'Development' aims more harm at WI land, waters & indigenous cultures

It is unacceptable in the year 2021 for public agencies to continually trample on public lands, clean water and Native American cultures.

But that is precisely what is happening in two threatened high-profile land and water desecrations - one for a toxifying mining project enabled by corporate tools Scott Walker and Tom Tiffany along the Menominee River on the Wisconsin-Michigan border - 

- and the other, separately, on a Lake Michigan shoreline nature preserve and state park in Sheboygan County which has already gathered a host of public agency endorsements.

More below:

*Activist and educator Al Gedicks has recently explained - again - the threat to Native American lands, culture and waters posed by the Back 40 mine and its proposed waste tailings dam:

[The] design for storing mine waste, known as the upstream dam construction method, is being proposed for the Back Forty Project, a large metallic sulfide mine and tailings dam on the Wisconsin-Michigan border. This earthen tailings dam and mine would be just 150 feet from the Menominee River. Despite the fact that the Menominee River is an interstate waterway, the state of Michigan has assumed permitting authority because the proposed mine is located in Stephenson, Michigan. The Wisconsin DNR, under former Gov. Scott Walker, allowed Michigan to assume exclusive jurisdiction over the permitting process.

If this dam were breached it could send toxic wastes into Lake Michigan and threaten drinking water for millions in the upper Midwest. 

The Coalition to SAVE the Menominee River and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin are determined to prevent this from happening. 

To send a letter urging Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to deny the dam safety permit for the Back Forty Project, go to the coalition’s webpage: www.jointherivercoalition.org. To view a 5 minute video where I call for greater dam safety and inspections, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M089bmle35o

Recent court actions in Michigan could block the project, for now. 

* The investigative website WisconsinWatch last week produced a blockbuster piece - now receiving national circulation - that examined damage already preliminary done to Native American remains on a 247-wooded-and-wildlife-habitat-and-rare-dune-rich tract which will be heavily clearcut and otherwise altered if a privately-owned golf course project there receives final approvals: 

Archeologists have unearthed human remains of Native Americans who lived up to 2,500 years ago during excavations of the Sheboygan County site along Lake Michigan where Kohler Co. wants to build an 18-hole golf course. 

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee team in 2018 and 2019 inadvertently encountered  fragments of human bone and teeth from at least seven locations beneath the privately-owned wetlands and forest where Kohler Co. envisions its third championship facility in Wisconsin, according to documents obtained by Wisconsin Watch. 

The disturbance came while recovering tens of thousands of ceramics, tools and other artifacts at the 247-acre site during a study required under federal historic preservation law, according to a 2019 report. 

These two proposed 'developments' which would require the bulldozing of land, water and Native American culture is not incidental or accidental; Google "Spearfishing Controversy," or this explanation among many about the failed plan to demolish the pristine Penokee Hills in NW Wisconsin that would have had been ruinous impacts on the environment and specifically on the Bad River Ojibwe land, waters and way of life.

All of these episodes can be summed up in a remark at a pro-forma public hearing on the failed Penokee Hills mine bill made by then-State Rep. Jeff Stone, (R-Greenfield), as he justified the exclusion of Bad River representatives from the bill's insider-managed authorship.

Though video of Stone's remark is no longer available as it was when I posted about it in 2012, two telling public records provide the details and context.

1. The quote is in print:

Assembly committee OKs GOP bill to streamline iron mining permit process 

"I don't think our job is to provide a seat at the table for the tribes, who want to be treated as a sovereign nation," Stone said. 

2. And there is a three-minute video linked in this blog post which shows Stone and other GOP reps hustling to then-GOP Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald's office after they'd pushed the mining bill through a committee. 

The video ends with Capitol police telling the group with the videographer they could not come into Fitzgerald's office and had to leave the hallway outside where they were peaceably waiting because they had "no official business" with the legislators. 

Which, if you think about it, was a variation on Stone's dismissive, no-seat-at-the-table message.

And which continues to be delivered by the intertwined corporate interests and public agencies to the opponents the proposed lakeshore golf course which would also eat up state parkland, too:

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals Tuesday reinstated a lawsuit challenging a deal that would trade part of Kohler-Andrae State Park for other lands so Kohler Company can build another golf course along Lake Michigan....

Sheboygan County judge Edward Stengel dismissed the action for lack of standing.... 

In Tuesday’s ruling, the court found that the [Friends of the Black River Forest] plaintiffs had in fact alleged sufficient injuries to be heard, not just dismissed. 

It is “not hypothetical or conjectural that the land exchange may cause the Friends to suffer the alleged recreational, aesthetic, and conservational injuries as a result of the golf course construction,” the court wrote. 

The injuries included the plaintiffs’ loss of use of the portion of the park given to Kohler, loss of wildlife likely to result from development of the course, and the impact the course would have on the remaining part, including more traffic and noise. 

The plaintiffs also contend the DNR didn’t follow proper procedures in conveying the park property to Kohler.

The WI GOP is the pain & suffering party

You really need a scorecard - and a strong stomach - to track the deliberate actions that WI GOP legislators have recently taken which knowingly inflict pain and suffering on state citizens, especially those with the least resources to fight back.

* Wisconsin's GOP legislative leaders sent all members home for most of 2020 with full salary and benefits without legislatively-confronting the COVID19 crisis, fought the Governor's emergency health orders, forced voters to cast ballots at polling stations while the airborne virus was surging, and were willing to trade a ten-fold increase in positive COVID cases for ending masking orders. 

All that and more is documented here.

* Then they sloppily cancelled $70 million a month in federally-provide emergency food aid for low-income residents and those who had lost jobs to the crisis. 

The life-or-death funding was restored by the Governor and Federal Government, not the GOP legislators who created the problem and the anxieties that went with it.

* Earlier this week the same GOP leaders refused again without debate to accept federally-funded health care insurance coverage for 91,000 state citizens, including some working in a state where Republicans have kept the minimum wage frozen at $7.25/hr. - but earn just enough above the federally-defined poverty level and do not quality for the state's Medicaid program.

The funding would have saved state taxpayers $1.6 billion dollars the GOP leaders are willing to plug in to cover some of what the sacrificed federal money would have financed, but that's how our state's fake conservatives roll.

GOP Assembly Leader Robin Vos continues to block federally-funded expanded health care coverage for 91,000 low-income residents.

A Wisconsin physician explained what turning aside the federal funding would mean to her low-income patients:

Dr. Ann Helms, a neurologist in Brookfield, treats patients with strokes.

“So I see patients when they have no choice but to go to the hospital. The number of patients I have saying, ‘You have to discharge me, I can’t afford this. I’m going to go bankrupt,” said Dr. Helms. “They end up with catastrophic medical bills and are never able to work again. So they end up on permanent disability. Whereas, if we had been able to cover $5 of antihypertensive and a visit to the doctor twice a year, they’d be able to still be working.”

* And on Thursday the state GOP Death Cult's leadership cut so much money from the Governor's proposed school aid budget, and played so many rule-breaking games with it, that another $1.5 billion in federally-provided COVID funding for schools is now imperiled.

Republican leaders know these decisions put people's health, jobs, futures and lives at risk - even as COVID19 still infects and kills state citizens - yet our taxpayer-paid public 'servants' do not care.

They only care about remaining in gerrymandered-protected, benefit-laden and do-little-to-nothing legislative seats- 

The Wisconsin Legislature has been the least active full-time state legislative body in the country since states began taking measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, a WisPolitics.com review finds. 

 - from which they are working on a single agenda: diminishing Gov. Evers and defeating him in a 2022 election they are busy rigging in their favor with a raft of new voting suppression laws.

It's a disgrace.

RoJo seeks 'honest and complete information.' Sometimes.

From Ron Johnson's Twitter feed on 5/27/21:

The world needs to know the origin of the Coronavirus. It is critical that this administration does its part by being transparent and providing the American people with honest and complete information. All I’m asking for is the truth.

 

Q. Say, Senator: How about the origin of the Jan. 6 insurrection? How about "providing the American people honest and complete information" about it, since people were killed that day...in your workplace? 

All I'm asking for is the truth.

A. Forget it:

Johnson opposes Jan. 6 commission.

"I hope no Republicans in the House vote for this," Johnson said. "I hope nobody in the Senate embraces it either."

 

Vos adds more duties to his Constitutional Office portfolio

Remember when GOP Assembly Speaker and defacto Health Services czar

Robin Vos puffed himself up to Constitutional Office status?

Except that - 

"There is no constitutional provision that creates a position called ‘Speaker of the Assembly,’" said Madison attorney Lester Pines, who typically represents Democrats and related causes. "It exists by custom and tradition. The Legislature could at any time choose to eliminate the position of ‘speaker.’ 

Anyway, Vos continues to multitask as self-appointed Health Services czar, shadow Governor AND State Treasurer, too:

Vos says no to plan that would provide Wisconsin with $1.6 billion for health care

And now - throw in Attorney General, too, because Inspector Vos Von Clouseau 

is on the case: 

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is hiring retired police officers to investigate aspects of the November election, joining with Republicans from around the country who have questioned President Joe Biden’s victory.

DNR undermines newly-posted WI wolf hunt planning

The Wisconsin DNR has posted new information about plans and procedures for the fall 2021 wolf hunt. Details are here.

While I credit the agency for the detailed posting, I'll wait and see how much public input is adopted and whether authentic participation by opponents is allowed, and, given the quota-breaking February slaughter of more than 200 Wisconsin wolves - 

Hunters Killed 82% More Wolves Than Quota Allowed in Wisconsin 

The state’s Department of Natural Resources granted permits to about 1,500 hunters to kill 119 wolves, but 216 were shot

 - as well as earlier killing seasons in which the WI DNR allowed its published quotas to be exceeded - 

- let me register in the strongest terms an objection to this self-serving, credibility-crushing-second sentence on the agency's re-crafted wolf information webpage: 

The Wisconsin DNR has successfully managed gray wolves for decades and will continue to do so in accordance with the laws of our state and the best science available.

To be fair, the DNR was - and still is - dealing with a bad procedural hand dealt to it by fact-challenged state legislators who were and remain in thrall to some hunting and other so-called 'sportsmen's' lobbies.

But the agency does itself no favors claiming adherence to best, science-based practices when the record shows otherwise. 

Guest blog reminder: Kohler golf course to take state park land

We've had this sign in our yard for years. 

It was made by Friends of the Black River Forest, the Sheboygan-area grassroots organization trying to stop the construction of a privately-owned golf course along Lake Michigan which will clearcut tens of thousands of trees, tear out wildlife and migrating bird habitat, destroy rare sand dunes, fill wetlands and desecrate ancient Native American relics and burial grounds, a government evaluation shows.

People often stop by as did a group Friday night when I was tending to the yard to ask what the sign's all about. 

When I explained it, and said the plan - which public agencies have already approved - requires taking acreage inside Kohler Andrae State Park, a woman in the group said.

"Kohler Andrae?," she asked, incredulously? "I don't need to hear anything more."

And this is the problem; people still don't know this could happen because the site is just outside major media markets, and perhaps because such a possibility is simply unthinkable when we now know so much about preservation, open space, clean water, sustaining forests, and their relationships to climate change, and other pressures on Lake Michigan.

And because most large Wisconsin environmental groups are headquartered in Madison and Milwaukee and have not had the focus or resources to get this project on their priority lists.

So to continue expanding the discussion and keeping a record let me today add three things:

1. This recent commentary about the project among scores of blog posts on this site  dating to 2014:

Project opponents, Mother Nature make the case vs. shoreline golf project

2. This very important piece posted Saturday by the investigative media site WisconsinWatch: 

Ancient human remains unearthed at proposed Kohler golf course site in Wisconsin

The rapidly eroding Lake Michigan shoreline is also raising questions about the future of the controversial project adjacent to Kohler-Andrae State Park  

3. This guest post submitted by Erik Thelan, a project opponent and activist with Friends of the Black River Forest.

Tear a corner off your park sticker, because you've lost the northern hunk of Kohler Andrae State Park to the Kohler company for their fifth luxury golf course.   

Yep, the DNR gave them 6.47 acres of our state park -- that's the size of five football fields -- so the golf folks could build a roundabout (like we really need one more of those) and a 22,000 square foot maintenance shed (picture a warehouse that takes up half a football field, then fill it with herbicide, fuel, and lawn mowers).  

While you're trimming your park sticker, think about how much you're going to miss the sand beach at the state park. Because when the golf folks armor their mile of Lake Michigan shoreline to keep their greens and fairways from washing away, the adjacent state park beaches will disappear. 

How do we know this?  Because the same thing happened when the geniuses at Concordia University armored their shoreline: the sand transport cycle was disrupted, and neighbors to the south suffered a scary amount of erosion as a result. The Journal Sentinel reported on the lawsuits: just google Concordia University Bluff Failures.  

Right now the Kohler folks insist that they are going to leave the shoreline alone. The current plans show silt fences along the Lake Michigan shoreline.  No kidding. That's like using a paper towel for a parachute. Rest assured, once construction starts, the feigned ignorance will vanish, the developer will declare an emergency, and they will drop boulders along the shoreline. 

Why this feigned ignorance now? Because if the golf course proposal had included the inevitable revetments, the permit process would be even more controversial and more bogged down. 

Finally, if your cousins are planning to camp at Kohler Andrae, tell them to expect to wake up early, because Kohler Hospitality will be firing up their mowers at the crack of dawn to get the greens and fairways looking nice for the early golfers.  

Go ahead and tell me that the DNR traded our state natural area fair and square, and that in this country people can do whatever they please with their own property. We'll talk again when your billionaire neighbor builds a Nascar short track alongside your patio. Or maybe you'll tell me that I only paid $28 for my park sticker, so what did I expect would happen when someone came along with a better offer? 

And there it is: the state park belongs to all of us...until it doesn't.  

 

Tiffany continues to give constituents biased, distorted 'information'

We hear a lot about low-information voters, but I think we need to hear more about the public officials who deliberately feed their constituents slanted or outright bad information that disrespects citizens and poisons the political environment.

There are two jaw-dropping examples of this worst of the worst practice in the latest e-issue of Cong. Tiffany's quaintly-titled "Tom Tiffany's Telegram" newsletter - though you have fight your way through his ignorant and routine griping about "illegal aliens" and other right-wing banalities to spot them.

Let me point them out:

*1. After voting against Biden's COVID relief bill and blasting it as "a train wreck," Tiffany used his taxpayer-financed newsletter to steer constituents to the bill's improved childcare benefit package available because "Congress increased" it. 

Many of you have likely seen in the media, recently enacted legislation will include $1.8 trillion in tax credits for families and children over the course of ten years. Until 2021, the child tax credit was $2,000 per child under 17, but in 2021 Congress increased the credit to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under age 6. Beginning on July 15th, the IRS will begin making monthly payments in the form of one-twelfth the annual credit i.e. a single parent making $60,000 annually will receive $250 per month. You can learn more here .

Before you say, 'fine,' understand that a voter in Tiffany's district not closely following the factual news might assume that Tiffany helped the measure along since he's their representative in the "Congress [that] increased it." 

And Tiffany didn't remind his readers that he voted "no" on the measure and called it "a train wreck." 

His lack of transparency allows Tiffany to have it both ways on the issue and keeps his constituents poorly informed.

*2. Tiffany also used the newsletter to continue downplaying - as have Republicans from the former President to Ron Johnson and all of Wisconsin's GOP House members on down - the severity of the Jan. 6 violent - and televised - insurrection that led to scores of injuries, multiple deaths and millions in damages to the US Capitol. 

You may have also seen news regarding legislation to create a bipartisan commission on the January 6 Capitol riot. Unfortunately, by narrowly focusing on this one isolated event – while turning a blind eye to the months of widespread, politically-motivated rioting, looting, violence and mayhem across the country that preceded it – the bill missed the mark. 

"One isolated event?"

That little-itty-bitty-event was an attempt to overthrow the Presidential election, seize the Speaker of the House and hang the Vice-President.

Tiffany also doesn't remind his readers that he with Cong. Scott Fitzgerald voted to throw out Wisconsin's electors' legitimate ballots - thereby endorsing the goal of the insurrectionists - and the two Wisconsin representatives did it after the Capitol had been retaken by law enforcement officers who helped protect all Members of Congress from the mob. 

Fitzgerald and Tiffany went through with their objections after the Capitol had been cleared of a mob of Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol earlier in the day, incited by the president’s claims that the election had been stolen from him. 

Even Ron Johnson didn't go that far. 

Tiffany is engaging in some serious rewriting of what that bloody and anti-democratic "one isolated event" was really all about.

Tiffany also failed to mention that the bill passed the House with 35 GOP "Aye" votes - but not his or those of his Wisconsin GOP colleagues - because Democrats made key concessions:

An independent probe — and a public reckoning — is not only necessary, but also very much in line with precedent after events of national trauma. The commission would be shaped along the lines of the one that investigated the roots of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and made recommendations for how to prevent similar events in the future.

The legislation is a proposal worked out by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the panel’s ranking Republican, Rep. John Katko (N.Y.).

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made several concessions to Republican demands, including that the panel be evenly divided, with Democrats and Republicans each naming half its 10 commissioners, and that any subpoenas it issues require agreement between the Democratic-appointed chair and the Republican vice chair or a vote by a majority of commission members.

Again - if low-information voting is a problem, let's not forget that there are public officials who like it that way and also like keeping voters in the dark. 

It's about the crudest form of incumbent-self-perpetuation you could imagine being practiced in a democracy.

 

 

 

 

Stand by for bulletins from the OJ RoJo Columbo Combo

Wisconsin's Senior US Senator seen here apparently also shocked that the camera doesn't lie - 

2021 screenshot

- is unleashing his inner RoJo P.I. 

Ron Johnson Says He's Going to Do His Own Investigation of the Capitol Insurrection 

• Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson voted Wednesday against forming a bipartisan commission to investigate the origins of the riot by Trump supporters at the US Capitol that disrupted the tallying of electoral votes and forced him and other lawmakers to flee for their lives.
   
• Johnson, a Trump supporter who favored overturning states' election outcomes, told a right-wing cable channel that he is conducting his own examination.
   
• “I’m doing my own investigation to really accurately recreate what happened on Jan. 6th," said Johnson. “By and large it was peaceful protests, except for there were a number of people—basically agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol—and that’s really the truth of what’s happening here."

Awaiting results from the OJ/RoJo Columbo Sleuth Truth Combo lookin' for clues on Search for the Truth Trail.

A tip for RoJo PI- end your questioning this way" 'Oh, just one more thing.'

(Columbo. For you kids...)

WI GOP Capitol delegation continues to embrace the Capitol attackers

That all five WI GOP House members voted with most  Republicans against a bi-partisan investigation of the Jan. 6 armed insurrection which sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election means those Republican office holders fear - and may have personal knowledge about - the emergence of evidence showing culpability of GOP House colleagues, staffers, administration officials, partisan operatives and/or then-White House personnel including President T and his family.

Which also may explain why WI GOP Senator Ron Johnson -  

- had earlier likened the events on Jan. 6 which led to five deaths and injured scores of police officers to a friendly, pro-law enforcement crowd.

“Not one appeared angry or incited to riot,” Johnson said Tuesday, reading [into a hearing record] from [a purported eyewitness] account of the protesters. “Many of the marchers were families with small children; many were elderly, overweight, or just plain tired or frail — traits not typically attributed to the riot-prone.”

No wonder a Georgia GOP House Member thought he could claim that the Jan. 6 attackers resembled a normal day's gaggle of DC tourists.

The GOP strategy aims to obscure the circumstances of and obstruct any consequences for what was televised domestic terrorism inside the US Capitol aimed against Members of Congress gather as required by the Constitution required to certify Joe Biden's 2020 Presidential landslide wins with more than seven million popular votes and 57% of Electoral College ballots. 

If Senate Republicans succeed in killing the investigation's authorization they will hand the terrorists  a victory that could get even more frightening if Republicans win back the Congress - the same institution the terrorists defiled - in 2022 elections which will be dominated by the Big Republican Lie About The Stolen Election.

It's a dangerous scenario which Republicans nationwide are further enabling through an ongoing, coordinated nationwide assault against ballot access - including in Wisconsin - which aims to suppress Democratic turnout and tip the Presidency back to T, or a clone.

WI Cong. Tiffany, (R-White People), voted "No" on anti-Asian-hate measure

Fresh off his opposition to legislation providing modest compensation to African-American farmers who were cheated of land and funding through decades of official and racist financing and laws, Wisconsin's northwoods Cong. Tom Tiffany 

stood with 61 other House members and voted "No" on a measure to condemn and fight hate crimes against Asian-Americans.

Tiffany keeps emphasizing that he serves only some Americans in his district - though people of all races pay taxes which cover his salary, benefits and perks - and those Americans who do not share his genetic makeup must look elsewhere in Congressional for representation.

And Marathon County - here -  is in Tiffany's district, and The New York Times discloses some ugliness which Tiffany will never lead in resolving:

A ‘Community for All’? Not So Fast, This Wisconsin County Says.

US legislators from WI say jobless citizens are lazy grifters

Citing no data, a resentment-stirring-grievance-and-talking-point-laden WI GOP Sen. Ron Johnson said "subsidies" to unemployed people are preventing employers from filling jobs:

"The biggest problem businesses in Wisconsin face now is finding people willing to turn down government subsidies and go back to work," U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Oshkosh said in a statement.

Democrats, and even business leaders, had a more layered and less judgmental analysis about post-pandemic unemployment and the impact of a temporary $300 per week payment to the unemployed which has millionaire Johnson so worked up:

Republicans and business groups contend some workers are reluctant to take jobs because of how much they make in benefits and say the situation is hurting the economy. Many Democrats say the help is still needed and note people often no longer qualify for benefits if they turn down a good job offer.

Republican office holders, including Paul Ryan (and again),  Glenn Grothman, Scott Walker and their hero, Ronald Reagan, who enjoyed fat, subsidized salaries, benefits and special perks as routine entitlements can instantly display a nasty disdain for people who are poor, down on their luck, out of work and/or routinely suppressed. 

Highly-subsidized Senator perhaps rooting out those getting smaller subsidies?

So, of course, all five of Johnson's junior and equally callous state GOP Congressional caucus members who each make more than $3,400 a week - or 11 times the temporary, $300-per-week unemployment support Johnson cannot abide - signed on to his shaming and shameful letter:

Johnson sent a letter to Evers on the issue that was also signed by the five Republicans who represent the state in the U.S. House — Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau, Mike Gallagher of Green Bay, Glenn Grothman of Glenbeulah, Bryan Steil of Janesville and Tom Tiffany of Minocqua. 

 

 

 

Speak up for a quiet/no-snowmobile Blue Mound State Park

You have until Wednesday, 5/19, to weigh in about proposed changes to Blue Mound State Park that would bring motorized machine noise, exhaust and disruption for hikers and cross-country skiers who expect a quiet experience there. 

Below is comment procedure and other information about the proposed changes, and how to make your voice heard:

Urgent! Please oppose a new snowmobile trail at Blue Mound State Park.

• Subscribe to receive updates on the Blue Mound State Park Master Plan Revision

The Blue Mound State Park Proposed Master Plan is on the Natural Resources Board’s May meeting agenda as Item 4.K to be considered for approval.

Read the Blue Mound State Park Proposed Master Plan and Environmental Analysis [PDF]

To submit written comments or register to testify regarding the BMSP Proposed Master Plan, please see the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board’s Public Participation Guidelines.  

Please contact Phil Rynish at Phillip.Rynish@wisconsin.gov or 608-977-0286 with questions regarding the plan and its content. 

I'm also copying below a portion of a November, 2019 blog post about these same issues.

It's time to hit the trail if you want a say in the future of Blue Mound State Park. 

You may remember that the WI DNR decided to allow snowmobiles inside the traditionally-quiet Blue Mound State Park back when the agency was run degraded with Walker's preferred 'chamber of commerce mentality.'

Photo from Friends of Blue Mound State park website

That move was blocked by a Dane County Circuit Court because the agency's maneuvers violated its own rules. 

A judge has thrown out the state’s controversial decision to add a snowmobile trail to a state park known for silent sports such as cross-country skiing. 

The Department of Natural Resources violated its own rules when it approved snowmobiling at Blue Mound State Park, Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn ruled Tuesday.

I'd written about the ruling, and put it into a larger context.

Court ruling for state park's integrity could assist another 

You would assume this snippet about the park from a DNR communication, below, would elicit comments from preservationists, hikers and others statewide willing to leave their snowmobiles parked elsewhere: 

Perched atop the highest point in southern Wisconsin, the more than 1,100 acre Blue Mound State Park offers spectacular views, opportunities to see and learn about unique geological features and a variety of recreational facilities. 

Over 20 miles of scenic trails, access to the Military Ridge State Trail, bike-in campsites, a family campground, summer swimming pool, and a rustic cabin for people with disabilities make Blue Mound a popular year-round destination.

Latest Republican insolence born of WI's toxic gerrymander

As you absorb this man's crude, intentional and ignorant insensitivity, remember this:

Beaver Dam GOP State Representative Mark Born 

has risen above his previous and rightful State Capitol anonymity only because GOP Assembly Speaker and fellow minority dismisser Robin Vos installed Born as co-chairman of the powerful Joint Finance Committee - where decisions of a just a handful of state's 132 legislators can turn the whims and bigoted biases of the committee and Legislature's gerrymandered GOP majority into public policy:

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Senate Republicans voted 18-12 Tuesday to pass a resolution honoring Rush Limbaugh, the divisive conservative commentator and radio host who died February 17.... In the same Senate session, Republicans turned down Democratic efforts to include slavery and Black history in a bill requiring public schools to teach the Holocaust and other genocides; they also rejected another attempt at a Black History Month resolution after passing on a similar effort last month.

Another example: stripping crucial public health funding for lead pipe replacement from the state budget because too much money was targeted for Milwaukee where the largest number lead pipes in the state serve a majority city population of color; perhaps Born could have a section of that toxic piping added to the temporary display in a Capitol hallway he said adequately represents African-American history in Wisconsin: 

...he referenced the Capitol exhibit: "I think if you want to look at just Black history, you can stop by third floor East (wing) and see a Black history display that's in the case there...." 

In the Capitol display case are about a dozen items, including a Civil War drum and drumsticks; a pillbox hat worn by Milwaukee resident Annie Mae McClain; a gavel presented to Vel Phillips, Wisconsin's first African-American secretary of state; a 'Black Jesus' carving made by Milwaukee resident George McCormick; a bowling shirt designed and worn by Milwaukee Women's Bowling Association Hall of Fame member Earlene Fuller; and more. 

So when you see and hear Born you must also hear and see Vos, because Born would still be just another Capitol cookie-cutter fool if not for the promotion to power Vos thought Born had earned and deserved.

Pol & Dodge Co. history buff should read up on the local history

Wisconsin's new GOP Assembly Finance committee co-chair Mark Born 

who deserved for his ugly dismissiveness of African-American culture the "racist" label awarded him by Milwaukee State Sen. LaTonya Johnson - had told a reporter when he first ran for office that growing up in Beaver Dam has framed his life's philosophies and interests.

Which included active participation in the local historical society: 

Outside of his job, Born is involved in many community groups including the Dodge County Historical Society, where he is vice-president, Beaver Dam Lake Improvement Association, Elk’s Lodge 1540, Leadership Beaver Dam and St. John’s Lutheran Church.

We'd earlier noted Born's proclivity for crapping on people, here, so we're not surprised he'd bully his way into open disrespect for African-American culture, but here's a follow-up question:

If Born is such a devotee of local history, has he ever seen and given a little thought to the meaning and message on this noteworthy plaque in his hometown in 2000, and how it might guide his behavior as an influential state official?

Marker 458: Frederick Douglass

Erected 2000 by Wisconsin Historical Society
Beaver Dam, Dodge County, Wisconsin

43° 27.383′ N, 88° 50.402′ W

Google Map 

FREDERICK

DOUGLAS

Frederick Douglass was a former runaway slave who was a leading orator and author of the abolitionist movement. He is regarded as one of the most influential Americans of the nineteenth century. On October 20, 1856, Douglass came to Beaver Dam and spoke to a large audience about the brutality and immorality of slavery. His speech was also intended to generate support for the abolitionist movement in Dodge County and Wisconsin.

The marker is located on westbound Front Street / Business U.S. 151 / County Road G, west of its intersection with North Center Street / State Highway 33, / County Road W near 208 Front Street, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin 53916.

Johnson lauds COVID 'natural immunity,' but 668,000 in WI caught the virus

Our GOP senior Senator is equating "highly effective" COVID vaccines with "natural immunity" which didn't save 7,706 state citizens among more than 688,000 who caught the virus. 

Imagine if your doctor had told you this was the way to get through the pandemic. 

In fact, here's how a real Wisconsin doctor has framed the choice between vaccinations and turning down vaccinations:

Pediatrician still battling COVID-19 symptoms urges parents to get children vaccinated

A Milwaukee pediatrician still has serious COVID-19 symptoms more than six months after contracting the virus from a young patient. She urges parents to get their kids vaccinated, when they're eligible.

But, Johnson is on another ideological tear about freedom and he took to Twitter Thursday to amplify his dangerous, Bizarro World thinking [sic]:

Senator Ron Johnson

@SenRonJohnson

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2h

Today's

@CDCgov

action on masks is well overdue. The vaccine is highly effective. So is natural immunity.

By the way, Johnson has said the only reason he ran against Feingold in May, 2010, is because he said he saw a Fox commentator plead for a rich guy to take on Feingold on:

"Yesterday, Wisconsin business owner Ron Johnson announced he's running for the Republican nomination to oppose Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI). What spurred him to action? Fox News' call for Republican candidates.

"During a press conference announcing his candidacy, Johnson explained: “I was sitting at home watching Fox News and Dick Morris came on and said 'Hey, you know, Feingold is vulnerable. You know, if you're a rich guy from Wisconsin, step up to the plate.' I kind of looked at (my wife) Jane and said 'is he, like, talking to me?'”

2021 photo