The Dr. Can Cure The Delevan/Darien Dilemma

By Jeff Simpson

As this election season is coming to a frantic close, public education is still a top issue and we keep hearing that the current occupant of the Governors mansion is the "Education Governor". 

Sometimes the evidence is so strong that it is hard to see.  There is an exhibit 1, on how much of an education Governor that Scott Walker truly is along with the WISGOP,  right in the small town of Darien, WI - population 1,580.   While they still celebrate Cornfest(and who doesn't) one thing they no longer can celebrate is their local elementary school. 

The only public school in Darien was recently closed. 

The Delavan-Darien school board voted to close Darien Elementary School—the only public school in Darien—after the 2017-18 school year and approved 16 teacher non-renewals, bringing the total number of non-renewals to 39. This is after a $3.5 million referendum on the April 3 ballot, failed by more than 500 votes.

While schools are closing all over, what makes this school closing so unique, is it is the district that our "education Governor" attended.

Now as he travels the state and, falsely claims that he spent record amounts of our money on public schools, he refuses to acknowledge this his own home district is in trouble.     The record cuts to public education, along with record amounts funneled to his donors and friends in the private school voucher for profit industry, led by American Federation For Children - and formerly convicted felon Scott Jensen. 

The buck has never once stopped at the Governors office and this time it truly does not stop there alone.   Assembly District 31 Rep Amy Loudenbeck (R - Herding Goats). also likes to advertise her attempts at fighting for public education. 

Rep. Amy Loudenbeck: “Madison politics can be a bit like herding goats. It’s hard to get everyone moving in the same direction, when everyone is talking at the same time and no one is really listening. I’m Amy Loudenbeck. Whether it’s fighting for quality health care options, increased funding for education, or more workers in our district; I’ll listen to your concerns and be your voice in Madison. It doesn’t matter what your breed of politics is, Wisconsin is better when we all work together.”

I know it is silly season but we need to start holding politicians accountable for their actions and their votes.   There are some major problems

1.  fighting for quality health care options - By fighting for, she means turning down a billion dollars in medicaid money to help insure fellow Americans. 

2.  Increased funding for education -   By fighting for here, she means voting for the budgets that cut public education more than any state in the country and more than any time in Wisconsin history. 

3.  More workers in our district -  By fighting for here, she means overseeing 8 years of multiple business closings, almost 500 dairy farms closing and dead last in small business start ups. 

With friends like this.....

But wait there is more, there is always more. 

What else is in Ms. "fighting for funding for education" Loudenbeck's district? The shuttered Darien elementary school and 40 laid off teachers.  Luckily for the children of our state, while most other school districts in her district have had to go to referendum to survive(because Amy appears to be losing that fight) and many of these districts soundly support their local public schools. 

Why is Ms. Loudenbeck losing the battle for more education funding? Maybe it is by design, since a major funder of her campaign is the aforementioned American Federation for Children.   If you are going to be in the WISGOP, you do NOT cross Scott Jensen. 

That is why it is IMPERATIVE that we change the culture and the leadership in Madison. 

If you care at all about public education and do not want to see your local school next, please join me in voting for Tony Evers/Mandela Barnes.

However it can not stop there.  We need to send him a legislature that actually wants to govern.   We need to start voting out the false friends of education and vote in real public servants! 

That is why I also implore you to vote for Dr. Brittany Keyes from Beloit. 

Keyes, 31, has worked as a physical therapist for Beloit Health System since 2015.  Her practice has an emphasis on sports injury rehabilitation. She provides medical coverage at area high school sporting events and is in her third season as a volunteer assistant coach for the junior varsity football team at Beloit Memorial High School. She serves as strength and fitness coach for the team.
She was captain of the rowing team at the University of Iowa and was first team All-Big Ten in 2008.  She won a variety of sportsmanship and academic awards from the Big Ten.  She was a bronze medalist in the USA Weightlifting National Collegiate Championships in 2009.
Keyes is a founding board member of a Stateline area food cooperative and has an extensive record as a volunteer for various organizations during the last decade.
She is married to a teacher and the couple has a young daughter.
“Wisconsin needs people in the Assembly who will work for us, not the political donors,’’ Keyes said.  “I have a young family and I want to make Wisconsin the best place possible for all families.’’

It is time the 31st Assembly district was actually represented by someone who wants to do what is best for the people in her district and not whatever Robin Vos tells her to do.  Imagine if the 31st had a representative in Madison, who actually wanted you to have heath care and fully funds our local schools. 

You can make it happen on Tuesday,  November 6th, with a vote for Dr. Brittany Keyes! 

Please like her Facebook page and check out her endorsement in the right leaning Beloit Daily News. 

If you have a couple hours, or a couple bucks in the next week, please give Dr. Keyes some help. 

Also do not forget to call family and friends in the 31st district and encourage them to vote the Doctoral Ticket - Dr. Evers and Dr. Keyes.   

Republican Debate Distress

By Jeff Simpson 

There is a trend happening around the country, the Republicans are ducking debates.   It has even reached Texas where Ted Cruz has pulled out of a debate with his opponent Beto O'Rourke. 

Brownsville, TX - CNN reports Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has backed out of a debate between Democrat challenger Beto O'Rourke. The debate has changed to a town hall set for thursday, October 18, at the McAllen Performing Arts Center. According to CNN, "Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign initially accepted CNN's invitation to participate" but has since declined. CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash will moderate the one-hour town hall live at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT.

So now Beto gets an hour of TV, all by himself,  talking directly to the people of Texas,   The guy who cowered to The Donald, also runs from Beto.   Let's hope the good people of Texas, see his cowardice, and send Terrible Ted packing.

While the cowardice bug afflicted Ted Cruz, it is widespread in Wisconsin.   We will try and address the widespread problem soon, but there is one specific instance I wanted to address, 

The 60th Assembly district.   

Republican Rob Brooks, who is currently was the Assistant Assembly Majority Leader,  is the current Representative of the district.   He is also the only Republican in my memory that Scott Walker has asked to resign.   The blatant racism of Bob Gannon, the fact that Robin Vos was sleeping with someone who reported to him, His right hand man trolling teens online, Wild Bill Kramer a known sexual predator, etc... and Walker was always quiet as a church mouse when asked about them. 

This time it is different.  In the home stretch of this election season, Scott Walker is obviously worried about how he polls with women and decided that for the first time in his political life, he was offended by something a fellow Republican did or said. 

"Representative Brooks' comments are offensive and disrespectful," Walker said in a tweet. "They have no place in our society and are inconsistent with the high standards that must be held by those in public office. He should resign from office, period."

What did Brooks do that upset this guy? 

Brooks attended a GOP function in the Wisconsin Dells (probably paid for by all of us) and decided to get drunk as Dale Kooyenga on budget voting day.   The problem with Brooks getting drunk, the real Rob Brooks apparently came out:

Rep. Rob Brooks (R-Saukville) directed a racial remark at fellow GOP Rep. Jessie Rodriguez of Oak Creek — the only Hispanic Republican in the Assembly — at a restaurant after an Assembly GOP caucus event in Wisconsin Dells, according to sources familiar with the incident.
An obviously inebriated Brooks said he was buying drinks for everyone "except Jessie because she's Hispanic," said one source.
Some at the gathering thought it was a really bad joke by an intoxicated individual because it was not delivered in a hateful way. But sources said Brooks proceeded to purchase alcohol for several Republicans. Rodriguez was not among them.
Brooks also made sexual comments to Republican Reps. Cindi Duchow of Delafield and Amy Loudenbeck of Clinton at the restaurant, but it is not known what exactly he said to them.

We will not know what is said because the Republicans, in the heat of the #metoo movement made a rule that they will not disclose any information about any harassment to the public.  They decided the best way to handle, for the long term health of their gerrymandered majority, is to take care of it internally with a slap on the wrist and a vow to never speak of it again. 

This was tried in this case but somehow word of his misogynistic sexism and blatant racism leaked out.  All of the women who were victimized by Brooks, all "want to put this behind them".  It will be interesting to see as we move forward, what exactly Robin Vos offered them to "put it behind them".

Which leads us to the reason of this post.   While Brooks had a few drinks and was not scared to say anything, now he is ducking debates with his opponent Chris Rahlf.   

The people of the 60th district deserve better than a rep who will only talk when he is drunk and then say things that no one should be saying. 

They deserve to be able to see both candidates, together discussing the issues and then decide. 

If  Rob Brooks is refusing to give his constituents that, then he has the same disgust for them that he has for women. 

Tell Rob Brooks to Debate Chris Rahlf. 

Campaign
204 East Dekora Street
Saukville, WI 53080

Capitol
State Capitol, Room 309 North
Post Office Box 8952
Madison, WI 53708-8952
Phone: 608-267-2369
Fax: 608-282-3660
Toll Free: 888-534-0060

@RepRobBrooks

If he still refuses, then let us help Chris Rahlf actually represent everyone in the 60th.  

Go to her website, like her Facebook page, follow her on twitter, give her a few bucks, or a few hours and for sure, call everyone you know in the area and tell them to get out and vote on November 6th for Chris Rahlf.  

Chris grew up in a military family.  Her father, a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant who served in Vietnam, taught her that leadership means putting the needs of others before yourself.   That is a lesson she took to heart during her service in the Navy and subsequent civilian  business career.
Unfortunately, it seems that state government has forgotten for whom they serve.  They put the interests of out of state donors and corporations before the people of Wisconsin.  They play partisan politics with important issues that affect every Wisconsinite's well-being like healthcare, education, and the environment.  
We need leaders like Chris who will stand up to the dysfunction and divisiveness rampant in our state capitol and work with all sides to solve the problems facing our state.   She will put people before politics.

Walworth County State Assembly Endorsements for 2016 Election!

By Joshua Skolnick

It's way past time we take this thing off the blocks, take the engine out of mothballs, and take 'er for another spin. Stay tuned for another  We are reviving Sustainable Walworth with our 2016 State Assembly endorsements, which the local paid media wouldn't bother to print. And let's not talk falsely now for the hour is getting late - therefore up on our blog. MAKE SURE YOU VOTE TOMORROW.

Elect Christine Welcher and Clinton Anderson for our Environment.

The quality of the environment in Walworth County is critical to our county’s tourism based economy. Without healthy clear lakes, forests, and rolling farmland for future generations, the county will lose much of its economic base and jobs. From Lake Geneva to the Kettle Moraine, our county has irreplaceable environmental resources that must be protected, and not exploited by a select few  and the politicians who want to enable them.  Clean water, clean air and clean local food benefit everyone and shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

In the not so distant past, protecting the environment was a priority in Wisconsin for everyone including both major political parties. Wisconsin was once an innovator and a pioneer in environmental protection, nurturing such thinkers and doers as John Muir, Aldo Leopold, John Curtis and Gaylord Nelson. Wisconsin had such firsts as holistic scientific wildlife management to protect entire ecosystems, restoring prairie, and heightening ecological awareness through Earth Day. As recently as 2001, a Republican governor, Scott McCallum, signed bipartisan legislation to increase the protection of isolated wetlands, left unprotected under Federal law.

Unfortunately, the environment has now become a partisan issue, thanks to the advent of single party rule in Madison.  Walworth County’s  incumbent state Assembly representatives, Tyler August (District 32) and Amy Loudenbeck (District 31), have backed an agenda that is failing our environment. In recent legislative sessions they  both voted to allow privatization of municipal water supplies, reduce the ability of local governments to protect their unique resources which has allowed developers and resource extractors free reign to exploit sensitive lands, allowed lake bottom dredging on public trust property by private property owners, and finally weakened shoreland zoning protections, which degrades the crown jewels of our local economy, our clear and clean lakes and their unique natural buffers.  Much of this  anti environmental legislation approved by the incumbents was rammed through quickly with little public debate in the course of a week in Madison.  I witnessed that opaque process.

This anti-environmental voting record in the 2016 state legislative session earned both August and Loudenbeck the dubious distinction of a zero rating from the non-partisan Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters.  However we can make a change on  November 8, 2016 to protect our environment by electing Christine Welcher to our 32nd Assembly District and Clinton Anderson to the 31st.  Christine and Clinton understand environmental protection and have been endorsed by state and local environmental groups. Christine is an organic farmer who understands the importance of protecting our food and water supply, and restoring local control so that the units of government closest to the people, can protect local lakes, farms, and forests.  Similarly Clinton realizes that we have a common interest in protecting environmental resources that benefit everybody,  instead of exploited for the gain of out of state resource industries such as Aqua America which benefit from privatizing water supplies for profit, and which provide canned legislation to the incumbents on their behalf.

To learn more here are our candidate's web sites:

http://welcherforassembly.com/

http://clintonforassembly.wixsite.com/electclintonanderson/about

Also of interest, great candidates who have some overlap along the boundaries of the county. We endorse all of these folks:

http://andymitchellforassembly.com/  Andy Mitchell (63rd Assembly District Burlington, along the east/northeast edge of Walworth)

http://ameejanus.com/ Amee Janus - along south/east edge of Walworth, 61st Assembly District (Kenosha County)

https://www.donvruwinkforassembly.com/ Don Vruwink, 43rd Assembly, including a bit of the northwest corner of Walworth County and town of Whitewater.

https://www.facebook.com/Brandon-White-for-State-Assembly-33rd-District-459871994219650/Brandon White, Assembly District 33, parts of the extreme northcentral and northeast parts of Walworth County.

The #ALEC apparatchik Greedy One Party rule needs to come to an end in Madison, beginning now.  Good luck tomorrow to all these folks, who are ready to make Wisconsin a pioneer in environmental sustainability once again!