PENSIONS MATTER FOR FIREFIGHTERS
Public employees across the country are under siege. Retirement security -- from firefighters to police officers to teachers, public employees rely on their pensions to provide a secure retirement. Here in Wisconsin, we are not immune to those attacks. State Senator Stroebel has proposed legislation that is completely unnecessary and irresponsible.
The Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) is well-funded, well-managed, and serves as a model for the rest of the country. At 100% funded, the fund provides public pensioners with an average of $23,430 per year from WRS. While ...
IT IS TIME FOR SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE
Under single payer, you get a health care card and you can go to any doctor or hospital in the United States. The doctors are not employees of the government. The hospitals remain in private hands. You get to choose your doctor and hospital.
Right now in the United States, the private health insurance companies ration care. If you don’t have health insurance, you don’t get health care. More than 30 million Americans currently lack health insurance. There are some problems in the Canadian system, but most of what you hear about long lines is health ...
EVENTS FOR DECEMBER
SATURDAY DEC. 2
5th Annual Hunger and Homeless Summit sponsored by Rep. Duffy. Open to the public 9-12:30 at the Expo Center in Cedar Creek.
Register at Duffy.house.gov for a seat.
MONDAY, DEC. 4
History Speaks. Professor Jeff Leigh of UWMC will speak on “Putin and Russia”
7 p.m.
Edgar High School, 203 E. Birch, Edgar
Free and open to the public.
TUESDAY, DEC. 5
Drinking Liberally It is our third anniversary.
5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Malarkey’s Pub 408 Third Street, Wausau
Phone 715-819-3663
THURSDAY, DEC. 7
Women for Women
6:...
THE GOOD OLD DAYS
Back when … well, whenever, things were better. Right? People loved each other more, spent more time with family. Life was simpler.
Exactly when was that?
Was it the 1950s, Back when the U. S. and Russia detonated nuclear weapons above ground, when milk tested positive for radiation? When school kids routinely practiced scuttling under their desks in case of a nuclear attack?
When everyone smoked cigarettes?
When women had to find a back alley abortionist to end an unwanted pregnancy and the only means of birth control were condoms and diaphragms? (Okay, ...
SPEED AND ACCURACY LEAVE THE PUBLIC OUT IN THE COLD
In the past eleven years, I wrote 64 times about the problems of speed and secrecy in the legislative process. However, I never saw a calendar as broad and deep in controversy as the most recent one before the State Senate.
For weeks, we heard that the Senate would vote a hodge-podge of highly controversial bills. “Horrid,” one staffer called the expected Senate Calendar. None of us, including the public, knew what bills would come up for a vote.
The cloak of secrecy raised a bit on Friday when we received the tentative list of bills. But even the day before the ...
Mining Jobs Mirage
Last time I wrote about repealing Wisconsin's mining “prove it” law. I made reference to studies that show mining does not improve local economies. Here I provide the documentation for those assertions.
Mining, like any business activity, can temporarily increase employment and thus help the local economy. But many studies say most mining does not build SUSTAINED PROSPERTY for local communities. Not by itself. This should be apparent if you think about it.
Appalachia, with an economy dominated by coal mines, is famous for generational poverty. Many mining regions ...
THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND
To the man-child who would be king the rebuke and contempt is coming fast, hard and clear when on November 7, 2017 elections loudly stated that the people of the country finally began to answer, "Hell NO, we won't take it any more". No to the Alt Right puppeteers, to those who wish to invalidate our Constitution and Bill of Rights and the words of the Declaration of Independence. For, as his main guide to the Dark Side, Steve Bannon stated, "I want to dismantle our administrative government", because he and those he represents feel our Constitutional democratic ...
WORDS OF GRATITUDE
In this season, it is time to stop and give thanks. I would like to share the Thanksgiving Address as presented by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass (Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants).
Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are ...
Peace for Veterans Day
Veterans Days was originally a day to celebrate peace. The original holiday was Armistice Day which marked the end of the fighting in WWI on November 11, 1918. That day became an international holiday to remember the war and work for peace. In 1926, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution creating Armistice Day to “commemorate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.” But in 1954 it was changed to Veterans Day.
WWI was the ”war to end all wars.” It was one of the most unnecessary wars in human history. The horror of WWI did create a strong ...
WEDC ADMITS THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE LAW
"We have not been able to verify the jobs,” said Secretary Mark Hogan at a recent public hearing of the Joint Committee on Audit.
In this statement, the head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) confirmed what several years of audits repeatedly found: our state awarded hundreds of millions in tax credits and cash payments to companies to create jobs without ever checking to see if jobs were actually created.
WEDC is the state agency overseeing economic development efforts. They hand out tax credits and cash payments to corporations to create ...
