Commentary
Wisconsin schools are ill-prepared for coronavirus
My nine-year-old granddaughter became visibly upset watching TV, as images of people in surgical masks walking the streets in panic over the coronavirus crossed the screen. She wanted to know if she or her family was in danger. With television and social media, our children know about the global virus pandemic. What should we be […]
I’m grateful my Republican parents reluctantly signed up for Obamacare
When I learned that the Supreme Court will hear a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act later this year, I thought of my parents immediately. My parents were reluctant to sign up for Obamacare. In fact, for as long as I can remember, my parents, a preschool teacher and self-employed tile installer, didn’t […]
Justice Dan Kelly’s big guns and deaf ear
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly is tone deaf when it comes to gun violence in Wisconsin. Just a day after a gunman killed five people and himself at the Molson Coors brewery in Milwaukee, Kelly held a fundraiser at a Brookfield shooting range. The Feb. 27 fundraiser offered participants three levels of giving – […]
Don’t let Big Pharma capitalize on coronavirus
The new COVID-19 coronavirus has spread to pandemic proportions, infecting people in 30 countries as it makes its way from continent to continent. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned that it’s a matter of when, not if, the virus will spread across America. The world needs a coronavirus vaccine now — one that is […]
All hell breaks loose in South Carolina debate
Elizabeth Warren wasn’t done with Mike Bloomberg quite yet. After multiple disappointing finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada it looks as though Warren’s chances of coming out ahead in the primary are increasingly slim—despite the fact that she is the most articulate advocate for progressive policy positions who can also appeal to voters across […]
Gov. Evers should insist the Legislature reconsider his win-win proposal
An unexpected budget surplus gives Wisconsin a golden opportunity to make investments in our children and our schools that will pay big dividends down the road. But some legislators are refusing to use a portion of the surplus to provide Wisconsin schools with the resources they need to educate today’s children and tomorrow’s workers — […]
Nobody likes a smarty pants: Why Warren and Obama irk pundits so much
Elizabeth Warren has never succeeded in charming the pundit class, which tends to describe her in oh-so-flattering terms like professorial, scold, elitist, lecturing, strident and schoolmarmish (she was a Harvard professor before being elected as a senator, in case you couldn’t tell by these pejoratives). After covering this primary for the last approximately 12,000 years (or […]
Black History Month revisited
During one of his frequent visits to Milwaukee, the late African-comedian Dick Gregory cracked a joke during a Black History Month ceremony: “Y’all know they just had to give us the one month with all them messed up days, don’t you?” The joke, in front of a predominantly African-American audience, received the expected laughs and […]
Bloomberg and Trump: Two peas in a pod
It seems that having money, plenty of money, must somehow bestow a certain sense of omniscience upon the very wealthiest in society, making some of them feel that they are uniquely qualified to hold political office. It would appear, unfortunately, that there are many voters and media outlets who feel those who possess great wealth, […]
‘Tougher on Crime’ is no way to go
This week, the Legislature is considering an ill-conceived and wrong-headed package of bills that the authors are peddling as “tougher on crime.” But what the bills would do is only increase the costly problem of mass incarceration in Wisconsin, a problem that disproportionately falls on the shoulders of black and brown families. Here’s one example: […]
What Wisconsin could show the nation
Editor’s note: Today, together with our sister publications in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania we are kicking off a series of news stories and commentary to bring you an on-the-ground view of our politically divided states, the issues that matter most to people here, and what’s missing in reports from the national media who parachute in for the […]
Buttigieg and Klobuchar come out ahead in New Hampshire debate
Well, that was fun. What better way to top off a week that included President Donald Trump’s defiant State of the Union, Rush Limbaugh’s Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Senate vote to exonerate Trump and his subsequent victory lap (including retribution against those to dared to tell the truth about him), and the catastrophically messed-up […]