Glenn Grothman - Comedy Gold

By Jeff Simpson

"Our country is not going to survive if we continue this war on men," he told a tea party rally in 2010.

In the Bizarro world, where we have elected a serial adulterer and reality star as President, I recently liked a tweet by Brian Fraley and George Will is telling people to vote against The Donald in the upcoming elections.

While I have been keeping an eye out for locusts, I came across a video and am now certain the end is near. 

Glenn Grothman signing a letter approving civility in politics.

You just can not make this stuff up.  When Grothman loses to Dan Kohl in November he can take his stand up on the road. 

If you dont know who Glenn Grothman is, lets take a quick look.

No word on if he will now end his war on Kwanzaa! 

George WIll Say Anything

 George Will recently attempted to come to the rescue of W.I.L.L.(Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty)with his syndicated column.

The Justice Department’s perverse but impeccably progressive theory can be called “osmotic transfer.” It is called this by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), which is defending Wisconsin children against Washington’s aggression. 

  I know most people think that W.I.L.L. is just a tool, used by Michael Grebe, to help advance Scott Walker's career and file frivolous lawsuits.  They also serve another purpose - desperately trying to privatize our public schools.      Which leads us to the question, of who in Wisconsin's, children are they defending exactly?   

Not mine.  My children attend a public school that routinely outperforms private/voucher schools in WI.  

Nor are they defending the casual observer, who is a parent of a special needs child either.  If  they were to rely on the President and General Counsel of W.I.L.L., to help them make an informed decision on what is the best option for their child.   

Fellow Purple WIsconsin blogger Rick Esenberg, wrote a blog recently complaining that the voucher/private school(he mislabled it school choice)for-profit business was being unfairly scrutinized. 

  Mr. Esenberg told us that schools have to, by law, have to "take all comers"(with an exception for space.  While that is true, what Mr. Esenberg left out was that private/vouchers schools are currently being sued for "actively counseling students with disabilities out of their programs".  

For those of you who would ask - Why would they recruit these students and the counsel them out, it is because of something we have in WI called the "third Friday count".  School and district budgets are determined by the number of students in attendance on this date.  If the privat/voucher school can just keep these children enrolled long enough to reach this important date, they can then keep the money the state designates per student.   They can also then send the special needs child back to public school, the money per pupil stays behind but the costs for educating that child does not. 

Despite the hurdles, public schools welcome these children back, with open arms.  Not because of the money, which for a while is nonexistant, but because it is the right thing to do.  

Secondly, Mr. Esenberg misses the story again as he says these students  "may not get the same services or accommodations in a private school that they will get in a public school."   The reality is they will NOT get the same services, because by law the private/voucher schools do not have to provide them.    A voucher school is required to offer only those services to assist students with special needs that it can provide with minor adjustments.    There are not many special needs students that just need "minor adjustments" especially when you are a school not prepared for them run by unlicensed teachers. 

Then the closing argument that Mr, Esenberg makes is so incredibly mindboggling, that it makes me give thanks that it's not my money on retainer:

*  Public schools get funding to provide these services that is largely unavailable to choice schools.

Public schools do get funding(albeit it nowhere near enough for most of these students) hence the "public" in the title,  Private schools, hence the private used as an adjective, are private and do NOT get tax money to provide these services.  

* Just as importantly, federal standards for accommodating students with disabilities do not - and ought not - apply wholesale to private schools. The value of school choice is to encourage a multiplicity of approaches

Democratically elected(well semi-democratically elected anyway) legislatures, who after much study (hopefully), have put together best practice,  for the way to treat special needs children in the schools,  that public schools have to comply 100% with,  are fine but if a school run by a profiteer, wants to send unlicensed teachers into a classroom of special needs children and use proven ineffective ways to teach them.   That is the way the cookie crumbles I guess. 

*  Not all behavioral disabilities should be medicalized in the way typically encouraged by federal standards. Parents ought to be able to choose between alternative approaches for their children.

Seriously?  If Mr. Esenberg does not understand that every special needs child in a public school will have what we call an INDVIDUALIZED education program(IEP).  INDIVIDUALIZED being the key word there.   

For those like the President of WILL who do not know what an IEP is:

Each public school child who receives special education and related services must have anIndividualized Education Program (IEP). Each IEP must be designed for one student and must be a truly individualized document. The IEP creates an opportunity for teachers, parents, school administrators, related services personnel and students (when appropriate) to work together to improve educational results for children with disabilities. The IEP is the cornerstone of a quality education for each child with a disability. 

A team of individuals get together, and decide what is individually best,  for each individual student.   Parents already get to choose what is best for their own children.  

If you are truly defending "Wisconsin's children" shouldn't you know what options are available to them currently?  Trying so hard to divert our desperately needed resources from public to private schools, It seems like you and your organization, are the one they need defending FROM!


cross posted at Purple Wisconsin

A Conflict of Wills

Years ago, the Bradley Foundation, the ultra-conservative dark money pool, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Wisconsin-based legal hack named Rick Esenberg to start up a lawyerly front group for them. The group was ironically and inaccurately called Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).

WILL's main purpose is to harass law makers and school boards and unions in order to advance their agenda of plantation economics. Their other purpose is to regurgitate the Bradley Foundation's talking points in order to give it the illusion of credibility.

Calumnist* George Will had recently wrote glowingly about this front group as they try to push the agenda to privatize the state's education system.

However, as Erik Wemple of the Washington Post points out, Will forgot to mention that he has a vested interest in WILL:

In George Will tradition, the column is tight and eloquently argued, but it features one omission: Will’s connection to WILL. Since 2008, Will has been a member of the board of directors at the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which dedicates itself to “preserving and defending the tradition of free representative government and private enterprise” in the United States. That mission entails issuing grants to organizations across the country that support the foundation’s objectives.

The foundation’s 2011 annual report includes a record of a $500,000 grant to WILL, to “support general operations.” WILL’s Form 990 for 2011, which appears to be its first year in operation, shows a contribution total of $505,000, meaning that the Bradley Foundation gave critical seed money to the outfit. Its 2012 and 2013 reports also detail grants of $500,000 to WILL.

As a member of the Bradley Foundation board of directors, how much influence does Will have over the foundation’s funding decisions? Plenty, at least according to the group’s annual report: “The programs and funding decisions of the Bradley Foundation are the responsibility of the Board of Directors,” according to a section on grantmaking policies.

This case highlights Will’s intersecting lines of influence. He’s a director of the Bradley Foundation, an entity with more than $800 million in assets and 2013 grants totaling nearly $34 million to organizations in Wisconsin and across the country, including big-time Beltway entities like the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society. His column is syndicated to about 450 newspapers. Keeping those two worlds separate is quite a job, as the Nov. 19 column demonstrates: Here, Will touted an outlet funded generously by a group he helps to lead. And thanks to the columnist’s kind words, WILL may have an easier time finding funders outside of the Bradley Foundation. All very cozy, synergistic and, as media critics might say, an out-and-out conflict of interest — an offense of which Will has been accused before.

It should be noted, as the gentle reader could have guessed, that WILL has also had their own ethics issues, including illegally giving free legal advice to Republican "rising star" Deanna Alexander, who has gotten in trouble for using taxpayer money for voter suppression and illegally using her office to raise money.

*No, calumnist is not a misspelling.

George Will Carries Scott Walker's Water

Even as newly released evidence of Scott Walker's illegal politicking is being combed through, George Will further beclowns himself by carrying Walker's water and trying to portray Walker and his corporate sponsors as the victims of crimes they have committed (and are probably still committing):

According to several published reports, Chisholm told subordinates that his wife, a teachers union shop steward at her school, is anguished by her detestation of Walker’s restrictions on government employee unions, so Chisholm considers it his duty to help defeat Walker.

In collaboration with Wisconsin’s misbegotten Government Accountability Board, which exists to regulate political speech, Chisholm has misinterpreted Wisconsin campaign law in a way that looks willful. He has done so to justify a “John Doe” process that has searched for evidence of “coordination” between Walker’s campaign and conservative issue advocacy groups.

Umm, yeah. The source for those published reports is a disturbed soul named Michael Lutz, who is sadly struggling with PTSD and alcoholism. He also has made death threats against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and his family.

Furthermore, the CEO of American Media Institute, which commissioned those smear articles that Will cites, is using those smears as a launching pad for Walker's inevitable presidential bid:

"If he survives re-election, he might well become the number one Republican candidate," Richard Miniter, chief executive officer of American Media Institute, in a Tuesday article on the evangelical Christian website One News Now. The piece is entitled, "A union nightmare: Scott Walker in the White House."

Miniter's group commissioned two stories by Stuart Taylor Jr. that accuse Milwaukee's Democratic district attorney of conducting secret investigations of Walker and his staff because of Chisholm's wife's pro-union agenda. The source for Taylor's stories was Michael Lutz, a controversial ex-Milwaukee cop who spent less than six months as an unpaid aide in Chisholm's office in 2011.

As for Will's claims of innocence on the behalf of Walker and the dark money groups, we already know that to be a flat out lie as well. Walker and the Wisconsin Club for Growth were working hand in hand to skirt campaign finance laws:

The documents released Friday by a federal appeals court also show that prosecutors believe Walker personally solicited donations for conservative group Wisconsin Club for Growth to get around campaign finance limits and disclosure requirements as he fended off the recall attempt in 2012.

Aides told Walker to tell donors that they could make unlimited donations to Wisconsin Club for Growth without having the gifts publicly disclosed. Wisconsin Club for Growth then funneled the money to other conservative groups that advertised on Walker's behalf.

"As the Governor discussed ... he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging," Walker fundraiser Kate Doner wrote to campaign adviser R.J. Johnson in April 2011, a little more than a year before the recall election. "We had some past problems with multiple groups doing work on 'behalf' of Gov. Walker and it caused some issues ... the Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth."

Will is obviously confused between free political speech and pay for play corruption. But that's not surprising when one thinks about it. They are confused about a lot of things.

Cross posted at Crooks and Liars

An Open Letter To George Will

Dear Mr. Will,
I read your recent column on the “supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. sexual assault” and am somewhat taken aback by your claim that forcing colleges to take a tougher stand on sexual assault somehow translates into a modern version of The Crucible that replaces witchcraft with rape hysteria.

I was specifically moved to write to you because the rape scenario that you describe somewhat incredulously is not unfamiliar to me. Not because I’ve heard it in many different iterations (I have sadly done many rape kits), but because it was not unlike my own rape. The lead up was slightly different, but I too was raped by someone I knew and did not emerge with any obvious physical evidence that a crime had been committed. I tried to push him away, I said “No!” and “Get off” multiple times,” but he was much stronger and suddenly I found my hands pinned behind my back and a forearm crushing my neck and for a few minutes I found it hard to breathe. I was 22, far from home, scared, and shocked and so at some point I just stopped kicking and let him finish. Sound familiar? For several weeks I didn’t even think about it as a rape because that was easier than admitting the truth. Again, sound familiar?
When a man who is much stronger than you holds you down (Hey baby don’t fight, you know you want it) and forces your legs open the violence and power of those movements is horrifically violating and utterly disempowering. You think you screamed NO! at the top of your lungs but you were so scared and so shocked that when you went from yelling no! to pleading no to silently weeping no is hard to remember. Implied violence Mr. Will is a terrifying thing indeed.
You labor under the fear (as some men do) that there is an epidemic of false rape. That good young men will go to jail for consent withdrawn after the fact. And while false accusations likely do happen (the Duke Lacrosse case is a recent, well-known example) these are the exception and not the rule and each time a male with a platform spouts off about a false epidemic of rape it only makes it harder for women who have been violated to come forward.
And your confusion about the under reporting statistics? First a woman has to get over her fear of her assailant and the shame imparted by society and then she has to deal with the police. There are no Special Victims Units like you see on T.V. protectively shepherding women through the process of facing assailants. And if fear and shame and being disbelieved by law enforcement were not enough of a deterrent think about having your pubic hair combed for your rapist’s DNA while you are dripping with his ejaculate. And you have the gall to wonder why some women might not immediately (if ever) report a rape? I am a 47 year-old financially and professionally secure woman in a stable, loving relationship and it took 25 years and your jackass column to get me to speak up about my rape. How easy do you think it is for a scared 20 year-old to call 911 or walk into a police station and say, “I was just raped?”
This weekend I was out dancing and experienced what I think you referred to as “micro-aggressions.” I had my buttocks pinched three times and my breasts groped twice. I was called a “bitch” and a “50-year-hag” when I politely declined hopeful suitors. Whether it is a cat call or a grope these actions represent sexual aggression and Mr. Will they have little to do with sex and everything to do with aggression. I wish someone taught those 40-something-year-old men in college that verbal assaults are not the appropriate response to “no thank you” and that pinching a women’s behind is not a mating ritual.
There is no woman who I have ever met personally or as an OB/GYN who thinks that surviving a rape confers some sort of privilege. I am genuinely curious if you interviewed a few young women hoping to earn their college rape badge or is that just a conclusion you reached looking at the issue of sexual assault through the myopic lens of misogyny?
Come spend a day in my clinic Mr. Will. Come see how the scars of rape linger even decades later.
There is no survivor privilege, just survivors.
This post was originally published at drjengunter.wordpress.com.

Dr. Jen Gunter is an OB/GYN and a pain medicine physician. She authored the book, The Preemie Primer, a guide for parents of premature babies.

Right Wing Reason?!?

By Jeff Simpson

I have been busy for a few days, but the right wing crazy never ever stops.  Time to catch up on a couple of things that no one should miss!  

Exhibit A - George Will:

The conservative titan wrote about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. 'sexual assault,'" in a piece on Friday. He put this trend down to increased political correctness on college campuses, which, he said, was proving that when universities "make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate."

Exhibit B - Brad Schimel(h/t One Wisconsin Now), who just happens to be running for Attorney General:

 Exhibit C:  Fresh from Oklahoma:

Scott Esk is a conservative Republican running for a seat in the Oklahoma state Legislature, and he says he wants to apply Biblical principles to Oklahoma law. He also thinks that gay people should be put to death by stoning. And he isn’t doing much to hide the fact that he believes gay people deserve to be murdered, either.

Rob Morris, who runs a local political website, discovered Esk’s views about gay people while researching each of the candidates running this year. “This is the first time I’ve ever come across an Oklahoman with this kind of fringe attitude,” he told KFOR News Channel 4.

Morris found an exchange on Esk’s Facebook page from last summer in which Esk was asked if he believed gay people should be executed, “presumably by stoning.” Esk responded: “I think we would be totally in the right to do it. That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.”

Morris followed up on the issue and Esk hardly backed down: “What I will tell you right now is that was done in the old testament under a law that came directly from God. And in that time, it was totally just, it came directly from God. I have no plans to, you know, reinstitute that in Oklahoma law. I do have some very huge moral misgivings about those kinds of sins,” Esk told Morris.