A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

     For those who want a little rundown on why Matt Gaetz is guilty, here we go: 1. He voted against every anti-sex trafficking bill proposed in his legislative career, usually the lone dissent. 2. He sent a minor Venmo payments of several thousand dollars under charges labeled "tuition." 3. He traveled to the Bahamas, a country notorious for sex trafficking among the wealthy as well as political corruption, with now-convicted sex trafficker Joel Greenberg. 4. Greenberg, the ringleader of this sex trafficking ring, pleaded guilty to six federal charges out of 33 in exchange for a 12-year prison sentence instead of life imprisonment in exchange for agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors. This big a drop in charges and prison time implies either a bigger fish or a lot of equally-sized fish. 5. Federal authorities have secured the cooperation of Matt Gaetz's ex-girlfriend in the investigation. 6. Gaetz was accused of engaging in sex for payment with numerous women b...

     Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that, under an agreement by Governor Walker, will take hundreds of millions of gallons of water from Lake Michigan on a constant basis to make phone screens, was hailed as the "Eighth Wonder of the world," when Donald Trump visited Mount Pleasant in 2019. They promised to create 13,000 jobs for Wisconsin; Trump kept his promise to bring back manufacturing jobs, they said.      What a load of bullshit. More liberal members of the community were suspicious of the project from the beginning, and this concern turned out to be justified. 13,000 jobs? No. In fact, less than 1,500 jobs have been created by the project. Republicans have a history of doing this. The Keystone XL Pipeline that inspired a decade-long political fight over what they claimed would be thousands of jobs turned into 1,200 and then 100-400 permanent jobs. Hardly worth giving Native elders felony convictions and polluting delicate ecosystems, unless you are ...

       Earlier this week, Matt Gaetz made the news when he challenged General Mark Milley over the teaching of critical race theory in the military. Playing FOX News in bases 24-7 is fine, but admitting racism exists is apparently indoctrination, according to Matty, who, by the way, has never served in the military (nor has Tucker Carlson, his chief critic and a man who inherited his fortune from TV dinners). Gaetz is among those Trump supporters mad at Milley for not employing the military to "shoot and crack the fucking skulls" of Black Lives Matter supporters in the summer 2020 protests (Trump's words, not mine). Gaetz is among a particularly cruel league of Florida conservatives doing things like legalizing running over protestors, banning transgender kids from playing sports and mandating they undergo genital exams, working to prevent black people from voting, celebrating Pride Month by cutting transgender mental health services, denying compensation to the Puls...

       Greg Abbott's administration, especially the past year, has been one series of embarrassing blunders and dangerous lies after the other. In October 2020, seven members of the "Trump Train" attacked the Biden-Harris bus and tried to run it off the road, bragging about it on Twitter and other social media outlets before being sued under the KKK Act and investigated by the FBI. Several members may have been involved in the January 6th insurrection.      This is just a taste of the political environment in Texas, and it's a unique one, where state politicians still propose secession and where government buildings are powered by a power grid separate from the rest of the country. On that latter point, officials like Abbott who mocked California's suffering from a heat wave blackout in 2020 were reeling when Texas' power grid failed in both the extreme cold and the extreme heat; Abbott's wind power theory in a state run on mostly natural gas did not t...

     On June 25th, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he would file a lawsuit against the state of Georgia for its new voter suppression law, which, among other things, bans religious groups from giving out food and water in lines, restricts access to mail-in ballots, limits ballot boxes in majority black cities and counties, and purges voters. SB 202 went from three pages to 90 in a day, was passed after only two hours of debate, and became law the same day under a portrait of a slave plantation without a single woman or person of color in the room. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke is leading the suit. Garland also warned states considering similar legislation, which violates the Voting Rights Act as well as the First and Fourteenth Amendments, that the DOJ would have no tolerance for what advocates call "Jim Crow 2.0."       Another facet of securing the right to vote and a marked departure from Trump DOJ ...

       On June 25th, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills. Among these, and, by far, the most significant, was the Fair Labor Standards Act. This law created the minimum wage, banned child labor, and mandated "time-and-a-half" overtime pay for those who worked over 40 hours a week, among numerous other provisions.      Still the defining piece of workers' rights legislation a century later, this law helped millions of abused and underpaid workers across the country. If you work in the service industry or the production of goods, you have almost certainly seen the posters for this law at your place of employment.

     Rudy Giuliani had a successful career. Associate Attorney General of the United States and later U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the Reagan years, he served as the mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. The pinnacle of his career was his response to 9/11 near the end of his term, and he unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2000 and sought the Republican nomination for president in the 2008 election. He was Time "Man of the Year" for 2001.      That is not to say his life wasn't always weird. He got divorced twice from his first wife, Regina Peruggi, in 1982 after it was discovered that they were second cousins. He cheated on her with Donna Hanover, to whom he was married from 1984 to 2002. While she supported him during his bout with prostate cancer and raised their two children, he cheated with who would ultimately become his third wife, Judith Nathan. This resulted in an ugly public dispute in which she was awarded more than $6 ...

       Anna Morgan-Lloyd was sentenced to three years of probation with 120 hours of community service and a $500 fine after pleading guilty for her role in the Capitol insurrection. It may not seem like a good sentence, but it was a significant day for several reasons.      Morgan-Lloyd is the first person to be sentenced for their role on January 6th, 2021. Her sentence seems appropriate. Unlike most of the other participants, she did not have a criminal history, did not have ties to groups like Proud Boys or Oath Keepers, did not bring weapons or paramilitary gear, only spent about ten minutes inside the Capitol with a friend, did not assault law enforcement, and decided not to proclaim her innocence and take her case to trial, instead emotionally apologizing and expressing her regret for the crime she was convicted of.       The Indiana grandmother could have faced six months in jail. However, the Department of Justice asked for...

       The fight for fair maps in Wisconsin is the most important political fight in the state. In 2011, when the GOP was swept into power, Governor Scott Walker hired the private law firm Michael Best & Friedrich to gerrymander maps, causing 17 times as many people as normal to have their voting districts changed, ensuring that Republicans held control of the legislature for a dozen years. $4 million of taxpayer money was spent defending the maps, and lawmakers were sworn to an oath of secrecy.      Tony Evers signed an executive order creating a bipartisan redistricting committee barring legislators and lobbyists from creating the maps. 55 counties representing nearly five out of six Wisconsinites have passed referendums expressing support for this action. The system has existed in Iowa for over 40 years and has worked well.      Now, GOP lawmakers are scared; they are trying to push the redistricting process until after the 2022 e...

     Beto O'Rourke was interviewed on MSNBC and made a compelling case for the need for urgent action on voting rights. The GOP passing voter suppression bills because they lost in 2020 isn't a first, nor will it be the last time. Republicans are out of policy ideas and move to obstruction, a tactic that has not bolstered their base among voters of color. By 2045, white voters will most certainly be in a minority. Younger voters lean heavily Democratic, and the right's perversion of religion to justify hate against the LGBTQ and Muslim communities, among others, has caused an allergic reaction that isolates older Southern white voters from many other people.      Trying to blunt this shifting dynamic is the GOP's solution, not adjusting their platform in the slightest to include popular ideas like marijuana legalization, universal background checks, and tax cuts for middle class Americans. In 2013, the Supreme Court significantly weakened the 1965 Voting Ri...

     Ron Johnson has always been an embarrassment to his constituents. The only statewide elected GOP official in the state of Wisconsin, his first entrance on the national political scene was opposing a bill that would remove the statute of limitations on child sex crimes.       He had already lost a sizeable chunk of his support by 2016, and now the vast majority (55 to 65 percent) of Wisconsinites support anybody but Ron in 2022. Apparently set on a presidential run (he announced he would not run for governor in 2022, and a senator suddenly taking drastic actions to get attention is a certain presidential primary candidate), he ramped up his idiotic behavior between 2020 and 2021.      Johnson, a long climate change denier, has questioned the legitimacy of COVID-19 advice given by public health officials. While positive for COVID, he was one of two Republican officials to draw attention for being gross when he attended a fundraiser (t...

     Of the 535 voting members of Congress, only 14 opposed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, a bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday (President Biden signed the bill into law on June 17th after it passed the Senate on the 15th and the House on the 16th). The holiday celebrates the effective end of slavery in the United States. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery in the Southern states effective January 1st, 1863. However, enforcing the proclamation relied on the advance of Union troops through Confederate territory. Major General Gordon Granger advanced into Galveston, Texas, and declared the end of slavery on June 19th, 1865. While slavery would not officially end until the 13th amendment took effect in 1866 (ending it in the states of Kentucky and Delaware), Juneteenth has been celebrated in Texas since 1866 and is now officially a federal holiday for the first time today.      We should give Ron Johnson credit for his u...

     Gavin Newsom's recall is likely to fall on its face, but that won't stop another state-level GOP base from trying. The reason has nothing to do with any failing of Newsom's policies: he has kept or is in the process of keeping nearly every major campaign promise he made in the first two years of his term, California is a leader in vaccinating its population, and all COVID restrictions have now been dropped.      Instead, it may be because California has been playing an especially large role in Democratic politics over the past four years. Kamala Harris served as the California State Attorney General from 2011 to 2017 before coming to the U.S. Senate, where her pointed questioning of Trump officials led to her launch of a prominent 2020 presidential campaign and her win in the 2020 election as the first female vice president.       Her replacement, Xavier Becerra, served under Governor Newsom, and he made taking on Big Pharma a prior...

     Pearl Jam is one of the most legendary bands not of the grunge movement or out of Seattle, but of all time. Their powerful, direct lyrics with instrumentals to match could only be possible thanks to the work of brilliant minds like Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, and Matt Cameron, and they are one of the many bands in American rock that couldn't resist bringing Jack Irons on.       Their voice has been a powerful one for change in the United States. Supporters of Ralph Nader in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, their efforts have included eviscerating the foreign policy of George W. Bush, reducing their carbon emissions, supporting the work of environmental groups like the Surfrider Foundation, standing up for abortion rights, putting faces and names to the gun control cause, engaging with citizens on voting rights, and working to free the West Memphis Three. Most ...

       Since 1975, Jimmy Carter has written nearly 40 books, a full list of which is below: Carter, Jimmy (1975).  Why Not the Best? . Nashville: Broadman Press.  ISBN   978-0-8054-5582-3 . Carter, Jimmy (1977).  A Government as Good as Its People . New York: Simon and Schuster.  ISBN   978-0-671-22815-6 . Carter, Jimmy.  Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1977  (1978–1981); annual compilation of all his public documents Carter, Jimmy (1982).  Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President . New York: Bantam Books.  ISBN   978-0-553-05023-3 . [1] [2] Carter, Jimmy (1984).  Negotiation: The Alternative to Hostility . Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.  ISBN   978-0-86554-137-5 . Carter, Jimmy (1985).  The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East . Chicago: Houghton Mifflin.  ISBN   978-1-55728-293-4 . Carter, Rosalynn; Carter, Jimmy (1987).  Everyt...

     Red Hot Chili Peppers is one of the most successful rock bands and THE most successful alternative rock band in history. Formed in 1983, they have gone on to sell more than 80 million records around the world, won six Grammy Awards, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and set records with 13 Number One hits, 25 Top Ten hits, the most weeks at Number One (85), and the most money made from any single concert or tour by any rock band.      That didn't stop FOX fatty Greg Gutfeld, admittedly only a music fan and a man with no talent of his own, from saying the band was "relatively interesting in the '80s" before taking sides against them in a feud with musician Mike Patton, a man I've honestly never heard of. The motivation may be related to Gutfeld being butt hurt about somebody dissing his favorite band "in the universe" (his words, not mine), but it also likely has to do with the fact that the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been active sup...

     2018's Blue Wave spelled doom for Donald Trump not because it was unusual for a majority party to lose seats in Congress, especially in the House of Representatives, but because the states he relied on to win the electoral if not the popular vote-- Wisconsin and Michigan-- rebuked him firmly. Democrats Tony Evers and Gretchen Whitmer won their gubernatorial elections handily. They also won with historic diversity, with lieutenant governors Mandela Barnes and Garlin Gilchrist II becoming the highest-ranking black officials in each state's history.      Less recognized is the historic diversity that Peggy Flanagan brought to Minnesota as lieutenant governor. The daughter of Native rights activist Marvin Manypenny, raised in suburban Minneapolis by a single mother who worked as a phlebotomist, Flanagan got her bachelor's in child psychology and Native Indian studies from the University of Minnesota in 2002.      After brief stints working f...

     Born in Detroit but raised in Farmington since he was a baby, Garlin Gilchrist II was the son of a DoD contractor and a lifelong General Motors employee, essentially a typical Michigan story. In 2005, he got his bachelor's degrees in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan.       He moved to Redmond, Washington, where he helped develop SharePoint for Microsoft over a span of four years. Between 2010 and 2014, Gilchrist worked for MoveOn.org and Community Change, crafting new community campaigns and directing social media efforts. After this, he returned to Detroit, where he created the Improve Detroit smartphone app, which allows residents to report problems that need solving to the city government. He was far from done, founding the Center for Social Media Responsibility at his alma mater and mounting a campaign for city clerk of Detroit, which he narrowly lost.      For his decade of work for social justic...

     Mandela Barnes is exactly what the United States needs right now. A 34-year-old born in Milwaukee, he graduated John Marshall High School in 2004 before attending Texas A&M University. Elected a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from 2013 to 2017 and later running for the Wisconsin Senate unsuccessfully in 2016, he quickly emerged as a progressive voice in Madison, working to reform the criminal justice system and expand voting rights. His earlier work as an interfaith community organizer and political adviser suited him for this leadership, and, in 2018, he became the first black lieutenant governor in Wisconsin and the highest-ranking black Wisconsinite.      Ron Johnson is old, white, vulnerable, and unpopular among his constituents for embracing crazy conspiracy theories and fringe positions about Donald Trump, COVID-19, the 2020 election, Juneteenth, child sex abuse, the American Rescue Plan Act, the January 6th insurrection, and more. Ma...