For many years, Steve Nass, as a state representative (now a state senator) was a notable farthest-to-the-right Wisconsin politician. The bête noire of liberals and universities, he was the state’s unmatched troll, criticizing the center-left time and again. Nass was a right-wing populist long before Trump. He was the great troll-king of Wisconsin, firing florid press releases…
WISGOP
Bad Ideas, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Marketing, Mendacity, Public Relations, Scott Walker, Special Interests, State Capitalism, State Government, WEDC, WISGOP, YMBFKM
Foxconn’s Venture Capital Fund
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Bruce Murphy has a solid assessment of Foxconn’s much-touted (by Foxconn) venture capital fund in About That Foxconn Venture Capital Fund. It’s well worth reading in full. A few key points: Unfulfilled: Louis Woo of Foxconn had promised this venture fund for startup companies would naturally connect to Foxconn’s innovation centers in Eau Claire, Green Bay…
America, Ethics, Legislation, Liberty, Music, Politics, Wisconsin, WISGOP
The Party Demands Unity
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads that WISGOP Bill Would Make It Illegal For Sports Venues to Skip National Anthem: It would be illegal for some sports venues to skip the national anthem before games under a new bill proposed by a Republican legislator. Stevens Point Republican Sen. Patrick Testin’s Star Spangled Banner Act, proposed Wednesday, would require the anthem…
Elections, Law, Legislation, Republicans, Voting Rights, Wisconsin, WISGOP
WISGOP Moves to Restrict Voting
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Across America, Republicans are doing all they can to restrict voting access after Trump’s decisive loss in the presidential election. (Ceaseless lies won’t make up a 7-million-vote margin.) The WISGOP is no exception to this trend. Molly Beck and Patrick Marley report Republican lawmakers seek to overhaul voting in Wisconsin, including new rules for absentee…
Bad Ideas, Gerrymandering, Legislation, Legislature, WISGOP
WISGOP Legislation Would Gerrymander Wisconsin’s Electoral Votes
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A WISGOP legislator, Rep. Gary Tauchen, has drafted a bill to award Wisconsin’s electoral votes by congressional district, thereby maximizing the importance of gerrymandering. Melanie Conklin writes that GOP has bill to reallocate Wisconsin’s electoral votes by congressional district: And that is what a new bill authored by Rep. Gary Tauchen (R-Bonduel) would do. It…
Gerrymandering, Politics, Sen. Ron Johnson, Trumpism, Wisconsin, WISGOP
Probable Wisconsin Political Issues for 2021
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Although one can confidently doubt that ‘everything changes’ after the pandemic, there are in any year prominent political issues. Some are national, some statewide, some local. One can guess correctly that the new year will entertain at least three notable statewide issues, each summarized below. These are statewide issues that will reach deep into every…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Speaker Vos, State Capitalism, Taxes/Taxation, Technology, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin, WISGOP
Highlight’s from The Verge’s Foxconn Assessment
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
No failure better reveals the bankruptcy of corporate welfare in the Walker and Trump years than the Foxconn project in Wisconsin: exaggeration upon exaggeration, but nothing productive. This was a failure of judgment so obvious and significant that everyone involved should retire from policymaking. Walker Administration, Trump Administration, the WISGOP, the WEDC, down to Whitewater’s Community…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Speaker Vos, State Capitalism, State Government, Technology, WEDC, WISGOP
Accountability Comes Calling at Foxconn
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
After years of grandiose – ludicrous, truly – claims about Foxconn from Trump to Vos to boosters in Whitewater, Accountability has made her way to Foxconn. If not Accountability personified, then at least Missy Hughes (the new, Evers-appointed leader) of a slightly-reformed WEDC. Josh Dzieza of the national publication The Verge reports Wisconsin denies Foxconn tax…
America, Bigotry, History, Mendacity, Politics, Race, Wisconsin, WISGOP
WISGOP Treasurer Brian Westrate ‘Well Understands’ Nothing
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A horde of ignorant, but racially motivated, men infest the Wisconsin GOP. Brian Westrate is a good example of playing to this bad condition: in an attempt to discourage racist Republicans from displaying Confederate banners at a protest, he erroneously (and outrageously) contended that he did “well understand that the Confederacy was more about states…
Coronavirus, Elections, Irony, Public Health, Speaker Vos, WISGOP
Speaker Vos – wearing personal protective equipment – insists it’s ‘incredibly safe to go out’
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Congress, Coronavirus, Legislation, Public Health, Sen. Ron Johnson, WISGOP
The WISGOP Follows a Fool, and Fails Wisconsin
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
No state delegation in America has been less receptive to a federal coronavirus relief package than the WISGOP delegation to Washington. Allison Stevens reports Congress clears 2nd major coronavirus package; 3rd in the works: A second major coronavirus package cleared the U.S. Senate Wednesday and is now headed to President Donald Trump for his signature.…
Bad Ideas, Politics, Wisconsin, WISGOP
In Wisconsin, Gerrymandering Has Brought Out the Crackpots
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads – and it’s true – that in Wisconsin gerrymandering has disproportionately favored WISGOP candidates. It’s done more, it seems: gerrymandering has produced a decade’s worth of crackpot Republicans: Walker’s crony economics, Ryan’s trickle-down tax bill, Priebus’s sycophancy to Trump, Fitzgerald’s literal serenades for Trump, etc. Occasionally, these men spoke in libertarian language, but…
City, Congress, Fifth Congressional District, Never Trump, Politics, Scott Fitzgerald, WISGOP
Her Constituents Can Be Proud
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Here in Whitewater, part of the gerrymandered Fifth Congressional District, we have for a congressman a septuagenarian multi-millionaire (Sensenbrenner) who votes with Trump, and his most-likely successor is a state senator (Fitzgerald) who sings a Trump train song. Men who tried all day to be embarrassments wouldn’t be able to match Sensenbrenner’s and Fitzgerald’s natural tendencies…
Congress, Fifth Congressional District, Scott Fitzgerald, WISGOP
Coming Soon to the Gerrymandered Fifth Congressional District…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Think the WISGOP couldn’t find someone worse for the Fifth Congressional District than F. James Sensenbrenner has been? Think again. Molly Beck reports Longtime state Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald announces bid for Congress: Scott Fitzgerald, a fixture of the Wisconsin state Senate for the last 25 years, announced Tuesday he would seek a higher office…