A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

     Today, I woke up to a good bit of historic news: President Biden was in Kyiv. After leaving Washington, D.C. under the cover of darkness, he landed in the capital of Ukraine and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to Ukraine as the first anniversary of Russia's brutal and unprovoked invasion nears. He was among the last Western leaders to do so for obvious reasons: the president of the United States is the leader of the free world, and the United States has provided more support to Ukraine than all other nations combined.      The significance of this trip cannot be understated: this is the only time in American history that a president has visited an active war zone without a major U.S. troop presence. President Biden took a small, civilian-style aircraft to Germany, where they refueled before flying to Poland. Once there, the president took a train into Kyiv, where he and Zelenskyy were transported by armored vehicles around the city, from

     February 2023 has undoubtedly been the month of Linkin Park. It began with a retro-themed countdown on their website, which was followed by the announcement of a brand new official Linkin Park discord as well as the announcement of the release of "Lost," a song that was finished but did not make the final cut for their album Meteora . As was widely expected, "Lost" would wind up being the lead single for a 20th anniversary release of their sophomore album, much as they did with their debut Hybrid Theory in 2020.      One occurrence that was positively surprising was that "Lost" would not be merely a popular song, but would become a phenomenon in its own right overnight. "Lost" quickly took spot number three in  popularity for Linkin Park songs on Spotify, became the number one debut on all of Spotify for its week, and garnered more than 20 million streams in just over a week. On iTunes, it became the number one song in the United States. On

     Last week, Democrats celebrated President Biden's 100th judicial confirmation, including 69 judges to the U.S. district courts, 30 judges to the U.S. appellate courts, and Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Since then, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has secured the confirmation of five more Biden judges to district courts in Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, the District of Columbia, and California. 105 judges have been confirmed months ahead of when President Trump reached the same landmark, a pace that at the time was itself unprecedented.      President Biden continuing to outpace Trump and appoint judges is something the Democratic-controlled Senate can do without the Republican-controlled House and should be THE domestic policy priority for the next two years. Aside from expanding professional and personal diversity on the courts, this effort is also vital to undoing the Trump-installed conservative dominance in America's federal judiciary, which is critica

     President Biden launched his presidential campaign in April 2019 to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. As his State of the Union Address highlighted, President Biden has kept and continues to keep that promise. Unlike Presidents Clinton and Obama, who highlighted free trade, cuts to the social safety net, and the "end of big government," President Biden set his sights squarely on issues that matter to middle class Americans and called out the vested interests that threaten their prosperity. Here are the ways in just two years that President Biden has rebuilt the middle class: A historic rescue package. Between the $1,400 stimulus checks, the increased aid for education, and the expanded Child Tax and Earned Income Credits, and other provisions, the American Rescue Plan Act provided the average family thousands of dollars in relief. The best two years for job growth in American history. 12 million jobs were created in the first two years of the Biden adm

     Ronald Reagan. Most Republicans wax poetic about the Apartheid-sympathizing, AIDS-ignoring 20th century version of Kevin Sorbo because he created 17 million jobs in two terms. Never mind the fact that Jimmy Carter, who most people have been told is a failure, created 10 million jobs in one term (a rate higher than Reagan's) or that, after forty years and five tax cuts, the benefits to the wealthy have yet to "trickle down."      Still, he is the best the GOP has been able to do on jobs in the modern era; it's all gone downhill from there. During his administration, George H.W. Bush created 2.6 million jobs in four years. It was up to Bill Clinton to pick up the pace and create more than 22 million jobs in eight years, the most of any president. George W. Bush added a net total of 500,000 jobs to the economy in eight years, when his job growth and then the job loss due to the 2007-2008 recession are balanced against one another. That amounts to 3.1 million jobs cr

     The Supreme Court, until a vacancy opens up, is stuck being a Trump-packed shithole of conservative idealogues with no concern for the law or any basic sense of ethics, in large part due to the lack of any possibility for accountability. However, 99+ percent of cases in the federal system never make it to the Supreme Court, which still leaves President Biden a lot of room to impact the personal, professional , and ideological makeup of our federal court system.      We've already seen it play out in the past two years: more of an impact on D.C. local courts than any president in history; more Asian female federal judges than all prior presidents combined; the most Native American federal judges of any president; more black female appellate judges than all prior presidents combined; the first Muslim man and woman to serve on the federal bench; the first black female Supreme Court justice in history; more public defenders than all prior presidents combined; the U.S. district

     On February 5th, 1993, Bill Clinton secured a major victory for his first-term domestic agenda with the signing of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. Vetoed by President Bush numerous times, the law instituted 12 weeks of unpaid leave for serious illness, the illness of a relative, or care for a new child. The law only applied to employers with more than 50 employees.        However, the law has been expanded by states to include smaller companies. A major tenet of the Democratic Party has been expanding the law to include parental and other forms of leave, expanding the length of leave, and introducing paid leave. Although the primary impact of the FMLA has been in its effect on the Democratic Party platform, especially visible with the emergence of Bernie Sanders, it is still recognized as landmark legislation for the rights of workers.      In attendance during the signing was Vicki Yandle, who was fired from her job as a receptionist after asking for a month off to care

     I've heard terms like "blowout" related to the January 2023 jobs report, which revealed that America created 517,000 jobs and also saw America's 2022 job growth revised upward by another 500,000 jobs. That translates to one million new American jobs announced last month. However, it wasn't entirely unexpected. In the first three months of 2022 , America created almost as many jobs as we did in the rest of the year. Perhaps that's a microeconomic trend emerging out of our recovery from COVID-19. Still, there's another reason it's noteworthy: in spite of all the media talk about a recession, America's labor market continues to boom while inflation continues to ease. Inflation fell during the second half of 2022, and we're on track to see it continue falling in 2023. Economists may be dead-set in their rooting on a recession, but I believe we can avoid one: the continually strong labor market and the higher-than-expected growth in the second

       Any student of ethics recognizes that it is a complex field with many theories that dictate how people behave. In the case of the terrorists we have been fighting for decades both in the Middle East and right here in the United States, their ethical theory is divine command.      People who follow divine command believe that their mandate for thoughts and deeds comes from God (or Allah) itself. When people use this as their motivation, they are able to justify the most atrocious acts against humans as insignificant or necessary when it is done for the benefit of their religious power. This is what motivates terrorists, from Osama bin Laden to even the people who joined the Jones or Manson cults.       A tenet of the divine command theory is that dying for your cause is not only an acceptable risk, but often its own reward. Suicide bombers are excited to die because they believe in the righteousness of their cause so deeply, they think they will be rewarded in the afterlife.