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This is what bipartisanship looks like?
Wisconsin legislative leaders’ triumphant announcement of a “transformational” agreement on shared revenue for local communities — the major sticking point in ongoing budget negotiations — took place in the ornate Assembly chamber on Thursday, with Republican lawmakers from both the Assembly and the Senate gathered behind their leaders for the big reveal. There were plenty […]
Keep Our Republic launches in Wisconsin to defend democracy, protect the vote
Keep Our Republic, a bipartisan group founded in 2020 to shore up confidence in U.S. elections, is announcing the launch of its Wisconsin chapter on Monday. The group’s creed, according to its mission statement, is: “Let all eligible voters vote. Let all votes be counted. Let the vote count stand.” Chapters in Pennsylvania and Michigan […]
Going for broke: How the debt ceiling fight exposed Republican bankruptcy
The party of Lincoln has been reduced to a bunch of grumpy old haters who can’t do math. That’s the lesson of the debt ceiling fight. After pushing the United States to the brink of a disastrous, economy-wrecking default, the GOP pulled back and accepted a compromise that leaves most of President Joe Biden’s key […]
Happy Mental Health Awareness Month from your gun-crazy Legislature
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. By order of a joint resolution passed by the Wisconsin Legislature last week, it’s also Law Enforcement Appreciation Month. But don’t think for a minute that now is the time to bring those two topics together and try to do something to stop people in the grip of a […]
Republicans play chicken with the economy at both the state and national levels
As Erik Gunn reports this week, Congressional Republicans’ threat to force the federal government into a first-ever debt default unless they get agreement on a package of draconian last-minute spending cuts could have dire consequences for Wisconsin veterans and for clean energy companies — along with many other citizens. The new Republican majority in the […]
More than a muffin: Getting serious about Teacher Appreciation Week
It’s that time of year again. Parents are sharing sign-up sheets, volunteering to bring flowers, cards and breakfast treats to their kids’ schools. “Teacher Appreciation Week,” like Mother’s Day, which comes hard on its heels, is all about celebrating the (mostly female) caregivers we depend on to make sure things are going OK for kids. […]
Wisconsin rally for missing and murdered indigenous women
About 150 people wearing red and black, most of them women, gathered in front of the Capitol on a sunny afternoon Friday, May 5, to mark the second annual Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Day of Awareness. Red dresses flapped in the breeze from hangers suspended from the white, marble pillars, next to […]
Wisconsin Republicans back into a corner wielding their budget ax
Wisconsin Republicans’ preferred candidate just took a beating in a much-watched state Supreme Court race, prompting soul searching at both the state and the national levels about how the GOP lost touch with voters, whether the suburban women they depend on to win elections are enjoying our state’s return to nineteenth century abortion rules, and […]
Heartbreaking abuse of children demands a major shift in outlook
News stories about the exploitation of children are particularly upsetting. They violate our most basic protective instincts. How could our society tolerate the systematic abuse of the very young? Yet recent reports on the trafficking of minors in the United States force us to confront our complicity in a grotesque injustice. The blockbuster New York […]
Tammy Baldwin’s good timing
It didn’t come as a shock to anyone when Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced this week that she’s running for a third term. After a decade in the U.S. Senate, Baldwin is a force in Wisconsin politics and a fixture in Washington, where she served seven terms as the first openly LGBTQ person elected to […]
Republicans face the music after their Wisconsin Supreme Court loss
Losing the Wisconsin Supreme Court race by a whopping 11-point margin was a big blow to Republicans, prompting a round of soul-searching and recriminations. The Wall Street Journal called it a “five alarm” warning that the party is losing its grip on the Midwest and could face stiff headwinds in the 2024 presidential election. Former […]
Kelly’s bitter concession in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race marks the decline of minority rule
Daniel Kelly, the losing candidate in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, gave a remarkably bitter concession speech Tuesday night that could serve as an epitaph for misogynist minority rule in Wisconsin. Kelly refused to congratulate Janet Protasiewicz, who emerged as the clear winner less than an hour after the polls closed. “I wish that in a […]