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“Democracy Trumped?” Battleground Wisconsin Podcast PDF Print E-mail
Commentary - Commentary
Written by Citizen Action of Wisconsin, Matt Brusky   
Friday, 02 October 2020 11:29

democracy-trumped-bgwWISCONSIN - We debrief the presidential “debate” this week, discuss the potential of a Trump strategy to use the state legislature to overturn electors and appoint new electors that support Trump, and sound the alarm on the deepening COVID-19 crisis throughout Wisconsin. We are joined by Kristin Lyerly and Kathy Hinkfuss who are running for State Assembly in the Green Bay area. Both are healthcare professionals who are running outstanding campaigns to win in gerrymandered districts.

Listen Now - Episode #461
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Democratic Radio “Encouraging Wisconsinites to Stay Home and Stay Safe” PDF Print E-mail
Commentary - Commentary
Written by GOV Press Wisconsin   
Friday, 02 October 2020 09:49

tony-eversThe COVID-19 pandemic is surging in Wisconsin. Take precautions to put the brakes on the pandemic and keep your family, friends, employees and co-workers, and neighbors safe.

Last Updated on Monday, 05 October 2020 10:16
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Seniors are America's Great Untapped Resource PDF Print E-mail
Commentary - Commentary
Written by Palzewicz for Wisconsin, Chelsea Cross   
Friday, 02 October 2020 09:30

seniors-happyPalzewicz believes in examining budget priorities to determine cost-effective programs for healthcare, infrastructure, and national defense.


Brookfield, WI – America too often overlooks its senior citizens. Call it age discrimination,  disrespect, or just a lack of appreciation, but seniors are a great untapped resource.  Democrat Tom Palzewicz, running for Wisconsin's Fifth Congressional District seat, envisions a new, post-COVID economy that embraces seniors' knowledge and experience and embraces what they bring to the table.

Seniors are often overlooked as if they no longer know anything because they are retired or have reached a certain age.   On the other hand, Palzewicz recognized true expertise when he and his brother set up their business.

tom-palzewicz"We brought my mom in to be our executive assistant when my brother and I were first starting our business," Palzewicz recalled with a smile. "She had just retired as a 25 year executive assistant at Charter manufacturing. She's wonderful. She just came in and did whatever we needed to do."

"Once again, because we've tied jobs to healthcare, it doesn't allow us to tap into this pool. This is a massive brain drain in our country because when people retire, they take all that knowledge with them, and you have two choices. You can become a consultant. If you've made enough money and have access to healthcare, or you just have to go scrape by, and you don't get to use that knowledge."

"If we decouple those two things, if we decouple the healthcare market from the labor market, we create tremendous opportunities for seniors to give back. A lot of them just ended up working in nonprofits or volunteering their time in ways that they care about.  If you're a company that provides benefits, it's very difficult to hire people who are already retired or in their advanced age, because there's just too much liability that you have to assume.  If we change healthcare, there's this huge amount of experience that could be passed along in a work environment that we're missing out on."

Palzewicz believes in examining budget priorities to determine cost-effective programs for healthcare, infrastructure, and national defense.

"Here's a case in point. Europe invests more of its money into people and infrastructure. Their quality of life is so much better than ours because they have their priorities set from a budgetary standpoint.  We continue the two things that Republicans have always run on: higher defense spending and lower taxes. Those two priorities are actually incompatible if you do the math.  Look at Fitzgerald's stuff. It says exactly the same thing. He's running on more defense spending and lower taxes.  This is like a parallel line that slowly will meet at some point and cross over.  People either don't understand it or don't care."

"Republicans bring out this magic wand and say, 'I'm going to lower your taxes and the government's going to get more money.' And it never happened not once.  People still believe it though. If you said, 'if we had to cut everything, what's the one department you would keep?' they would say, 'defense spending and give me my taxes back.'"

Palzewicz favors a common-sense approach that allows for every age group to participate in the economy.  Retirees, seniors can be an effective, productive element in the American economy, given small adjustments to include them.

###

Tom Palzewicz is the Democrat running for Congress in Wisconsin's 5th Congressional District. He is a small-business owner and Navy Veteran running against Scott Fitzgerald in this traditionally red district.

 
WI Democracy Campaign - Mourning RBG PDF Print E-mail
Commentary - Commentary
Written by Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Matt Rothschild   
Saturday, 26 September 2020 12:49

ruth-bader-ginsbergCareer dedicated to equality and justice, two things right at the heart of our work here.


MADISON - Here at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, we remain in mourning at the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Among the many causes she championed in her career dedicated to equality and justice, two are right at the heart of our work here.

The first is reducing the influence of money in our politics. She told The New Republic back in 2014 that the worst decision of the Roberts Court was Citizens United. “The notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be," she said.

And the second cause is ending gerrymandering.

In 2015, Justice Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in a case called Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The case revolved around the constitutionality of Proposition 106, the statewide binding referendum that passed in Arizona in 2000 and that took the redistricting authority away from the legislators and handed it over to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Committee.

Ginsburg ruled that the initiative process was totally in keeping with our founding principles. “The Framers may not have imagined the modern initiative process in which the people of a State exercise legislative power coextensive with the authority of an institutional legislature,” she wrote. “But the invention of the initiative was in full harmony with the Constitution’s conception of the people as the font of governmental power.” That conception is crucial in the context of gerrymandering, Ginsburg argued, stressing the importance of “lawmaking by the people, particularly where such lawmaking is intended to check legislators’ ability to choose the district lines they run in.”

In a sentence that rings so true for those of us in Wisconsin, she noted: “The legislature’s responsiveness to the people its members represent is hardly heightened when the representative body can be confident that what it does will not be overturned or modified by the voters themselves.”

matt-rothschildJustice Ginsburg knew well why our Legislature here in Madison is not responsive to the people. It’s because of gerrymandering.

May her memory be a blessing.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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Trump, Pence Blasted for Failed Response to COVID-19 PDF Print E-mail
Commentary - Commentary
Written by WisDems Press, Philip Shulman   
Friday, 25 September 2020 10:15

trump-mike-pence-nbcnewsSen. Baldwin, ER Doctor, Wisconsinite with pre-existing conditions say failed response to the coronavirus pandemic has led to countless Wisconsin jobs lost and small businesses shuddered. Continued attacks on Obamacare, Medicare, threaten over 100,000 Wisconsinites who have tested positive for COVID-19.


WISCONSIN - In response to Mike Pence’s visit to the state, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ER Doctor and candidate for Wisconsin's 67th State Assembly District Chris Kapsner, and Bob Andruszkiewicz, who has pre-existing conditions, called out the Donald Trump and Mike Pence for their failed response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to countless Wisconsin jobs lost and small businesses shuddered. They also discussed the Trump administration’s continued attacks on protections for pre-existing conditions, while still having no real plan to confront the pandemic. For the over 100,000 Wisconsinites who have tested positive for COVID-19, and the economic fallout that it has caused, Trump and Pence’s gross mismanagement has made this crisis far worse than it needed to be.

Watch the full event here or read excerpts of what the speakers said below.

tammy-baldwinUS Senator Tammy Baldwin: “What has been a continuous concern for Wisconsinites is their ability to get quality and affordable health care, as well as their ability to pay for their prescription drugs… Testing positive for COVID-19 is a pre-existing condition. As is asthma, diabetes, cancer, and pregnancy. If Donald Trump and Mike Pence get their way, these people, and the tens of millions of others across the country with pre-existing conditions, could lose their care. They could go bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills, their rent, and putting food on their family's table… Still today, we see these attacks continue,, in the midst of a pandemic that was turned into a full blown crisis by Trump and his inability to prepare for or respond to the virus. Joe Biden was on the frontlines of passing the ACA, and I know with him as our next president he will build on the progress we’ve made -- that’s something Wisconsinites can count on."

Chris Kapsner: “Without this leadership here we are floundering. We’ve been at this for 9 months both on a state level and a federal level. At this moment we’re still struggling with aggressive testing… The other big issue is PPE… Sadly it’s because of a lack of leadership on a federal level… We’re watching the Republican party tear apart the Affordable Care Act. For ten years now they've been talking about repealing and replacing-- all they want to do is take it down, they have nothing to replace it with… all these thing are going to disappear with the aggressive assault that the Republican party is undertaking both on a federal level and in the state of Wisconsin on our health care system...How can the most powerful country in the world not be able to handle this. You cannot overstate how this is an abject failure of leadership on a spectacular scale… We need to fire everyone who has ignored the real problems and the suffering of the people of this state and this country.”

Bob Andruszkiewicz: “As one of the many millions of Americans, but also one of the 2.4 million Wisconsinites living with pre-existing conditions, I know what this feels like going through COVID… To have a strong America, you need strong and healthy Americans, and that’s why we need to keep the ACA… Living with these medical conditions is hard enough to do everything that I need to do and not have to worry about health care coverage… For the last four years, Trump has relentlessly tried to repeal protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and he and the Republicans continue to do so, even in the middle of a pandemic… We need to make sure that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win this election and save the Affordable Care Act and save Americans.”

 
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