A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

Since its admission to the United States, Wisconsin has participated in 42 presidential elections. Of these elections, Wisconsin predicted the winner roughly 80% of the time. Wisconsin has also gained a reputation as a swing state, with 10 electoral votes up for grabs that could potentially change the result of the election. In 2016, Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, in part thanks to Wisconsin. My home region of Northeast Wisconsin, in particular, gave him the election, and I have felt a sort of personal responsibility in ensuring that history does not repeat itself. It can be discouraging at time, seeing lines of Trump signs, flags, and bumper stickers, people too poor to fund the police and infrastructure with taxes but who apparently have enough money to buy merch from a multibillionaire. However, increasingly I have seen Biden signs in my town, and I think that by election day the signs may be roughly equal in number. Regarding ...

In Wisconsin, an important battle has been raging over the future as a whole. Governor Tony Evers has spent his life in education, working as a teacher and a principal before serving as the Deputy State Superintendent and State Superintendent between 2001 and 2019. When he took office, one of his 3 top priorities was expanding educational funding in the state by $1.5 billion. Wisconsin has a relatively poor education system when compared to the rest of the nation, and a state that direly needs the funds and can afford billions in benefits for out-of-state corporations like Foxconn could afford it. The GOP fought the effort and reduced it until the increase was only $500 million. It was the first education increase in nearly a decade and the first special-education increase since the turn of the century. Why would educators support those who would leave schools in ruin? Why would educators support those who think it logical to TAKE funding FROM schools with lower test scores r...

The United States is, and ought to be, a global leader. Unfortunately, most of these means are military and often lead to destabilization of countries at the very least. Diplomacy is a powerful tool for the United States that could serve an even greater purpose as we seek to create peace. It is not just limited to global conflicts like those in Northern Ireland, Egypt, or Bahrain that have been mediated by the United States. The Packwood-Magnuson Amendment, for example, allows the United States to suspend fishing rights and seafood trade with any nations that violate global marine conservation law. This has been successfully utilized in recent years against Iceland for killing whales and Scotland for killing seals, the former of which resulted in a 2-year pause and the latter of which led to a permanent ban on the atrocity. One example of how diplomacy can be utilized further is the Paris Climate Agreement, of which the United States is the only country not party. An internat...

     The United States of America is a nation that is generally regarded as a progressive one among more backward peoples in different parts of the world. However, in many areas regarding social justice, the USA falls behind dozens of other countries. Nowhere, ironically for a nation that should be represented by a rainbow, is this more apparent than the issue of LGBTQIA+ rights.      In the courtrooms, people are allowed to claim that they committed assault or murder ssimply because the sexual orientation of their victim drove them temporarily insane.      In the military, gay people are discriminated against and transgender people are banned from serving their country.      In schools and churches, children are taught to hate themselves and are not taught how to lead safe and healthy lives when they become adults.      In adoption agencies, homosexual people unable to have children of their own are turned away ...

The United States is unlike any other nation with regards to healthcare. The pharmaceutical industry is allowed to run advertisements, something not seen in other nations. Unfortunately, this is the least of the issues said system faces. The costs of prescription drugs are out of control. Gilead Sciences developed a drug to treat ebola in 2014, and, despite the cost of production being less than a dollar for a vial, they charge insurers $520 for a single dose. Even more common drugs pose even more common problems. Epipens cost 3-10 times as much as they do overseas, and insulin can cost hundreds of dollars for a single dose, upwards of 100 times the cost overseas. Some states have begun to cap prices to prevent this blatant taking advantage of sick people. As a result of this perversion of medical science, quality of care and insurance coverage suffer. As told by one U.K. resident who received medical attention in the U.S., in the U.K., unlike the latter, insurance is n...

     As a Democrat, I am not afraid to admit that the presidency of Jimmy Carter was not a successful one. His term was wrought with the energy crisis, a number of nuclear disasters, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and an economic downturn that impacted millions of Americans and left an understandably-sour taste in the mouths of voters. Despite his years of military service and work as governor of Georgia, he was not prepared to handle the national trajectory.      However, Jimmy Carter the retired president has been nothing short of a hero. His retirement is almost 40 years long thusfar, the longest of any president. At the age of 96, he is the longest-living president, the only president from Georgia, and the longest-married president, with his 75th anniversary to his fantastic wife Rosalynn coming next year. He has beaten the odds and survived brain cancer.    ...

     People who dislike the LGBTQIA+ often forget that, while the scripture is valid in its prolific moral arguments, particularly on the part about how to treat fellow human beings, it was written 2,000 years ago by people in a different world. Gay marriage was practically unheard of, and defining it as between that of a man and a woman is to be taken in the same context of the overly-specific language in bills that is often not enforced to the letter as time moves on and people progress as a species.      Among the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQIA+ community are children, who also fall victim to campaigns of hate and misinformation that irreparably damage their lives. Hate is not inherent, but an evil that is passed from ignorant parents to their children. It must become nothing abnormal if the children are to be treated as fellow human beings judged by their character rather than who they love.      I often hear the misguided questio...

Predicting patterns, especially in an area like criminal justice, is incredibly important. There are two cycles that are ignored when searching for answers to help both offenders and victims lead normal lives. The first is the sociological aspect. When someone grows up in poverty and crime or around drugs, they are far more likely to see it as normal and repeat the same behavior. The second is the institutionalization aspect. If a first-time or young offender has a felony on their record for something like possession of small amounts of drugs, even if they don't go to jail, finding gainful employment will be impossible, although an addiction would also have made it difficult. Placing someone in a treatment program to treat the source of their addiction rather than just keeping them away from it would be far more intuitive. Drugs often lead to violent crime and theft, and taking a more proactive approach would help reduce crime drastically. As for the former, communi...

  Republicans have lambasted Bill Clinton for decades, yet his presidency was a relatively good one when compared to those of the Bushes. His presidential ranking has increased in the past few years, and he is now considered an "above average" rather than an "average" president. After attending Georgetown, University College, Oxford, and Yale, he served as the attorney general of Arkansas before being elected governor. In that position, he reduced the cost of medication for elderly citizens, created more tax exemptions for homes, improved the state's infrastructure and overhauled its education system, and served as the chair of the National Governors Association. During his presidency, he created job-protected leave for pregnancy and serious illness, lifted imposed restrictions on family planning (which resulted in a 20% decline in abortion), cut taxes on millions of small businesses and families while raising them for the top 1%, mandated backgroun...

A few common arguments are made against granting rights to the LGBTQIA+ community, most of them by misguided "Christians" and Republicans who are supposedly the party of freedom. 1. "It's against nature." Considering more than 500 species have been documented with some individuals engaging in homosexual and bisexual activity, I would argue that this is not true. 2. "It's not what God would want." I usually don't discuss religion, but a primary tenet of Christianity is that kindness goes above all. What other consenting adults do in their bedrooms is no concern of yours. 3. "I dont condone it, but I'm not gonna judge." Probably the most annoying argument, this one is used by "good people" who don't judge and then immediately proceed to judge. 4. "I respectfully disagree." You cannot respectfully disagree with someone's existence. 5. "What other sexual activities are we gonna legalize?" Ac...

  Franklin D. Roosevelt spent his life serving the public as a New York senator, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, vice presidential candidate in the 1920 election, and Governor of New York in the beginning of the Great Depression. A member of the prominent Roosevelt family, he was beset by what was believed to be polio and went on to not only found the polio treatment center in Warm Springs, Georgia, but gain election to the White House in 1932. Roosevelt's election came in the midst of the worst economic collapse in history and the inept work of Republican president Herbert Hoover. He was the only president to serve more than two terms (he was elected to four), and for good reason. He provided stability in crisis, instituting a bank holiday and founding the SEC and FDIC, which resulted in the recovery of the economy. He guaranteed retirement and disability benefits by founding Social Security, and he protected laborers by establishing minimum wage and overtime, outlawing c...

  John F. Kennedy remains the most enigmatic person to serve as president of the United States. He came from a wealthy socialite family with a tragic backstory and larger-than-life characters, and he had a record as a war hero who famously saved his comrade by taking his life vest in his teeth and swimming for half a mile. His wife, Jackie, and his children embodied an American family, and, as the youngest man elected president and a frequent guest on television, his youthfulness and relatability, alongside his actions, gave Americans a sense of hope and a sense of future achievement. In his inauguration speech, he famously said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," and he certainly practiced what he preached. He led the nation through the tensest years of the Cold War. He created the Peace Corps and sought human rights globally. He created the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade, bringing the nation ...

An exciting new frontier is emerging, with or without the help of the government of the United States: that of renewables. Trump has tried with all of his might to stop renewable energy, from suing to stop a wind farm near his golf courses in Scotland, to slapping tariffs on solar panels, to claiming windmills cause cancer, to rushing through well after mine after pipeline. However, even lacking government initiatives, fossil fuels are in a state of rapid decline. We have always known that fossil fuels would run out eventually, and some seen dead-set on saving the move to renewables until dire circumstances emerge. Recently, science has irrefutably made clear that action is needed on climate change, with fossil fuels being a prime culprit. In Spain, 3/4 of the coal plants are shutting down without a government mandate in place, while dozens of its neighbors have instituted such mandates. Over the past 20 years, half of all coal plants in the United States have closed down. Oi...

The court system has a racial bias, and this is impossible to ignore. Tanya McDowell was a homeless black mom who got 5 years in prison for lying about which school district her son lived in. Felicity Huffmann and Lori Loughlin got 14- and 60-day sentences respetively, and Lori Loughlin is reportedly serving hers at a "resort prison" with pilates and music lessons, for paying large sums of cash to enroll their children in private universities. Nowhere is this racial bias more obvious than the failed "War on Drugs." Richard Nixon, admitted an advisor, started the crusade to indirectly target minorities and anti-war protestors and silence their open opposition to his administration. This political move has lasted for decades and will likely have century-long repercussions. Despite having just 5% of the population, the U.S. has over 25% of the world prison population, 500% the global average. Despite white people comprising much of the U.S. population, ...

  Harry Truman's presidency was a tumultuous time in American history. Reeling from the death of the popular president Franklin D. Roosevelt and still in the midst of a world war, Harry Truman came from a position of relative political inexperience and rose to the challenge of helping to mold America into what it is today. His decision to drop the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a project begun under FDR, was undoubtedly one of the most difficult decisions ever made by a leader, and this, along with (VE) Victory In Europe Day, led to the end of World War 2. He later helped develop the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt the devastated continent of post-war Europe, and formulated the Truman Doctrine, which led to the formation of NATO and the start of the Cold War. He consolidated the Departments of War and the Navy into the Department of Defense and created the NSA, the NSC, and the CIA. He protected South Korea in the successful Korean War, and he also survived an assassi...

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day! This has been one of the most personally-satisfying victories in the quest for racial justice. Governor Tony Evers signed an executive order declaring that Columbus Day instead be celebrated as Indigenous Peoples' Day last year.      Why this holiday has been celebrated in the first place is a matter of conjecture that I may never be able to answer. Christopher Columbus discovered the Antilles, not the United States, in 1492. This led to what can only be called a genocide in which 90% of indigenous people were killed and many were enslaved or had their culture wiped out. Across the New World, displacement and destitution seemed almost a stroke of luck. No greater strategy has ever befallen any people in my opinion, and the perpetrators of this crime against humanity are portrayed as heroes, and, while we cannot change our history, we can change the narrative.      Abolishing Columbus Day and universalizing Indigenous...

     This post is going to be a short one, and, unlike a few months ago, not a difficult one. On this day of coming out, I want to join the ranks of courageous people who feel empowered to do so today and say that I, Isaiah Matthew Laitinen, am bisexual. I struggled with this for quite some time, but, when I weighed the options of hiding it my entire life of being honest, I realized that I was surrounded by compassionate and supportive individuals.      Why even bring it up? For millenia, and in many places yet today, members of the LGBTQIA+ were prosecuted, ostracized, and even killed simply for who they loved. Coming out shows that there is no longer any need to be ashamed, that the world has changed into a better one in which two adults who love each other can express it, and that we are courageous, although we need still rely on those close to us for emotional support, as all people do.      Happy National Coming Out Day! I look forward t...

  Living in Wisconain certainly has its perks. It is consistently ranked as among the states with the best natural beauty. Its beaches on Lakes Michigan and Superior can rival any ocean, and the forests of the Chequamagon-Nicolet can match any in New England or Cascadia. We are the largest cranberry maker in the nation, and we are also home to the best cheese and the best beer. Milwaukee is the City of Festivals, with The Rave regularly drawing big acts and Summerfest being the largest music festival in the world. However, in the Green Bay area, a liberal can have a hard time agreeing with someone on the most basic of principles (Milwaukee is a glimmer of hope), and below are a few humorous examples that also serve as a guide to laughing off the Trump troglodytes: 1. Trump hats, shirts, masks, and signs on every corner and in every store. Don't worry too much about this. A nice waste of money for people who claim to be too broke to pay the taxes that support the warmongerin...

Republicans display their hypocrisy yet again. I honestly feel sympathy for George W. Bush with regards to one incident, in which he falsely claimed to have seen the first plane hit the North Tower, and has forever been taunted with idiotic claims of, "Bush did 9/11." This was attributable to a psychological lapse that results in people remembering things that never happened, and virtually everyone with a mind that isn't a steel trap has experienced something similar. As they should, Republicans have defended him, and I will be the first to defend him.      Joe Biden had 2 brain aneurysms in the 1980s for which he had operations. Admirably, he returned to balancing being a father and a senator. During the election, he claimed an arrest that did not happen, and I will be the first to admit that he is not the most eloquent of speakers. However, there's a difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Joe Biden has dedicated his life to community service, working as...

Climate change is a crisis that cannot be ignored. Whether climate change is "real" is no longer a relevant debate-- despite the Orange Megalomaniac's insistance, there is a 98% concensus among the nearly 30,000 studies that have been conducted, and it is only growing. Perhaps the general resistance to addressing climate change stems from an ignorance of its serious ramifications. It alters weather patterns, which leads to the more severe hurricanes and wildfires we have seen in recent years. It melts large glaciers from the poles, which flow into the streams and make the more populated areas cooler . (Global warming is the incorrect term.) It causes drought that leads to increased tension in already-water-sparse areas, which is why it has been designated a national security issue by the Department of Defense. It causes coral bleaching (endangering 25% of ocean life by killing reefs) and causes ocean acidification. Air and water pollution are also caused by the ...

Since 2012, marijuana legalization has skyrocketed. It is currently legal in 11 states recereationally, with medical marijuana legalized in 33 states (those 11 and 22 others), limited-THC medical marijuana made legal in 14 other states, and marijuana decriminalized in 16 states. Only 2 states-- South Dakota and Idaho-- have not made any moves to legalize it, and South Dakota is expected to offer a referendum later this year. Meanwhile, federal legislation has been proposed and is gaining support. This is long overdue. William Randolph Hearst launched a crusade against hemp when it threatened his monopoly on the timber industry. It grew nearly six times as quickly and produced a more durable fiber, and the hemp industry ceased its role as a major economic fixture in the 1920s. Later, Richard Nixon saw it fit to target the African-American and anti-war communities, seeing drug use as a common fixture with which he might indirectly put them in prison and stifle political resi...

  The United States has committed genocide. Why this is a controversial statement, I do not know, although a blatant, nationalistic, ignorant pride may have something to do with it. This is not intended to cause shame, but to expound upon that basic principle that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Rather than living in denial, we must work to ensure that the future is nothing but equal for these groups. When the United States was settled, clashes with Native Americans were frequent and violent. Under Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the United States removed various tribes from their ancestral and cultural lands to unsettled, barren lands west of the Mississippi. As whites moved westward and conflicts grew, clashes became more violent, resulting in massacres of hundreds of men, women and children. Notable people like William Tecumseh Sherman and Henry Clay favored or were indifferent to complete elimination of Native tribes. A move favored by liber...

The Republican platform is genius, quite honestly, because it uses philosophical speech alluding to America's founding principles that appeals to uneducated folks who possess no real grasp of what their values are. Trump does, in fact, say that he "loves the poorly-educated." The Republicans are against an increased minimum wage for retail employees, and they are against the right of laborers to organize. They have been steadfast opponents of term limit bills introduced into various legislatures, they support restrictions enforced by the government against abortion and marijuana that has been proven to be less harmful than alcohol, and yet they support the death penalty and refuse to crack down on drug companies extorting money out of suffering people. Most reprehensibly, they even oppose things light rights for the LGBTQIA+, minority reforms, and female equality. Taxes are the most blatant hypocrisy. Republicans claim to oppose big government spending and ...

Ronald Reagan was an embarrasment of a president, plain and simple. He had a string of inititatives that showed a lack of compassion fitting of a Hollywood actor.   He called for a constitutional amendment to allow organized prayer in school. In no way is this even feasible. Whose prayer would be prayed? What about those who have no religion, those who doubt the existence of God, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Mormons, the various Lutheran denominations, and countless other religious identities that compose America. In conservative areas, nothing would stop schools from expelling students who refuse to participate, and in private schools the practice would be rampant. It seems as though the Republican principle of freedom applies only when it fits their narrative, as this would be a gross violation of the first amendment. I could sit and lunch reading the Bible, and nobody could stop me, but when you make it mandatory that I read said Bible, the story is different. ...