More ideas escape from Wisconsin's Republican brainstorm factory

There is more evidence that Wisconsin GOP legislators are misusing their time and the money we send them work for us.

This abuse begins with a radical legislative gerrymander which they are expanding, and which has provided them with power grabs and access to public money to create a surplus of taxpayer-paid staffers whose role is crafting and distributing party brainstorms - 

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos added two new staffers last month, filling the last of the 14 positions he put under his authority for the session....The speaker’s staff is more than twice the size of Minority Leader Gordon Hintz’s.

- and that brainstorm factory continues to meddle in serious matters that could make a range of issues - many enumerated, here - even worse.

And unlike the phantom Foxconn factory at which Republicans have thrown billions without it having produced a single flat-screen television or airport coffee kiosk - the Republican brainstorm factory has a long work history.

Remember its release of words about everything from the appeal of marinated wolf meat (with a side of grilled sandhill crane) to why a notably voluble white State Senator called for the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa to be shunned and attacked.

But let me direct you to the latest words from suburban GOP State Legislator Joe Sanfelippo which he aimed at the City of Milwaukee: 

Rep. Sanfelippo Calls For National Guard To Patrol City 

Now. to be clear; no one minimizes the impacts that reckless driving and other violent behavior is inflicting on Milwaukee, and communities nationally, that thoughtful people say is related to the economic stresses spun out by the pandemic, but there's no evidence that sending in National Guard soldiers would do anything except waste public dollars and exacerbate problems.

City residents have seen this noisy, Republican do-nothing pander and play to conservative suburban base voters before. 

I recall when Village of Menomonee Falls Republican right-wing State GOP Rep. Janel Brandjten even said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett bore personal responsibility when suspects crossed municipal borders.

Her regionally-uncooperative and brainstormy solution? 

A proposed cut in Milwaukee's state funding, even though Milwaukee provides her residents with all city services and benefits for free when they play, work or visit in Milwaukee, and supply her village its drinking water, and sends her Village's budget through shared revenue a nice chunk of change every year that lowers her residents' property taxes.

But back to bright-ideas-Sanfelippo and a bit of his history:

* He was the state legislator who sabotaged and delayed the passage of a bi-partisan bill to expeditiously process unexamined rape evidence kits while victims waited for justice and perpetrators remained unpunished.

* And you may also recall that Sanfelippo and other Republican legislators offered nothing but punting through instant adjournments - not once but twice - when they had the chance to legislate on justice and policing matters, but chose to spend most of 2020 on paid vacation while the COVID pandemic raged statewide.

GOP State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, (R-West Allis)

In fact, Sanfelippo - despite 'serving' as chair of the Assembly Health Committee - had nothing to offer while COVID was killing hundreds of state citizens monthly and hospitalizing many more - when he said in October he couldn't think of anything more the state could do about the pandemic.

State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo argued Tuesday there is nothing more Wisconsin lawmakers can do to address the coronavirus after passing legislation to help hospitals and the unemployed six months ago.

“Beyond that, I think we have to remember that this is a virus. There is nothing that government can do,” Sanfelippo said in an interview with the WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network. “You know, we can’t wave a magic wand and make it go away.”

What, me worry?

Or stop suing to overturn public health orders? 

Or actively promote mask-wearing and, later, fact-based/fear-free vaccination campaigns?

But Sanfelippo isn't the only GOP state legislator vying for worst Idea of the Month, as the aforementioned Menomonee Falls GOP State Rep. - and Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee chair - Janel Brandjten - just threw out this doozy: 

Brandtjen, Murphy say they’d like to see Arizona-style audit of Wisconsin’s November election

The 'Arizona-style audit' which Brandjten is endorsing now includes the hiring of inexperienced cyber sleuthing ninjas who failed to find traces of bamboo in state paper ballots allegedly smuggled in from China to tip the Arizona outcome to Biden.

And the latest twist in this ridiculous exercise: the removal of Arizona ballot date to a remote cabin - in Montana - for further 'scientific' examination, according to NBC News:

MISSOULA, Mont. — New developments in the latest audit of Arizona’s Maricopa County 2020 general election results reveal a connection to a cabin in the remote Swan Valley of northwest Montana.

Brandjten has been multi-tasking, having worked to rein in transgender athletes among her busy agenda - though when you start off by saying 'this isn't a hate bill' you've pretty much tipped your hand - so we'll keep an eye out in case her office in the GOP ideas factory pumps out a release about moving Wisconsin Elections Commission ballot data for an Arizona-style fly-specking in an equally secure and distance cabin - perhaps in rural West Virginia, on stilts in a Louisiana bayou or in a van down by the river. 

Tiffany casts another vote against minority Americans

To his deliberate misrepresentation of minority Americans in his own district, you can add another blatantly bigoted move by Wisconsin's Northwoods US House Rep. Tom Tiffany -  

Cong. Tom Tiffany, (R-Whites Only)

- a vote against making Juneteenth a national holiday - to his expanding racist record, including:

* Opposing federal aid to African-American farmers after decades of discriminatory official programs and policies; 

* Voting "Nay" on anti-Asian hate legislation;

* And opposing the removal of statues from Congress that honored leading Confederate seditionists;

* A vote that lined up with his vote against accepting legitimate Electoral votes cast for President-elect Joe Biden in a failed effort to throw the election to the defeated former President - - a move which seditionist rioters tried to achieve through an attack on the US Capitol.

As I've noted, gerrymandered Republican bigots, embarrassments and ignorami are going to contaminate the Congress and accelerate Wisconsin's decaying national reputation for years and years.

Side note - Wisconsin's other notably reprehensible members of the state's GOP caucus - including Sen. Ron Johnson, and Reps. Grothman, Gallagher, Fitzgerald and Steil all voted "Yes" on the Juneteenth bill.

Which explains why Tiffany is strongly contending for the title of Worst Wisconsin Member of Congress.

Friday, 6/18 is WI wolf hunt comment deadline

Those of you who were horrified by the shocking, state-sanctioned and quota-busting February wolf slaughter in Wisconsin have until noon on Friday, June 18 to register your objections to more wolf killing scheduled for this fall, and beyond.

Remember that wolves -  

- are among wildlife which belong to all Wisconsin citizens under the Public Trust Doctrine, are not the property of any group or special interest and are to be managed by Department of Natural Resources stewardship.

Also remember that wolves help manage the natural environment, that they are central to the origin story of Wisconsin Native Americans, and should not be subjected to inhumane, motorized-and-GPS assisted-dog-pack pursuing/leg-snaring trophy killing which made a bloody mockery of Wisconsin's reputation, and 'fair-chase' hunting, too.

Here are the comment instructions: 

Submit your written comments via email at: DNRWildlifeWebmail@wisconsin.gov. 

Please include “Fall Wolf Season Comments” in the subject line. Comments will be recorded verbatim with submitter’s name and provided to the committee in advance of the meeting. 

To allow time for the committee to review comments, the deadline to submit comments is Friday, June 18th at noon. More details, here: 

For further information and guidance, I strongly recommend these materials create by the science-based group Wisconsin's Green Fire. 

Download the PDF of A Shared Vision for Wolves in Wisconsin

This report is the first in a series of Opportunities Now 2021-2023 issue reports that Wisconsin’s Green Fire will release in late 2020 and early 2021.

View a recording of the December 1, 2020 on-line briefing held by the team of Wisconsin’s Green Fire experts who developed the report. 

The 40-minute session includes a question and answer session with the press. 

MKE biz group reveals courageous neutrality on voting measures

Props to the always-persistent Erik Gunn and the good folks at Urban Milwaukee for posting this 'goes-to-the-heart-of-the-matter' piece about the pathetic timidity displayed by metro Milwaukee's chamber of commerce on voting rights 

currently under a power-grabbing attack by Republicans in Wisconsin:

MMAC Tightrope Walks on Voting Rights

Milwaukee business group supports voting rights in principle but won’t address barriers in GOP bills.

Milwaukee’s largest business group distributed a declaration and a set of bullet points Tuesday embracing a broad voting rights agenda, but stopped short of either endorsing or opposing recent bills that have drawn sharp criticism from voting rights activists. 

And I'm fascinated by this presumably principled qualification in the MMAC document: 

It also declares that “unreasonable obstacles” for voters “disenfranchises citizens and threatens the right to vote.” 

So which "reasonable obstacles" for voters are OK in the MMAC's estimation? 

Anybody want to walk with the group down that slippery slope?

Meanwhile, I think the documented political activities of the MMAC explain some of the organization's caution, including: 

* This 2017 summary: 

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce has spent or funneled more than $2.4 million since 2010 on elections and lobbying activities to push pro-business policies at the expense of workers and consumers.

As with most powerful special interests and business groups, Republican legislative and statewide candidates have been the Milwaukee chamber’s chief beneficiaries, particularly GOP Gov. Scott Walker. The governor has received about $1.5 million in campaign contributions and election backing through the group, which claims 1,800 Milwaukee-area business members.

* This list of campaign-related donations between 2016 and 2020, recorded by the non-profit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tilt heavily towards Republicans and includes $48,000 to the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee Segregated Fund. 

 

WI GOP enjoy de-stressing perks, but stress out everyday people

Most of us had probably seen those lists of stressors and the dangers they pose even before COVID brought higher levels of anxiety into homes, workplaces, daily living and relationships just about everywhere.

So it's infuriating that GOP legislators in Wisconsin whom taxpayers generously compensate continue to intentionally raise the stresses with which everyday people and public service organizations are already burdened.

While at the same time using their offices to minimize stress or worries in their own businesses and daily living. More on that point in a few paragraphs.

But make no mistake about it: GOP legislators routinely implement (with help from conservative funders and allies) an intentionally cruel campaign of trouble-making  from a position of gerrymandered superiority to control people who already have a greater share of problems, but fewer resources with which to fight back.

All the better with which to divide-and-conquer.

This is the latest example:

Leaders of the state's five largest school districts said Tuesday the Legislature's recent budget action has created a situation where school officials are putting off plans to use federal aid intended to help students and teachers recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Superintendents of school districts in Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee and Racine in a letter to leaders of the Joint Finance Committee said the panel's action on school funding has halted districts' planning efforts because of the potential loss of $2.3 billion in federal aid. The aid is in jeopardy because the level of state spending the committee set in May doesn't meet federal standards. 

On the heels of this deliberate:

Wisconsin has reached a deal with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will deliver more than $70 million per month in federal food aid just weeks before the state was to begin losing out on the funding because the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ COVID-19 emergency order.

That order came in response to a lawsuit against Gov. Evers' emergency anti-COVID public health order filed by a conservative businessman and major donor to GOP candidates. 

The use of food aid as a partisan cudgel in Wisconsin had its roots here:

On Wednesday, the Trump administration finalized a rule change that will make it more difficult for people to get food stamps — a change based around a model created by former Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans.

The changes, which will take effect next April, will reduce benefits people can receive food via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And while Walker’s cuts four years ago already hit food-stamp recipients hard, this rule stands to take the food benefits away from another 25,000- 27,000 people, according to estimates from the state Department of Human Services. 

The 2015 state Republican cuts took food stamps away from roughly 100,000 Wisconsinites, adding work requirements and other hurdles to the program known also known here as FoodShare.  

And began all the way back to something I discovered in Walker's first budget in 2011: 

It's right there in the budget, on page 65, in the "Health and Human Services" section: 

"To further encourage W-2 recipients to recognize that the goal of W-2 is for participants to secure unsubsidized employment, reduce the monthly benefit check by $20."

Mind you - Walker and his wife at the same wanted to upgrade the Governor's residence kitchens to the tune of $478,000; no contradiction there. 

And raised taxes on the poor to help fund tax cuts for businesses and upper-income earners.

And you can see the same policy and legislating patterns in Republicans' denial of expanded Medicaid care coverage, wage growth, and improved transit services that keeps poor people poor, stressed, and more focused on daily survival than political actions to oust their tormentors.

And yet, these same 'austerity-for-the-masses' GOP lawmakers have their own ways of keeping stress at bay that do not involve meditation, mindfulness and regular yoga by:

* Maintaining and even boosting their own taxpayer-provided benefits, and.... 

* Using their positions to sponsor and adopt laws that keep their personal businesses running smoothly, as the Journal Sentinel had noted in 2019:

A series of sweeping laws promoting the interests of landlords at the expense of renters, local governments and even public safety have been pushed through the state Capitol since 2011 by a group of lawmakers who moonlight as landlords. 

Backed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos — a college-town landlord with 23 properties worth about $3.8 million — the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted five major bills largely benefiting landlords.  

The measures speed up the eviction process, eliminate some tenant legal defenses, limit the power of cities to police landlords and cap fees tied to building code violations. They also allow landlords to toss renters' belongings on the curb immediately after an eviction, instead of placing the property in storage.

* And now GOP-legislator-tavern owners are playing the same, me-first game, as the Journal Sentinel explains (behind its paywall): 

Bice: Two GOP lawmakers who own taverns push bill to ease credit and give other help to Wisconsin bars

Republicans continue to demonize people who might get some relief from law, or public programs like Medicaid: 

"I think the State of Wisconsin has enough resources to be able to utilize, to make sure we have all of our priorities funded and we're not going to do it by expanding welfare," said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester. 

But career politician Vos and his colleagues - when they need it - are always ready to legitimize their behaviors and advantages: 

In an interview in his Capitol office, the Rochester Republican said there was no conflict of interest in his support for bills benefiting landlords, including his own property rental company.

"The idea of having a citizen legislature where people have experience is what everybody says they want, right?" said Vos, who had held elective office since 1994 and owns an array of businesses. "They don't want professional politicians."

 

 

The news gods let us recall Cathy Stepp 'always carries a fake nose.'

As a self-appointed recorder of damage done to Wisconsin by relentless Republicanism - and also as a consumer of news that makes readers flinch - I want to say that this story about a woman posing as a 7th grader to help her daughter navigate high school -

Texas mom arrested after posing as 7th grade daughter in school

- has at least an equally weird antecedent starring Wisconsin's very own designated environmental contaminator and slayer of tiny deer - Cathy Stepp:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Cathy Stepp wore a fake nose and sunglasses to try to help her daughter [Hannah] pass a 2011 Wisconsin driving test after she failed her initial attempt...the Chicago Tribune reported....

...Hannah said her mother wore the fake nose and sunglasses so she could follow someone taking the Wisconsin driver's test. She said she had failed her first test and her mother wanted to learn the route to help her practice for her second attempt, which she passed.  

She told the newspaper that her mom always carries a fake nose around.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

For the record, I had noted Stepp's penchant for parties and props, and also her big game hunting, several times, before she went off to run various EPA offices for the previous President.

Wisconsin DNR photo

 

 

Imagining Wisconsin Republicans in a 2020s Q & A

6/13/21 1 p.m., updated. 

If a panel of historians someday held a retrospective 2020s Q & A with Wisconsin GOP officials, I imagine the transcript might read something like this:

Q. 2020 saw high-profile killings of African-Americans by police officers, and Democratic Governor Tony Evers Wisconsin Governor proposed several reforms to address that reality. How did you handle those proposals?

A. We immediately adjourned.

Q. The Governor had also asked you to pass some very popular gun safety measures. How did you deal with his public safety proposals?

A. We adjourned immediately. But we did hold a prayer meeting and news conference first. 

Q. You had complained loudly about the way Gov. Evers managed the state's unemployment compensation system that he inherited after decades of funding neglect. How did you handle his request for an infusion of funds to upgrade the system.

A. We immediately adjourned.

Q. Overall, how long was your 2020 adjournment?

A. About nine months. Maybe ten. Until the pandemic began to abate.

Q. Did you manage to take or facilitate any actions to address the pandemic?

A. We drove out the State Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

A. Actually, she was only the acting Secretary, because we never gave her a confirmation hearing.

A. Remember, we could outright fire anyone we wanted because we set up the Legislature with a permanent Republican majority even though Democrats get more votes statewide. And just because the Governor appointed someone doesn't mean they get the job. 

A. Unless a different Governor made the appointment; then the appointee got to stay as long as he wanted.

A. Or an elected official who might break a promise about stepping back from another term was free to pull a stay-put maneuver, too.

A. Rules: we make 'em and we break 'em. That's how we owned the libs.

Q. Back to public health actions. Did the pandemic help sway you towards extending Medicaid coverage as Gov. Evers' proposed to 90,000 low-income Wisconsinites residents who continue to lack medical care coverage? After all, the federal government was going to supply more than a billion dollars to cover the costs, so all state taxpayers would benefit, too.

A. No. We adjourned immediately.

Q. Any special motivation for that action?

A. No, because we'd been turning down that kind of welfare for several years. We're the party of personal responsibility and consistency. If people want health insurance, they should get off their couches and get a private sector job. Not like ours.

A. Had you made private sector employment more attractive in Wisconsin by increasing the minimum wage from its long-standing level of $7.25 per hour, or funding childcare or transportation costs which often kept low-income people out of the workforce?

A. No. We weren't liberal, Progressive Marxist socialists here, like that Joe Biden.

Q. Did all of you promote or take the highly-effective COVID19 vaccine?

A. No.

Q. Weren't you afraid of getting the virus, or worse, inadvertently passing it on to a neighbor?

A. Excuse me, but you must have me confused with someone who gives a s**t.

A. I actually put up a video on YouTube with important COVID facts of my own. 

A. I publicly advised my kids to refuse the vaccine.

A. We also sued to get the Governor's anti-virus health orders rescinded.

A. Because he was a dictator, and we recognized only one King. 

A. We also told everyone it was "incredibly safe to go outside" as the pandemic gained strength.

Q. And did you go outside?

A. Well, sure, with all the right equipment and protections. Because we're the party of personal responsibility - and good connections, so we got the right gear.

Q. But I read that more than 675,000 Wisconsinites had caught the virus and over actually 8,000 died.

A. Well, those weren't necessarily all "regular folks."

A. Or people who'd taken the time to learn our customs, ways and dedication to personal responsibility.

Q. Switching gears, another big issue at the time was climate change. I'm sure you've noticed the increases in greenhouse gas emissions, reduced snowfall, more heat emergencies and ozone warning days. 

A. We added extra registration fees on electric and hybrid vehicles.

Q. Because?

A. Libs who complained about that were free to switch to a traditional gasoline-powered pickup. It's a free country.

A. And we added more fees to home solar energy hookups.

Q. Because?

A. Even state-approved monopoly utility companies deserve a bonus from time to time. Remember, corporations are people, too, my friends. Homeowners who didn't like the fee were free to stick with natural gas or fuel oil. It's a free country.

A. We also cut bus funding by 50% to Wisconsin's two largest cities. 

Q. Because?

A. Hey, this is America, not France. And screw their roundabouts, too. We like our traffic accidents like we like our steaks: T-boned.

A. And for years we'd fought urban trolleys, killed an Amtrak extension, banned regional transit authorities and blocked a commuter rail line connecting Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha where a Chicago commuter train makes a stop.

A. We also sued the Federal government to weaken clean air standards.

Q. Why?

A. It better matched up with our weakened clean water policies. You can't have one without the other. Along with certainty and personal responsibility, we're the party of predictability, too.

A. Which is why we got the EPA to relax clean air standards over densely-populated southeastern Wisconsin so a major Taiwanese corporation we picked as a winner, and were subsidizing by the multiple billions could build big-screen TV panels for shipment in a special highway lane built for driverless trucks headed for a new export zone at Milwaukee's airport. 

A. Plus, we'd also weakened Wisconsin wetland protections and gave the company special permission to pipe in Lake Michigan water because big-screen-flat-panel production finishing requires millions of gallons of fresh water every day.

Q. So, you gave them water, wetlands, legal exemptions, air pollution permissions and billions in subsidies in exchange for flat-panel screen production. How did that work out?

A. They never built a single one.

A. And the special highway lane for the special trucks to get to the special export zone.

A. None, never, nada. 

Q. Because?

A. C'mon: no one had a crystal ball!

A. But we had a magic piece of paper, so we figured magic beans jobs would grow on the Mt. Pleasant prime ag lands that got bulldozed.

Q. Anything else I've missed? That you're particularly proud of?

A. We're particularly delighted to have encouraged the feds to strip away education dollars we can do without. Why pay teachers to indoctrinate our kids with Critical Race Theory? I'm telling you, Act 10 didn't far enough.

A. We voted to end a $300 per month Federal payment to people who'd lost their jobs during the pandemic because slackers needed to get off their couches and get a job. 

A. Just in case people didn't get that message when we cut off $70 million a month in Federal food aid money.

Q. But when you were on that long 2020 hiatus you collected your full salaries, correct?

A. Of course.

Q. You even got mileage and meal reimbursements without submitting receipts if you drove to and from the Capitol, correct - so isn't your opposition to that $300 payment even more hypocritical?

A. Not at all. Were we expected to drop everything and drive to the Capitol when we're on vacation to vote and then adjourn on empty stomachs?

 

RoJo says needy are lazy. His lazy fact-checking earns YouTube ban.

I have noted the reflexive and uncaring accusations towards poor, out-of-luck, and powerless citizens which subsidy-laden and professional ingrates like Republicans Scott Walker, Glenn Grothman & Paul Ryan - 

Paul Ryan Claims Black Men Are Lazy And The Cause Of Poverty In This Country

and others regularly throw out to manipulate the basest of their base supporters.

But I want to get on the record that Johnson is such a lazy thinker that he's stooped to channeling Walker's 2014 campaign demagoguery -

In the final month and a half of the campaign, Gov. Scott Walker is making a blunt promise to voters — that he'll ensure jobless workers aren't on drugs, or their recliners."My belief is we shouldn't be paying for them to sit on the couch, watching TV or playing Xbox," Walker told cheering Republican campaign volunteers last week in West Bend.

- with an unimaginative and unattributed update of his own his week:  

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): “The Federal Government Has Subsidized Sitting On Your Couch”

The context for Johnson's nastiness is a worker shortage he attributes 

Highly-subsidized Senator seen here perhaps rooting out those getting small payments?

to modest Federal pandemic payments which are temporarily helping lower-income Americans meet pandemic-related rent, childcare, transportation and other burdens.

All of which are exacerbated by the federally-mandated rock-bottom hourly minimum wage of $7.25 which Republicans in Congress and Wisconsin have steadfastly refused to increase.

A bigger, more-informed picture about worker shortages can be found here:

“There are structural factors in our society that have brought us to this point where we have high numbers of unemployed still, especially among low-skilled workers, and now we have a burgeoning demand for qualified workers,” Wisconsin AFL-CIO president Stephanie Bloomingdale said. “To now complain that unemployed workers are getting $300 extra to get us through the pandemic — it falls short.”

But Johnson and other Republicans prefer tossing out resentment-building talking points to trigger donations and votes rather than actually doing anything about income inequality, systematic racism and persistent sexism which all have embedded and expanded America's underclass seemingly forever.

One positive note: Johnson should find himself with a little more productive couch time for a week because Google's YouTube business suspended his account for spreading misinformation.

• YouTube has suspended Senator Ron Johnson's account for spreading medical misinformation.
• The company specifically prohibits content that contradicts public health guidance.
• The Republican routinely holds Senate hearings where he promotes baseless conspiracy theories.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Bottom line: intellectual, arrogant laziness that spreads ideology over facts can get you suspended from a private-sector social media platform; a staffed-up US Senator with free and instant access to facts should know and do better.

No gratitude in Vos's attitude, so here's a start

It had taken me a while to pinpoint exactly what I find missing in Wisconsin GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos's breezy, cocky and routinely arrogant indifference - 

- to anyone and anything that does not resemble his personal and party identity. 

And then it hit me; we never hear a word, even a hint from Vos of gratitude for the sweet deal the Speakership provides him - though, in fairness, his selflessness did shine through sweetly when, despite some criticism, duty called: 

Editorial: Sweetheart deal for Foxconn shouldn’t become norm for Wisconsin

But Vos might acknowledge:

* The uninterrupted flow of paychecks the state provided all legislators during their nine-month, COVID-2020 vacation and for other relaxed work habits.

* And the mileage and meal money reimbursements he's permitted to increase without even a vote of his gerrymandered caucus.

* Or the office staff he has boosted on his own to help him exercise the powers he grabbed from Gov. Evers.

* And the private lawyers he'd been hiring willy-nilly at taxpayer expense for at least $8.5 million dollars of partisan purposes until a killjoy judge put a stop to that.

But I realize the commentator-to-public official relationship is a two-way street, so let me express my gratitude to Vos and all the hand-picked Republicans legislative leaders have put on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee for their recent votes that cut Milwaukee and Madison's transit funding  - but no other cities' transit support - by only 50%.

Because they could have cut it all-together - just as Vos proposed in 2014 - and that would that really have put the 'walk' back into Milwaukee where 30% or more of its residents do not have access to a vehicle.

And I want add a shoutout to Vos & Co. for generously allowing municipalities, whether they have 6,000 people or 600,000. as does Milwaukee, to have up to four ballot drop boxes for voters' convenience. 

Imagine if these Republicans had used the 50% transit-cutting-standard and big cities had to get by with only two! Or even none. Because the framers of the State's Constitution didn't provide for them. 

Those. Elitist. Jerks! Thank you, Robin Vos, for righting that wrong.

Let's also salute Republican legislators for the detailed thought they put into even the design of the boxes, thereby relieving municipal officials of that burden - 

The boxes would also have to be located on municipal property, other than public parks, and be tamper- and moisture-resistant. Some boxes would have to be under continuous video surveillance.

- so let's give credit where it's due for yet another erasure of misplaced local control through noblesse oblige - a win-win for which every single second-class Wisconsinite should give thanks.

Look: you don't have to have a stupid degree in Poli Sci to see where these benign, time-saving efficiencies are heading: justified, professional and permanent GOP statewide rule, and the party's proper ownership of Wisconsin's election map drafting and Electoral College votes - in trade for so many freedoms from choice which one-party rule guarantees state citizens and which could - fingers-crossed - eventually absolve them of the old-timey practice of paying taxes to pay increasingly irrelevant local officials.

I can't say that Wisconsin's Republicans have also made the trains run on time - because they had the foresight to derail that option altogether.

But state Republicans are adding more of this freeing foresight by making sure west side Milwaukee neighborhoods can enjoy fresh vehicle ambiance which various nanny state crybabies and social engineering buttinskies keep threatening here and elsewhere to restrict.

How soon these ingrates have forgotten Ronald Reagan's disclosure that trees are the worst emitters of harmful climate-altering gases.

Which reminds me: a further hat-tip to the Walker-era Natural Resources Board holdout chairperson who despite an expired term is wisely refusing to give up his seat.

From which he can continue to fight for smart public planning - like the clear-cutting of about 50,000 polluting trees - to facilitate the construction of a privately-owned high-end golf course adjacent to and even inside a Lake Michingan shoreline state park.

Land that the board deemed disposable because - as Yogi Berra might have put it - 'no one goes there anymore because it's so popular.'

I'd be the first to thank former WI lead environmental steward turned Keeper of Reagan's Flame Scott Walker were he to lend a hand to the GOP colleagues he left behind when he agreed to shoulder tougher tasks for the greater good in Southern California if he'd more assertively help them better frame these issues back home.

Vos could even show Walker a little gratitude, and that just might be the beginning of something.

Another WI jurisdiction fails Equity 101

Marathon County, (90.8% white) was roasted in The New York Times for some officials and residents' hostility to diversity:

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

WAUSAU, Wis. — A standing-room-only crowd packed a drab courthouse meeting room one recent night and tried to resolve a thorny, yearlong debate over whether Marathon County should declare itself “a community for all....”

In the end, the executive committee of the county board rejected the resolution by a 6-to-2 vote on Thursday night, a result that both sides say is worse than never having considered it in the first place.

But some people in the Elmbrook School District in Waukesha County just showed that resistance to inclusion is not exclusive to Marathon County many miles to the north:

Elmbrook School Board votes to remove equity portion of district strategy plan

BROOKFIELD — The Elmbrook School Board voted to remove part of a plan to promote equity within the district during a meeting Tuesday night.

Dozens of people turned out to voice their opposition to the equity principles included in the plan. Cheers rang out when the board made the vote.

The Elmbrook School District serves Elm Grove (91.3% white), Brookfield (84.7 white), and a portion of New Berlin (92.7% white), and the area votes heavily Republican.

Overall, Trump carried Waukesha County by 21 points after winning it by 27 in 2016. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won the county by 35 in 2012. 

Wisconsin's motto is "Forward," and it's printed on the state flag - 

- though the word doesn't point to everyone's path. 

Local resistance blocks another N. WI water export scheme

You may remember a few years ago that neighbors concerned about local water supply sustainability rose up against a plan in Vilas County to bottle and export local spring water. 

That plan seems to have dried up:

With New Land Purchase, Carlin Lake Water Dispute Seems Finally Over

Another similar proposal surfaced recently in Bayfield County that has run into local government resistance and objections from the Red Cliff Ojibwe nation: 

Plan to bottle artesian well water from Herbster rejected by Bayfield County committee

A video, here. 

And further information from the Red Cliff nation, here, and here.

At the heart of these controversies is a clash between the treatment of water as a commodity to be controlled and exploited for private gain, and a bigger-picture belief that water's life-and-cultural-sustaining properties require intentional and cooperative conservation that begins by respecting where the water originates.

And informs practices in the public interest that guarantee water is used and managed as close to its source as possible.

An ethic squashed during the last decade by Walkerism, a coordinated offense that continues statewide even though Walker was defeated in November, 2018.

Even when public health is jeopardized:

The bad news is that WI's gerrymandered GOP legislators say they will delete funding from the upcoming state budget to replace lead water pipes; they did the same thing two years ago because too many kids in Milwaukee might have gotten the benefit. 

And to stay consistent with that embrace of lead-laden household water pipes and their long-standing support of animal waste in well water, Republican legislators are refusing to write statewide standards into the budget that would speed the removal of toxic "forever chemicals" from state waters.

Or when law and public property are abused:

Opponents of the Kohler golf course project won a major round [in late May] when Sheboygan Circuit Court Judge L. Edward Stengel affirmed that the WI DNR had awarded the project its key wetland-fill permit based on incomplete and inaccurate information, as the opponents had argued.

This blog, being called "The Political Environment," has followed these matters since 2007, so stay tuned. 

 

WI GOP budget cuts flush out possible new party logo

The bad news is that WI's gerrymandered GOP legislators say they will delete funding to replace lead water pipes; they did the same thing two years ago because too many kids in Milwaukee might have gotten the benefit. 

And to stay consistent with that embrace of lead-laden household water pipes and their long-standing support of animal waste in well water, Republican legislators are refusing to write statewide standards into the budget that would speed the removal of toxic "forever chemicals" from state waters.

The good news is that if Wisconsin Republicans need to update their party's logo, their pollution-first/people-last water 'policies' make for an obvious choice:

WI GOP Rep. from Two Rivers flunks Nazi History 101

Gov. Evers six weeks ago signed a bill mandating Holocaust education in state schools, so will GOP State Rep. Shae Sortwell please sign up for a session ASAP -  

- or simply resign and stop embarrassing taxpayers who shouldn't be paying him to 'serve' Wisconsin like this:

Wisconsin lawmaker compares museum's mask policy to Nazis

Sortwell posted on Facebook that "The Gestapo wants to see your papers, please."

Sortwell is the GOP State Rep. who walked into a Democrat's office to display his displeasure with a posted sign - and to display a handgun. 

A Republican state lawmaker reportedly displayed a holstered firearm to a Democratic aide in an area of the Wisconsin Assembly where weapons are banned, according to State Representative Shelia Stubbs.

State Representative Shae Sortwell is said to have entered Stubbs's office in late March or early February to speak with her aide, Savion Castro, about loosening licensing requirements for barbers in the state.

Sortwell was reportedly dismissive of a sign posted outside Stubbs's office indicating that firearms were not permitted inside. According to local media reporting, once Sortwell pulled back his coat to reveal his defiance of the ban, Castro asked him to leave.

Wisconsin's Republican Party keeps stamping out these bigots and slugs who will keep collecting salaries and benefits while spreading insult and ignorance until fairer districting maps are drawn.