Yemen-Ghazi

By Jeff Simpson

One of the first decisions by The Donald, acting as Commander in Chief, was to sanction a raid on a compound in Yemen to gather computers and other intelligence.  As pretty much everything The Donald touches, the raid went horribly wrong.

As a senior military official said : "almost everything went wrong."

By almost everything going wrong, that includes the death of a Navy Seal and an 8 year old American girl(amongst others).

The Navy Seal, Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens, from Peoria, IL will not be coming home again.  

The Donald, decided to go ahead with the raid over dinner with Mike Pence, Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner(Reince was busy washing dishes).  The four dullards, making life and death decisions in a raid for cellphones is scary enough, so I try not to think about them having the power to make decisions on a more global scale.

While the raid was going on, and going south, The Donald was so involved and engaged that he was tweeting during the raid.  

Donald J. TrumpVerified account‏@realDonaldTrump

Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity!

• RETWEETS22,724
• LIKES114,205
• 

7:00 AM - 29 Jan 2017

37,710 replies22,724 retweets114,205 likes

 

 

After all, its much more important as the President of the United States to troll the New York Times than stay abreast of a major military raid that he ordered.    

Yes, as with Benghazi, its a volatile world, where decisions made here, have real world consequences and sometimes there is no right or wrong answer.   Sometimes you can do everything possible right and still have everything go wrong.   

However, surprisingly, American troops deaths do not seem to matter to Republican elected officials when there is a Republican President.   

For instance, Wisconsin's own Paul Ryan, was very upset about the deaths in Benghazi:

“[The House Benghazi report] makes clear that officials in Washington failed our men and women on the ground when they were in need of help.” — Paul Ryan

Despite asking for it, the father of Mr. Owens, and the rest of the American public, can not expect the details and failings of this mission to get investigated.  

Even though he is making sure that there will be no investigations, Speaker Ryan had this to say about the tragic death of Seal Owens.  

"               "  Paul Ryan.  

Ooops, I guess Speaker Ryan was too busy fundraising in Texas to honor a soldier who gave everything he had for our country.  

Expect four more years of botched foreign policy, dead Americans, and a huge layer of GOP hypocrisy to cover all major messes.

It is hard work, to take away healthcare from 20 million Americans which does not leave much time to actually care about the people you are supposed to be governing.

Just know that every time a Republican spouts the term Benghazi from their lips, what they really mean is "I only care about being in power and if I can use dead Americans to do so, that's great!"

Lowell Holtz's Comedy of Errors

By Jeff Simpson

Molly Beck of the Wisconsin State Journal reported on the Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction race after the primary but there are some holes that need to be filled in.

On the April 4 ballot will be two-term incumbent Tony Evers, a public school advocate backed mostly by liberals and teachers unions who has been at odds with Republicans for years over his adoption of the Common Core State Standards and his opposition to the expansion of private school vouchers in the state.

While it is true that Superintendent Evers has been a supporter of Common Core, it is not necessarily true that he has been at odds with Republicans for years over this.   It was just a few years ago that Governor Walker ws a supporter.  While Common Core is far from perfect, the biggest objection to it seems to be that President Obama supported it.

His challenger, Lowell Holtz, is backed mostly by conservatives and school voucher supporters. He is making his second run for the position and opposes the Common Core State Standards and favors expansion of educational options — including taxpayer-funded vouchers — other than public schools.

So teachers unions (the bogeyman) supports Superintendent Evers and Dr. Holz just has generic 'school voucher supporters" in his corner.   In case you need some clarification.  School voucher supporters are funded by this woman and enacted by this formerly convicted felon.  

Holtz got 23 percent of the vote Tuesday, and was dogged by allegations he sought to get out of the race in exchange for a guaranteed, taxpayer-funded $150,000 job that would let him oversee the state’s largest school districts, including Madison.

Its not allegedly! 

Evers is seeking a third term in the wake of massive membership losses for the state’s largest teachers union — a strong campaign contributor for Evers in the past— setting the stage for the potential of third-party groups spending on behalf of Holtz to ensure the election of a voucher supporter.

The states largest teachers union, has massive membership losses strictly because of the passage of ACT10, which was put in place to punish Scott Walkers "enemies".  

 “We have absolutely no control over whether that comes in or not,” Holtz said about outside spending. “It’s illegal for me to work with them. I’m supposed to run my own race. If they do get involved, I have no control over it.”

Cough  cough

A spokesman for Wisconsin’s arm of the pro-voucher group American Federation for Children did not respond to a request for comment. 

The whole point of outsider, dark money, and past history of moral failings by their spokesman, Scott Jensen shows us they are not always the most forthcoming.   However the money to attack Tony Evers will be forthcoming.    Count on it!

 “If it’s all in, it’ll be very difficult to compete with that amount of money. There’s just not that much in the state that’s available,” Evers said. “And we’re talking about Amway money and the money from the family that owns Walmart and I don’t know any of those people.”

While Superintendent Evers has never been the best campaigner, coming off his massive primary drubbing of his opponents, is very much in the drivers seat.  We do have to stay vigilant though! 

Holtz said he has not sought any money from outside groups.

Yo, Lowell!

  

 

Republican lobbyist and former state party official Brandon Scholz said the donors to outside groups that typically spend on behalf of conservative candidates in spring races are not necessarily going to spend in a state superintendent race, even if the candidate is aligned with their ideology.

 In other words, why throw money at this race, when they have already bought the legislature.  

Holtz is the latest conservative Republican and ALEC candidate for state superintendent to try to defeat an incumbent backed by Democrats and teachers.

Pause

Current Time0:00

/

Duration Time0:00

Loaded: 0%

Progress: 0%

0:00

Fullscreen

 There fixed it,.,... 

Holtz was recruited to run by a former Republican lawmaker. He was one of more than a dozen candidates interviewed by a nonprofit group headed by former Rep. Don Pridemore of Hartford called Wisconsin Needs Necessary Education Reform, or WINNER.
An email released Wednesday by the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now written by Holtz when he was superintendent of Whitnall School District shows Holtz in January 2016 expected the group to do organizing and fundraising for him.  

Does anyone really think Don Pridemore is running the opposition?  He was the candidate last time, got destroyed and his candidacy was so bad that even GOP sycophant and gopher James Wigderson did not endorse him.   

The person who is running the show, which we were able to find out thanks to One Wisconsin Now obtaining these emails, is Billionaire widow, and high school diplomaed, Diane Hendricks.  

Holtz and Pridemore had these discussions, via school (ie Government funded ) email, which really upsets our friends on the right when a Democrat does it.    Also as a School district superintendent and former long time state Assembly Rep, both know better than to actually have those discussions via school email.  Yet did not care.   

 Between now and the April 4 general election the group will seek to “educate voters” about the race. “If we want any education reform, the only way to get it is through the DPI superintendent and (Evers) shows no sign of reforming anything,” Pridemore said. 

I hate to have to point out to former Assembly Rep Pridemore, that a true way to education reform would be through the assembly.    Of course Mr. Pridemore would not know that because the way our current Government works, people inside the GOP party are told what to do and how to think if they want to keep their job.     

“So far, he’s shown us an abysmal lack of ethics and commitment to public service in pursuit of his personal political ambitions and enrichment,” OWN research director Jenni Dye said. “Now we find out he never even intended to do work on his own campaign, claiming that outside groups were going to do the organizing and fundraising for him.”

Yes Jenni is correct he never intended to do any of his own real work, because we know from experience, like Dave Blaska, Holtz is just a figurehead for the right in their bid to buy Wisconsin,    They want people who will do what their told, no matter how much heat they get.   Hoping to get rewarded with some of the wing nut welfare money they hand out.  

The Holtz-Humphries controversy in the last week of the race, contested school board races in Madison and a burst of political interest following the election of Donald Trump as president may have contributed to a larger turnout than usual in spring primaries. And unusually warm February weather might have helped get people to the polls, too, observers say.

Mentioning some of the most ridiculous slimy people in Wisconsin(Coward Clarke, Orv Seymer, etc...) and the one person they want to distance themselves(even in private) from is Robin Vos.  

 In the end we had about an 8% voter turnout for the primary which is hardly something to rave about.   However with the people that turned out,. like communities all over Wisconsin, have shown that they overwhelmingly support our public schools.    

We see the lengths that our friends on the right will go to to tap into public education money.   Ethics, law and logic get thrown out the window when there is an opportunity to make a buck! 

Finally, a few interesting observations that have surfaced during this race.  

*  John Humphries garnered a whopping 6% of 8% of the electorate.  That translates into about family members only.  Humphries tried a new "bipartsian" approach by having Jeremy Thiesfeldt( R- far far right) and Jason Fields (D- AFC) as his campaign co-chairs.    Apparently Mr. Thiesfeldt and Mr. Fields are not as popular or as respected as they think they are.  Lucky for them they were drawn very safe seats.   

*  In their email correspondence, they gushed over how much they like Orville Seymer and CFG.   Anyone who has followed CogDis, knows that Mr. Seymer is the true definition of slime.   He makes used car salesmen seem like the Pope.    

*  Another interesting topic, which our friends at Democurmudgeon pointed out :

In the email, Holtz describes being supported conservative Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Republican state Rep. Jim Ott. Holtz's wife wrote back and suggested not mentioning Vos: "Fitzgerald seems to be more well liked in the republican camp," she said.

WISGOP Stands Up For Free Speech (Sometimes)!

 By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker, took the time out of his busy RGA campaign travel schedule recently, to let us have a peek at the budget ALEC wrote for him, that he plans on introducing.    While there were many interesting things in there, one thing I want to call attention to is something that has been called the Milo law.  

Milo Yiannopoulos, is the latest exhibit of the far right to show off "liberals intolerance",  The bigoted racist ignorant Milo, has caused a stir by speaking at college campuses, and where he speaks there are protests trying to keep him from speaking.   Milo gave a speech at Marquette recently, where he singled out a transgendered student, by name and photo, to give a wink wink to his far right supporters on who to target.  

This did not sit well with the sane among us, and so he has not been welcome by a majority of college students throughout the country.   Most people do not want their college littered with such hate and ignorance.  

This, right on cue, stirs up the faux outrage and unwarranted arrogance of the right.   Scott Walker, championing himself a defender of free speech(if you pretend the whole failed debacle of arresting people for singing in the State Capitol never existed), wants to write into law protecting free speech on campus.

The proposed companion budget bill elaborates, stating among other things, that:

• The UW Board of Regents and each college campus “shall guarantee all members of the system's community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn.”

• “It is not the proper role of the board or any institution or college campus to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

• Members of the system’s community are free to criticize and contest views expressed on campus and "speakers who are invited to express their views, (but) they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe.”

• “The board and each institution and college campus has a responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”

To prove that Scott Walker "means what he says and says what he means", Milo is headlining the far right extreme CPAC conference this upcoming weekend.   Who will share the stage with the hateful Mr. Yiannopoulos?  Why Wisconsin's very own Scott Walker and Milwaukee's "Democratic" Sheriff David Clarke.  

Who cares if Milo advocates for pedophilia(he is so good at oral sex because of the Father who preyed on him when he was a teen), its all about "free speech" and besides if he pisses liberals off, then its worth promoting pedophilia,.

I admire Scott Walker for being unintimidated (plenty of books still available) and sticking to his guns and sharing a stage with Milo!   It is not like hanging out with adults who prey ion teenage boys is new to him.   Scott just needs to make sure to keep Alex away from the Twitter!

Anyway, this new found "love of free speech" is refreshing, it is just too bad it took a group of white power bigots to bring it out of the WISGOP.  

For those with a longer memory(since the WI Media seem to forget this), but in 2005, the University of Wisconsin -Eau Claire tried to bring Ward Churchill to campus to speak.  Churchill, a college professor,  was widely known as saying that the September 11th attacks on the US, were a result of  our foreign policy and calling the people who worked in the World Trade Centers "Little Eichmanns".  

This upset our friends on the left and the always good for a lunatic quote, Steve nASSelson had this to say at the time(H/T Oshkosh Independent for the best story on this written):

Much to the surprise of the Eau Claire students, the Wisconsin State Legislature tried hard to pressure Eau Claire into canceling the event, including the passage of a joint resolution. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), in 2005 a member of the state assembly representing Whitewater, led the charge to prevent Churchill from speaking. He said “the university wants to hide behind free speech.”  He further told the Badger Herald, “This is not a question of free speech; this is stopping a person who uses hateful, disgusting speech.”

Now, it seems as though the WISGOP and Steve nASSelson has evolved.  Wait we do not believe in evolution, so I should say they "created" a completely new viewpoint.  Recently, there was a UW student, Dan Dropik, who tried to set up a White Nationalist group on the UW-Madison Campus(and who is a non traditional student, because he spent his college years in prison for setting fire to black churches).   Seems Dropik's idea was not very popular amongst the other students at UW and there was major pushback.  

Surprisingly (well not really), Dropik found a defender in the nASSelson combo:

Remember Steve Nass? In 2017 he is a Senator in the Wisconsin State Legislature. He has not yet made any in-depth comments about the governor’s “Milo Law” provisions, but he has threatened to push for reductions in UW funding based on the fact that courses are offered that he finds objectionable. So much for academic freedom. Worse, when non-traditional student at UW Madison Daniel Dropik–who it turns out had in the past been convicted of setting fire to African-American churches–tried to set up a White Nationalist group on campus, Nass somehow found a way to defend him. According to the Associated Press, “Nass spokesman Mike Mikalsen said while Nass disagrees with many of Dropik’s views, the university community unfairly targeted Dropik. ‘Individuals who have alternative viewpoints have a right to express themselves in a university,’ Mikalsen said. ‘That did not happen here.'”

If we could mine irony in WI we could pay off Scott Walker's massive credit card debt.

By the way, why didn't anyone ask Mikelson, since he "disagrees with many" of the views of the church burning white nationalist, which of his views does he agree with?

There is a short history of the love of free speech by the WISGOP in Wisconsin!

Editor note, while I was writing this blog, it seems CPAC has uninvited Mr. Milo to be their keynote speaker.  

"@ACUConservative has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at #CPAC2017." pic.twitter.com/sVWGnPCW7C

— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) February 20, 2017

Instead of the guy that advocates pedophilia they will have to listen to the arrested wife beater and the serial sexual assaulter. 

 I guess the people at the CPAC conference are just a bunch of snowflakes who need a safe space.  

Betsy DeVos Gets Schooled

When Betsy DeVos made her first appearance as Secretary of Education, a spot she bought rather than earned, she had a tough time of it. First, she had problems even getting into the school due to protesters blocking her way.

After a false start, she finally got in. After her visit, she sung praises of the teachers but then changed her tune in a few days:

Newly minted Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had a hard time getting inside the District’s Jefferson Middle School Academy last week when protesters briefly blocked her from entering. But at the end of her visit — her first to a public school since taking office — she stood on Jefferson’s front steps and pronounced it “awesome.”

A few days later, she seemed less enamored. The teachers at Jefferson were sincere, genuine and dedicated, she said, they seemed to be in “receive mode.”

“They’re waiting to be told what they have to do, and that’s not going to bring success to an individual child,” DeVos told a columnist for the conservative online publication Townhall. “You have to have teachers who are empowered to facilitate great teaching.”

This is, of course, utter bullshit but it's standard code words for anyone who wants to put the kids and their futures on the auctioning block for school privatization vultures to feast upon.

Well, the teachers weren't about to put up with it:

“I find it very interesting that the chancellor saw teachers that were pushing rigorous learning, students asking each other high-level questions and cultivating high-level responses, and teachers who take initiative and give their lives to the education of these children,” said Jefferson teacher Caroline Hunt. “DeVos saw something so different. … Maybe if DeVos knew more about education she would realize just how amazing the students, teachers and staff are.”

The school wasn't going to put up with it and launched an eleven-tweet response to the dunce's comments, starting with how they were "about to take her to school..."

This is what Sec. DeVos said about our teachers after her visit. Needless to say, we're about to take her to school... @dcpublicschools pic.twitter.com/Wcx1YyqDHL

— Jefferson Academy (@JATrojans) February 18, 2017

After praising several of their teachers, the school ended with this knockout punch:

JA teachers are not in a "receive mode." Unless you mean we "receive" students at a 2nd grade level and move them to an 8th grade level.

— Jefferson Academy (@JATrojans) February 18, 2017

Ah, but as the gentle reader might have already guessed, there's more. There's always more.

Another one of DeVos' early blunders was to take down the Department of Education's website providing resources for parents of children with disabilities. After catching a lot of fire from both Congressional Democrats and the public in general (trust me, one does not dare try to dome something like that near a parent of a disabled child), DeVos restored the site.

But even then, she couldn't do it without making a bigger fool out of herself by blaming President Obama, the country's last American president:

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Friday announced that her department is restoring and "updating" a resource website for parents and teachers of students with disabilities, which has been down almost three weeks.

"IDEA.ed.gov has been repaired and moved to a new server to ensure it's available to parents and educators who rely on it," DeVos said in one of a series of tweets.
The education secretary had come under pressure from Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. The senators sent DeVos a letter last week asking that the site be restored fully and immediately, and for an explanation of why it was down.

DeVos struck a partisan note, in what has seemed to be a Trump administration strategy: Blame Obama.

She said the federal Individuals With Disabilities Act (IDEA) website was "neglected for nearly four years." This, she said, is "unacceptable" and "an example of complacency I won't accept, and I will remain committed to improving the department and its services."

Oh, and if you don't think direct actions like the ones taken against DeVos don't work:

In the Washington Post, on Friday, DeVos was quoted as saying critics "want to make my life a living hell."

Awww, poor ol' Betsy got her fee-fees hurt by people holding her accountable. Poor little baby.

It's time that we put a dunce cap on this unqualified moron. And it should fit real nice on her pointy head.

Governor Walker Needs to do More to Combat Childhood Lead Poisoning

By Chris Taylor

MADISON – After repeated correspondence with the Department of Health Services (DHS), Governor Walker included an update to Wisconsin state statute in his proposed budget, reflecting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations regarding the definition of lead poisoning. Wisconsin’s definitions of “lead poisoning” and “lead exposure” are dangerously out-of-date and currently allow double the lead poisoning as the federal standard before triggering remediation.

“While I am heartened that Governor Walker is finally updating Wisconsin’s outdated lead poisoning standards, we have much more work to do in protecting Wisconsin’s children from the devastating consequences of lead poisoning, which in many communities throughout Wisconsin exceeds the percentage of kids poisoned in Flint, Michigan,” said Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison).

Both urban and rural communities struggle with childhood lead poisoning. In Flint, 4.9% of children were lead poisoned. Comparatively, Milwaukee has a rate of 8.6%, Watertown has a rate of 8.4%, Buffalo County has a rate of 7.3% and Sheboygan County has a rate of 6.3%.

“Adjusting our state’s standards to reflect the best available medical evidence from the CDC is a good step; however, we must make sure that state officials follow through and investigate the source of these lead exposures, so that we can prevent other children from falling victim to this terrible toxin,” said Sen. Johnson (D-Milwaukee).

Senator Johnson and Representative Taylor call on Governor Walker and Republican legislators to join them in initiatives to:

·         Require lead testing and disclosure in rental properties;

·         Include water testing in environmental assessments for lead-poisoned children;

·         Require facilities serving children under 6 to test for lead and share results with parents;

·         Establish a fund and a low-interest loan program to help with remediation costs;

·         Direct DHS and DNR to apply for federal lead remediation funding.

Lead poisoning, especially in children under 6, causes a lifetime of health and behavioral issues, including reduced intelligence, learning disabilities, and developmental delays.

Gov. Walker’s Risky Self-Insurance Scheme: More Chaos and Higher Costs

By Chris Taylor 

Last week, a group of 11 individuals, all appointed by Governor Walker to the Group Insurance Board (GIB), almost unanimously voted to overhaul health care in Wisconsin by adopting a risky self-insurance scheme that will not only disrupt our entire health insurance market, but may end up costing taxpayers millions more.

The State of Wisconsin has one of the most competitive health insurance markets in the country, which is reflected in the Group Health Insurance Program (GHIP).  Currently, the GHIP is composed of 17 health plans that provide more than 250,000 state and local government employees, retirees, UW employees and their dependents with health care.  Under GHIP, Wisconsin funds state employee health insurance through premiums to a third party health insurer that covers costs and liabilities of all claims.

Insurers work with both local providers and the state to establish service areas that not only keep health care costs low, but also ensure high quality, accessible care.  While some states around the country have seen their health care premiums skyrocket, Wisconsin’s rate increases have remained well below the national average and our current model has saved Wisconsin taxpayers nearly $283 million over the last nine years.

Despite the facts and success of GHIP, Governor Walker seems intent on disrupting this system by adopting a self-insurance model which he insists will save millions, despite an initial report that such a scheme could cost taxpayers upwards of $100 million dollars more in costs.  In a self-insurance model, the state is on the hook for the actual costs and liability of the health care covered employees receive.  The risk that costs could be higher than estimated, due to an unexpected outbreak of a certain disease or other unanticipated factors, is assumed by the taxpayers.

The uncertainty of self-insurance at a time when the future of the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid system hang in the balance make this a very bad time for Wisconsin to pile on with further disruptions that could cost millions more, require people to change physicians, and disrupt localized, accessible health care networks.

But last week, the unelected GIB ignored all of this and nearly unanimously voted to plow ahead with self-insurance, dividing the state into four regions which will be served by only six insurers.  In some regions, they propose just one insurer.  If there’s one thing that health actuaries seem to agree on, it is that reducing competition in a health care market most certainly leads to increased health care costs.

With over 100,000 GHIP participants in Dane County alone, what does self-insurance mean for our community?  Simply put, it means job losses, fewer health plan choices, fewer health care providers and most likely more money out of your pocket.

Not only will public employees again be asked to pony-up for more of their health care costs, but all Wisconsin taxpayers should be worried about what self-insurance means for the state’s coffers, for their own pocket books, and for their own health care.  Taking 250,000 individuals out of Wisconsin’s health care market most definitely will impact the health care premiums, provider choices and health care access of everyone else who remains.

The state’s cash reserves are not even close to covering the potential risks of self-insurance, which, at a minimum, would require the state to triple its reserves. Some states that have moved to a self-insurance model, including North Carolina, underestimated the amount and costs of claims and experienced a $250+ million budget deficit due to unexpected claims.  Compared to other states, Wisconsin has larger health insurance costs, partially due to our chronic disease condition rates being significantly higher.  One bad year will force us to redirect money towards covering health care costs that could be going towards our k-12 schools, our roads and the UW System.

While the GIB voted to advance this proposal, the Joint Finance Committee has the ability to stop it.  Whether you’re a public employee or not, this overhaul of Wisconsin’s health care system will affect us all.  Contact your elected officials and tell them that Wisconsin cannot afford to roll the dice with our Governor’s political games and to remove his self-insurance proposal from the 2017-19 state budget.

  

Office of Representative Chris Taylor

306 West – (608) 266-5342

PO Box 8953

Madison, WI  53708

A Few Budget Details that Didn't Make the Headlines

By Kathleen Vinehout 

Governors are a bit like salesmen,” I recently told a reporter. “They put good news in the headlines and bury bad news in the small print.”

Governor Walker recently released his two-year state budget. Amid much fanfare, he touted providing much needed money for schools, roads, and the UW. I went digging through budget documents released by the Governor. I knew there was more to the story.

First, I must say Wisconsin has one of the most opaque budgeting processes I have ever seen. For example, there is no clear table comparing actual spending in each fiscal year to budgeted spending.

We are still waiting for some details the Governor has not yet released. For example, his capital budget, which includes total proposed borrowing, is not yet available.

In the next month, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) will compile an independent analysis of the budget proposal. The LFB will provide details on where money comes from and how it is spent.

Until then, we have documents prepared by the Governor’s staff and those who write our bills – the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB). The small print I refer to came from the LRB, the Governor’s office, and state agencies’ requests.

How much will Wisconsin spend over two years? The total budget without borrowing is $76,097,880,600. (The final budget will likely be closer to $77 billion, as road fund borrowing and other building projects are added.)

This budget (without new debt) is $2.8 billion more than the last budget and is the largest in state history. Of course, EVERY new budget is larger than the previous budget.

Governor Walker made a special point of reminding people his school and road spending is the “highest ever.” Maybe someone should remind him, total spending is also the “highest ever.”

The budget includes money from state taxes and fees including gas taxes, as well as tuition and money from the federal government. The Governor’s structures his budget around the budget requests from each agency in state government. Governor Walker proposes spending $68 million more than the agencies themselves requested.

Almost one-third of the budget goes to Health, of which ninety-percent is the Medicaid program. This is the largest and fastest growing part of spending. We often think of Medicaid as care for poorer families (BadgerCare). But, roughly two-thirds of the Medicaid budget is spent on long-term care for the elderly and disabled.

Over the next few months, we will learn much more about the budget details. In the meantime, here are a few items of small print that didn’t make it in the Governor’s Budget Address.

The Department of Natural Resources lost 43 positions while Circus World gained ten new positions.

The new budget added almost 500 positions to the Department of Administration (DOA). All but one of these jobs listed were “Supervisory and Management.” This staff increase is almost half (47%) of the DOA workforce. Some positions are transfers to DOA from other agencies. Overall, the Governor increases net staff (some lost, some gained) by a little more than 400 full-time equivalents.

Buried in the small print is the elimination of the stray voltage program. This service helps farmers deal with stray electricity that has dire effects on animals and humans. The governor claimed the problems are mostly resolved. However, constituents tell me, in western Wisconsin, many problems remain.

The budget proposes eliminating the Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine. The last issue of this ever-popular magazine is set for winter of next year.

The budget eliminates the Educational Approval Board. This agency oversees for-profit colleges. Eliminating state oversight of for-profit colleges is foolish when some colleges closed, fraud investigations of others are continuing, and students question the value of the education.

Budgets are plans to spend resources based on our priorities. The process must be an opportunity for us to discuss our ideas and concerns for our state and invest money in solutions.

Debate on our priorities for state spending will occur over the next four or five months. Please add your voice to the decision-making process. The state budget is the most important bill lawmakers will take up and it deserves the input of all Wisconsinites!

Paul Ryan's Ever Shrinking Nut Sack

By Jeff Simpson

Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) asked for a meeting with Acting Director Thomas Homan of ICE in the US Capitol.     It was originally scheduled for Tuesday of this week and postponed for this morning.   When Rep. Guttierrez showed up he was greeted with a first in his more than 20 year career.   Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.) kicked him out of the meeting!  

The following is a statement by Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez, who is a Member of the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security and the Chairman of the CHC Taskforce on Immigration.  He represents the 4th District of Illinois and is starting his 13th term. In 20-plus years, I have never heard of the Republicans controlling what meetings Democrats can have with officials of the Executive Branch and never had a staffer ask me to leave a meeting to which I am entitled to attend.  My constituents have questions about who is being targeted by ICE, which DREAMers with DACA they are targeting for deportation, which victims of domestic violence ICE is deporting, which immigrants at church shelters are being targeted.  We know the statements by Trump about targeting criminals is a lie, but we were hoping someone could give us the truth or any information at all.  The new mass deportation executive orders are unprecedented, but so are the lengths to which the Speaker and Chairman Goodlatte are going to control the information being disseminated to Members of Congress.  I expect such dictatorial shenanigans from the Trump Administration, but not from competent, compassionate legislators like Speaker Ryan or from legislators like Bob Goodlatte.  Do they have ear pieces feeding them orders from President Bannon or the others making decisions in the White House?  Speaker Ryan is not an emperor and does not control who I meet with.  My colleagues and I asked for this meeting and we still have not been given details by ICE about who they are deporting, why, and how.  We simply have hit a stone wall and now Republicans in the House are cooperating in limiting the information that we can provide to our constituents.

Yes the pride of Janesville, will not even allow democratically elected members of the opposing party to hear information, much less question him.

biggest. fake. ever!

Samantha Bee featured Paul Ryan recently:



My only complain is I would call Paul,  Trump's faithful Dachshund