Commentary
Democrats running on Social Security make Republicans look bad
Who would have guessed that the 2022 midterm elections would turn out to be a referendum on the New Deal? Earlier this month U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Oshkosh) suggested that Social Security and Medicare should no longer be guaranteed benefits. Instead, he said, they should be up for renegotiation every year when Congress haggles over […]
On Jan. 6 I was bewildered. Now, I’m outraged.
Ahead of the first hearing of the Jan.6 Select Committee I had the opportunity, due to my more than 40 years in law enforcement, to share my thoughts as part of a panel discussion about what had happened on that terrible day, and what I expected to come from the hearings. I shared that I […]
How Trumpy are we, Wisconsin?
Like a summer storm, Donald Trump blew through the Wisconsin Republican primary, propelling his chosen candidate, construction company owner Tim Michels, to victory over the establishment-picked former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. At a rally in Waukesha for Michels last Friday, Trump not only attacked Kleefisch, whom he called “the handpicked candidate of a failed establishment,” […]
We should all aspire to be peasants
Rising food prices — as the USDA has forecast for 2022 — may seem like a good thing for farmers. After all, who wouldn’t like to see some more cash? Farmers, like everyone else, have been through a lot lately. Years of stagnant or falling farm income in many ways paralleled the stagnant wages of […]
Records reveal state officials’ response to elder eviction
The head of a state agency charged with enforcing Wisconsin’s rules regarding nursing homes and other residential care facilities was blindsided to learn that unknown others in state government had rescinded citations issued to a Milwaukee-area provider regarding the unlawful eviction of my then-97-year-old mother, Elaine Benz. “This is news to me that we withdrew […]
Governor Evers’ Office of Environmental Justice is a boon to Wisconsin communities and businesses
Every year, Wisconsin is forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding and repairing infrastructure damaged or destroyed due to extreme weather conditions. This is growing worse because of climate change and unfortunately, these impacts are felt first and worst by communities of color, tribal nations and low-income communities. On Earth Day, Gov. Tony […]
Saying goodbye to Sarah Godlewski
It was a bittersweet moment on Friday when State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski ended her U.S. Senate campaign. It was a week of rapid realignment, with Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson dropping out and backing Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes on Monday and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry following suit on Wednesday. With Democrats consolidating behind Barnes, […]
Tammy Baldwin’s big moment
Leave it to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) to begin building bipartisan consensus on a bill to protect same-sex marriage, just as the Jan. 6 committee hearings are exposing how political polarization is ripping our nation apart. Baldwin is keeping her head down, doing what she does best — pursuing an earnest policy goal and, […]
Wisconsin must repudiate this Trump-ordered assault on voting and fair elections
On July 20, Republican Wisconsin state legislators on the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR), at the behest of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and State Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), voted to suspend an emergency rule regarding common sense clerk corrections for small omissions on absentee ballot witness certificates. While […]
Tim Michels’ troubles expose Republican hypocrisy on immigration
Tim Michels, the construction company owner and Donald Trump’s favorite Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, has been having a hard time squaring his past and present views on immigration. Michels is taking fire from his main GOP rival after Dan Bice reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that a group led by Michels fought […]
Three years of digging up the truth in the Badger State
The Wisconsin Examiner turns three years old today, and our work is more important than ever. When we launched in July of 2019, in the midst of the budget battle between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the Republican leaders of the state Legislature, we declared our intention to keep an eye on the Capitol, where […]
The rightwing assault hits close to home
It’s pretty hard not to take it personally when the highest court in the land erases your humanity. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has rolled back a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion, the power of the state reaches right through us, deciding what happens inside our bodies. What we think […]