Republicans and corporate media launch racist attack against Wisconsin Democratic Chair Martha Laning for having occassionally interesting personality

Daniel Bice, a “watchdog” columnist for the far-right Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, wrote this racist hit piece attacking Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) Chairwoman Martha Laning, who is a white woman from near Sheboygan, for trying to emulate the accent of DPW First Vice-Chairman David Bowen, who is a black man from Milwaukee. Laning’s remarks were recorded by a right-wing tracker at a local Democratic Party meeting in Door County, Wisconsin earlier this year.

Laning was trying to do a half-ass impression of Bowen’s accent at a Door County (WI) Democratic Party meeting while talking about her attendance at a President Obama event in La Crosse earlier this year, and Bowen was not offended by it at all, saying that “there is nothing wrong about our Democratic Party embracing diversity.” If Bowen isn’t offended by Laning trying to do a half-ass emulation of his accent, then I’m not offended by it.

Apparently, having an occasionally quirky personality is a political crime in the eyes of Wisconsin Republicans. I don’t have a problem at all with politicians having interesting or occasionally interesting personalities, in fact, I’m more likely to personally like a politician whose personality is quirky or occasionally quirky than a politician with a very boring personality. Given that Tommy Thompson, a longtime Wisconsin Republican politician who was elected four times to the governor’s mansion, was notorious for having an unusual personality, I find it hypocritical that Wisconsin Republicans would bash Laning for having a quirky personality.

Although I endorsed Laning in the DPW Chair’s race earlier this year, let me make it clear that I’ve not been impressed by Laning’s performance as chair. Since Laning was elected to be the head of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, she’s tried to sabotage Russ Feingold’s U.S. Senate campaign with controversial remarks about his last name, and she’s a staunch supporter of Scott Walker’s corporate welfare giveaway to the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks. However, Laning has been somewhat better as chair than, for example, how Jason Rae, who got the second-most votes in the DPW Chair’s race earlier this year, would have been as chair had he been elected. As noted by an unnamed person who posts under the Data, Facts, and Logic moniker at Cognitive Dissidence, Rae once tried to claim that he understood the challenges that black people in Wisconsin face because he’s a gay white guy while speaking to a predominantly-black audience during his campaign.

The bottom line is that this attack by Republicans and the corporate media against Martha Laning for having an occasionally quirky personality is racist and absolutely disgusting. I believe that Daniel Bice, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and the Republican Party of Wisconsin owe Martha Laning, David Bowen, and the people of Wisconsin an apology.

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If you live in the 20th Assembly District of Wisconsin, you’ll have an opportunity to tell Christine Sinicki to oppose Scott Walker’s NBA corporate welfare giveway

If you live in the 20th Assembly District of Wisconsin, which is entirely within Milwaukee County and includes the southern-most part of the City of Milwaukee and all of St. Francis and Cudahy, you’ll have a rare opportunity in Wisconsin. You’ll have the opportunity to tell Wisconsin State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) to oppose a corporate welfare giveaway for the proposed Milwaukee Bucks arena. The event is scheduled for Saturday, July 25, 2015 at 9 A.M., and the event will be held at 3558 E. Sivyer Ave. in St. Francis, Wisconsin.

There are a number of reasons why this deal is bad for Milwaukee and Wisconsin:

• The deal would send hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Wisconsinites’ taxpayer money to the owners of the the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, including Jon Hammes, who is a co-chairman for Scott Walker’s presidential campaign.
• The arena’s estimated lifespan is 30 years, after which, the Bucks owners would be demanding more taxpayer money for yet another new arena once again if they get the deal for the arena they intend to build over the next couple of years.
• The deal includes a ton of tax exemptions that would severely restrict the amount of tax revenue that could be generated by the deal, resulting in less tax revenue being available for roads, schools, and other things that serve a public purpose.
• Marquette University’s basketball team would likely be a regular tenant of the arena, in possible violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
• The deal includes the creation of a special “entertainment district”, which would likely consist of mostly of national chain bars and restaurants, that is unsustainable and would likely drive local businesses in Milwaukee out of operation.
• The new arena would be managed by a board consisting partially of elected officials who aren’t from the Milwaukee area and aren’t elected by Milwaukeeans, such as Jennifer Shilling (who is from La Crosse, located over 170 miles from Milwaukee), while completely shutting out the Milwaukee County Board from making any appointments to the board.
• The deal would not restore one penny of funding that was taken from public schools, state parks, and other things that received budget cuts from Scott Walker’s state budget.
• Given that the NBA has mandated that the Bucks either build a new arena in Milwaukee or move elsewhere before the start of the 2017-2018 NBA season, that would leave a roughly two-year window for the Bucks to build the arena, and any significant construction delays would result in the arena not being built on time, the Bucks being forced to move, and Milwaukee being stuck with an unfinished arena.

If a lot of opponents of the Milwaukee Bucks corporate welfare giveaway show up, you may be able to help sway Christine Sinicki to do the right thing and vote against the Bucks corporate welfare giveaway. Letting the Milwaukee Bucks move to Las Vegas (or some other city) would be, by far, the lesser of two evils compared to wasting more of Wisconsinites’ taxpayer money that would probably see little or no return on investment for taxpayers.

It’s official: Russ Feingold has re-entered the political sphere

I don’t usually do this in a blog post, but, HEEEEEEEE’S BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!

Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), a revered figure among progressives in Wisconsin and nationally, has re-entered the political sphere after he left his post as a U.S. Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Earlier today, Feingold attended a fundraiser for his own state representative, Wisconsin State Rep. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), at a restaurant in his hometown of Middleton, Wisconsin. This is the first real political event of any kind that Feingold has taken part in since resigning from the U.S. State Department.

While Russ Feingold is not officially running for his old U.S. Senate seat yet, it’s clear that Feingold appears to be gearing up for a likely run against Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).

Bernie Sanders campaign website re-designed for likely presidential run

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is considering running for the Democratic presidential nomination in next year’s presidential election, has launched a redesigned campaign website at berniesanders.com. The redesigned Sanders website only references Sanders’s home state of Vermont on the biography portion of his campaign website and on the campaign mailing address at the bottom of the website, which is a clear indication to me that Sanders is likely going to run for president. Given that Sanders has public stated that he’s not interested in being a spoiler in a general election, Sanders is likely going to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Please note that Sanders has not formally announced his intention to run for president at this time.

I find Sanders’s new campaign website to be very cool-looking and informative. Sanders’s new website has a detailed biography, which includes information about his progressive track record as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, the smallest city that is the largest city of a state in the entire country, as well as his progressive track record as a member of both houses of Congress. Sanders’s new website also has a detailed campaign platform, which includes support for fixing crumbling infrastructure, taking “bold action” on climate change, expanding social safety net programs like Social Security and Medicaid, support for single-payer healthcare, breaking up large banks, making higher education more affordable, ending NAFTA and other “disastrous trade policies”, equal pay for equal work, raising the federal minimum wage to $15/hour, allowing for the card check method to make it easier for workers to organize a labor union, and providing assistance to worker co-ops. About the only things in the platform I’d change if I were running Sanders’s campaign would be to replace the “pay equity for women workers” heading with a “pay equity for working women” heading and add more policy specifics to many of the parts of the platform. Finally, Sanders has a list of scheduled events on his campaign website. I rate the new Sanders campaign website a 9 on a 1-to-10 scale.

While Bernie Sanders has yet to formally announce a presidential bid, he’s taken yet another step towards running for president by launching a redesigned campaign website.

Lindsey Graham makes racist and sexist remarks about what he’d do if elected president

Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is up for re-election on Tuesday for a full six-year term in the U.S. Senate, made racist and sexist remarks about what he’d do if he were to win the 2016 presidential election at a private dinner attended by men only:

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham‘s remark at a private, all-male dinner about mainly helping white men if he became president was a joke taken out of context, his campaign said Thursday.

But Graham’s opponent, Democratic state Sen. Brad Hutto, said the comment shows he is a typical Republican who isn’t concerned about the middle class, poor, minorities or women.

About 20 seconds of clips of Graham’s speech were provided to The Associated Press, and Graham’s campaign confirmed it was him speaking. CNN first reported the remarks Wednesday, less than a week before the election to decide whether Graham gets a third term in the Senate. He has outspent Hutto by a wide margin and is a big favorite to win in conservative South Carolina.

After using profanity to say the government is messed up, Graham tells the group: “If I get to be president, white men who are in male-only clubs are going to do great in my presidency.”

That did NOT sound like a joke to me, and I thought that Lindsey Graham’s racist, sexist remarks were NOT funny whatsoever. Not only did Graham, a very conservative Republican who is one of the biggest war hawks in either house of Congress, indicate that he intends to run for president two years from now (although he hasn’t formally entered the race for the GOP presidential nomination yet), he also indicated that, if he were to somehow win the presidency (what little chance of that happening is, more than likely, gone due to his remarks), he’d only appoint white men to cabinet positions and other heads of federal agencies. That is a 19th century view of society, and someone with that kind of view of society doesn’t belong in the White House.