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Tag: Washington County Daily News

Hovde to challenge Baldwin for Senate

by | 0726, 27 Feb 2424 | | 1 Comment

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. I’m all in on Hovde. Here’s a part.

In 2012, this column supported Eric Hovde in the Republican primary to challenge Representative Tammy Baldwin for the open U.S. Senate seat. Wisconsin juggernaut Tommy Thompson won that primary and went on to lose to Baldwin in an election where President Obama’s electoral strength pulled many down-ballot Democratic candidates to victory.

 

Twelve years later, Baldwin is running for a third term and Eric Hovde is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge her. Hovde is still as great a candidate, and person, as he was in 2012 and Wisconsin would do well to send him to the U.S. Senate.

 

In 12 years as Wisconsin’s senator, Baldwin has been a reliable vote for Democrats, but otherwise a potted plant. She does not matter. She does not have any signature issues on which she leads, nor does she have any significant legislation she championed. According to FiveThirtyEight, Baldwin has voted for Biden’s agenda 95% of the time. When she has bucked Biden, it was because she was even more Marxist. She voted against ending the COVID state of emergency and for vaccine mandates for large businesses. The only time she runs afoul of the prevailing leftist orthodoxy is when it is not totalitarian enough. Even then, she only votes against the Democrat leadership when it is safe to do so.

 

Hovde will matter in Washington. He will make Wisconsin matter. As a fourth-generation Wisconsinite, Hovde made his fortune as a serial entrepreneur in real estate and banking. He made a living buying distressed community banks and leading them to be successful again. He knows and loves Wisconsin. He knows how to do the hard work of taking something that is failing and making it successful.

 

[…]

 

Second, Baldwin has hit Hovde on the abortion issue. In 2012, Hovde was firmly anti-abortion and Baldwin is slamming him for that stance. In 2024, Hovde’s position on abortion has shifted. He has said that he personally opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. He has also said that he thinks that a majority of Wisconsinites support abortion in the very early days of pregnancy. Given that the U.S. Supreme Court has correctly relegated abortion policy back to the states, Hovde supports a statewide referendum on abortion to determine the most appropriate policy for Wisconsin. While I disagree with Hovde’s position, his position is far more thoughtful and relevant to the current state of the law than Baldwin is attempting to portray it.

 

It is worth noting that Baldwin’s radical abortion stance is out of sync with most Wisconsinites. Baldwin supports abortion up to the point of birth and is sponsoring a bill in the Senate that would have the federal government require all states to support this stance. In Baldwin’s world view, allowing the killing of a fully viable baby at term is not only permissible, it should be required. This is a bloody, radical position.

 

Hovde has his work cut out for him. Just like in 2012, an incumbent Democrat president is seeking a second term and down-ballot races like this will be heavily influenced by what happens in the presidential race. If Wisconsin Republicans want a chance to win, Hovde needs all of them to get involved and be generous with their time and money to support him. Let’s get to work.

Democrats keep the change

by | 1518, 25 Feb 2424 | | 0 Comments

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

I recently had an infuriating experience at my local gas station. I stopped in for my morning coffee. Of course, I’m a sucker for the doughnuts in line, so I grabbed one of those too. My total was $3.49. All I had on me was a $20, so I promptly put it on the counter. The clerk smiled, put the $20 in the drawer, wished me a nice day, and beckoned the next customer up. Irritated, I asked about my change and was told, “oh, we keep the change now to use for other customers who we like better.”

 

Of course, this scenario is fictional and unbelievable, but that is exactly what the legislative Democrats and Gov. Tony Evers are doing with your tax dollars.

 

Ever since Republicans took control of the state Legislature in 2010 thanks, in large part, to anger over the massive state deficit that Democrat Governor Jim Doyle and the legislative Democrats had created, the legislative Republican majority has built fiscally responsible budgets that ran surpluses. Despite increasing spending every budget, the Republicans managed to bend the cost curves to ensure that all bills were paid while leaving plenty of change. Republicans have since filled up the state’s rainy day fund with billions of dollars and the state’s finances are stronger and more stable than they have ever been thanks to Republican fiscal management. Last week, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau issued its regular report about the state of the budget and projected surplus or deficit. The estimate is based on projected macroeconomic conditions and current state policies. Once again under Republican fiscal leadership, the LFB is projecting that the state will end the current budget in June of 2025 with a budget surplus of $3.15 billion — about $550 for every man, woman, and child in Wisconsin.

 

Let me write that another way: The state of Wisconsin is overtaxing every man, woman, and child in the state by about $550 and refusing to give any of it back. For the average family of four, they will be unnecessarily taxed $2,200 above and beyond the needs of government as expressed in the budget.

 

Noting this overpayment, the Republicans want to give the taxpayers their change and adjust the tax rates to reduce the amount of overpayment. Legislative Republicans passed their third attempt at a tax cut last week that would reduce income tax rates to bring the level of taxation in line with the amount of money that the government is actually spending. Yes, the spending is still too much, but Wisconsinites are still being taxed way more than even the spending justifies.

 

Democrats in the Legislature voted against this tax cut just like they voted against the last two tax cuts. Governor Evers vetoed the last two tax cuts and will probably veto this one too. Democrats refuse to give the Wisconsin taxpayers their change after funding government.

 

Why are Evers and his fellow travelers refusing to let Wisconsinites keep their money to afford the exploding cost of living despite government being fully funded? Simple. They do not think it is your money. They think it is their money and they want to spend it on things that they want.

 

Dressed up in the language of fake compassion, Evers and legislative Democrats have offered dozens of ways to spend the surplus instead of giving it back to hardworking Wisconsinites. They have proposed spending it on child care welfare, pouring more billions into the black hole of the government education complex, corporate welfare to big business to pay for paid leave and worker training, creating new government bureaucrats like the Office of State Employee Engagement and Retention, and all manner of spending.

 

All of the Democrats’ spending proposals have two things in common. First, they were not in the state budget. They are just more ideas to spend money after the budget was completed and signed into law by the governor. Second, every one of the spending proposals is designed to be spent on, or filtered through, the Democrats’ favored people. As the money flows, Democrats and their liberal constituencies throughout Wisconsin will get their beaks wet in a stream of tax dollars that were forcibly and unnecessarily taken from hardworking Wisconsinites.

 

If you are not angry about that, you should be.

Democrats keep the change

by | 0722, 20 Feb 2424 | | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print.

Ever since Republicans took control of the state Legislature in 2010 thanks, in large part, to anger over the massive state deficit that Democrat Governor Jim Doyle and the legislative Democrats had created, the legislative Republican majority has built fiscally responsible budgets that ran surpluses. Despite increasing spending every budget, the Republicans managed to bend the cost curves to ensure that all bills were paid while leaving plenty of change. Republicans have since filled up the state’s rainy day fund with billions of dollars and the state’s finances are stronger and more stable than they have ever been thanks to Republican fiscal management. Last week, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau issued its regular report about the state of the budget and projected surplus or deficit. The estimate is based on projected macroeconomic conditions and current state policies. Once again under Republican fiscal leadership, the LFB is projecting that the state will end the current budget in June of 2025 with a budget surplus of $3.15 billion — about $550 for every man, woman, and child in Wisconsin.

 

Let me write that another way: The state of Wisconsin is overtaxing every man, woman, and child in the state by about $550 and refusing to give any of it back. For the average family of four, they will be unnecessarily taxed $2,200 above and beyond the needs of government as expressed in the budget.

 

Noting this overpayment, the Republicans want to give the taxpayers their change and adjust the tax rates to reduce the amount of overpayment. Legislative Republicans passed their third attempt at a tax cut last week that would reduce income tax rates to bring the level of taxation in line with the amount of money that the government is actually spending. Yes, the spending is still too much, but Wisconsinites are still being taxed way more than even the spending justifies.

 

Democrats in the Legislature voted against this tax cut just like they voted against the last two tax cuts. Governor Evers vetoed the last two tax cuts and will probably veto this one too. Democrats refuse to give the Wisconsin taxpayers their change after funding government.

 

Why are Evers and his fellow travelers refusing to let Wisconsinites keep their money to afford the exploding cost of living despite government being fully funded? Simple. They do not think it is your money. They think it is their money and they want to spend it on things that they want.

 

Dressed up in the language of fake compassion, Evers and legislative Democrats have offered dozens of ways to spend the surplus instead of giving it back to hardworking Wisconsinites. They have proposed spending it on child care welfare, pouring more billions into the black hole of the government education complex, corporate welfare to big business to pay for paid leave and worker training, creating new government bureaucrats like the Office of State Employee Engagement and Retention, and all manner of spending.

 

All of the Democrats’ spending proposals have two things in common. First, they were not in the state budget. They are just more ideas to spend money after the budget was completed and signed into law by the governor. Second, every one of the spending proposals is designed to be spent on, or filtered through, the Democrats’ favored people. As the money flows, Democrats and their liberal constituencies throughout Wisconsin will get their beaks wet in a stream of tax dollars that were forcibly and unnecessarily taken from hardworking Wisconsinites.

 

If you are not angry about that, you should be.

Gallagher’s falling star

by | 0820, 17 Feb 2424 | , | 0 Comments

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

Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher has had quite a week. After a controversial vote against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Gallagher made the surprise announcement that he will not be seeking reelection. The moment says a lot about where the Republican base is right now.

 

For background, according to the U.S. Border Patrol, they encountered an all-time record 302,034 people illegally crossing our southern border in December of 2023. During President Biden’s term, the Border Patrol has encountered more people every year than the year before for a whopping total of over seven million illegal border crossers. The vast majority of illegal border crossers were released into the interior of the country. That is more people than currently live in 34 of our 50 states. This number only includes the people that Border Control encountered. It does not include the countless people who evaded detection. In other words, our border is wide open. Ignoring their legal and moral responsibility to implement the law to secure our border, the Biden Administration has deliberately opened our nation’s borders. Biden has all of the legal authority and responsibility to secure the border at any time but refuses to do so. The result is that millions of indigent people are tearing social safety nets and committing crimes in communities all over our nation. People are frustrated. Angry. Enter Secretary Mayorkas. Mayorkas is the chief implementer of Biden’s openborder policy. He has spent years ignoring, obstructing, and misleading Congress in his quest to erase America’s geographic sovereignty. For this, the Republicans, who only control a single house of Congress, sought to impeach Mayorkas as the face, and chief architect, of Biden’s open border.

 

Impeachment is a political tool granted to the House of Representatives by the Constitution to be used against anyone in the other two branches of government. It is one of the famed “checks” that creates “balance” in our system of government. The criteria for impeachment are intentionally vague because it is a political tool — not a legal one.

 

Even though the Democrat majority in the Senate would never convict Mayorkas, the House Republican leadership sought to impeach Mayorkas to vent the frustration of their constituents and use the most powerful tool available to them to try to check the Executive Branch’s wonton disregard for the laws it is charged to faithfully implement.

 

Gallagher voted against impeaching Mayorkas and it failed by a narrow margin. Gallagher’s reasoning was sincere, but flawed. He aspires to a higher standard for impeachment that the Democrats abandoned long ago and is not appropriate for the seriousness of the border crisis and Mayorkas’ role in it.

 

The reaction to Gallagher’s vote from Republican voters and moderates was immediate and vicious — perhaps overly so, but reflective of the pent-up frustration and anger about Biden’s border treachery. Republican voters are looking for elected Republicans to use every tool available to fight for a secure border. We are sick and tired of watching elected Republicans latibulate when our country needs people to fight for it.

 

Gallagher took both barrels of that gurgling anger. Although he did not state this reaction as the reason, he announced that he will not seek reelection a couple of days after his vote. Gallagher was a rising Republican star with legitimate conservative credibility, but this singular vote has most likely ended his political career.

 

The silver lining for Wisconsin Republicans is that Gallagher’s precipitous announcement makes the race to replace him an open seat in the Republican-leaning Fox Valley. That region of Wisconsin has increasingly become the bellwether of Republican statewide elections and a hotly contested race for Congress may drive Republican turnout for their attempt to oust Senator Tammy Baldwin.

Gallagher’s falling star

by | 0727, 13 Feb 2424 | , | 11 Comments

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

Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher has had quite a week. After a controversial vote against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Gallagher made the surprise announcement that he will not be seeking reelection. The moment says a lot about where the Republican base is right now.

 

[…]

 

Impeachment is a political tool granted to the House of Representatives by the Constitution to be used against anyone in the other two branches of government. It is one of the famed “checks” that creates “balance” in our system of government. The criteria for impeachment are intentionally vague because it is a political tool — not a legal one.

 

Even though the Democrat majority in the Senate would never convict Mayorkas, the House Republican leadership sought to impeach Mayorkas to vent the frustration of their constituents and use the most powerful tool available to them to try to check the Executive Branch’s wonton disregard for the laws it is charged to faithfully implement.

 

Gallagher voted against impeaching Mayorkas and it failed by a narrow margin. Gallagher’s reasoning was sincere, but flawed. He aspires to a higher standard for impeachment that the Democrats abandoned long ago and is not appropriate for the seriousness of the border crisis and Mayorkas’ role in it.

 

The reaction to Gallagher’s vote from Republican voters and moderates was immediate and vicious — perhaps overly so, but reflective of the pent-up frustration and anger about Biden’s border treachery. Republican voters are looking for elected Republicans to use every tool available to fight for a secure border. We are sick and tired of watching elected Republicans latibulate when our country needs people to fight for it.

 

Gallagher took both barrels of that gurgling anger. Although he did not state this reaction as the reason, he announced that he will not seek reelection a couple of days after his vote. Gallagher was a rising Republican star with legitimate conservative credibility, but this singular vote has most likely ended his political career.

 

Leftist court justices getting what they paid for

by | 0725, 10 Feb 2424 | , | 1 Comment

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

There is an open secret in corporate America regarding consultants. While business leaders will sometimes hire consultants to actually study an issue and offer unbiased advice, perhaps more often than not, consultants are hired to tell the business leaders what they want to hear. This is exactly what is happening within the redistricting case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

 

Here is how the game is played: An executive knows they need to do something or wants to do something but either does not have support or does not want to take responsibility for the decision. The executive hires a consultant to “study” the issue and provide guidance with a wink and a nod. When the consultant miraculously comes back recommending that they do what the executive wanted, the executive can sell the decision to their bosses, employees, and customers as something “recommended by unbiased experts after rigorous study.” Consultants get paid. Executive gets what he or she wants.

 

When the leftists on the Wisconsin Supreme Court chose to violate the law and Constitution to throw out the legally implemented state legislative maps last year, they decided that they needed a fig leaf of legitimacy to force whatever new maps they draw. To that end, they went out and hired two consultants, Jonathan Cervas and Bernard Grofman. Both men are academics who have carved out a niche for themselves consulting on redistricting for clients all over the country. Both of these consultants will be paid $450 per hour up to $100,000 each for their work. It is a good side hustle if you can get it. The hiring process for these consultants was utterly opaque. There was no nationwide search for the best, most unbiased consultants. The leftists did not solicit input from any of the litigants in the case. There was no bidding process or price negotiation made public. We, the public, have absolutely no idea why these two consultants were selected or why we are paying them $450 per hour. The only thing we know is that the leftist court majority chose them.

 

The leftist court majority is getting exactly what they are paying for. In response to the court usurping the power of the Legislature and throwing out the state legislative maps, the court accepted six alternate proposals from interested parties. The six sets of maps were submitted by Legislative Republicans, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, Governor Tony Evers, Democrat plaintiffs, Senate Democrats, and a group of academic mathematicians.

 

Last week, accompanied by a statement heavy with meaningless academic jargon, the consultants rejected the two maps submitted by Republicans and WILL — the only two maps submitted by someone who is not a fellow traveler of the leftist court majority. The consultants did not declare which map was most correct but left open the option to draw their own if asked to do so by the court.

 

Let me save everyone the drama of what is to come. We already know. The leftist court majority has made it clear that they will redraw the maps to favor the Democrats as much as possible. They have a fundamental belief that legislative representation should mirror the statewide popular vote – ignoring small-“r” republicanism that balances geographic and popular interests. Given that the leftists have the majority, they will impose maps that are heavily gerrymandered to favor Democrats.

 

The leftist justices want to maintain the fiction of impartiality and judicial objectivity. Yes, “fiction” is the correct word. To that end, one of two outcomes will happen. The court will choose the maps submitted by the mathematicians. This lets the leftists pretend that there is objective science behind the maps without accepting maps submitted by obviously biased Democrats.

 

The more likely outcome is that the leftist justices will toss out all of the submitted maps and charge the consultants to draw new maps. This gives them ultimate control over the outcome and covers their overt partisanship with a veneer of academic impartiality and objectivity. The mainstream media will announce their approval for the allegedly fair, in reality completely unfair, maps like the clapping barking seals they are.

 

The two consultants hired by the leftist court majority were hired to deliver maps that favor Democrats. That is exactly what is going to happen. In the end, given the billions of taxpayer dollars that are going to flow to leftist operatives and priorities as a result of this decision, $200,000 seems like a reasonable investment for them to make to maintain the fiction of a rule of law in Wisconsin.

Leftist court justices getting what they paid for

by | 0929, 6 Feb 2424 | , | 0 Comments

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

There is an open secret in corporate America regarding consultants. While business leaders will sometimes hire consultants to actually study an issue and offer unbiased advice, perhaps more often than not, consultants are hired to tell the business leaders what they want to hear. This is exactly what is happening within the redistricting case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

 

Here is how the game is played: An executive knows they need to do something or wants to do something but either does not have support or does not want to take responsibility for the decision. The executive hires a consultant to “study” the issue and provide guidance with a wink and a nod. When the consultant miraculously comes back recommending that they do what the executive wanted, the executive can sell the decision to their bosses, employees, and customers as something “recommended by unbiased experts after rigorous study.” Consultants get paid. Executive gets what he or she wants.

 

When the leftists on the Wisconsin Supreme Court chose to violate the law and Constitution to throw out the legally implemented state legislative maps last year, they decided that they needed a fig leaf of legitimacy to force whatever new maps they draw. To that end, they went out and hired two consultants, Jonathan Cervas and Bernard Grofman. Both men are academics who have carved out a niche for themselves consulting on redistricting for clients all over the country. Both of these consultants will be paid $450 per hour up to $100,000 each for their work. It is a good side hustle if you can get it. The hiring process for these consultants was utterly opaque. There was no nationwide search for the best, most unbiased consultants. The leftists did not solicit input from any of the litigants in the case. There was no bidding process or price negotiation made public. We, the public, have absolutely no idea why these two consultants were selected or why we are paying them $450 per hour. The only thing we know is that the leftist court majority chose them.

 

[…]

 

The more likely outcome is that the leftist justices will toss out all of the submitted maps and charge the consultants to draw new maps. This gives them ultimate control over the outcome and covers their overt partisanship with a veneer of academic impartiality and objectivity. The mainstream media will announce their approval for the allegedly fair, in reality completely unfair, maps like the clapping barking seals they are.

 

The two consultants hired by the leftist court majority were hired to deliver maps that favor Democrats. That is exactly what is going to happen. In the end, given the billions of taxpayer dollars that are going to flow to leftist operatives and priorities as a result of this decision, $200,000 seems like a reasonable investment for them to make to maintain the fiction of a rule of law in Wisconsin.

Outcome-based politics

by | 0720, 30 Jan 2424 | , , | 1 Comment

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here you go:

Our system of government was purposefully constructed to make it difficult to impose policy without overwhelming support, thus requiring advocates to win adherents in the crucible of public debate. As Americans, we have always engaged in robust political debate for this purpose, but our politics are different than it once was. More dangerous. More consequential.

 

The difference seems to be that in ages past, both political parties adhered to a fundamental respect for the process and institutions of our nation. Imbued with legitimacy accorded by the Founders and the many years since their creation, there was near universal respect for our institutions and the process by which we confer the consent of the people upon the wielders of political power.

 

In recent years, the Democrats, and to a much lesser, but not negligible, extent, the Republicans, have jettisoned respect for, and adherence to, the process, institutions, and constitutional constraints of our system of government in favor of an outcome-based approach to obtaining and wielding political power. This has coincided with the growing Marxist faction of the Democratic Party wielding increasing power over the wilting traditional liberals. In this doctrine, the outcome justifies subverting, ignoring, or modifying the processes and institutions as required to achieve the outcome. Just as ancient and medieval princes justified their tyranny for the sake of necessity and the greater good, so, too, do our modern tyrants. Whether for the cause of security, climate change, COVID, or democracy (whatever that means), political objectives are elevated to the stature of existential causes to justify any action that leads to the desired outcome.

 

We see this infection reddening the organ and connecting tissues of all aspects of our government. In Wisconsin, we see it with the newly leftist Supreme Court. The settled process for reapportionment as prescribed by the state Constitution and long practiced by both parties is being abandoned by the court. The leftist justices and their adherents justify the action for the sake of “fairness” — as defined by them. To the leftists, the constitutional and long-established process for apportionment did not result in the outcome they wanted, so they are jettisoning the process to dictate their desired outcome.

 

When the United States Supreme Court ruled that President Biden lacked the constitutional or legal authority to arbitrarily absolve tens of thousand of debtors from their obligation to repay their student loans, thus thrusting that cost onto taxpayers, Biden simply ignored the order. Without making any effort to involve Congress or obtain the required authority, Biden has been illegally transferring billions of dollars of student debt to taxpayers. For Biden, the outcome of appeasing this constituency justifies ignoring the protestations of the coequal branch of government charged with adjudicating his actions.

 

Perhaps nowhere else do we see the destructive force of an outcome-based political system than at our southern border. Despite a constitutional responsibility and reams of laws empowering and funding the federal government to secure our federal borders from people illegally crossing them, President Biden has chosen to ignore that responsibility and use those resources to facilitate and accelerate the ingestion of millions of illegal aliens into our nation. The full resources of the federal government are being used to greet, provide resources for, and diffuse illegal aliens into the interior.

 

We know that this invasion is Biden’s intent because the border was all but secure at the end of the previous administration. Since then, the Congress has not passed any border or immigration legislation, yet the border is gaping open. It is estimated that well more than a million illegal aliens have been dispersed throughout our nation every year of Biden’s term. Biden’s intentional effort to flood communities with people he thinks will be more likely than not to vote for Democrats someday justifies unburdening himself from the confines of statute or Constitution.

 

Outcome-based politics always precedes tyranny. By abandoning the constitutional, legal, and traditional processes and institutional implements of power for the sake of necessity, we necessarily concentrate power and silence the moderating effect of opposition voices. The same slide preceded Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler — tyrants all, who stood astride the ashes of the republics they replaced. The slide can be reversed, but it becomes more difficult with each passing day.

Usurpers on the high court

by | 1010, 27 Jan 2424 | , | 0 Comments

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

The leftist-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court is continuing its rampage to strip Wisconsinites of self-governance and reshape the state to their will. Where leftists could not win support for their ideology at the ballot box, they will use the power of the court to advance it.

 

Unless you are a political nerd, it is difficult to convey how bad the court is acting in regard to Wisconsin’s legislative maps. Article 4 section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution is crystal clear that it is the duty and responsibility of the state legislature to redraw the state’s legislative boundaries every 10 years after the federal census. The maps are redrawn to adjust for population shifts to ensure that each district is roughly equal in population.

 

After the 2020 census, the Republican legislature did their duty and redrew the maps. Democrat Governor Evers vetoed them, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court ended up settling the issue. The maps were challenged multiple times in state and federal court, but the maps were universally ruled constitutional and went into effect for the 2022 election.

 

This was a settled issue. Leftists are frustrated that their supporters are concentrated in a couple of areas in the state. This results in Wisconsin being evenly politically divided in statewide elections, but since legislative districts are geographically dispersed, the leftists’ geographic concentration puts them at a disadvantage in legislative elections. This is why challenging the legislative maps was high on the list of things for the newly Leftists Supreme Court to redo.

 

Right before Christmas, the Supreme Court threw out all of the legislative maps and committed to redrawing them under their own authority, thus usurping the express power conferred to the Legislature in the constitution. The fig leaf they used to cover their overt power grab was that all of the districts were not physically contiguous. Wisconsin’s districts have not been physically contiguous for many decades, but that was their excuse. In fact, in 1992, a Democrat-led legislature drew maps without physically contiguous districts and a federal judicial panel ruled them constitutional. It is goofy, but it is not unconstitutional.

 

Even if one accepts that incontiguous districts are unconstitutional (they are not); and even if one considers the issue so egregious that it must be dealt with now and not at the next apportionment (it is not); the court could have taken the least disruptive action of just redrawing the relevant districts. They did not take the least disruptive action. Instead, they threw out all of the maps and are completely redrawing them in the middle of a presidential election year. The court’s actions reveal the depth of their power grab.

 

On Jan. 12, seven interested parties submitted new maps to the court for them to consider. According to a review by the Marquette University Law School, all seven maps still result in a Republican advantage for the Assembly. That is just how the political math works in an age of ideological ghettoization.

 

The Republicans would also have an advantage for the Senate in five of the seven submitted maps.

 

The Supreme Court does not have to use any of the submitted maps. They could just ignore them all and draw their own. One thing is certain, however: The new maps will maximize the advantage for Democrats even if districts are gerrymandered such that they will be renowned as a piece of abstract art. One need only look to our neighbors in Illinois to see the depths to which Democrats will gerrymander districts to their advantage.

 

But the deeper outrage of the leftist court’s actions is not the “what,” but the “who.” Our government of self-governance relies on the rule of law and the separation of powers. The leftists are rejecting both of these bedrock principles in one stroke. They are substituting ideology for law and brazenly snatching an express constitutional power from the legislative branch of government.

 

We are watching a judicial coup unfold before our eyes. These are menacing times.

 

Usurpers on the high court

by | 0734, 23 Jan 2424 | , | 3 Comments

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

The leftist-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court is continuing its rampage to strip Wisconsinites of self-governance and reshape the state to their will. Where leftists could not win support for their ideology at the ballot box, they will use the power of the court to advance it.

 

Unless you are a political nerd, it is difficult to convey how bad the court is acting in regard to Wisconsin’s legislative maps. Article 4 section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution is crystal clear that it is the duty and responsibility of the state legislature to redraw the state’s legislative boundaries every 10 years after the federal census.

 

[…]

 

The Supreme Court does not have to use any of the submitted maps. They could just ignore them all and draw their own. One thing is certain, however: The new maps will maximize the advantage for Democrats even if districts are gerrymandered such that they will be renowned as a piece of abstract art. One need only look to our neighbors in Illinois to see the depths to which Democrats will gerrymander districts to their advantage.

 

But the deeper outrage of the leftist court’s actions is not the “what,” but the “who.” Our government of self-governance relies on the rule of law and the separation of powers. The leftists are rejecting both of these bedrock principles in one stroke. They are substituting ideology for law and brazenly snatching an express constitutional power from the legislative branch of government.

 

We are watching a judicial coup unfold before our eyes. These are menacing times.

Enjoying the new year fireworks

by | 0759, 19 Jan 2424 | | 0 Comments

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

The new year began with an entertaining spat between the conservative Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and the liberal Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson. While amusing, the kerfuffle overstates the dissimilarities.

 

On New Year’s Day, Schoemann posted on X a snarky comment welcoming residents of Milwaukee County to Washington County to do their shopping and dining. The comment was a swipe at the fact that Milwaukee County increased the county sales tax by 0.9% on January 1. The city of Milwaukee increased the sales tax by 2%. In one day, people making purchases in the city of Milwaukee are paying 7.9% in sales taxes compared to 5.5% in Washington County.

 

Johnson shot back saying, “If folks are looking at a high-quality dinner or a theater or a fine dining experience, they can come here (Milwaukee), or go to Cracker Barrel there (Washington County).” Zing!

 

Liberal Milwaukee has become a high-tax island, and they appear to not have any intention of slowing down. In the wake of the 44% increase in the sales tax, Milwaukee city leaders are proposing a 15% pay increase for themselves. Included in the proposal is an automatic 3% increase for themselves every year in perpetuity.

 

Not to be left behind, the Milwaukee Public Schools voted to ask the voters for an additional $252 million in a referendum. MPS already spends an incredible $19,000 per student and enrollment is declining. The state Legislature just gave MPS tens of millions of additional dollars in a deal struck last year. A deal, incidentally, in which MPS agreed to put school resource officers back in the schools and the school district has already broken that agreement without any consequence.

 

Lest Washington County residents look with too much aspersion toward their neighbors to the southeast, some self-reflection is in order. Washington County also has a 0.5% county sales tax on top of the state sales tax. The county sales tax was sold to the voters in 1998 as a temporary emergency imperative for several critical capital expense needs related to public safety. The county sales tax has been extended every time – most recently in 2022 and 2017 with the vocal support of Schoemann.

 

The West Bend School District is also following the path charted by their big brother to the southeast. The West Bend district is also seeing a rapid decline in enrollment and is receiving a budget boost from the same state funding that Milwaukee is getting. Despite this, the West Bend School Board has hired consultants and is moving down the process to ask the voters for more money in a referendum later this year. They may yet change course, but history teaches us otherwise.

 

What is the lesson to be learned? While Washington County and Milwaukee County are viewed as polar political opposites as highlighted by the rhetorical fusillade between Schoemann and Johnson, they are different more in degree than in substance. Yes, Milwaukee County is a tax hell, but Washington County is only slightly less fiery.

 

The other lesson is that when it comes to government spending, the politicians in charge will never, ever admit that they have enough to spend — never mind too much to spend. Politicians of all stripes derive their power from their ability to spend our money. The more they spend, the more power they have. It does not matter what they spend it on. That is not what it is about. It is about political power derived from wielding the public purse.

Enjoying the new year fireworks

by | 0813, 16 Jan 2424 | | 0 Comments

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

The new year began with an entertaining spat between the conservative Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and the liberal Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson. While amusing, the kerfuffle overstates the dissimilarities.

 

On New Year’s Day, Schoemann posted on X a snarky comment welcoming residents of Milwaukee County to Washington County to do their shopping and dining. The comment was a swipe at the fact that Milwaukee County increased the county sales tax by 0.9% on January 1. The city of Milwaukee increased the sales tax by 2%. In one day, people making purchases in the city of Milwaukee are paying 7.9% in sales taxes compared to 5.5% in Washington County.

 

Johnson shot back saying, “If folks are looking at a high-quality dinner or a theater or a fine dining experience, they can come here (Milwaukee), or go to Cracker Barrel there (Washington County).” Zing!

 

Liberal Milwaukee has become a high-tax island, and they appear to not have any intention of slowing down. In the wake of the 44% increase in the sales tax, Milwaukee city leaders are proposing a 15% pay increase for themselves. Included in the proposal is an automatic 3% increase for themselves every year in perpetuity.

 

[…]

 

Lest Washington County residents look with too much aspersion toward their neighbors to the southeast, some self-reflection is in order. Washington County also has a 0.5% county sales tax on top of the state sales tax. The county sales tax was sold to the voters in 1998 as a temporary emergency imperative for several critical capital expense needs related to public safety. The county sales tax has been extended every time – most recently in 2022 and 2017 with the vocal support of Schoemann.

 

[…]

 

What is the lesson to be learned? While Washington County and Milwaukee County are viewed as polar political opposites as highlighted by the rhetorical fusillade between Schoemann and Johnson, they are different more in degree than in substance. Yes, Milwaukee County is a tax hell, but Washington County is only slightly less fiery.

 

The other lesson is that when it comes to government spending, the politicians in charge will never, ever admit that they have enough to spend — never mind too much to spend. Politicians of all stripes derive their power from their ability to spend our money. The more they spend, the more power they have. It does not matter what they spend it on. That is not what it is about. It is about political power derived from wielding the public purse.

 

The sooner taxpayers take this lesson to heart, the sooner we can begin to shift the power back to the people.

 

The Great Gaslight

by | 0812, 12 Jan 2424 | | 0 Comments

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

Now that we are officially in a presidential election year and the Iowa Caucus looms, we can turn our attention to the campaign in earnest. It appears that we will be saddled with a rematch of Presidents Biden and Trump and the era of geriatric leadership will persist.

 

With an atrocious performance record and what appears to be an obvious history of corruption, Biden is determined to gaslight his way to re-election. He is going to try to convince the American people to trust his fiction instead of the observable obvious truth.

 

Biden’s first fiction is that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, was an insurrection. This fiction is key to Biden’s plan because it allows him to dehumanize Trump, specifically, and Republicans, generally. By othering Republicans, Biden relieves his supporters of the burden of respect and gives permission to win by any means necessary. The truth is that January 6 was a political rally and protest that spontaneously got out of control. The vast majority of the participants did not do anything other than exercise their 1st Amendment right to protest while a small minority got violent. An authentic and planned insurrection to topple our government would necessarily involve organization, the violent seizure of several organs of government, and an assumption of power by new leadership. Nobody has been accused, tried, or convicted of insurrection on January 6 because it was not an insurrection.

 

Biden is trying to convince Americans that January 6 was the most violent and deplorable riot in history, but Americans have been watching leftists disrupt governments burn down cities, and attack people for years. Biden does not care about our towns being burned down, but he desperately wants us to care about someone breaking a window in his town.

 

The second fiction is that the border is not a problem, or, if it is a problem, it is not his fault. Biden wants us to disregard the realities facing our communities as he is allowing millions of illegal aliens from all over the world to waltz across our border.

 

The truth is that Biden has intentionally opened our borders to the world. We have watched the videos throughout Biden’s term of thousands of illegal aliens crossing our borders. We have seen the news stories of illegal aliens overwhelming the welfare systems of massive cities like New York and Los Angeles. We have seen even small cities like Whitewater calling for help as hundreds of illegal aliens dumped in their communities drive up crime.

 

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they encountered over 3.2 million illegals in 2023. The vast majority were released into the interior of our country. Over 2 million of those were single adults – not families. Some 109,863 of them were from China or Russia. These are only the people that CBP encountered. It does not count the millions who go undetected.

 

We remember that the border was essentially secure at the end of Trump’s presidency, but Biden is trying to convince us to believe him instead of our own memories. He is trying to convince us that the damage he is inflicting on our nation and our communities by opening the borders is not happening.

 

Biden’s third fiction is that the economy is great and Bidenomics is working. The stock market has been doing well on the back of inflation and government spending. Much like the economy under President Obama, Wall Street and the rich are doing quite well as the lower and middle classes suffer.

 

The truth is that Biden’s policies and spending ballooned inflation to the highest level seen in over forty years. Under Biden, everything got more expensive including housing, vehicles, fuel, and everything else Americans need every day. To combat this, the Federal Reserve drove up interest rates, making the cost of credit cards, mortgages, and loans much higher. We are all spending more to get the same things and more of our incomes are going to just afford necessities.

 

We all see the results of Bidenomics in our lives every day. Our food is much more expensive. It costs more to fill up our cars. Those cars are more expensive. Houses are far more expensive and increasingly unattainable for the lower and middle classes. Rents are up. More Americans are spending down their savings or running up debt to maintain their standard of living and many more Americans are seeing a lower standard of living.

 

Biden wants us to believe that we are better off thanks to his economic policies and ignore the realities we see in our bank accounts every month. The Biden family has done quite well under Bidenomics. The rest of us? Not so much.

 

Biden dares not ask us if we are better off than we were four years ago.

 

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The Great Gaslight

by | 0726, 9 Jan 2424 | | 1 Comment

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

Now that we are officially in a presidential election year and the Iowa Caucus looms, we can turn our attention to the campaign in earnest. It appears that we will be saddled with a rematch of Presidents Biden and Trump and the era of geriatric leadership will persist.

 

With an atrocious performance record and what appears to be an obvious history of corruption, Biden is determined to gaslight his way to re-election. He is going to try to convince the American people to trust his fiction instead of the observable obvious truth.

 

Biden’s first fiction is that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, was an insurrection. This fiction is key to Biden’s plan because it allows him to dehumanize Trump, specifically, and Republicans, generally. By othering Republicans, Biden relieves his supporters of the burden of respect and gives permission to win by any means necessary. The truth is that January 6 was a political rally and protest that spontaneously got out of control. The vast majority of the participants did not do anything other than exercise their 1st Amendment right to protest while a small minority got violent. An authentic and planned insurrection to topple our government would necessarily involve organization, the violent seizure of several organs of government, and an assumption of power by new leadership. Nobody has been accused, tried, or convicted of insurrection on January 6 because it was not an insurrection.

 

Biden is trying to convince Americans that January 6 was the most violent and deplorable riot in history, but Americans have been watching leftists disrupt governments burn down cities, and attack people for years. Biden does not care about our towns being burned down, but he desperately wants us to care about someone breaking a window in his town.

 

Language prime tool for living life on shared terms

by | 0743, 30 Dec 2323 | | 2 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. I probably had too much fun writing it. Here’s a part:

As the final light bleeds out of 2023 and we await the new year, the thought of writing about a contentious political issue is repugnant to me. Instead, let us take a brief departure from our usual conversation and muse about the medium in which we converse.

 

As an incurable bibliophile, I am also, naturally, a logophile. Our language, whether written or spoken, is central to the human condition and culture. Without language, communication between humans is rudimentary. It is through our language that we communicate complex ideas and emotions. It is through our written language that we accumulate and preserve the knowledge of humanity so that that knowledge can be expanded upon by future generations. Language is the bedrock of philosophy, science, religion, culture, business, entertainment, and our entire social construct.

 

To know language is to understand a culture. Anyone who has learned a new language knows that it cannot be truly learned without understanding the culture that generated it. Language is replete with nuance and subtleties that are manifestations of how the language evolved. That is why some languages have words that others do not. The language is a reflection of, and creator of, the culture.

 

Language is full of nuance that is often transitory to the time in which it exists. Language evolves with the culture and new concepts come to the fore and others are abandoned to history. One of the reasons that I love to read old books is because it is reading parallel stories — the story that is the subject of the text and the story told in the language of the time in which it was written.

 

I find joy in reading or hearing a word that our common language has orphaned. Don’t tell my editor, but I have written entire columns for the singular purpose of having an excuse to use a rediscovered word. Sometimes a word perfectly captures the concept that one is trying to convey.

 

For example, this Christmas season, I have too often felt “crapulous.” Why weigh down a sentence explaining that I feel crummy because I ate too much when I could just say I feel crapulous? It is a perfectly descriptive word for the feeling being expressed.

 

As one who closely follows the actions of politicians, I witness far too many snollygosters and cockalorums who are too rigid in their old mumpsimus. I wish it were not so, but politics is often a rhetorical brabble. Our politics have been infected with a high degree of proditomania, but thankfully we have evolved away from settling disputes with a holmgang.

 

New words are entering our lexicon all the time. Some of them flare for a few years while others cement themselves into everyday use. “Hangry” perfectly describes a state of irrational anger driven by hunger, although it is curious that it evolved at a time of unbelievable historical affluence when real hunger is utterly foreign to most Americans. We get “MacGyver” as a verb from the television show and “padawan” from the Star Wars franchise.

 

The world of technology brings us the NPC (non-player character) as a pejorative and something worth sharing is grammable. While quiet quitting is something that remote work on a mass scale has enabled, it might also be caused by doomscrolling. It is also very common during March Madness as people spend their time engaged in bracketology.

 

Still, while I enjoy the evolution of our common language and appreciate its dynamism, this Christmas season affronted me with a development that I cannot abide. The ubiquitous use of the word “gift” is unconscionable. One did not “gift” something to someone. They “gave” to them. One was not “gifted” something. One was “given” it. “Gift” is the noun. In very rare and specific situations, “gift” can be a transitive verb. “Give” is the verb. “Given” is the adjective. There is no need to use “gift” in all circumstances related to the free transfer of goods or services. We already have appropriate words for all scenarios. Please use them appropriately.

 

Happy new year, everyone. May the new year bring you all joy and peace.

Endowed by our creator

by | 0914, 29 Dec 2323 | , , | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last Saturday.

As Christmastime envelops our nation in warmth and the faint scent of peppermint, I am reminded about how much it is a part of our shared American culture. As a Christian, I celebrate Christmas as the traditional birthday of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But the secular celebration of the Christmas season, imbued with family gatherings, the exchange of gifts, a shared soundtrack, movies, parades, sweet things, and sweet people, has become a distinctly American cultural touch-point that binds together families and communities.

 

Every group of people — whether it be a family, business, or a nation — has a culture whether they intend to have one or not. The United States is a very large country with beautifully diverse regional and local cultures, but there are several distinctly American common cultural elements that thread through our society. Those common cultural elements are waning in the face of neglect and intentional destruction.

 

The American culture is derived from our founding ethos rooted in European and American Enlightenment philosophy and frontier expansionism. It is a culture that celebrates the individual as a divine creation in which natural rights are innate and inalienable. This respect and adoration for the individual underpins much of American culture.

 

Because individuals are the foundational element of American culture, we created a system of government based on self-governance where individuals elect our leaders. Americans are reflexively anti-authoritarian because any concentration of power is a threat to the power of the individual.

 

Our respect for the individual explains Americans’ instinctive support for human rights. When each and every human is respected and honored as a unique and cherished individual, it is impossible to not support and respect the natural human rights of each individual. Those rights include, but are not limited to, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Individual rights are the reason we have property and the rule of law. The right of an individual person to own the fruits of their own labor rejects the notion of collective ownership. The rule of law exists to provide a predictable and rigorous framework that protects individuals from the power of governments and other individuals who seek to deprive them of the free exercise of their natural rights and the disposition of their property.

 

The respect for the sovereignty of the individual and respect for individual natural rights is the very heart of liberty and our American love of liberty. What is liberty if not the love of individuals being free to conduct themselves as they wish without interference from their fellow humans? When one individual’s exercise of liberty threatens another’s, we surrender our personal violent power to the necessary evil of government to resolve the conflict through the rule of law.

 

It is our American love of the individual that breathes life into our culture of tolerance, multiculturalism, and respect for others. “Live and let live” has long been core to the American ethic. We have long striven for the ideal of equality and liberty where individuals of every race, creed, and religion are brothers and sisters in one family that we call “America.”

 

America’s historic respect for individuals is being assaulted. For over a generation, our schools have been contaminated with philosophies of collectivism, intersectionality, and neo-Marxism. These philosophies reject the sovereignty of the individual in favor of bundling people into groups of oppressors and oppressed, favored and unfavored, good and bad. In these philosophies, concepts like the rule of law, self-governance, and individual liberty are rendered obsolete and replaced with authoritarianism whereby chosen people rule by right in order to correct the perceived wrongs of history and any means are justified by the righteous ends.

 

If we fully lose our American culture of individualism, we will lose the philosophical support structure upon which our system of government, rule of law, and personal liberties are based. We already see it happening as collectivists are perfectly willing to erase our border, celebrate the raping and murder of Jews, arbitrarily transfer the earned wealth of millions to a few, and weaponize the judicial system to punish people who are members of the “wrong” group.

 

It is not too late, but it is getting close. I pray that everyone has a restful Christmas season to connect with family and friends as the beautiful individual people they are. Next year will be a pivotal year in the history of our nation.

Endowed by our creator

by | 0648, 23 Dec 2323 | , , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. For the next two weeks it will be running on Saturday instead of Tuesday because of the holidays. Here’s a part:

Every group of people — whether it be a family, business, or a nation — has a culture whether they intend to have one or not. The United States is a very large country with beautifully diverse regional and local cultures, but there are several distinctly American common cultural elements that thread through our society. Those common cultural elements are waning in the face of neglect and intentional destruction.

 

The American culture is derived from our founding ethos rooted in European and American Enlightenment philosophy and frontier expansionism. It is a culture that celebrates the individual as a divine creation in which natural rights are innate and inalienable. This respect and adoration for the individual underpins much of American culture.

 

Because individuals are the foundational element of American culture, we created a system of government based on self-governance where individuals elect our leaders. Americans are reflexively anti-authoritarian because any concentration of power is a threat to the power of the individual.

 

Our respect for the individual explains Americans’ instinctive support for human rights. When each and every human is respected and honored as a unique and cherished individual, it is impossible to not support and respect the natural human rights of each individual. Those rights include, but are not limited to, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Individual rights are the reason we have property and the rule of law. The right of an individual person to own the fruits of their own labor rejects the notion of collective ownership. The rule of law exists to provide a predictable and rigorous framework that protects individuals from the power of governments and other individuals who seek to deprive them of the free exercise of their natural rights and the disposition of their property.

 

The respect for the sovereignty of the individual and respect for individual natural rights is the very heart of liberty and our American love of liberty. What is liberty if not the love of individuals being free to conduct themselves as they wish without interference from their fellow humans? When one individual’s exercise of liberty threatens another’s, we surrender our personal violent power to the necessary evil of government to resolve the conflict through the rule of law.

 

It is our American love of the individual that breathes life into our culture of tolerance, multiculturalism, and respect for others. “Live and let live” has long been core to the American ethic. We have long striven for the ideal of equality and liberty where individuals of every race, creed, and religion are brothers and sisters in one family that we call “America.”

 

America’s historic respect for individuals is being assaulted. For over a generation, our schools have been contaminated with philosophies of collectivism, intersectionality, and neo-Marxism. These philosophies reject the sovereignty of the individual in favor of bundling people into groups of oppressors and oppressed, favored and unfavored, good and bad. In these philosophies, concepts like the rule of law, self-governance, and individual liberty are rendered obsolete and replaced with authoritarianism whereby chosen people rule by right in order to correct the perceived wrongs of history and any means are justified by the righteous ends.

Governor Evers’ shadow government

by | 1629, 22 Dec 2323 | | 0 Comments

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

“Wisconsin’s open government laws promote democracy by ensuring that all state, regional and local governments conduct their business with transparency. Wisconsin citizens have a right to know how their government is spending their tax dollars and exercising the powers granted by the people.”

— Attorney General Josh Kaul, Wisconsin Public Records Law Compliance Guide 

 

Based on the principle that transparency in government is both a right of the people and an obligation of government officials, Wisconsin has some of the best open records laws in the nation. That is why it is so troubling to learn that our Governor, Tony Evers, has been hiding his official email communications behind an secret alias for years. What else is he hiding?

 

The news came to light a few weeks ago when Wisconsin Right Now, a conservative news and opinion outlet, learned that Governor Evers has been using the name of Hall of Fame Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn’s name for the governor’s secret email address warrenspahn@ wisconsin.gov. According to a disclosure from the governor’s office, there are over 17,000 emails to and from the governor’s secret email address between 2017 and 2023.

 

Evers dismissed the disclosure as not newsworthy while pretending that using secret email addresses was normal government practice. As someone who has requested records for decades, the governor’s assertion is news to me, other open government advocates, and news agencies. Secret emails are not normal except for politicians who are trying to hide something.

 

Wisconsin’s Open Records Laws are clear and unambiguous. When someone requests records from a public official about a particular subject or time period, the official is compelled by law to provide all of those records irrespective of whether the records are from their official email account, personal email account, text, chat, or any other format. It is the content of the records that makes them government records and subject to disclosure – not the means of transmission. The fact that the governor has failed to disclose the content of his secret email account despite dozens of legal open records requests is a clear violation of the law.

 

This governor has a history of secrecy. In 2019, FOX6 had to sue the governor to get emails. FOX6 had filed a routing request for a couple of weeks of emails. They had a practice of this to just see what might turn up. The governor rejected the request claiming that the news agency needed to narrow the request to a specific search term. The governor’s novel interpretation of the law was ludicrous and against the law as written and practiced for decades. After FOX6 sued, the governor finally relented and released some emails. At that time, however, the governor did not disclose the governor’s secret emails as required by law.

 

Furthermore, during that imbroglio, Tony Evers scoffed at the request saying, “Oh, that’ll be pretty, pretty boring I’ll tell ya. If I do one email a day, that’s an extraordinary day… It’s pretty boring. I mean, I can’t remember sending an email all week.’ That is a lie. Evers knew at the time that he was using a secret email account that was averaging over nine emails per day for years.

 

Governor Tony Evers’ culture of secrecy is antithetical to good government. When politicians are acting above board in good faith, they do not mind the public looking at their work and communications. When politicians are doing wrong, they scurry in the shadows like rats. Evers is reflexively secretive and acts with the arrogance on one who has spent his life in government. In the case of his secret email account, he has clearly been violating the law by failing to disclose it in response to records requests.

 

Governor Evers’ shadow government

by | 0823, 19 Dec 2323 | | 1 Comment

Boy, this story died quickly… so I’m bringing it back up. My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

Based on the principle that transparency in government is both a right of the people and an obligation of government officials, Wisconsin has some of the best open records laws in the nation. That is why it is so troubling to learn that our Governor, Tony Evers, has been hiding his official email communications behind an secret alias for years. What else is he hiding?

 

The news came to light a few weeks ago when Wisconsin Right Now, a conservative news and opinion outlet, learned that Governor Evers has been using the name of Hall of Fame Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn’s name for the governor’s secret email address warrenspahn@ wisconsin.gov. According to a disclosure from the governor’s office, there are over 17,000 emails to and from the governor’s secret email address between 2017 and 2023.

 

Evers dismissed the disclosure as not newsworthy while pretending that using secret email addresses was normal government practice. As someone who has requested records for decades, the governor’s assertion is news to me, other open government advocates, and news agencies. Secret emails are not normal except for politicians who are trying to hide something.

 

Wisconsin’s Open Records Laws are clear and unambiguous. When someone requests records from a public official about a particular subject or time period, the official is compelled by law to provide all of those records irrespective of whether the records are from their official email account, personal email account, text, chat, or any other format. It is the content of the records that makes them government records and subject to disclosure – not the means of transmission. The fact that the governor has failed to disclose the content of his secret email account despite dozens of legal open records requests is a clear violation of the law.

 

[…]

 

Furthermore, during that imbroglio, Tony Evers scoffed at the request saying, “Oh, that’ll be pretty, pretty boring I’ll tell ya. If I do one email a day, that’s an extraordinary day… It’s pretty boring. I mean, I can’t remember sending an email all week.’ That is a lie. Evers knew at the time that he was using a secret email account that was averaging over nine emails per day for years.

 

Governor Tony Evers’ culture of secrecy is antithetical to good government. When politicians are acting above board in good faith, they do not mind the public looking at their work and communications. When politicians are doing wrong, they scurry in the shadows like rats. Evers is reflexively secretive and acts with the arrogance on one who has spent his life in government. In the case of his secret email account, he has clearly been violating the law by failing to disclose it in response to records requests.

UW Regents Choose DEI Over Employee Raises

by | 0545, 12 Dec 2323 | , | 3 Comments

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

Many Americans were shocked by the militant antisemitism that erupted from our nation’s universities in the wake of Hamas’ evil murder, rape, kidnapping, and torture of Israeli civilians on October 7th. Some of us have watched the growing racial and religious hate growing in our universities for years, but the virulent display of hate by students and faculty has laid bare a malignant cancer in our culture.

 

The darker realization is that the bigotry we see on campuses all over our nation is being taught. It is the result of the incremental, but intentional, decline of our universities into schools that prioritize teaching people to be leftist activists instead of enlightened thought leaders. We see that prioritization on full display in Wisconsin.

 

The legislative Republicans, led by Speaker Robin Vos and undermined by Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, have been withholding money for employee raises for the Universities of Wisconsin until UW agreed to eliminate its Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) staff. Although DEI is infused throughout the Universities, the UW currently has 43 exclusive DEI positions and about 34,000 total employees.

 

Despite the stated high-minded rhetorical ideals around DEI, it is part of the cancer in our universities. DEI purports to promote individualism and unique individual experiences. In practice, it devolves into categorizing people into arbitrary racial, ethnic, religious, gender, and economic groups, assigning a relative value to each category, and then encouraging separatism and discrimination. It fosters a culture of dehumanizing the “other” by assigning people to groups instead of engaging them as individuals. DEI programs favor racial segregation in dorms and learning spaces, quotas for admissions and hiring, and silences voices from unfavored people. As practiced on our UW campuses, DEI has long since left behind principles of tolerance and equality.

 

Furthermore, while some DEI professionals still try to adhere to classical liberal principles of inclusion, many of these DEI positions have become destination jobs for some of the most hateful, bigoted, and vile people in our society. Too many times when we watch another racist screed online, we see it coming from someone who has a career in the protected DEI club of academia.

 

Seeing this cancer growing in our state universities, Speaker Vos and his compatriots sought to use a financial wedge to force positive change at UW by withholding money for employee raises until the UW eliminated its 43 dedicated DEI positions. Last week, Vos caved and agreed to a compromise that I thought gave too much for too little.

 

In the sixteen-point deal, the UW would agree to freeze, not eliminate, its DEI positions in place. UW would also agree to adhere to rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court to not discriminate in admissions, pull back on racial discrimination for hiring, add a teaching module about freedom of expression, and implement an automatic admission program for Wisconsin’s top High School students.

 

In return for these modest concessions by UW that involve mostly doing things that they should be doing anyway, Vos agreed to open the financial floodgates and lavish hundreds of millions of dollars on UW to pay for employee raises, build a long-sought new engineering building, pay for several new building projects all over the system, and pay to demolish and remove 21 old buildings. That is a lot of construction for a UW with steeply declining enrollment.

 

Despite this surrender by Vos where UW got almost everything it wanted, the UW Regents voted to reject the compromise. What does this tell us about the UW Regents and the leadership of the Universities of Wisconsin?

 

In a $7.53 billion budget for the Universities of Wisconsin, the Regents always had budgetary room to pay for employee raises and buildings, but they prioritized DEI and administration. At UW-Madison alone, they have grown administration and support staff by 23 percent in the last ten years according to The College Fix. The instructional staff to undergrad ratio has stayed constant at about one to ten while there is now about one administrator for every four undergrads.

 

There was always budgetary room for employee raises – there still is – but the UW leadership decided to hold those raises hostage to put pressure on the legislature to agree to continue to fund DEI.

 

Is it any wonder that our universities have become cesspools of hate and division? The leadership and administration of those universities are making the choice to maintain and grow cancerous teachings at the expense of all else. We are regressing as a culture in terms of tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion and that regression is being led by our universities like the Universities of Wisconsin.

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