capital almost guaranteed success were it placed in the hands of anyone with the basi

Joe Biden has, admittedly, made mistakes in his political career. He voted against desegragating bussing and did not express support for LGBTQIA+ isues until roughly 15 years ago, while he has stumbled with words and falsely recalled events. A look at candidate Donald Trump reveals the blatant hypocrisy of Biden's critics. Joe Biden made those votes 40 years ago, and the party that claims using Tweets from 10 years ago is unfair because people change is now saying that votes Biden made when Nixon was in the White House are relevant. Joe Biden has been an ardent supporter of social justice issues. While in Congress he helped push rape shield laws, establish the sex offender registry, ban assault rifles for a decade, and other notable achievements in supporting crime victims. He also had tremendous foreign policy experience that earned him the vice presidency, where he helped shape the administration's position on legalizing LGBTQIA+ marriage and environmental protection in

Few presidents have had the sort of impact that Lyndon Baines Johnson, or LBJ, had on the course of the United States. A former teacher and a powerful Representative and Senator, he developed a tough, straightforward personality that he weilded to achieve his ends. He was elevated to the presidency upon the death of the charismatic and young president John F. Kennedy, but Johnson's congressional resume served him well as he completed JFK's legacy better than anyone could have. At the time of his death, Kennedy was actively working with his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to achieve the passage of civil rights legislation. With the work of activists like Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and Malcolm X, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1965, and 1968 banned discrimination in housing, education, public services, voting, and other important freedoms Americans cherish. He appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, making him the first black justice.

  Donald Trump has called himself a friend of the LGBTQIA+, and, indeed, 1 in 4 support him. How this is possible is beyond me, given Trump's weekly work to destroy the rights of a vulnerable community that's yet to achieve many basic rights in a supposedly-developed nation. A few examples are below: 1. He banned transgender service in the military and banned the Pride flag from military bases. 2. He fought against a decision by the Supreme Court that ruled the Civil Rights Act covered sexual orientation and identity. 3. He removed government resources about protections for the community with regards to healthcare and the workplace. 4. He allowed schools to discriminate against trans individuals and pledged not to take action against complaints filed by college students. 5. He allowed discrimination against the community by healthcare providers, homeless shelters, and adoption agencies, which would have been banned under proposed legislation. 6. He worked to halt programs f