Wisconsin Targeting Native Americans Like It Was 1870

The Walker-era GOP offensive against Native Americans shows how far the state has fallen from its progressive history:

*  Led by right-wing talk radio, Republican legislators are using state power to make it easier for local school districts to keep their Indian mascots and logos.

*  The same legislators - - many from the deeply-red southeastern Wisconsin suburbs - - have fast-tracked legislation and permit reviews to enable an out-of-state iron mining company to dig and blast away for 35 years at the edge of the Bad River Band of Ojibwe land, drinking water and wild-rice estuaries.

*  And the same clique of bullying lawmakers pushed through a science-free wolf harvest slaughter to satisfy so-called sporting constituencies by decimating an animal sacred to Ojibwe people. (More, here.)

In the 19th century, the Ojibwe ceded what is today Northern Wisconsin in exchange for small reservations and perpetual rights to hunt, fish and freely-access the ceded territory.

Sticking it to the tribes is part of Wisconsin Republican statewide electoral strategy.

It stacks suburban votes on top of turnout in rural, small town Wisconsin to neutralize Democratic bigger-city wards  - - and sacrifices common sense, water science and treaty rights for narrow, partisan, special interests.

In a word, cold.

More and more, "R" in Wisconsin means "retrograde."