Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) have shown themselves to be little more than a partisan organization in recent years. Rather than simply representing business interests in the state, they have become hugely partisan and practically the funding arm for right wing candidates. Understandably, this increasingly partisan direction has concerned numerous businesses that did not sign […]
Although the media is trying its best to paint him as something different, Congressman Paul Ryan continues to prove that he is from the same polluted conservative mold as the most unpopular president in history. While the rhetoric around Ryan may suggest otherwise, reality and his actual record have proven him to be nothing more […]
If Republicans really cared about protecting elections, they' would make sure every one who wants to vote has the chance
The federal government will expand its sanction of Milwaukee schools this year, according to a report published in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 38 schools currently receiving federal government aid for low income students will be hit with cuts to that aid. The Department of Education calls these schools “identified for improvement” and refers to the […]
Over the last few days Republican Congressman Paul Ryan has been getting more underserved love from the media. They called him everything from a ‘rising star‘ in the Wisconsin State Journal to a ‘medicine man‘ in a Washington Post column by the infamous right winger Robert Novak. In both stories there seems to be an […]
Today Paid Sick Days Milwaukee, a coalition of labor, educational and community organizations, delivered over 42,000 signatures to the Milwaukee Common Council. The effort was lead by 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women. They are asking the council to pass a requirement that all businesses in Milwaukee provide employees with paid sick day […]
The Wisconsin State Journal editorial ‘The status qua in not an option,” praised Rep. Paul Ryans “Road Map to America’s Future”, a plan so hideous that it boggles the mind and puts each of us at the mercy of insurance companies and banks. I can hear it now, “But he’s a respected Republican, we trust […]
Another cave-in by House Dems. Another $162-billion for war. At least 151 Dems voted against it, even if it was a token gesture and they knew the bill would pass. Wisconsin’s Ron Kind was one of 80 Democrats who voted yes. (The number keeps shrinking; last time it was 85.) Even Dave Obey and Nancy […]
As ruthless as F. Jim Sensenbrenner ruled while the GOP ran Congress, it’s hard not to take some satisfaction in his plummeting influence. But then he goes an does something that warrants mentioning, despite his eroding relevance to the national debate. The midwest has suffered greatly during the recent floods. Since late-May 24 deaths are blamed on […]
Earlier this week the Capital Times newspaper called for the recall of ethically challenged Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler. They point to her blatant violations of very clear conflicts of interest rules prior to taking her seat on the high court. Her serious and repeated violations of judicial ethics rules are not the only reason […]
George Lightbourn is the former budget advisor for Governor Scott McCallum. Now he is a glorified shill for corporate interests at the right wing Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Thursday corporate interests attacked the $2-billion-saving ‘Healthy Wisconsin‘ plan through their chosen outlet. Before taking WPRI’s rantings too seriously, perhaps one should first consider the source, because […]
One Wisconsin Now has launched a petition to Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation demanding that they stand against Senator John McCain’s plan to giveaway $4 billion in new tax breaks to his friends in Big Oil. In 2006 Bush and McCain supported budget giveaways of $5 billion in tax cuts. This at a time when working people […]
Anyone that is watching television in the state of Wisconsin has probably seen the new John McCain ad on the environment. The ad over-reaches trying to put a happy face on John McCain’s record in the Senate. Although the ad tries to paint McCain as a ‘maverick’ on the environment, reality shows that his departures […]
George Lightbourn, former head budget guru for Gov. Scott McCallum and current pro-corporate shill at the right wing Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, is attacking the $2-billion-saving “Healthy Wisconsin” plan to provide access to affordable and quality health care for all. George Lightbourn’s central thesis that Medicare and Medicaid were bad ideas is as bankrupt as his […]
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is conducting a nationwide ‘Road to Healthcare‘ campaign. During the effort, SEIU has traveled by bus all across the country educating people on the healthcare issue and enlisting people to demand the same quality healthcare that our public officials receive. They were also calling for an end to the […]
After making my way from Center Street to Burleigh, I found a large crowd that gathered to watch the beginning of the Juneteenth parade. Again there was music from participating radio stations and from live musicians. First I saw a group of drummers marching with younger women in more traditional African garb and dancing. Both the drummers and […]
As soon as I turned the corner from Center Street onto Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, I was instantly able to take in the festive atmosphere from Milwaukee’s 2008 Juneteenth celebration. For those that may not know, Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. The atmosphere today reminds me […]
One Wisconsin Now will be live blogging at Milwaukee’s Juneteenth celebration today. Among other things, I will be reporting on an SEIU event on healthcare. SEIU will have a bus near Center St. and MLK Drive and will address our healthcare crisis and the need for universal healthcare. If you can’t make it to Juneteenth […]
You have to give the Republicans credit for one thing: They have an echo chamber that won’t quit, even when what they’re echoing rings totally false. Republicans from Dick Cheney on down have been admitting they were wrong in claiming that China is drilling for oil off the coast of Florida. It’s a false claim […]
One Wisconsin Now was proud to help sponsor a Milwaukee stop during David Sirota’s book tour. David Sirota is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times best selling, Hostile Takeover. Sirota came to the Schwartz bookstore on Downer last night to discuss the issues addressed in his new book, The Uprising. […]
Monday marked the beginning of the federal trial against former Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee Jr. Regardless of your opinion about McGee and the charges against him, several issues have come to light in recent weeks. One of the emerging questions centers around U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic’s use of an Arabic speaking agent in the investigation […]
Yesterday, the John McCain camp issued a press release in conjunction with a new ad touting Sen. McCain’s record on the environment. See the ad for yourself on the YouTube(s). ‘Five years ago,’ says the ad, ‘John McCain stood up to the President and sounded the alarm on global warming.’ As proof of his maverickiness, […]
U.S. Senator John McCain has proposed a gas tax ‘holiday.’ This is a concept that has been universally panned by economists. The average consumer would see almost no savings. It seems clear that it is little more than a pander to people that are struggling with record gas prices. While John McCain offers only smoke […]
Fathers’ Day, 2008, Matthis Chiroux makes a public refusal of his orders to reactivate and deploy in support of the Iraq occupation.In this video Matthis addresses the media with his father and his brothers in Iraq Veterans Against the War standing by his side. You see Matthis has completed his required enlistment of five years […]
Some of you may have been reading the military newspapers, and seen that the Army is in a really bad fix. We’ve had to borrow money from the Navy and Air Force just to get paid for June 15. Even that borrowed money will only keep the payrolls running until the end of July. Currently, […]
Should George Bush and Dick Cheney be impeached? David Swanson, a national activist and writer who speaks in Milwaukee Thursday night, thinks so. So does Dennis Kucinich, who read 35 articles of impeachment against Bush into the record last week. I’ve been skeptical about impeachment, but a conservative professor and blogger may have tipped the […]
Despite his awful record in the U.S. Senate, John McCain is trying to convince women that he is an advocate for the issues that matter to them most. This of course is patently absurd with even the slightest look at his actual votes. When John McCain had a chance to show his support in April, […]
John McCain insensitive to the human cost of the war in Iraq? Au contraire. He’s very sensitive: “Nothing is more precious than Americans, and I know that it has caused great heartache and pain,” he said, “but I also want to tell you that I believe in the conflict in Iraq with this new strategy, […]
Watch John McCain tell a 14-year-old girl that she doesn’t deserve equal pay. McCain seems to think that women don’t need equal pay protection, they need “more education and training.” Check out the video below to hear Sen. McCain’s outrageous remarks about his opposition to equal pay for women. In April, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) […]
Former Republican Party tool Chris Lato wrote a piece Wednesday claiming that U.S. Senator Barack Obama’s operation in Wisconsin is basically all hype and that the ‘facts’ don’t back up the idea that he has a strong organization here. I personally have no idea as to the strength of Obama’s organization in Wisconsin , but […]
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has denied pharmacist Neil Noesen’s petition for review of the 3rd District Court of Appeals decision upholding the Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board’s (PEB) reprimand. Noesen, the state-licensed pharmacist who refused to fill or transfer a woman’s birth control prescription in Menomonie in 2002, was disciplined by the PEB in 2005 for […]
Upon sitting out the vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) remarked that what women really need is ‘education and training.’ Puzzling, because in 2007 Sen. McCain avoided the vote on the America COMPETES Act and voted against the College Cost Reduction Act. The America COMPETES Act promotes education in […]
The Bush economy has long been a disaster for working people but has only recently started to affect the very wealthy. It has been an economy of massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, endless loopholes and handouts to the largest corporations, while charging everything to our national credit card. While Senator John McCain has declared […]
Gazillionaire Kotex heir F. Jim Sensenbrenner spent today doing his best to keep Wisconsinites who have lost their jobs because of the endless Bush economic policies he has supported away from extended unemployment benefits. Sensenbrenner, famously characterized by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone as’¦well, read the story here, was the only member of the Wisconsin […]
Millionaires Paul Ryan and John McCain have a prescription for $4-a-gallon gas prices for working families: Nearly $4 billion in tax cuts for Big Oil. Ryan reiterated his support for the disatrous McCain Big Oil tax cut on a conference call today in which he praised McCain for “economic discipline.” Ryan and McCain already provide $5 […]
As I was getting ready for my day this morning I heard Matt Lauer of the Today show interviewing U.S. Senator John McCain. Lauer asked him many questions but one brief exchange stood out to me well beyond the rest of their discussion. Lauer asked that if the surge in Iraq is indeed working, ‘Do […]
We already know that the J.B. Van Hollen administration at the Wisconsin Department of Justice has been engaged in a war of partisans vs. law enforcement professionals. First he chased out the universally respected head of the Division of Criminal Investigation, Jim Warren. Next Van Hollen and his partisan hires began targeting other nationally recognized […]
You undoubtedly know that Wisconsin ranks high among the 50 states in how much taxes its citizens pay. The media have been reporting it for years, and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and their Republican friends have made it an article of faith and a perennial campaign issue, blaming Democrats even when Republican spending was to […]
Over the past six years, it has been a goal of the Bush administration to crack down on voter fraud and the intentional corruption of the election process by voters. The only problem is that voter fraud, on a broad corruption scale, is virtually nonexistent. According to a Bernard College study, between 2002 and […]
The average price of gas hit $4 this Sunday, up from $1.47 the week President Bush took office. AFL-CIO working families will be protesting outside gas stations across the country on Wednesday, including one in Madison. They will assert that President Bush is too cozy with big oil companies and that he has done nothing […]
U.S. Senator John McCain has been trying to focus on economic policy recently, even though he has admitted that he needs more education on the subject. One thing that would be helpful in this discussion is for John McCain to stop contradicting himself on things like the Estate Tax. When asked for his position on […]
It is no secret that men in the United States out-earn women. Forty-five years after the initial Equal Pay Act of 1963 women are still being paid significantly less than men who work in the same capacity. The most recent attempt, in the United States Senate, to provide protection to women workers was the Ledbetter […]
Senator McCain told the Wall Street Journal in March that he supported the privatization of social security. When the Journal pointed out that this contradicted McCain’s campaign website, he promised that the website would change to accord to his view on the subject. Months later, not only has McCain failed to clarify his position, he […]
One Wisconsin Now is marking the 45th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act’s passage by calling on Senator John McCain to promote policies in the U.S. Senate that close the pay gap between women and men once and for all. In April, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) skipped the vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, […]
“I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.”-Gen. Douglas MacArthur (if you don’t know who he was shame […]
Shortly after Annette Ziegler was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court she closed her campaign committee and took her seat on the high court. Not so for the latest Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) empty suit Michael Gableman. He has started campaign fundraising some 10 years early. He is scheduled to have a fundraiser in […]
Whither public transportation in Milwaukee County? Will Scott Walker succeed in his quest to eliminate it and make everyone drive a car? Bill Sell, a transit advocate from Bay View, adds to the conversation with a new blog, Socrates Children, which features two thoughtful “On the Bus” posts for starters. A sample: Confession of a […]
John McCain’s campaign is loooking at the recent campaign of Michael Gableman for Supreme Court as a possible route to winning Wisconsin in November. What’s wrong with that? Gretchen Schuldt nails it: Gableman’s disgusting campaign focused on racial fear-mongering. How low will McCain go?
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has had a rough couple of weeks recently. First he and his partisan hires have been waging a war on the professionals in the Department of Justice. Van Hollen has demoted some of the most respected law enforcement officers in the nation while at the same time actually driving […]
On June 7, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin will celebrate the 43rd anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut. This landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision paved the way for recognition that birth control is basic health care for women. The 1965 ruling marked the first time that the Supreme Court recognized that women’s reproductive decisions are protected […]