Boots & Sabers

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Tag: Column

Democrat machine is a well-tuned juggernaut

by | 1016, 15 Apr 2323 | | 2 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

There’s no need to sugarcoat it. The Supreme Court election result last week will have terrible consequences that are generational in scale. It has been 15 years since the Wisconsin Supreme Court had a leftist majority, and the leftists of today are far, far more radical than those of the past. We knew that this election was important, which is why it became the most expensive judicial campaign ever waged in the history of our nation. While the consequences will surely be the subject of future columns, we should first understand the past.

 

Although Supreme Court races are officially nonpartisan, they are really completely partisan. The increasing polarization of the two major parties has made the battleground for judicial races a bloody mess of ideological carnage instead of the staid legal philosophical debates of the past. Furthermore, the more leftist forces in our nation have put a concerted effort into electing radicals in judicial and prosecutor races in the last few years as a means to advance their ideology through the judicial branch when they fail in the legislative branch. Against this backdrop, Wisconsin’s Democrats were vocal and unapologetic about supporting Janet Protasiewicz. On the other side, the state Republicans were vocal and unapologetic about supporting Daniel Kelly. There was the faintest whisper to acknowledge the official nonpartisan nature of the race, but it was drowned out by the shouts of partisanship. As campaigners, Protasiewicz ran a campaign appealing to the political issues that strike an emotional chord with leftist voters. She continually implied, and sometimes outright stated, that she would be the deciding vote on issues like abortion, Act 10, political redistricting, and the like. Lost was any indication that she would respect the separation of powers and the role of the court. That was purposeful and it worked. Emotional political issues drive enthusiasm and turnout far more than a dry discussion of constitutional niceties. I wish that it were not so, but it is.

 

Daniel Kelly, on the other hand, ran a campaign that would have worked in the previous decade. It focused on a dry discussion of constitutional niceties and the appropriate role of a justice of the Supreme Court. While correct, it left his supporters in a rear-guard action trying to generate excitement with cries of what will be lost with an activist leftist court.

 

Beyond the candidates and their individual campaign strategies, the respective political parties waged entirely different battles. Truly, hats off to Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. He is an organizational, messaging, and fundraising powerhouse. He has a knack for nationalizing state races to attract national money and for maintaining intramural discipline during primaries.

 

The Democrats also have an electoral structural advantage in that their voters are more concentrated. This makes it easier to concentrate resources to drive turnout. For example, the turnout in Dane County in recent years — a county whose voters vote 80% or more for leftists — has been phenomenal. Only 36% of Protasiewicz’s vote total came from Dane and Milwaukee Counties. By contrast, the top two counties for Kelly were just 19.3% of his vote total.

 

The Democrats have also been tremendous at turning out their key voting groups like college students. For example, the dorms at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse are in two wards. Turnout was over 54% in those wards last week compared to less than 20% in the previous spring election.

 

The Democrats have also taken full advantage of campaign finance and election laws. They funneled over $10 million to Protasiewicz’s campaign through the Democratic Party while Kelly eschewed any Republican Party money. The Democrats push hard for mail-in voting, early voting, ballot harvesting, and any other means to get people to vote who otherwise would not. Meanwhile, Republicans bicker over the appropriateness of these means and continue to lose elections.

 

Anecdotally, I also saw a marked difference in how each side was reaching out to voters. I received at least five texts from leftists for every one from righties urging me to vote or pushing an issue. Online, the ads were 10 to one in favor of leftists. Meanwhile, I received several mailers from righty groups and none from leftists. Democrats are putting their resources into reaching voters where they are while Republicans are spending their money and time on the campaign tactics of 2004.

 

Republicans have lost 14 of the last 17 statewide elections. On the issues, Wisconsin remains very evenly divided as evidenced by statewide referendum results, national election results, and general polling. But Republicans are getting blown out in statewide elections because of antiquated campaign strategies, bad candidates, intraparty squabbling, and terrible leadership. Wisconsin will continue to trend toward Illinois until the Republicans figure out how to match the Democrats’ campaigning prowess.

Democrat machine is a well-tuned juggernaut

by | 0716, 11 Apr 2323 | | 21 Comments

I suppose that I’ll pile on in the aftermath of the election last week. My column in the Washington County Daily News not only highlights some of the Righties’ failures, but also the phenomenal machine that the Democrats have built. Republicans are still fighting the last war as the Democrats are winning this one. Here’s a part:

Beyond the candidates and their individual campaign strategies, the respective political parties waged entirely different battles. Truly, hats off to Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. He is an organizational, messaging, and fundraising powerhouse. He has a knack for nationalizing state races to attract national money and for maintaining intramural discipline during primaries.

 

The Democrats also have an electoral structural advantage in that their voters are more concentrated. This makes it easier to concentrate resources to drive turnout. For example, the turnout in Dane County in recent years — a county whose voters vote 80% or more for leftists — has been phenomenal. Only 36% of Protasiewicz’s vote total came from Dane and Milwaukee Counties. By contrast, the top two counties for Kelly were just 19.3% of his vote total.

 

The Democrats have also been tremendous at turning out their key voting groups like college students. For example, the dorms at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse are in two wards. Turnout was over 54% in those wards last week compared to less than 20% in the previous spring election.

 

The Democrats have also taken full advantage of campaign finance and election laws. They funneled over $10 million to Protasiewicz’s campaign through the Democratic Party while Kelly eschewed any Republican Party money. The Democrats push hard for mail-in voting, early voting, ballot harvesting, and any other means to get people to vote who otherwise would not. Meanwhile, Republicans bicker over the appropriateness of these means and continue to lose elections.

Anecdotally, I also saw a marked difference in how each side was reaching out to voters. I received at least five texts from leftists for every one from righties urging me to vote or pushing an issue. Online, the ads were 10 to one in favor of leftists. Meanwhile, I received several mailers from righty groups and none from leftists. Democrats are putting their resources into reaching voters where they are while Republicans are spending their money and time on the campaign tactics of 2004.

 

School choice is only the first step

by | 0729, 4 Apr 2323 | , , | 1 Comment

Go out and vote today, but then come back and click through to read my column for the Washington County Daily News today. Here’s a piece.

With the April election behind us, we can turn our attention to some of the structural issues that underlie our nation’s decline. The number one reason that our nation is weaker than it was a generation ago — and yes, it is weaker — is because of the collapse of our education system.

 

Once the envy of the world, our education system has been debased by the destructive culture of low expectations.

 

Nationally, student performance has been declining for many years. There are spurts of exceptionalism, but even they are pulled down by the sticky morass of mediocrity that has become the celebrated standard of our government educational system.

 

The inevitable result of a dumbing down of our education system is that we end up with graduates who lack the basic knowledge and critical thinking skills to successfully navigate adulthood or effectively participate in their God-given right to self-governance. It is our collective moral failure that we have failed our kids this badly and for this long.

 

The pandemic did not create the problems in our government schools, but it did lay them bare for all to see. As the schools deprioritized education in the face of a virus that posed negligible risk to children, parents were confronted with what their kids were being taught as they scrambled to fill the void. What parents saw was appalling. As the government schools have scaled back on rigorous core subjects in the name of equality, they have allowed activists to step into the void to indoctrinate kids into the latest leftist fads. Our kids may not be able to do math in their heads or name the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights anymore, but they can easily spout off on the perils of climate change. The government schools of today are not the same as the ones we attended a generation ago.

 

[…]

 

As these reforms are underway, it is imperative that we do not stop there. School Choice is only about the funding mechanism.

 

We cannot rely on our government — its policy makers or its unelected bureaucrats — to provide a quality education for our kids. They have already demonstrated their incapacity to do so.

 

In some cases, it is not for lack of good intentions, but government bureaucracies are not structured to deliver exceptionalism to individuals. Government bureaucracies are designed to deliver mediocrity to the masses, and that is exactly what they have done delivering education.

 

Since we have relied on our government to provide mass education, most areas lack enough private schools to provide the diversity of educational options to absorb true universal school choice. It is going to take a generation to fix this capacity problem. We have to start now by supporting the expansion of existing private schools and the creation of new ones. We must also support our friends and neighbors who choose to homeschool. Finally, we must be unforgiving in purging bad schools and the people who run them when they fail. Our children deserve better than a 5-year improvement plan.

 

Everything is on the table in Wisconsin Supreme Court election

by | 2138, 30 Mar 2323 | , | 1 Comment

Here is my full column for the Washington County Daily News that ran earlier this week.

Early voting for the spring election is in full swing and the future of Wisconsin sits on the razor’s edge. If Daniel Kelly is elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the court will retain its slight lean to the left with changeling Justice Brian Hagedorn siding with the court’s liberal bloc more often than not on 4-3 rulings. If Janet Protasiewicz is elected, then expect the court’s new majority liberal activist bloc to abandon any pretense of government restraint and run roughshod over citizens’ rights.

 

It is regrettable that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has had to serve as the last bastion of defense against government overreach, but that has increasingly been its role as government officials progressively don the mantle of a ruling class. In just the last few years, the court has often (not often enough) stood athwart the path of government tyranny. During the pandemic, Gov. Tony Evers went to extraordinary lengths to exert government control over our lives. Even after it was clear that the virus was not nearly as lethal as originally thought and was primarily a threat to the elderly and immunocompromised, Evers sought to extend his personal arbitrary rule over our lives by suspending regular order with perpetual emergency health orders.

 

Under the threat of using the violent power of government, Evers illegally extended his emergency dictatorial orders to force citizens to stay in their homes, close their businesses, restrain their freedom of movement, force everyone to wear masks, and close their schools. In a ruling that should have been unanimous, only four of the court’s seven justices ruled that Evers had violated the law and returned the state to constitutional rule and the rule of law. How much more damage would Evers’ have illegally wrought had the court not stepped in?

 

With all of the other overreaches, we scarcely remember that Governor Evers also tried to suspend Wisconsinites’ right to self-governance. Just three years ago, Evers ordered that Wisconsin indefinitely delay the April election, thus denying citizens the right to elect their leaders in a despotic abandonment of democracy. Again, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had to act to ensure that the election would be held and that democracy would not be suspended by the orders of a single man.

 

Governor Evers’ attempts to enact dictatorial rule to the cheers of elected Democrats is the most dramatic recent example of the Supreme Court protecting citizens from government overreach, but there are dozens of other examples.

 

For decades, Wisconsinites have trembled at the regulatory despotism of the Department of Natural Resources.

 

Whether hunting, fishing, farming, or simply trying to enjoy a lake cottage, the DNR has long stretched its statutory mandates into private lives and properties. The Supreme Court has stepped in a number of times to check the DNR’s overreaches.

 

Last decade, the DNR tried to extend its public-trust jurisdiction to include non-navigable waters and land and to use “scenic beauty” as a benchmark for regulation. This overreach would have the DNR exercising authority over virtually all private property and able to base regulations on the agency’s aesthetic preferences. In 2013, the court ruled that the DNR did not have this authority.

 

Similarly, the DNR attempted to use its regulatory power to unilaterally change pier permits even after a pier had been installed. This had the impact of forcing homeowners to spend thousands of dollars to comply with arbitrary and shifting regulations. In 2019, the court ruled that the DNR was overreaching again and is not allowed to issue ex-post-facto regulations.

 

Wisconsin’s leftists have be unrestrained in their glee for using the court to unbind the overreaching claws of government by electing Protasiewicz to the high court.

 

Everything is on the table. Unrestrained tax increases by invalidating Act 10. Making it easier to cheat in elections by striking down voter ID. Disarming citizens by ignoring Second Amendment rights. Unleashing regulatory agencies like the DNR or Department of Transportation by allowing them to interpret their own authority. Liberating criminals at the expense of victims. Democratic gerrymandering on the scale of Illinois. Crushing business with regulations in the name of equity. Forced unionization by striking down right to work. Unrestrained indoctrination and abuse of parental rights through our government schools.

 

It is all on the table.

 

The question to be decided next week is whether Wisconsin will try to continue on the messy road of representative government and constitutional restraint, or whether it will take the road of arbitrary rule of unrestrained government by judicial decree.

 

Vote for Daniel Kelly. Vote for the continuation of this grand experiment in self-governance.

 

Everything is on the table in Wisconsin Supreme Court election

by | 0652, 28 Mar 2323 | | 6 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

 

Early voting for the spring election is in full swing and the future of Wisconsin sits on the razor’s edge. If Daniel Kelly is elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the court will retain its slight lean to the left with changeling Justice Brian Hagedorn siding with the court’s liberal bloc more often than not on 4-3 rulings. If Janet Protasiewicz is elected, then expect the court’s new majority liberal activist bloc to abandon any pretense of government restraint and run roughshod over citizens’ rights.

 

It is regrettable that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has had to serve as the last bastion of defense against government overreach, but that has increasingly been its role as government officials progressively don the mantle of a ruling class. In just the last few years, the court has often (not often enough) stood athwart the path of government tyranny. During the pandemic, Gov. Tony Evers went to extraordinary lengths to exert government control over our lives. Even after it was clear that the virus was not nearly as lethal as originally thought and was primarily a threat to the elderly and immunocompromised, Evers sought to extend his personal arbitrary rule over our lives by suspending regular order with perpetual emergency health orders.

 

Under the threat of using the violent power of government, Evers illegally extended his emergency dictatorial orders to force citizens to stay in their homes, close their businesses, restrain their freedom of movement, force everyone to wear masks, and close their schools. In a ruling that should have been unanimous, only four of the court’s seven justices ruled that Evers had violated the law and returned the state to constitutional rule and the rule of law. How much more damage would Evers’ have illegally wrought had the court not stepped in?

 

With all of the other overreaches, we scarcely remember that Governor Evers also tried to suspend Wisconsinites’ right to self-governance. Just three years ago, Evers ordered that Wisconsin indefinitely delay the April election, thus denying citizens the right to elect their leaders in a despotic abandonment of democracy. Again, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had to act to ensure that the election would be held and that democ racy would not be suspended by the orders of a single man.

 

Governor Evers’ attempts to enact dictatorial rule to the cheers of elected Democrats is the most dramatic recent example of the Supreme Court protecting citizens from government overreach, but there are dozens of other examples.

An activist court is a dangerous court

by | 1043, 25 Mar 2323 | , , , | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week:

The election on April 4 presents an unambiguous choice for voters about the future of Wisconsin. Daniel Kelly would keep the Wisconsin Supreme Court on its constitutionally humble and conservative path. Janet Protasiewicz has already trumpeted the kind of activism she would wage to turn the high court into a political weapon for leftist causes. As we have seen in other states, leftists do not have any qualms about muscling political victories through the courts when their ideas fail to win public support at the ballot box.

 

In recent weeks we have learned that Protasiewicz is not just the ardent activist who protested against Act 10 and giddily shares how she will tip the scales of justice when her “values” demand it. Not only have we learned that her long judicial record is one of callous disregard for victims of violent crime as she coddled felons. We also learned from Wisconsin Right Now’s reporting that she allegedly abused her first husband, who was over thirty years older than she, and that two witnesses have come forward who heard her regularly use racial slurs when she was a Milwaukee prosecutor.

 

The optimist in me hopes that some of Wisconsin’s leftists would feel the twang of guilt about voting for someone with such deep character flaws, but the realist in me understands that they are more interested in outcomes even if the vessel that delivers them is cracked. They will vote for Protasiewicz in droves. The rest of this column, therefore, is directed at conservatives who need to understand the gravity of the election and get off their duffs to vote.

 

The thing about judicial activists is that nothing is safe. Policies that were correctly adjudicated long ago by the court and considered settled will be resurfaced by activists to get a different outcome. Protasiewicz has already said that she considers Act 10 to be unconstitutional and Wisconsin’s electoral maps rigged, so expect those to be overturned by a Protasiewicz-led court. That will just be the start of an avalanche of legal activism to roll back important policies.

 

During Gov. Scott Walker’s administration, Wisconsin made giant strides to being Wisconsin closer to the Founders’ guarantees in the Second Amendment. The Legislature passed Wisconsin’s first concealed carry law to allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment protection to “keep and bear arms.” The Legislature further protected citizens by enacting the castle doctrine, a simple, but important, law that presumes that someone is under imminent threat if a thug forcibly enters their home, vehicle, or business.

 

As is their compulsion, leftists sued to overturn both concealed carry and castle doctrine policies when they lost the policy debate at the ballot box. Both policies were upheld by the courts. According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, over 700,000 Wisconsinites have been issued concealed carry permits since 2011. If Protasiewicz is elected, we can expect those hundreds of thousands of licenses to be canceled. And no, it does not matter what the law or Constitution actually says. Judicial activists care not for the constraints of law. That is the point.

 

One thing that the pandemic reminded us is that in times of trouble, our government schools will choose institutional interests over the welfare of children every time. Given the decades of declining performance, increasing violence, and curricular malfeasance, this bureaucratic colonialism should have been obvious, but their collective response to the pandemic has crystalized their priorities.

 

Wisconsin’s school choice programs have been offering children an alternative path to getting a quality education and a successful future. When Gov. Tommy Thompson pioneered school choice in Milwaukee, the leftist institutional interests fought back in court. After a heated legal battle, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for religious schools to participate in the Milwaukee School Choice program. The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear a challenge to the law, thus ending the legal challenge. The vote on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was decided by a single vote. Had one justice ruled the other way, generations of Wisconsin’s children would still be trapped in failing schools and doomed to navigating life without a quality education.

 

Since that Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in 1998, the Legislature has steadily expanded Wisconsin’s school choice programs to benefit hundreds of thousands of children throughout the state. Should Protasiewicz be elected, expect those monied interests who want to build barbed-wire fences to keep our children in their failed institutions to relaunch their legal challenges to school choice knowing that a Protasiewicz-led court will rule in their favor. Janet Protasiewicz is telling anyone who will listen how she will vote on issues brought before the court and how she considers it her duty to put her finger on the scales of justice when the law says otherwise. Listen to her. In this, she is telling the truth.

An activist court is a dangerous court

by | 0729, 21 Mar 2323 | , , , | 7 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The election on April 4 presents an unambiguous choice for voters about the future of Wisconsin. Daniel Kelly would keep the Wisconsin Supreme Court on its constitutionally humble and conservative path. Janet Protasiewicz has already trumpeted the kind of activism she would wage to turn the high court into a political weapon for leftist causes. As we have seen in other states, leftists do not have any qualms about muscling political victories through the courts when their ideas fail to win public support at the ballot box.

 

In recent weeks we have learned that Protasiewicz is not just the ardent activist who protested against Act 10 and giddily shares how she will tip the scales of justice when her “values” demand it. Not only have we learned that her long judicial record is one of callous disregard for victims of violent crime as she coddled felons. We also learned from Wisconsin Right Now’s reporting that she allegedly abused her first husband, who was over thirty years older than she, and that two witnesses have come forward who heard her regularly use racial slurs when she was a Milwaukee prosecutor.

 

The optimist in me hopes that some of Wisconsin’s leftists would feel the twang of guilt about voting for someone with such deep character flaws, but the realist in me understands that they are more interested in outcomes even if the vessel that delivers them is cracked. They will vote for Protasiewicz in droves. The rest of this column, therefore, is directed at conservatives who need to understand the gravity of the election and get off their duffs to vote.

 

The thing about judicial activists is that nothing is safe. Policies that were correctly adjudicated long ago by the court and considered settled will be resurfaced by activists to get a different outcome. Protasiewicz has already said that she considers Act 10 to be unconstitutional and Wisconsin’s electoral maps rigged, so expect those to be overturned by a Protasiewicz-led court. That will just be the start of an avalanche of legal activism to roll back important policies.

 

[…]

 

One thing that the pandemic reminded us is that in times of trouble, our government schools will choose institutional interests over the welfare of children every time. Given the decades of declining performance, increasing violence, and curricular malfeasance, this bureaucratic colonialism should have been obvious, but their collective response to the pandemic has crystalized their priorities.

 

Wisconsin’s school choice programs have been offering children an alternative path to getting a quality education and a successful future. When Gov. Tommy Thompson pioneered school choice in Milwaukee, the leftist institutional interests fought back in court. After a heated legal battle, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for religious schools to participate in the Milwaukee School Choice program. The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear a challenge to the law, thus ending the legal challenge. The vote on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was decided by a single vote. Had one justice ruled the other way, generations of Wisconsin’s children would still be trapped in failing schools and doomed to navigating life without a quality education.

 

Since that Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in 1998, the Legislature has steadily expanded Wisconsin’s school choice programs to benefit hundreds of thousands of children throughout the state. Should Protasiewicz be elected, expect those monied interests who want to build barbed-wire fences to keep our children in their failed institutions to relaunch their legal challenges to school choice knowing that a Protasiewicz-led court will rule in their favor. Janet Protasiewicz is telling anyone who will listen how she will vote on issues brought before the court and how she considers it her duty to put her finger on the scales of justice when the law says otherwise. Listen to her. In this, she is telling the truth.

Protasiewicz’s record speaks

by | 0739, 16 Mar 2323 | | 3 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

The April election is looming and the battle for the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is fully engaged. Fortunately, the voters are being offered a stark choice. Dan Kelly has a long and strong record of judicial restraint and conservatism. Janet Protasiewicz has an equally long and strong record of judicial activism and liberalism. Whichever candidate wins will determine the ideological color of the court for years to come.

 

A funny thing happens when liberals run for court positions. Irrespective of their past statements, actions, or documented history, every liberal suddenly transforms into a virtuous law and order hardliner. One is always best served by looking at a person’s actions instead of their words. Protasiewicz has been a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge for almost a decade. Her record is extensive, and terrible.

 

In 2015 a Milwaukee man was convicted of two Class I felonies for Child Abuse-Recklessly Cause Harm. He was fond of flogging his three children with a dog leash for various transgressions. Class I felonies carry a maximum penalty of 3.5 years and a fine of $10,000 according to Wisconsin statute 939.50(3)(i) meaning that he could have been sentenced to seven years in prison and $20,000 in fines.

 

As reported by Wisconsin Right Now, Judge Protasiewicz stayed any prison time for him, meaning that he would not serve a day in prison if he resisted committing another crime. She sentenced him to nine months, yes months, of work-release jail and probation. Whipping kids does not rise to the level of giving someone prison time in Protasiewicz’s court.

 

In 2016 another Milwaukee man was charged with three felony charges for the brutal assault of his girlfriend. According to the criminal complaint, the man became angry after looking at her phone and proceeded to choke, punch, and kick her repeatedly resulting in severe bruising, lacerations, and lost teeth. Judge Protasiewicz signed off on a lax plea deal from an equally soft-on-crime Milwaukee prosecutor that threw out all of the felony charges. Once again, Protasiewicz stayed any prison time and sentenced him to six months in jail and probation.

 

Tragically, this same violent predator allegedly went on to murder the niece of the Milwaukee Common Council President before killing himself at the end of a careening police chase through the streets of Milwaukee. Had he been sentenced to prison for the original three felonies, he would not have been able to murder another woman.

 

In May of 2020, a 15-year-old girl was walking in Milwaukee when a man in a pickup truck pulled up beside her, grabbed her by the wrist, and forced her into the truck. He took her to a hotel, raped her, and tried to force her to become a prostitute. Thankfully, she escaped and notified police.

 

Originally charged with three felonies for kidnapping, trafficking of a child, and second-degree sexual assault of a child, Protasiewicz signed off on another plea deal that reduced the charges to third-degree sexual assault and child enticement. He was convicted and Protasiewicz then gave him time served for jail time and stayed all of the prison time. He was put on probation for four years. In other words, despite his long criminal history and kidnapping and rape of a child, he did not serve any prison time thanks to Judge Protasiewicz.

 

This monster has since been convicted of a felony for being a felon in possession of a firearm in Washington County. He is still free on the street thanks to a Washington County judge cut from the same cloth as Protasiewicz. For a multiple felon child rapist, Washington County Judge Sandra Giernoth, an appointee of Governor Tony Evers, sentenced him to six months in jail and then gave him time served. The guy is happily living in Milwaukee — free as a bird.

 

In another case, a Milwaukee woman was charged with felony child neglect after she starved her 16-yearold child to the point that he only weighed 42 pounds. The child died due to his mother’s abuse. The woman was convicted of the felony charge. At sentencing, Judge Protasiewicz once again stayed any prison or jail time and gave the felon time served. Despite starving her child to death in 2020, the woman is living free in 2023 thanks to Judge Protasiewicz.

 

When people talk about soft-on-crime liberal judges, Janet Protasiewicz is a prime example. She has been letting violent felons roam free for years because that is who she is. And that is who she will be if Wisconsinites elect her to the Supreme Court.

Protasiewicz’s record speaks

by | 0711, 14 Mar 2323 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a slice:

A funny thing happens when liberals run for court positions. Irrespective of their past statements, actions, or documented history, every liberal suddenly transforms into a virtuous law and order hardliner. One is always best served by looking at a person’s actions instead of their words. Protasiewicz has been a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge for almost a decade. Her record is extensive, and terrible.

 

[…]

 

In May of 2020, a 15-year-old girl was walking in Milwaukee when a man in a pickup truck pulled up beside her, grabbed her by the wrist, and forced her into the truck. He took her to a hotel, raped her, and tried to force her to become a prostitute. Thankfully, she escaped and notified police.

 

Originally charged with three felonies for kidnapping, trafficking of a child, and second-degree sexual assault of a child, Protasiewicz signed off on another plea deal that reduced the charges to third-degree sexual assault and child enticement. He was convicted and Protasiewicz then gave him time served for jail time and stayed all of the prison time. He was put on probation for four years. In other words, despite his long criminal history and kidnapping and rape of a child, he did not serve any prison time thanks to Judge Protasiewicz.

 

This monster has since been convicted of a felony for being a felon in possession of a firearm in Washington County. He is still free on the street thanks to a Washington County judge cut from the same cloth as Protasiewicz. For a multiple felon child rapist, Washington County Judge Sandra Giernoth, an appointee of Governor Tony Evers, sentenced him to six months in jail and then gave him time served. The guy is happily living in Milwaukee — free as a bird.

 

[…]

 

When people talk about soft-on-crime liberal judges, Janet Protasiewicz is a prime example. She has been letting violent felons roam free for years because that is who she is. And that is who she will be if Wisconsinites elect her to the Supreme Court.

Homeowners blockaded in Vilas County

by | 0852, 11 Mar 2323 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

After years of wrangling through a convoluted mess of contracts, bad record keeping, broken promises, state, local, federal, and tribal laws, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has decided to blockade dozens of non-tribal families in the dead of winter. In a dramatic escalation, tribal officials are demanding $20 million in order to lift the blockade.

 

The root of the issue rests in the 19th-century Dawes Act when the federal government broke communal tribal lands into parcels to be allotted to tribal families as private property in exchange for U.S. citizenship. Some of those private parcels wound up in the hands of non-tribal people through sale, foreclosure, and other means by which private property changes hands. Now, more than a century later, those private parcels are owned by non-tribal families who are being blockaded.

 

The conflict is over the roads that traverse tribal land to reach those private parcels. The easement by which the homeowners were granted permission to use the roads expired about ten years ago and a protracted negotiation began. The relevant parties are the Lac du Flambeau tribe, two title companies, the Wisconsin Town of Lac du Flambeau, the U.S. government, and the state of Wisconsin.

 

At the risk of simplifying a very complex legal issue that is imbued with generations of justified distrust and unethical behavior, the disagreement really is straightforward. When the easements expired, the tribe wanted money to grant new easements. The tribe also wants temporary easements to give them the latitude to renegotiate the payments every time they expire. On the other side, the title companies and town wants permanent easements, and they want to pay less money than the tribe wants. Both sides appear to have had their moments of bad behavior and have been unable to resolve the impasse.

 

Complicating the issue is the fact that the roads in question have been largely built with money from federal taxpayers. According to congressman Tom Tiffany, who represents the area, the tribe has received about $213 million in federal funding since 2013 through the Tribal Transportation Program. Since the roads received federal funding, the general public is supposed to have access, but tribal authorities argue that tribal law supersedes such federal requirements.

 

On January 31, in a grotesque escalation, the tribe blockaded the four artery roads with concrete blocks and wire. About 60 homes are sealed off from the outside world except for emergencies. Even then, tribal authorities must be called to open to roadblocks ahead of time. Some residents have been forced to abandon their homes entirely while others are having to use snowmobiles and sleds to cross the frozen lakes to get supplies, medical care, work, and attend school. With the spring thaw looming, they are weeks away from losing that frozen lifeline.

 

To lift the blockade, the tribe is demanding $20 million for a 15-year easement. This is an exorbitant sum for a simple easement, but the tribe seems content to hold non-tribal homeowners hostage in order to extort the sum. For comparison, the most recent offer that the tribe rejected was for about $1.1 million plus all future state gas tax revenues from the town for perpetual access.

 

The most innocent party in this whole dispute is the one suffering the most — the homeowners. They bought their properties in good faith and have been dutifully paying their taxes to maintain the schools, emergency services, and, yes, roads. Yet their property values have been obliterated, their lives are being disrupted, and their safety is being endangered.

 

The situation has reached a crisis point and real leadership will be needed to resolve it. It is unacceptable that one group of Americans should be blockading another group of Americans as a negotiating tactic in a legal dispute. This is not about sovereignty or some noble cause. It is about cold, hard, cash. If the tribe will not immediately lift the blockade and return to the negotiating table, the governor must step in to protect the homeowners from being used as hostages.

 

Time will tell what a fair resolution looks like, but any deal derived from the duress of innocent homeowners is illegitimate and an affront to justice.

Homeowners blockaded in Vilas County

by | 0743, 7 Mar 2323 | , , | 2 Comments

We have a hostage situation going on in Vilas County. I wrote a little about it for the Washington County Daily News. Here’s a part:

After years of wrangling through a convoluted mess of contracts, bad record keeping, broken promises, state, local, federal, and tribal laws, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has decided to blockade dozens of non-tribal families in the dead of winter. In a dramatic escalation, tribal officials are demanding $20 million in order to lift the blockade.

 

The root of the issue rests in the 19th-century Dawes Act when the federal government broke communal tribal lands into parcels to be allotted to tribal families as private property in exchange for U.S. citizenship. Some of those private parcels wound up in the hands of non-tribal people through sale, foreclosure, and other means by which private property changes hands. Now, more than a century later, those private parcels are owned by non-tribal families who are being blockaded.

 

[…]

 

On January 31, in a grotesque escalation, the tribe blockaded the four artery roads with concrete blocks and wire. About 60 homes are sealed off from the outside world except for emergencies. Even then, tribal authorities must be called to open to roadblocks ahead of time. Some residents have been forced to abandon their homes entirely while others are having to use snowmobiles and sleds to cross the frozen lakes to get supplies, medical care, work, and attend school. With the spring thaw looming, they are weeks away from losing that frozen lifeline.

 

To lift the blockade, the tribe is demanding $20 million for a 15-year easement. This is an exorbitant sum for a simple easement, but the tribe seems content to hold non-tribal homeowners hostage in order to extort the sum. For comparison, the most recent offer that the tribe rejected was for about $1.1 million plus all future state gas tax revenues from the town for perpetual access.

 

The most innocent party in this whole dispute is the one suffering the most — the homeowners. They bought their properties in good faith and have been dutifully paying their taxes to maintain the schools, emergency services, and, yes, roads. Yet their property values have been obliterated, their lives are being disrupted, and their safety is being endangered.

 

The situation has reached a crisis point and real leadership will be needed to resolve it. It is unacceptable that one group of Americans should be blockading another group of Americans as a negotiating tactic in a legal dispute. This is not about sovereignty or some noble cause. It is about cold, hard, cash. If the tribe will not immediately lift the blockade and return to the negotiating table, the governor must step in to protect the homeowners from being used as hostages.

Rule of Law on ballot this April

by | 1930, 3 Mar 2323 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week:

Over the next six weeks, you are going to hear pundits and activists insisting that the Wisconsin Supreme Court election is a battle for the future of Wisconsin. They are right.

 

Judicial conservative Dan Kelly and judicial liberal Janet Protasiewicz have very, very different approaches to the law. Kelly, who previously served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has a track record of judicial humility in which he rules according to the actual wording of the constitution and the law irrespective of the outcome or his personal convictions.

 

His approach to the law is one in which he respects the rights and responsibilities of the people and their representatives in the Legislative and Executive branches of government. Kelly believes in the Rule of Law, in which the law is applied as written and a judge’s role is to ensure that the law is applied correctly.

 

The Rule of Law is the critical foundation of a free society and underpins Western civilization. The Rule of Law is the principle that all people, from prices to paupers, are subject to the same laws. As John Locke put it in his Second Treatise on Government, “freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.”

 

It is the Rule of Law that protects people from arbitrary tyrannical rule. In a society where the Rule of Law is in force, the role of a judge is simply to enforce the law as it is written. If the judge thinks that the law is wrong, a judicial conservative is bound by duty to apply the law anyway because it is the role of the legislature to change the law – not the judge.

 

Janet Protasiewicz has a very different approach to the law. Protasiewicz is proudly embracing the “progressive” (read: socialist) label and is sharing her opinion on all sorts of issues that may come before the court. She has said that the state’s electoral maps are “rigged,” that a woman’s right to abort her baby is a decision that should “be made solely by her,” that Act 10 is “unconstitutional,” and she has a long record as a Milwaukee County Judge of coddling hardened violent criminals – including child sex offenders. Protasiewicz’s approach to the law is to use her position as a means to reach outcomes that align with her personal values and convictions irrespective of what the law actually says. It is the kind of judicial activism that obliterates the Rule of Law.

 

As if to try to assuage concerns about her vocal activism, Protasiewicz said on “Capital City Sunday,” “What I will tell you is that [for] the bulk of issues there’s no thumb on the scale, but I will also tell you that I’ll call them as I see them. and I’ll tell you what my values are in regards to [the abortion] issue, because this issue is so critically important.” In other words, Protasiewicz is telling us that when she considers the case before her to be critically important, as measured against her values, she is more than willing to put her thumb on the scales of justice.

 

This is the definition of judicial activism. This is not only grossly unethical, but also antithetical to the Rule of Law.

 

This election will decide the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. If Kelly is elected, the court will have a majority of judicial conservatives who respect the Rule of Law. If Protasiewicz is elected, the court will have a majority of politically leftist judicial activists. It is that simple.

 

Under a politically leftist activist Supreme Court, we can expect them to put their thumb on the scales of justice when cases regarding the gun rights, victims rights, Act 10, school choice, right to work, criminal justice issues, election laws, and all of the other issues that are clearly written into the law by Wisconsin’s elected representatives. All of these issues are on the scale and are not safe under the rule of an activist court.

 

Is the future of Wisconsin on the ballot this April?

 

You bet it is.

Rule of Law on ballot this April

by | 0916, 28 Feb 2323 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The Rule of Law is the critical foundation of a free society and underpins Western civilization. The Rule of Law is the principle that all people, from prices to paupers, are subject to the same laws. As John Locke put it in his Second Treatise on Government, “freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.”

 

It is the Rule of Law that protects people from arbitrary tyrannical rule. In a society where the Rule of Law is in force, the role of a judge is simply to enforce the law as it is written. If the judge thinks that the law is wrong, a judicial conservative is bound by duty to apply the law anyway because it is the role of the legislature to change the law – not the judge.

 

Janet Protasiewicz has a very different approach to the law. Protasiewicz is proudly embracing the “progressive” (read: socialist) label and is sharing her opinion on all sorts of issues that may come before the court. She has said that the state’s electoral maps are “rigged,” that a woman’s right to abort her baby is a decision that should “be made solely by her,” that Act 10 is “unconstitutional,” and she has a long record as a Milwaukee County Judge of coddling hardened violent criminals – including child sex offenders. Protasiewicz’s approach to the law is to use her position as a means to reach outcomes that align with her personal values and convictions irrespective of what the law actually says. It is the kind of judicial activism that obliterates the Rule of Law.

 

As if to try to assuage concerns about her vocal activism, Protasiewicz said on “Capital City Sunday,” “What I will tell you is that [for] the bulk of issues there’s no thumb on the scale, but I will also tell you that I’ll call them as I see them. and I’ll tell you what my values are in regards to [the abortion] issue, because this issue is so critically important.” In other words, Protasiewicz is telling us that when she considers the case before her to be critically important, as measured against her values, she is more than willing to put her thumb on the scales of justice.

 

This is the definition of judicial activism. This is not only grossly unethical, but also antithetical to the Rule of Law.

Upgrading Brewers’ stadium attracts bipartisan support

by | 1334, 25 Feb 2323 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

As this column discussed last week, Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal is an unserious carnival of leftist fantasy policies and indecent spending. Legislative Republicans have already dismissed Evers’ proposal and are starting from scratch. One spending idea, however, appears to have bipartisan support: spending hundreds of millions of tax dollars to upgrade American Family Field.

 

The battle over tax funding to build a new stadium for the Milwaukee Brewers was a brawl that left deep scars in the electorate. The five-county sales tax to fund the stadium collected $605 million — about $342 per person — until it finally ended in 2020. While the Brewers have an undeniably positive economic impact, it remains disconcerting for some people to be forced to pay for a place for millionaires to play a game. Such funding, however, may be required.

 

American Family Field is owned by a state-created public agency named the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District and leased to the Brewers. The current lease runs out in 2030 and requires that the district pay for improvements to the stadium. While there is a contractual obligation for the district to pay for improvements, there is also a business development incentive for the district to make the improvements necessary to convince the Brewers to renew the lease for another couple of decades. If the Brewers do not renew the lease, the taxpayers will be stuck with having to do something with an unused baseball stadium. It is difficult to believe that any other professional baseball team would relocate to Milwaukee if the Brewers leave. The Brewers organization conducted a study and determined that the stadium needs an estimated $428 million in upgrades through 2043. The Wisconsin Department of Administration also conducted a study and estimated the upgrade costs at between $540 million and $604 million. The district currently has about $70 million in a reserve fund that was financed by the excess sales taxes collected before the stadium tax was ended. Governor Evers proposed to use $290 million in cash from the current projected budget surplus. This would give the district $360 million in cash that could be invested to raise sufficient funds for upgrades for the next two decades. His argument is that state taxpayers should pay for the upgrades and that using cash is more economical than financing it with debt.

 

Republican Speaker Robin Vos seems to agree with Evers that the taxpayers should pay for the improvement, but he has not said how much, what mechanism, or what other conditions may apply. Whereby Evers looks to shovel $290 million in taxpayer dollars into the district with no strings attached, Vos appears to want to structure a more comprehensive deal with the Brewers.

 

Either way, it is clear that there is bipartisan support, from the politicians, at least, to have the taxpayers upgrade the Brewers’ home field. Should we?

 

When it comes to spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, we must set sentimentality aside. Wisconsinites love their Brewers, but that does not mean that we should use the violent coercive power of government to extract money from all state citizens to pay for it. Outside of the contractual obligations for the district to pay for upgrades required by Major League Baseball, any further taxpayer funding must be evaluated according to firm financial principles and projections.

 

Will the taxpayers’ investment provide a return to the people that makes it worthwhile? Are there other options? Could the district sell the stadium to the Brewers or another private group? What is the cost of doing nothing and the Brewers leave? Who is responsible if there are expenses not uncovered by the various studies? At the end of the day, even if the financial projections justify an investment by the taxpayers, can the people really afford it in this economic climate? Sometimes even good investments must be passed over because there are better ways to spend the money.

 

The taxpayers deserve a transparent, rigorous, detailed financial discussion before lawmakers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a baseball stadium and obligate them to yet more decades of obligation to a private, for-profit company. The fact that Evers and Vos seem to agree on the need for funding the stadium should not be viewed as a bipartisan breakthrough. It should be viewed with skepticism and suspicion.

Upgrading Brewers’ stadium attracts bipartisan support

by | 0653, 21 Feb 2323 | | 32 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

Either way, it is clear that there is bipartisan support, from the politicians, at least, to have the taxpayers upgrade the Brewers’ home field. Should we?

 

When it comes to spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, we must set sentimentality aside. Wisconsinites love their Brewers, but that does not mean that we should use the violent coercive power of government to extract money from all state citizens to pay for it. Outside of the contractual obligations for the district to pay for upgrades required by Major League Baseball, any further taxpayer funding must be evaluated according to firm financial principles and projections.

 

Will the taxpayers’ investment provide a return to the people that makes it worthwhile? Are there other options? Could the district sell the stadium to the Brewers or another private group? What is the cost of doing nothing and the Brewers leave? Who is responsible if there are expenses not uncovered by the various studies? At the end of the day, even if the financial projections justify an investment by the taxpayers, can the people really afford it in this economic climate? Sometimes even good investments must be passed over because there are better ways to spend the money.

 

The taxpayers deserve a transparent, rigorous, detailed financial discussion before lawmakers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a baseball stadium and obligate them to yet more decades of obligation to a private, for-profit company. The fact that Evers and Vos seem to agree on the need for funding the stadium should not be viewed as a bipartisan breakthrough. It should be viewed with skepticism and suspicion.

Evers’ budget comes into focus

by | 2044, 17 Feb 2323 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News this week. Of course, Evers’ budget is in full focus now and the legislature has already, rightly, discarded it.

Gov. Tony Evers will release his executive budget this week as the first step in the state’s biennial budget process. This is Evers’ third executive budget. The previous two were mostly ignored by the legislature as unserious. Judging by the budget highlights that Evers is slowly dribbling out before the unveiling, the governor is remaining true to form.

 

Let us begin with the annoying and useless. In his continued quest to make driving a car more inconvenient in Wisconsin, Governor Evers wants to spend $60 million to “construct traffic circles, pedestrian islands, bump-outs at crosswalks, and other treatments that slow vehicle traffic.” Yes, the goal is to make traffic slower. He also wants to increase the fine for not wearing a seat belt from $10 to $25. Clearly the governor has his finger on the pulse of Wisconsin’s major problems.

 

Not to limit himself to being annoying, the governor is also proposing to undermine Wisconsin’s election system under the guise of safer streets. The governor’s budget will propose “Driver’s Licenses for All” to include illegal aliens. Not only would this devalue citizenship by effectively giving noncitizens the ability to vote, but it would fuel the devastating humanitarian disaster at our border.

 

The governor is also proposing a multipronged plan designed to jack up taxes and fuel the growth of local governments. Step one is to dramatically increase the money that the state gives to local governments by funneling 20% of all state sales tax collections to them through the shared revenue program. In the first year, this would total about $576 million and then fluctuate with sales tax collections thereafter. What will happen to those state government programs currently funded by that sales tax? Presumably, that gap will have to be filled with other state taxes.

 

Step two is a provision that mandates that no local government will ever receive less than 95% of the prior year’s allocation under the new shared revenue plan. The sales tax is a consumption tax that fluctuates with consumer spending. Under Evers’ proposal, however, governments would be protected if there is a downturn. How will that funding be made up if sales tax collections drop? With other state taxes, of course.

 

The final step is that the governor would allow all counties and any municipality with a population over 30,000 to impose their own sales tax on top of the state sales tax. Taken together, the governor’s proposals would fuel the growth of local governments with state taxpayer largesse, and then allow local government to increase taxes and spending even further with their own sales taxes. If there is anything that we have learned in Washington County, it is that a government will always find a way to spend sales taxes and then complain that they are broke.

 

The governor is also vexed that the Legislature occasionally (not often enough) exercises legislative oversight over his spending. This normal function of checks and balances in government that was designed by our founders to curtail the worst abuses of concentrated power has become too burdensome for the governor. That is why he is proposing to eliminate legislative review of stewardship projects north of Highway 64 and for any stewardship grant or purchase under $500,000. If you think that allowing the governor to have sole authority to give away money and make purchases is a recipe for corruption, waste, and graft, you are correct. If you think that Governor Evers is trustworthy, remember that there will be other governors.

 

Good government assumes bad people.

 

If there is a theme to Governor Evers’ budget, it is that government is living large in a time of plenty.

 

Even if the taxpayers are suffering under the yoke of taxation and inflation, no government program or employee will be left wanting. Every time there is a mention of “investing” or “supporting” or “addressing” or “improving,” there is an increase in government spending at the end of that sentence.

 

If the rest of Governor Evers’ budget looks anything like the parts of it that he has released to date, legislative leaders would do well to file it in the circular file and start anew.

Evers’ budget comes into focus

by | 0636, 14 Feb 2323 | | 6 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The governor is also proposing a multipronged plan designed to jack up taxes and fuel the growth of local governments. Step one is to dramatically increase the money that the state gives to local governments by funneling 20% of all state sales tax collections to them through the shared revenue program. In the first year, this would total about $576 million and then fluctuate with sales tax collections thereafter. What will happen to those state government programs currently funded by that sales tax? Presumably, that gap will have to be filled with other state taxes.

Step two is a provision that mandates that no local government will ever receive less than 95% of the prior year’s allocation under the new shared revenue plan. The sales tax is a consumption tax that fluctuates with consumer spending. Under Evers’ proposal, however, governments would be protected if there is a downturn. How will that funding be made up if sales tax collections drop? With other state taxes, of course.

The final step is that the governor would allow all counties and any municipality with a population over 30,000 to impose their own sales tax on top of the state sales tax. Taken together, the governor’s proposals would fuel the growth of local governments with state taxpayer largesse, and then allow local government to increase taxes and spending even further with their own sales taxes. If there is anything that we have learned in Washington County, it is that a government will always find a way to spend sales taxes and then complain that they are broke.

 

 

Government mandates another vaccine

by | 0835, 9 Feb 2323 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

The Wisconsin Department of Human Resources has released new vaccine requirements for children who attend child care centers and schools next year. In a previous era, perhaps a more innocent era, such an announcement would pass unnoticed and unscrutinized as a sensible precaution being enacted by government officials motivated by goodwill and informed by science. However, we live in a post-pandemic world where such trust in our government is no longer warranted — if it ever was.

 

The new requirements from the DHS make some minor changes to the timing of vaccinations that are already required and introduce a new requirement for children to be immunized against meningococcal disease, a leading cause of bacterial meningitis and sepsis, in the seventh grade with the meningococcal vaccine followed by a booster in the twelfth grade. Vaccine requirements are the rage nowadays.

 

The meningococcal vaccine was introduced in 2005 and has seemingly worked well. Although rare, meningococcal disease can cause devastating life-altering damage and death. Before the vaccine, there were usually between 30 and 50 cases per year in Wisconsin with several deaths, according to DHS data. Between 2012 and 2022, there were rarely more than 10 cases with just four deaths in a decade. In 2022, there was a single reported case.

 

Despite the rarity of the disease and the demonstrably effectiveness of recommending the vaccine, state government officials have mandated the vaccine for children. Why?

 

The short answer is that some unelected government health bureaucrat thinks that the vaccine is a good idea, so it should be mandated instead of allowing families to make their own informed health care decisions. It might be a good idea. Indeed, the data seems to show that the vaccine is a good idea for a lot of people. But is a mandate necessary?

 

Part of what is driving the new mandate is that state health bureaucrats are concerned about the drop in overall vaccinations. According to state date, the number of students who were compliant with required immunizations dropped by 3.2% last year as compared to the prior year. 88.7% of students complied with immunization mandates, but state officials are concerned about the increasing resistance to compliance.

 

A more reflective government health bureaucracy might recognize the underlying cause of the drop.

 

They have nobody to blame but themselves. We remember their behavior during the COVID pandemic. We remember the lockdowns that devastated lives.

 

We remember the public shaming. We remember the idiotic mask mandates. We remember forcing children to get unproven vaccines despite the infinitesimal risks of COVID for healthy kids. We remember being forced to stand in the snow to see loved ones in nursing homes through a window. We remember being forbidden to attend funerals to comfort the bereaved.

 

We remember it all. And we remember that it was all for naught. All of the physical, emotional, mental health, economic, and educational pain and suffering inflicted by these same government health bureaucrats far outweighed the negligible, if any, impact on mitigating the spread and effects of COVID. Yet their failures have not dampened their hubris.

 

The COVID pandemic unmasked the government health bureaucracies as often incompetent, sometimes corrupt, occasionally untruthful, unjustifiably arrogant, and heavily influenced by monied special interests like the pharmaceutical companies. In other words, they are subject to all of the same human failings as any other human institution.

 

The realization that our government health officials are human and may not be acting in our best interests has engendered a healthy skepticism of their recommendations and mandates. If you have a child entering the seventh grade, should you comply with the government mandate to get the meningococcal vaccine? Don’t trust your government. They have not earned your trust. Do your own homework and take responsibility for your child’s health care.

Government mandates another vaccine

by | 0747, 7 Feb 2323 | , | 1 Comment

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The Wisconsin Department of Human Resources has released new vaccine requirements for children who attend child care centers and schools next year. In a previous era, perhaps a more innocent era, such an announcement would pass unnoticed and unscrutinized as a sensible precaution being enacted by government officials motivated by goodwill and informed by science. However, we live in a post-pandemic world where such trust in our government is no longer warranted — if it ever was.

 

[…]

 

Part of what is driving the new mandate is that state health bureaucrats are concerned about the drop in overall vaccinations. According to state date, the number of students who were compliant with required immunizations dropped by 3.2% last year as compared to the prior year. 88.7% of students complied with immunization mandates, but state officials are concerned about the increasing resistance to compliance.

 

A more reflective government health bureaucracy might recognize the underlying cause of the drop.

 

They have nobody to blame but themselves. We remember their behavior during the COVID pandemic. We remember the lockdowns that devastated lives.

 

We remember the public shaming. We remember the idiotic mask mandates. We remember forcing children to get unproven vaccines despite the infinitesimal risks of COVID for healthy kids. We remember being forced to stand in the snow to see loved ones in nursing homes through a window. We remember being forbidden to attend funerals to comfort the bereaved.

 

We remember it all. And we remember that it was all for naught. All of the physical, emotional, mental health, economic, and educational pain and suffering inflicted by these same government health bureaucrats far outweighed the negligible, if any, impact on mitigating the spread and effects of COVID. Yet their failures have not dampened their hubris.

 

The COVID pandemic unmasked the government health bureaucracies as often incompetent, sometimes corrupt, occasionally untruthful, unjustifiably arrogant, and heavily influenced by monied special interests like the pharmaceutical companies. In other words, they are subject to all of the same human failings as any other human institution.

 

The realization that our government health officials are human and may not be acting in our best interests has engendered a healthy skepticism of their recommendations and mandates. If you have a child entering the seventh grade, should you comply with the government mandate to get the meningococcal vaccine? Don’t trust your government. They have not earned your trust. Do your own homework and take responsibility for your child’s health care.

The Education Reformation sweeps America

by | 0800, 4 Feb 2323 | , | 21 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.

Frustrated by chronically poorly performing government schools and a well-heeled government education aristocracy that has an agenda far removed from the priorities of parents, education advocates have ignited an education reformation that is sweeping across America. Once a pioneer in education, Wisconsin looks like it will be watching from the sidelines due to unrequited loyalty to a failing bureaucracy.

 

The education reformation is manifesting in several forms that are being lumped into the moniker of “universal school choice.” While the mechanisms differ, the concept is the same. Reformers are decoupling education funding from the government education industrial complex and crafting programs that fund education for children irrespective of their race, creed, religion, socioeconomic background, or school of choice. They are programs that fund students and not systems.

 

Last year, Arizona became the first state to pass universal school choice. West Virginia got close, passing a broad plan that provides educational choice to about 93% of their children. Already this year, Iowa has passed universal school choice. The states of Florida, Texas, Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Indiana are all advancing universal school choice and likely to pass some form by the end of 2023. Several other states are in earlier stages of considering universal school choice. It is conceivable that half of the United States will have universal school choice by 2025. Disastrously for Wisconsin’s children, our state is unlikely to be one of them. Gov. Tony Evers is a lifelong creature of the government education establishment and is vehemently loyal to defending the bureaucracy irrespective of its performance. He has demonstrated his willingness to veto any educational reform that threatens the entrenched power structure and is unlikely to shift his loyalty to children any time soon.

 

While the Republican majorities in the Legislature are strong, they lack the votes to overcome Evers’ vetoes without some legislative Democrats shifting their support to children. When Governor Tommy Thompson pioneered the original school choice program in Wisconsin, there was bipartisan support, and bipartisan opposition, for it. In today’s political landscape, it is unlikely that enough Democrats are willing to cross the yawning political divide to support kids.

 

The benefits of school choice have never been clearer. Dr. Will Flanders from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has released his fifth annual “Apples to Apples” research study which evaluates student outcomes across government, charter, and choice schools while controlling for student demographics. This statistical methodology controls for the fact that government, charter, and choice schools have dissimilar student demographics to provide a clear comparison of performance. Notably, this year’s study uses public data from the 2021-2022 school year report cards from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and is the first post-pandemic look at school performance.

 

The results are clear. According to the study, students in the Milwaukee Choice program are significantly more proficient in English Language Arts and math than their peers in government schools. Students in Milwaukee charter schools (still government schools that have been somewhat liberated from the crushing educational bureaucracy) also perform better than their government school peers, but only about half as much as their peers in choice schools.

 

In the statewide choice program, students in choice school also have better outcomes, but the benefit is not quite as pronounced as it is for kids in Milwaukee.

 

Tellingly, the data also bears out the well-known, if patently ignored, fact that spending has very little to do with performance in government or choice schools. This tells us two things. First, it tells us that once spending has reached a level that provides an adequate level of support for good teachers and a safe physical space, all of the additional spending is just waste. Wisconsin already funds education at a level where each additional dollar spent does not have any positive impact on student outcomes. That being the case, policymakers must ask themselves why they would force taxpayers to pay more when there is no measurable benefit to kids.

 

The second thing this data tells us is that it is the government school system that is retarding student performance. Choice schools operate with less money and produce better outcomes even after accounting for demographic differences in the student body. If the system is the problem, then why should taxpayers and parents be forced to continue to lavishly fund a failed system when demonstrably better systems exist?

 

I am well aware that such arguments rooted in data and genuine passion for educating children do not hold sway in the intellectually sclerotic mind of Governor Evers, but his term will eventually end and we cannot afford to lose another generation of kids to a failed government system.

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