Month: July 2016

Why I can no longer support Alan Grayson

Earlier today, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) physically assaulted Edward-Issac Dovere, a reporter for POLITICO, at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia earlier today.

Earlier this year, I endorsed Alan Grayson for the U.S. Senate seat that is up for election this year in Florida, and in 2014, I included Grayson on my bucket list of political figures that I’d like to meet in person. However, I am officially pulling my endorsement from Grayson, and, if I were to write an updated bucket list of elected officials and/or other political figures that I’d like to meet in person, Grayson’s name would be nowhere to be found on such a list.

It is a known fact that Lolita Grayson, Alan Grayson’s ex-wife, has repeatedly accused Alan Grayson of abusing her. Now, we have documented footage of Grayson abusing a member of the press. I will admit that I have given Alan Grayson too much of a benefit of the doubt when it comes to the domestic abuse allegations that his ex-wife has leveled against him. However, I cannot reasonably give Alan Grayson the benefit of the doubt any longer when it comes to his track record of abusing others. The Alan Grayson that is currently on the campaign trail is not the highly-effective progressive and the most electrifying man in American politics that I have long admired Grayson as. Instead, the Alan Grayson that is currently on the campaign trail is a thin-skinned bully and an abuser who doesn’t electrify any reasonable person.

Physical abuse of any kind should NEVER be tolerated. In fact, I call on the U.S. House of Representatives to begin expulsion proceedings against Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida.

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STRAW POLL: 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin Democratic primary

Recently, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) praised Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for…well, being the kind of presidential candidate who appeals to white male bigots like himself. These are Duffy’s actual words, as quoted by the progressive website ThinkProgress:

There’s a viewpoint that says, ‘I can fight for minorities, and I can fight for women,’ and if you get that, you make up a vast majority of the voting block and you win. And white males have been left aside a little bit in the politics of who speaks to them.

It is inherently clear to me that Duffy is supporting Donald Trump because he is a loud-mouthed bigot who would destroy America and everything that this great country stands for if elected. Duffy’s congressional district, while gerrymandered to make it a lot easier for him to win re-election, is not a total Republican stronghold, and Trump’s style of politics don’t play well at all in the Upper Midwest.

Unlike what I’ve done for races in the 3rd and 6th congressional districts of Wisconsin, where I’ve endorsed progressive-minded Democrats in contested primaries, I’m going to do something different for the contested primary in the 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin. I’m going to conduct a straw poll for the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin. The candidates seeking the Democratic nomination are, in the order in which they will be listed on actual primary ballots and in the straw poll, Mary Hoeft of Rice Lake and Joel Lewis of Wausau. Here’s the straw poll:

The straw poll, which is completely non-binding, will be open for voting until 10 P.M. CDT on July 31, 2016 (the polling program I use does not allow me to geoblock the poll outside of the 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin). The actual primary, which is open to voters in the 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin who choose to vote in the Democratic primary, is August 9th. The winner of the real Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary, also held on August 9th, between Duffy and Donald Raihala, in the general election on November 8th.

In 2011 email, Bruce Rauner made false, racist claim about Chicago public school teachers

In a 2011 email to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other people seeking to dismantle the Chicago public school system, Republican Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner claimed that half of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) teachers are “virtually illiterate”.

Not only is that an absurdly false claim about public K-12 teachers in our state’s largest city, it’s also a flagrantly racist one.

According to the CPS website, 50.3% of CPS teachers are white, and the race/ethnicity of 1.7% of CPS teachers is unknown. That means that 48% of CPS teachers are of a known ethnic minority. I’m very convinced that Rauner was referring to non-white CPS teachers as “virtually illiterate”.

The latest email release from Rahm’s administration in Chicago has proven that Rauner is a total racist who thinks that minority teachers are illiterate, and that the Rahm-Rauner agenda to destroy public education in Illinois is motivated by racism. The truth of the matter is that public school teachers in Illinois, whether it be in Chicago or another part of our great state, are intelligent, functionally literate, and do a great job of educating our state’s children.

Three Wisconsin endorsements for the August primaries

On August 9 of this year, Wisconsin voters will go to the polls to vote on candidates running in partisan primaries for both houses of Congress, seats in the Wisconsin State Legislature (all State Assembly districts and even-numbered State Senate districts), and many county-level offices that are elected on a partisan ballot.

I’ve already endorsed Russ Feingold in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary, Sarah Lloyd in the 6th Congressional District Democratic primary, and Jimmy Anderson in the 47th State Assembly District Democratic primary. In three other contested Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, I hereby announce endorsements.

3rd Congressional District – Myron Buchholz

I proudly endorse Myron Buchholz, who is running in the Democratic primary against incumbent U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse). I wrote this blog post when Buchholz entered the race, but now I formally endorse Buchholz. Myron Buchholz is a strong progressive who will oppose any unjustified war, even if a Democratic president wants to lead our troops into a full-scale unjustified war. Ron Kind, on the other hand, is a corporate Democrat who supports the NRA’s agenda of proliferating guns into every part of American society. Furthermore, Buchholz opposes international trade deals, such as President Obama’s proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is supported by corporate Democrats like President Obama and Congressman Kind, but would result in tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of U.S. jobs being moved to low-wage countries like Vietnam. Buchholz believes in protecting America’s economy, not allowing foreign countries to take our jobs.

4th State Senate District – Mandela Barnes

I proudly endorse Mandela Barnes, who is running in the Democratic primary against incumbent State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee). Lena Taylor is probably the most right-wing Democrat in the Wisconsin State Legislature, being a supporter of the NRA’s gun proliferation agenda, a supporter of giving taxpayer money to religious schools, and a political ally of Scott Walker. Mandela Barnes, who was named after the late, great South African leader Nelson Mandela, is obviously more progressive than Lena.

Dane County District Attorney – Ismael Ozanne

I proudly endorse Ismael Ozanne, who is seeking re-election for the job of top prosecutor in Wisconsin’s most progressive county. Ozanne is facing a primary challenge from Bob Jambois, a close ally of State Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha). Jambois is from Kenosha County, which is nearly 50 miles from Dane County (measured as distance between Cambridge, Wisconsin and Genoa City, Wisconsin), and Jambois is a former Kenosha County District Attorney. Jambois is a carpetbagger and not a native Dane County resident.

Donald Trump acts like an arrogant fool on Feherty

It’s not an everyday thing for Golf Channel to air political programming, but they recently aired an interview of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The interview was conducted by former professional golfer and Golf Channel/NBC on-course golf announcer David Feherty (last name pronounced FAIR-et-ee) for the interview show Feherty.

I watched the interview so you didn’t have to, and let’s just say that, if one were to judge someone by how they act around people that they like (Feherty wore Trump socks  while interviewing Trump), let’s just say that Trump is an arrogant fool, because that’s how he acted around Feherty.

When Trump was asked by Feherty how his presidential bid was doing, Trump touted favorable poll numbers and claimed that he hadn’t spent any money on his campaign yet (in reality, he’s spent nearly $62 million on his campaign so far). When Trump was asked by Feherty whether or not he thought of himself as an asshole, Trump touted favorable poll numbers. When Feherty listed a number of adjectives that me and other critics of Trump use on a regular basis to criticize him, Trump responded by saying, “but other than that, they like me.” Trump even went as far as to call his real estate properties “presidential”.

Oh, and Trump made a shockingly offensive statement during the interview. Trump said that racial profiling was “necessary”. Racial profiling is, in the 21st century, very common in America, and it contributes to racial tensions in America in a big way. Racism and racial profiling is never necessary, and it is always inappropriate.

Even when he’s around people that he likes, Donald Trump is an arrogant fool who only cares about himself and his ego.

Donald Trump’s ghostwriter warns that Trump could end civilization if elected president

One person who knows Donald Trump very, very well knows that Trump is literally a threat to civilization:

“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, (Tony) Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”

You can often judge a person’s character based on those who know said person well, and Tony Schwartz knows Trump very well, since he was the guy who ghostwrote one of Trump’s most famous books. Donald Trump may be selling isolationist snake oil to progressives, but the reality is that Trump is not really an isolationist, and he’d have no problem using nuclear weapons for the sake of using nuclear weapons.

I’ll watch the David Feherty interview of Trump tonight on Golf Channel at 8 P.M. CDT, so you don’t have to.

Mike Pence, who signed religious discrimination into law in Indiana, will likely be Trump’s running mate

Multiple media outlets are reporting that Indiana Governor Mike Pence is likely to be picked by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to be Trump’s vice-presidential running mate. This has not been confirmed by Trump himself; Trump intends to officially announce his VP pick sometime tomorrow.

For those of you who have heard of Pence, and for those of you who have not heard of Pence, he’s not worth any pence, and he’s a right-wing bigot with a track record of enshrining bigotry into Indiana state law.

Pence is most infamous for signing into law Indiana’s religious discrimination bill, which allows ordinary Hoosiers to discriminate against people who aren’t like them by, for example, allowing businesses and businesspeople to refuse to serve people because of the religious beliefs of the business owners. That is a law primarily designed to discriminate against Indiana’s LGBT community, and Pence made himself and Indiana a national embarrassment by signing the religious discrimination bill into law.

When it comes to working-class Americans, Pence is solidly against working-class Americans every step against the way. Pence repealed Indiana’s common construction wage law, which was Indiana’s version of a prevailing wage law for state-funded construction projects, and Pence also supports President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed international trade agreement between the U.S. and countries like Vietnam, a country that killed tens of thousands of American troops in a war the U.S. should have never been involved in, and a country where workers are paid far less than the U.S. federal minimum wage. It’s no wonder why the White House is actually praising Pence, despite the fact that Pence is likely to be the running mate of perhaps the single most bigoted presidential candidate to win a major-party presidential nomination.

The percentage of rapes committed by white people is higher than the percentage of white Americans

Leslie Salzillo, a contributor to the progressive website DailyKos, wrote this piece about an online video showing a white woman, who was harassing a black man, falsely accusing the black man of threatening to rape her. You can view the video here.

I want to make a couple of points here.

First, rape and fear of rape have been used since before the founding of the United States of America in a racist manner against black people. Examples of this include Europeans in the 17th century falsely accusing black slaves of rape, accusations of rape being committed by black people being used to cover up crimes committed by white people, and the infamous Willie Horton ad that was aired on American television by a political organization supporting Republican George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential bid. Rape is a serious crime, and, if you’re using rape or the fear of rape to spew bigotry towards minority groups, you’re part of the problem when it comes to the pervasive rape culture in this country. While some black people are rapists (a famous example being former professional boxer Mike Tyson), and all rapists are criminals, black people are often falsely accused of rape, while actual white rapists often get no punishment or very light punishment for violating women.

Secondly, these are actual statistics on the demographics of American rapists, as well as the demographics of American aggravated assaulters and American automobile thieves:

For the sake of completion, 63.7% of the total American population is Non-Hispanic White, meaning that the percentage of rapes committed by white people in America (67.2%) is higher than the percentage of total white people in America.

The top-selling iPhone app in America encourages people to invade private property

To give you a general idea of how pervasive and dangerous the smartphone culture is in America, the top-selling Apple iPhone smartphone app in America is Pokémon GO, an augmented reality smartphone game that encourages people to violate private property laws by invading private property to catch Pokémon characters that exist in the game, but not in real life.

Pokémon GO and other augmented reality games set a dangerous precedent for private property rights in America.

The makers of Pokémon GO, Niantic, have a clear goal in mind with their game: violate the private property rights of Americans, then convince politicians to repeal private property rights to benefit players of the game. Private property rights are as American as apple pie and Chevrolet, and it would be a travesty if it private property rights were eroded with the same tactics that ridesharing services like Über and Lyft have used to erode local control over public transportation matters.

I call for Congress and state legislatures to ban augmented reality games.

Did the USGA learn from its video review mistake from last month?

AUTHOR’S NOTE #1: Since the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship is one of many women’s golf tournaments used to determine qualification for the women’s golf tournament at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, International Olympic Committee (IOC) country codes for players in the U.S. Women’s Open are noted in parenthesis following the first mention of their full names below the divider.

AUTHOR’S NOTE #2: Anna Nordqvist’s last name is pronounced nord-KWIST

On the second of three holes played in yesterday’s three-hole aggregate playoff for the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship at CordeValle golf course in California (the playoff used holes 16, 17, and 18, in that order), Anna Norqvist (SWE) touched sand while addressing her ball, which was at rest and located in a bunker. Normally, when a player illegally grounds his/her club in a bunker or water hazard in a golf event, he/she will call a penalty on himself/herself. However, in Nordqvist’s case, it was not visibly obvious to her that she had illegally grounded her club in the bunker, and, in fact, only a FOX camera showing a close-up of Nordqvist’s address of the ball showed that Nordqvist had, in fact, touched sand while addressing her ball in a bunker. The USGA conducted a video review, and, after both players in the playoff had started playing the final hole of the playoff, they were both notified of the penalty assessed to Nordqvist for breach of Rule 13-4, which prohibits a player from, when his/her ball is at rest in a bunker or water hazard, touching water, sand, the ground, or loose impediments with the club, except when striking the ball itself. The penalty for breach of Rule 13-4 during stroke play, which was used for all four rounds of regulation and the three-hole aggregate playoff, is two strokes on the hole which the breach of the rule occurred. Brittany Lang (USA) went on to win the U.S. Women’s Open by three playoff strokes; had Nordqvist not been assessed a penalty, Lang would have still won, but only by one playoff stroke.

Here’s the video of Nordqvist grounding her club in the bunker:

I believe that the U.S. Golf Association (USGA), which sanctions the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship and some other golf tournaments, including the U.S. Open golf championship, did a far better job of handling the video review in regards to the Nordqvist grounded club situation in the U.S. Women’s Open than the Dustin Johnson moved ball situation that occurred during the final round of regulation in the U.S. Open, which is also sanctioned by the USGA. In that scenario, Johnson’s ball moved on the 5th green at Oakmont County Club in Pennsylvania, and he was initially given no penalty, since a rules official on-course ruled that he had not caused his ball to move. However, Johnson was notified several holes later that his score on the 5th hole was under video review, and it was after his round that he was notified that he had incurred a one-stroke penalty for causing his ball to move on the green without actually taking a stroke. This caused nearly everybody with an interest in golf to criticize the USGA for their handling of the Dustin Johnson moved ball scenario, and rightfully so, since Johnson was not notified of the penalty until after he had completed his round, even though the moved ball situation occurred less than halfway through his round.

If you were to ask me whether or not the USGA has learned from its video review mistake, the short answer would be yes.