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Blue Jean Nation 'Election was tale of 2 rules'

Posted by Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe is the founder and president of Blue Jean Nation and author of Blue
User is currently offline
on Thursday, 24 November 2016
in Wisconsin

trump-clinton-debateElections are about representation, and never, ever insult the voters.


ALTOONA, WI - Never insult voters. That should be the first rule of politics.

Hillary Clinton broke that rule when said out loud that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are “deplorables” and “irredeemable.” She said what she and many of her own supporters surely believe to be true. And she probably lost the election at that very moment. Mitt Romney made the same mistake in 2012 with his “47 percent” remark when he assumed he was speaking privately to supporters who undoubtedly shared his belief that close to half of Americans are deadbeats and slackers. Breaking the first rule did him in as well.

Which brings me to what should be the second rule of politics: Elections are about representation.

Sifting through supposedly scientific exit polling data in hopes of explaining one of the biggest upsets in American political history, a mystified Washington Post reporter concluded that “people weren’t voting on issues. Like, at all.”

They usually don’t. Like, hardly ever.

Oh, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that an occasional election could become a referendum on some burning issue. But that’s not the norm. Elections aren’t generally about issues. They are about representation.

Voters are shopping for someone who represents them, someone who is saying what they are feeling. A few among us might be single-issue voters, but most of us are just looking for someone who reflects our current thinking generally speaking, and hoping those we elect will look out for our best interests. It’s simply not possible to find candidates who agree with you on every single issue. It is possible to find ones who seem to share your values and appear to be thinking what you are thinking.

Politics is about relationships. Academics try to treat it as a science, but like friendships and marriages it’s far more art than science. Issues don’t typically decide elections. Connecting with voters decides elections. Hillary Clinton lost here as well. She ran on her qualifications, her experience, her readiness for the job. The problem for her was that voters weren’t in the mood to buy what she was selling. If large numbers of voters had been more or less satisfied with the direction of the country and more or less satisfied with how our government is functioning, maybe they would have looked for a steady, seasoned hand. Maybe they would have put a premium on what Clinton offered. But tens of millions of voters were thinking America is on the wrong track and their belief in government has been badly shaken. Donald Trump’s talk of draining the swamp better reflected their thinking.

Most of those tens of millions were willing to overlook what they intensely disliked about Trump because overall he had done more to connect with them than Clinton had. They overlooked what they find distasteful about Trump not only because he said what they were thinking. It’s also what he didn’t say. He didn’t tell working class people who supported Obama in the past two elections but Trump in this one that they are irredeemable.

Democrats have been losing most elections for the past several decades, and after each beating they react with a mixture of utter bewilderment and anger directed at tens of millions of voters who are obviously (to Democrats) ignorantly voting against their own interests. Even if they don’t say it, they think it: These voters are deplorable, irredeemable.

Going forward, Democrats would do well to think long and hard about the first two rules of politics.

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Thoughts After the 2016 Election

Posted by Paul Linzmeyer
Paul Linzmeyer
Paul Linzmeyer has not set their biography yet
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on Thursday, 24 November 2016
in Wisconsin

clinton-trumpWe must start a dialogue now with one another to understand how we can aspire for the goodness in our state and how together we can make our state a model of “we the people…with liberty and justice for all”.


GREEN BAY - This election has torn our country apart.  While many of us are repulsed by the rhetoric of the campaign, there is one silver lining from this election and that is the cancer that has been in this nation forever is finally exposed.  The exposure of bigotry, hatred, marginalization and fear is our “soft under belly”, which could bring down this grand experiment, our democracy.  However, there are really very few truly evil and hateful people in this country.

The Trump and Sanders campaign exposed a strong populist desire for change that the Clinton campaign failed to understand.  Perhaps, the Clinton campaign had no way to actually come to grips with this need for change as they are part of the problem.   But the Trump campaign fed off the cancer and helped it spread its unprecedented debasement of us as people and a nation.

Trump’s election campaign slogan of “make America Great again” is so wrong.  If we reference the democratic standard of “we the people…. with liberty and justice for all”, we have never been “great” as we have continuously and still do have social, economic and environmental injustices for many of our people.  And unfortunately, this trifecta of injustice is spreading to a much greater portion of the population.

As “perfect” is the enemy of “better”, so is “great” the enemy of “good”.  Goodness is defined as integrity, honesty, uprightness, probity.   Goodness, morality, and virtue refer to qualities of character or conduct that entitle the possessor to approval and esteem.  This is what we should aspire, not greatness.  Greatness is a concept of a state of superiority affecting a person or object. Greatness can also be referred to individuals who possess a natural ability to be better than all others.  The concept of greatness should be abhorrent to us as it opposes everything of what our democracy stands.  Rather than pursing greatness, we should aspire to what is good for all us, as people and as a nation.  Rather than the tide of goodness raising all of us, greatness signifies winners and losers.

Wisconsin secured the Trump’s election but it was clearly because the turnout of voters was much lower than in 2008 and 2012.  I believe in the people of Wisconsin and in our “Forward” aspiration and our “can do” spirit.  We need/must start a dialogue with one another to understand how we can aspire for the goodness in our state and how together, we can make our state become a model of “we the people…with liberty and justice for all”.  Now that we see clearly the cancer that could kill us, we should work diligently and passionately to overcome it.  As a cancer survivor, I believe fully that we can do this.  I could not have possible survived by my own greatness (which I would never describe myself), but only because of the goodness that was aspired to by family, medical staff, friends and the community.

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School Budget Proposal Brings Needed Relief

Posted by Kathleen Vinehout, State Senator 31st District
Kathleen Vinehout, State Senator 31st District
Kathleen Vinehout of Alma is an educator, business woman, and farmer who is now
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on Tuesday, 22 November 2016
in Wisconsin

school-funds-rallySen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the 2017-19 biennial budget proposal by State Superintendent of Schools Tony Evers. How will the recommendations help public schools, particularly small rural schools?


MADISON - “Over the past four years, we have seen an increased reliance on referenda to keep the lights on,” State Superintendent Tony Evers announced as he released his school budget proposal.

“Around the state, local communities took the lead on funding reform through the ballot box, but the state has to be a good partner and do our share to help small town schools.”

Indeed. This year, Wisconsinites passed a record number of school referenda.

In the recent election, 82% of school referenda passed. Over the last four years, citizens in more than half of Wisconsin’s school districts voted to raise their property taxes to pay for schools.

Why? Because state spending for public schools this year is less than it was eight years ago, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. This does not include public spending for the variety of private school options.

Mr. Evers created a blueprint to fix the funding of local schools. No district in the state will be hurt by his plan.

He proposes repairing the historic budget cuts of the past few years, including cuts to a special aid I added to the school formula in 2007 known as sparsity. The proposal would expand the number of rural districts eligible for sparsity aid.

The plan provides grants to assist in recruiting and retaining rural teachers. Wisconsin is awash with stories of rural schools struggling to find and keep teachers.

Many rural superintendents point to the impact of transportation costs on their budgets, noting the state pays less than a tenth of the cost of bringing students to and from school. This leaves rural students with fewer resources to learn, as more of the school’s budget goes to fuel and buses.

Mr. Evers addresses this problem in two ways: by increasing funds for transporting students over 12 miles away and by helping schools with unusually high busing costs.

Childhood poverty increased dramatically statewide over the past ten years. Teachers share stories of bringing extra food and clothing for students in need. However, the needs go beyond the physical. Children living in poverty can succeed but they need extra support from the school.

Mr. Evers’ budget recommendation provides extra support by adding a new poverty factor to the general aid formula. This change will assist many rural districts hurt by the current funding formula, which equates wealth with property value instead of income. Rural districts in tourist areas suffered for many years. Pepin, for example, last year received only $1,381 per student in general school aid.

As Mr. Evers’ budget reads: “The State Superintendent believes that property value alone is no longer an adequate measure for the ability to pay, as it doesn’t serve areas with high-priced vacation homes and large populations of year-round residents that live in poverty. The State Superintendent believes that local family income should also be a factor in measuring a district’s ‘wealth’ in determining the distribution of state general equalization aid.”

In addition to accounting for income, Mr. Evers proposes raising the general aid minimum to $3,000 for every student.

Creating a minimum aid for all districts will reduce the need for low-aided districts to ask voters to raise their property taxes through referenda. Equally important the new plan adds an inflationary increase in state funds available to schools districts to keep up with rising costs.

Another problem facing a majority of school districts is declining enrollment. The loss of students translates to a loss of state aid. Many small rural schools are losing students faster than the district can cut costs. Mr. Evers makes several changes that ease the impact of declining enrollment.

Mr. Evers offers many other changes in the way Wisconsin pays for schools, including aids to schools with a high number of English Language Learners, like Arcadia whose elementary school enrolls over 70% ELL students. He assists students struggling with mental health challenges, which he estimates effects one in five students.

I am encouraged by Mr. Evers’ thoughtful and comprehensive proposal. His blueprint for Wisconsin schools gives every child, regardless of background or zip code, an opportunity to succeed.

We now need our governor and legislators to share the same goal and pass Mr. Evers’ 2017-19 biennial budget for schools.

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Blue Jean Nation 'America’s one finger salute'

Posted by Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe is the founder and president of Blue Jean Nation and author of Blue
User is currently offline
on Thursday, 17 November 2016
in Wisconsin

screw-systemMedia pundits are over analyzing election results. Republicans showed there is nothing they will not do to get power. Democrats insisted on nominating exactly the wrong person and have written off large swaths of rural Wisconsin. We live in dangerous times.


ALTOONA, WI - What’s perhaps most shocking about the turn our country has taken is that so many were shocked. Media pundits and the professional operatives and party insiders they count on as sources have a habit of over analyzing elections and over complicating politics. What just happened is not that complicated.

Anti-establishment feelings are running sky high, making 2016 a change year and November 8 a change day. Donald Trump was seen as the change candidate. Hillary Clinton was seen as the stay the course, more of the same candidate. Clinton emphasized her experience and qualifications and readiness for the job. Trump talked of draining the swamp. If voters had been in a stay the course state of mind, Clinton is elected. A huge number were in no such mood. Tens of millions felt the urge to extend a middle finger to the powers that be. Trump was the biggest middle finger they could find.

Some things became apparent in this election. Republicans showed there is nothing they will not do to get and hold on to power — from voting suppression and voter internment (also known as “packing” and “cracking” in the parlance of those practiced in the dark art of partisan gerrymandering) to nakedly visible appeals to bigotry and scapegoating of some of the most vulnerable among us. Democrats showed they possess the greatest weakness of all: An inability or unwillingness to recognize their most glaring weaknesses much less do anything about them.

Democrats insisted on nominating exactly the wrong person at exactly the wrong time. They chose a consummate insider at a moment when anti-establishment fervor was reaching a boiling point. Curiously, in talking to both party insiders and mainstream Democratic voters, they all seemed to think they were playing it safe. They couldn’t see they were making about the riskiest choice imaginable.

Democrats either don’t understand or don’t care how hated they are by voters who live in small towns or out in the country. Judging from what I’ve encountered over the last year and a half since Blue Jean Nation formed, the party’s name has become a dirty word in most rural areas. By all appearances, party leaders have written off large swaths of rural Wisconsin and rural America. What they don’t seem to realize is this strategy makes it all but impossible for them to construct governing majorities any time in the foreseeable future.

The disastrous results of the 2016 elections have many Democratic foot soldiers and worker bees calling for heads to roll. A favorite target of their wrath is the party chair. Being party chair has to be one of the worst of all possible jobs because everyone presumes the position has great power when it has nearly none. The real power rests with the political industrial complex made up of professional consultants and vendors of campaign services who make huge sums of money win or lose. They have party leaders under their spell, and with the smoke clearing from this year’s elections there are no signs as of yet that attempts will be made to break that spell.

We live in interesting but dangerous times. Putting power ahead of principle, ruling Republicans have made the classic deal with the devil, swapping essential pieces of the party’s soul for temporary supremacy. And exiled Democrats not only do not appear to have a plan to stage a comeback, they seem reluctant to even acknowledge they have a problem.

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Back to the Woods

Posted by Kathleen Vinehout, State Senator 31st District
Kathleen Vinehout, State Senator 31st District
Kathleen Vinehout of Alma is an educator, business woman, and farmer who is now
User is currently offline
on Tuesday, 15 November 2016
in Wisconsin

deer2Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the upcoming deer hunting season and some of the changes hunters will experience as new regulations go into effect.


ALMA, WI - “See that scrape?” Lisa pointed to a large area of bare dirt. “That’s not made by a tractor tire.”

“And look at the branches above,” she said. “They are all broken. The buck was standing here pawing his hooves and tossing his head.”

We were on the edge of one of our hay fields, just where the field dropped into a ravine. I could see over several pastures and fields to the northwest and through the woods to my neighbor’s pasture in the southeast – a commanding spot.

Lisa and I were tracking a big ten-point buck. I saw him many times - even running after a doe right outside my study window as I wrote last week’s column. He was muscular and alert with wide, heavy antlers – a deer hunter’s dream.

We were following a line of scrapes and rubs, which is deer hunter’s lingo for pawed earth and scraped up tree trunks. Bucks use these methods to mark their territory. Early in the year, bucks rub against the tree trunks to remove the velvet from their antlers. But during the rut – the breeding season – bucks mark their territory by rubbing their antlers against tree trunks - the larger the tree trunk, the bigger the buck.

Deer numbers have increased in most areas of Wisconsin. Two mild winters helped population growth. This summer two does camped out in the tall weeds behind our machine shed. Three fawns spent the summer eating our lawn, tasting our newly planted apple trees and occasionally munching on our pots of inpatients on the front steps. As they munched on these tasty delights, I couldn’t help but think about the testy venison we will be preparing this fall.

Hunting season is upon us and deer hunters need to be aware of changes this year. New laws do not require a back tag. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has a new computer system that allows you to print your license and tags at home. (www.GoWild.wi.gov). There is a new DNR app, which gives you loads of information including the exact hunting times. You can find the app, called the Wisconsin Pocket Ranger, at the app store or at www.dnr.wi.gov and search for “mobile app.”

I have a slow Internet connection and no cell coverage at my farm, so websites and mobile apps aren’t helpful. I was delighted to discover that I could still buy my license and pick up a paper copy of the 2016 Wisconsin Deer Hunting Regulations at my local Kwik Trip.

The ladies were helpful and friendly. The shiny green tags and license have been replaced with ordinary printer paper. Tags must be cut out of the normal sized paper. The ladies suggested I put the tags in zip lock plastic bags and cover the license with clear packing tape.

The tag requires a confirmation number. You receive this number when you register your deer.

Registration is required and must be done by 5:00 pm the day after harvest. Like last year, registration is completed on-line or by phone. You can register online by going to www.gamereg.wi.gov or by calling 844-426-3734. There are some in-person registration sites and you can find these sites at www.dnr.wi.gov and search for “registration sites.”

Unfortunately, chronic wasting disease continues to be a problem across the state. Testing for the disease is available at many of the in-person registration sites. If you do kill a CDW infected deer, DNR will issue a replacement tag to you.

Officials are asking hunters who observe sick deer to contact the local game warden or biologist. You can find a list of contacts on the DNR website by typing “sick deer” in the search field.

As the sun went down, we watched as two heifer-sized deer and an older doe headed for the hay field. I turned to say “good-bye” to my friend, and saw another large doe lurk from the woods to my lawn.

The forecast calls for cold, rain and sleet opening weekend. This means getting out the long underwear in addition to the plastic bag and clear packing tape. But like many Wisconsinites, I will be prepared and ready to go.

I wish everyone a safe and successful hunt!

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