Block the Koch Party Attack on the Working Class

Federal, state, and local government budgets, and the lives of working people, across America, are in deep trouble for three dominant reasons:
(1) Federal and state policies, including tax policies, during the last three-plus decades have redistributed a consistently and drastically increasing percentage of the income and the wealth of the nation to large corporations and the super-rich. The consistently increasing tax cuts lavished on corporations and the very wealthy over this period have been substantially financed from the Social Security Trust Fund.
(2) Deficit financing of the military-industrial complex, the escalating cost of empire, and the undeclared wars waged, and continuing occupations, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere.
(3) The national economic crisis (which immediately expanded worldwide, and trickled-down to state, local, and family budgets) that was caused by the largest fraud and larceny ever perpetrated in world history.

This worldwide economic crisis, with its massive, tragic consequences, was intentionally perpetrated by decision makers in huge, transnational financial and insurance and investment and accounting corporations. Neither the government that is supposed to be of, by, and for the people, nor either major party, has taken the necessary steps to:
(a) prevent such an outrageous fraud from happening again,
(b) prosecute the looters, and
(c) recover the loot.
Instead, we have been expected to collectively dig the very crooks (and only the crooks) out from under the collapsed consequences of the disaster they initiated.
We must defeat efforts to scapegoat any portion of the people and force them/us to pay even more for this continuing economic crisis.

Choice for A Change in Ozaukee and Washington counties

The Wisconsin state legislature will have many contested elections in November. Three out of four Assembly seats will have more than one name on the ballot and be worth voting in, and nine of the 16 state senate seats listed in the general election will have more than one name on the ballot. In particular, the counties of Ozaukee and Washington, long dominated by the Republican Party (and long conceded by the state Democratic Party) have a unique and historic campaign season and election ahead. Fully SIX of the state legislature seats currently occupied by The Ruling Party in Ozaukee and Washington counties are being challenged in the general election. We haven’t had this kind of choice for generations. This is more than merely newsworthy. It is historic. What is fueling this upset of the status quo?

Support the Troops! Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation and the New G.I. Bill

“The GI Bill gives emphatic notice to the men and women in our armed forces that the American people do not intend to let them down.”
(Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on signing the original G.I Bill for returning veterans)

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is leading an effort to pass a new GI Bill of educational benefits for veterans. What is the bill, what will it cost, and where do Wisconsin’s U.S. Senators and Members of Congress stand?

Mandatory Random Drug Testing Rejected by Cedarburg School District

The page 1 November 15 Ozaukee News-Graphic article “Random drug testing fails to pass”, fails to represent the facts. Just because an article is presented as a “news report” does not make it factual or unbiased. And just because an article (such as this one) is presented on the editorial page, or in a blog, does not mean it is “merely opinion”. [Note: This article was NOT presented on the editorial page, after all. The editor decided not to publish my criticism of the Nov. 15 article regarding the School District decision.]

Christopher Columbus’ Firsts

Does your family celebrate Columbus Day? Or did it slip by without notice? Columbus Day is usually noted in school classes (well before college) and after that it is all but forgotten. But the four voyages of Columbus represent an incredibly important “first” in world history, in the history of the Western Hemisphere, and in the USA, that we should not forget.

Assembly Runs the Budget Ball the Wrong Way

The Wisconsin state Assembly budget proposal cuts needed services while simultaneously increasing the state deficit, compared with the Senate budget proposal. The Assembly increases taxes on individuals, at the same time it disdains an opportunity to save Wisconsin businesses and individuals over one billion dollars annually while mounting a significant reform to correct the health care crisis.

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

A new and fresh approach is being taken by the Cedarburg School Board and Administration to the issue of substance abuse and the responsibility of the Cedarburg School District to address it. (You may need to see the previously posted article, to understand the context of this essay.)

Trying to Suppress Substance Abuse by Intimidation

(Here are some alternative light-hearted titles to the substantive article that follows. Click on the title above to read the article itself.)

“To Pee or Not to Pee; That is the Question.”
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find Out What It Means To Me , (By Urethra Cedarburg)”
“Cedarburg Salad Board – Lettuce Turnip and Pea”
“This Gland Isn’t Your Gland, This Gland Is MY Gland”
“2-4-6-8, Don’t Force Us to Urinate”
“1-2-3-4, Stay Outta Here When I Close the Door”
“Urine Trouble Unless U Urinate”
“Leave No Child Untapped and Unintimidated”

Cedarburg School Board Election Post Mortem

“You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.” – Abraham Lincoln

Three incumbents ran as a bloc for three positions on the Cedarburg School Board in the election. Their campaign stance was to re-elect all three, and keep challenger Dan Carr off the school board. Each voter had the opportunity to “vote for not more than three”, but no more than one vote could be cast for any one candidate. With this election rule, those who wanted Carr on the School Board voted directly against that intent if they cast more than one vote. But it’s safe to assume that all supporters of the three incumbents cast three votes each.

Cedarburg School District May Test for Drugs Without Cause

You wanna do dope? Why do you think they call it that? – Clarence Lee

The Cedarburg, Wisconsin School Board is considering testing Cedarburg High School students for drug use by requiring random, mandatory, urine sampling. Is this a good idea? That depends on the answers to three questions. (And you might also want to check out Part 1 of this series.)

Wisconsin Schools Oppose Random Drug Testing

I’ve come across important information from other Wisconsin communities relevant to Part 1 and Part 2 of my series spotlighting the current proposal to impose random drug testing (by supervised urine collection) on students at Cedarburg High School. Here ’tis:

Cedarburg’s Lone Ranger vs the Three Musketeers

Whether you and I agree on everything, or even anything, one thing I’m sure we both believe in is that uncontested elections do our communities a disservice. Good governance and democracy, both need oversight, alternative points of view, diversity of experience, and occasionally a bright spotlight, to avoid both tunnel vision and corruption. Accordingly, I have supported Dan Carr’s candidacy as the lone challenger for the three School Board positions in the troubled Cedarburg School District that would otherwise be uncontested. I support Dan Carr, in spite of the fact that he and I apparently have different points of view on many issues.

War on Drugs Surges to Cedarburg High School

It was 40 years ago today, that Sgt. Pepper’s band began to play. Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs 35 years ago. And it was eleven years ago that the Editors of the National Review publicly declared that “…it is our judgment that the War on Drugs has failed, that it is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction, that it is wasting our resources, and that it is encouraging civil, judicial, and penal procedures associated with police states.”

Courage in the Storm

The blinding flashes, followed seconds later by the ominous growing rumble and the deafening, explosive crash, made futile any attempts to ignore the wind whipping the deluge into horizontal sheets. My little sister, just a toddler, with eyes wide, and fear beginning to flicker over her so beautiful features, mustered her recently acquired ability to speak intelligible words, and her even more newly acquired self-control, and spoke with serious intensity. “Thunder and lightning come down and go BOOM!” It struck me as cute and comical, but that was a superficial observation, and something about the moment broke through my exceedingly dense and callow teenage consciousness. The significance of the moment dawned upon me and I haven’t forgotten.

Brown v. Board of Education

50th ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE ESSAY – Awarded first place in the national essay contest sponsored by the NAACP in the open, adult division.

A tribute to the generations that struggled for, the legal team that formulated, and the democratic principles that were represented in the most important Supreme Court decision of the 20TH century.

. The significance for educational opportunity and survival.

. The historical importance of the decision to reject segregation.

. Opposition to, and supporters of the struggle, and victories.

. Problems not solved and yet requiring our attention.