A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

     Raoul Cédras was trained by the Spanish military before joining the U.S. Leopard Corps. A high-ranking intelligence official, he was tasked by the United States with overseeing the security, stability, and integrity of the 1990 Haitian election, the first democratic election in the country, which saw President Jean-Bertrand Aristide take power. Made the Commander-in-Chief of the Haitian military, he led the 1991 coup d'état.      As leader of the Haitian Military Junta, he was responsible for killing thousands of civilian men, women, and children. The United Nations launched Operation Uphold Democracy on July 31st, 1994, while President Clinton and numerous other American officials convinced the dictator to flee to Panama, where he remains to this day.      President Aristide would be returned to power that year and hold office until 2004. Haiti's democracy remains a source of contention within the nation and around the world, but it is a democracy nonetheless, and U.S. in

       Even with the loss of both houses of Congress, President Barack Obama set about making history in 2015, from supporting the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to restoring relations with Cuba to negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran to instituting major environmental protections to pardoning thousands of reformed criminals to signing the Paris Climate Agreement and securing major investments in infrastructure and disease research.      Foreign policy saw a pair of firsts: in 2016, Obama was the first president to visit Hiroshima, the sight of the only deployment of a nuclear weapon in world history. On July 28th, 2015, Obama, the first black president and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, made history as the first president to speak before the African Union as part of a trip that also saw him visit economic sites around Ethiopia and in his homeland of Kenya. In his address, Obama called for an end to child marriage, persecution of the LGBTQ, denying education to women

     "Both parties are the same" is a common refrain in political discourse today. There are a million answers I could give to discredit this notion driven by a combination of nihilism, ignorance, and deceit. However, I think the events of this week have actually given the best example in modern history.      Last year, I wrote an article about how, as historic as the actions Presidents Johnson, Clinton, and Obama were, no other president has made fighting hate crimes as high a priority as Joe Biden has. From his executive order against AAPI hate to the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act to the United We Stand Summit and the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, President Biden has gone above and beyond in taking a whole-of-government approach to tackling hate crimes against every group. This makes sense, as the reason President Biden got involved in politics was a support for civil rights that came out of his experience as a lifeguard in the 1960s and the reason he ran for president in 2019

     A recent poll found Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat in the deep red state of Kentucky, had a 63 percent approval rating and a 10-point lead over his Republican challenger. Undoubtedly, his approval rating and his lead will shrink once the attack ads start and the race grows closer as November approaches. However, that his approval rating is so high is miraculous given the divisive party politics of today. So, how does he do it? Beshear has been called upon to heal the state of Kentucky time and time again, from COVID-19 to the tornadoes of 2021 and the floods of 2022 to the mass shooting in Louisville and the murder of Breonna Taylor and fallout that continues to this day.       However, in my view, it's more than that that is responsible for his bipartisan approval. He has been not only reacting to crises, but, in spite of a GOP-dominated legislature that has overridden all of his vetoes, working to actively move Kentucky in the right direction.      For several years, Kent

       Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin is one of the most underrated elected officials in the United States. In spite of being constrained legislatively with a GOP majority in both the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate, he has used executive authorities like pardons, vetoes, and executive orders to make historic changes in Wisconsin. Perhaps the best example of this is what he achieved with the 2023-2025 Wisconsin state budget.       Governor Evers signed the budget with 50 line-item vetoes, a power given to most governors but one that is uniquely strong in Wisconsin. In education, Evers actually changed language stating that there will be annual increases in education funding from 2023 to 2025 to state that there will be increases from 2023 to 2425, increasing funding for education for the next 400 years. This budget increases funding for education by $1.2 billion, increasing the per-pupil spending maximum by $325 and the minimum from $10,000 to $11,000, the largest increase in education