A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

     Being president is just the cap of a lifetime of public service for President Biden. Delivering the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the PACT Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, cannabis reform, student debt relief, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Respect for Marriage Act, and countless other historic achievements is an impressive first term without a doubt.      However, President Biden has been serving the public since 1971, first as a county councilman for two years and then as a U.S. senator from Delaware for 36 years, where he chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee. Then, President Biden was vice president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017 before founding the Biden Foundation and the Beau Biden Foundation. Biden has also authored numerous books and taught at universities, and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction in 2017.     ...

     Two tropes have long dominated many Americans' views of Trump supporters and conservatives in general. Of course, older people have to be more conservative, right, as do rural Americans? A series of polls put out this month should put to bed once and for all this tired belief, one that not only denigrates the people of rural America and older Americans but also actively hurts efforts by liberal candidates to win in elections.      Rural America is what I've known. I grew up riding three-wheelers and Gators, catching snakes and insects, and boating in some of the over 15,000 lakes Wisconsin has to offer. My own observations led me to believe the aforementioned trope was just that: a trope. For sure, the conservatives of rural America and among older Americans tend to be a lot louder in their beliefs and a lot crazier in their convictions. However, as with many liberals in every demographic group, that doesn't mean that rural America and older Americans ...

     Two weeks ago today, Donald Trump returned to the United States Capitol for the first time since he sent thousands of his supporters to attack the institution on January 6th, like an arsonist coming to see the charred remains that were once a home. There, he was given a standing ovation by House Republicans who once blamed him for the bloodshed that day but have now come to his defense for the sake of political expediency. Today also happens to be two weeks from his sentencing in the 2016 election interference trial in which Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. Between these two milestones, it seems like it would be difficult for any political campaign to make it worse for themselves and survive. Donald Trump, as the past nine years have demonstrated, is not any politician.      At that closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, Donald Trump called Milwaukee a "horrible city." The reaction from both sides was swift, v...

     Alvin Bragg taught Sunday school while Trump delivered a bitter, lie-riddled interview to FOX News. Guess who the party of "family values" is attacking? On May 30, 2024, a jury of 12 ordinary citizens, including a self-described Truth Social user and a woman who said she trusted Donald Trump over other politicians, convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. He is set to be sentenced on July 11th, and I believe he is going to be sentenced to prison.         In spite of the fact that dozens of appeals attempts in state courts have failed, despite the fact that two separate judicial ethics bodies have ruled that Judge Merchan in no way violated ethics rules or the law in his conduct, in spite of the fact that 11 of the 12 jurors were agreed to by Trump, in spite of the fact that he was given the opportunity to testify, in spite of the fact that the jury instructions were consistent with the law and fair to b...

      Vindication. That is the one word that likely describes what Alvin Bragg is feeling right now. In the exactly 14 months between when Bragg announced Trump's indictment on 34 felony counts of falsification of business records and the conviction, people derided Bragg's case as the "porn star hush money case," when, as Bragg was able to prove, it was a criminal scheme to unlawfully interfere with the 2016 election. He was criticized before this for not charging Trump when he wasn't ready to.      However, this case wasn't even Bragg's first prosecution of Trumpworld. The Trump Organization was convicted in December 2022 of fraud related to taxes on fringe benefits; CFO Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in prison on 15 charges for the same fraud scheme. Weisselberg is currently serving another five-month sentence for perjury committed during the Letitia James property valuation fraud civil case.      This experience worked in B...