Don't Let This Man Become State Superintendent !

With everyone's attention on the November elections, it is important to also maintain a longer range focus. Next April, Wisconsin will vote for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. This office is incredibly important in determining the direction and quality of our public schools.

One candidate has already announced. On May 17, current Germantown Superintendent Jeff Holmes stated that he will run for the post. Holmes made news in December 2013 when Germantown's Tea Party-dominated school board dropped adoption of Common Core State Standards. The board remains the only one in the state so foolish as to take this rash, politically-motivated action. "Germantown!" has become a rallying cry for the anti-Common Core crowd. 

What is motivating Holmes to run? His campaign announcement made clear that he wants to do to the entire state what he has done to Germantown. Many of his press quotes (as well as his Tweets) are fixated on abolishing common educational standards. It is clear that this will be his primary issue.

Holmes' campaign manager is Germantown Board member, Brian Medved. Holmes and Medved spoke at a 2014 anti-Common Core meeting in Ohio, sponsored by the John Birch Society, that wacky organization of foil-hat wearing nutters (see picture above, Holmes on left). The meeting was organized by a former school board president from suburban Dayton, Kelly Kohls. While in office, Kohls ignited a parental rebellion when she tried to require district science staff to teach creationism. So Holmes has associated himself with some very fringey groups.

But that is not all. In 2013, Wisconsin dodged a bullet by rejecting Tea Partier Don Pridemore's bid to become State School Superintendent. While in the Wisconsin Assembly, some of Pridemore's extremist bills included a "papers please" law similar to Arizona's. He tried to end stem cell research in the state. He wanted to ban discussion of contraceptives in school health classes. For more on his wacky career, see my blog, "Pridemore?Seriously?"

Despite his election loss, Pridemore has not lost his desire to influence state public education for the worse. He is President/CEO of an organization called Winner, Inc. One of the main purposes of the group is to find a DPI-Superintendent candidate who is kooky enough for ol' Tea Party Don. The Winner, Inc.'s Director of Operations is none other than Brian Medved. Yes, Jeff Holmes' campaign manager is a Director in this group. Looks like Pridemore has found his soul-mate DPI candidate in Jeff Holmes!

OK, it is clear that DPI-chief candidate Jeff Holmes is supported and influenced by far-right extremists. How effective will he be? In the two-and-a- half years since Germantown abandoned statewide standards, very little has been done toward developing replacement local ones. Holmes keeps talking about developing a vaunted "Germantown Way", but his sole visible accomplishment has been a Mission Statement full of buzzwords, edu-speak, and gobbledygook. Board member Medved suggests that developing local standards could be a "five to seven year project" ! 

However, buried in the 2015 Wisconsin state budget is a new legal requirement that school boards declare what academic standards will be used by their district for the coming school year. Since Germantown is years away (if ever) from developing their long-promised local standards, they had to do something to comply with the law.

At their August 10, 2015 meeting, the Germantown Board voted to adopt the old Wisconsin State English Language Arts and Mathematics standards. These standards, rolled-out statewide in 1998, are quite vague and very incomplete. For example, the Math portion only lists standards for 4th, 8th, and 12th grades. All other Wisconsin school districts have since moved-on from these mediocre standards to the far superior Common Core Standards.

A review of the 1998 Wisconsin standards embraced by Germantown was conducted by the well-respected Fordham Foundation. In comparison to other state academic standards, the Wisconsin standards received abysmal scores (see this link). The bottom line was quite damning: "With their grade of D, Wisconsin’s ELA standards are among the worst in the country..." and "With their grade of F, Wisconsin’s mathematics standards are among the worst in the country." By the same criteria, Common Core ELA was rated "B+" and Common Core Math was rated "A-". 

So two and a half years after halting Germantown Common Core implementation, district children are stuck with some of the worst academic standards in the US. With no relief in sight for years. With a record of accomplishment like that, Holmes cannot be allowed to do to the rest of Wisconsin schools what he has already done to Germantown. He cannot be elected as State Superintendent. Our public schools depend on it.

Nine Reasons Ron Johnson Will Be a One-Term Senator

Ron Johnson is one of the biggest Democratic targets in 2016. Johnson was elected during the off-year GOP tsunami of 2010. Having never occupied public office, he had no record to run on for that campaign and seldom spoke in detail on the issues. However, the 2016 campaign will be very different. Wisconsin has had a chance to see just how extreme our Senator is, and we don't like it. Ron Johnson will not be re-elected to a second term. Here are our top nine reasons why:

1. 2016 is a presidential election year. In presidential elections, Wisconsin voter turn-out is high (2012-70.1%; 2008- 69.2%). In off-year elections, turn-out is much lower (2010- 49.7%; 2014- 54.8%). A huge majority of the increased presidential year voters cast their ballots for Democrats. For example, Republican Johnson was elected in an off-year (2010) while Democrat Tammy Baldwin was elected in a presidential year (2012). High voter turn-out this year does not bode well for Johnson.

2. Johnson's awful environmental record. Ron Johnson's voting record on environmental issues is so horrendous that he earned an abysmal Lifetime Score of 4% from the League of Conservation Voters. His rejection of Climate Science has earned him the derisive nickname "Senator Sunspot".

3. Johnson's letter to the Ayatollah. Johnson was one of the Senators who wrote a traitorous letter to the leaders of Iran, telling them to pay no attention to the US President during negotiations to end Iran's nuclear program. That foolish act alone should disqualify him from further public office.

4. Johnson's refusal to do his job. Ron Johnson plays a major role in the deep partisanship and dysfunction of Congress. During the long government shut-down of 2013, Johnson actually voted against the final compromise to reopen the government. This year, he is stubbornly refusing to perform his Senatorial responsibility in filling the current Supreme Court vacancy. 

5. Johnson would undo the Affordable Care Act. Ron Johnson calls the law that allows you to buy health insurance despite a pre-existing condition the "greatest assault on our freedom in our lifetime". He would abolish tax credits for the 239,000 Wisconsinites who have bought insurance through the exchanges. He would return to a time when ever-increasing numbers of Americans did without life-saving health care. Last December, he cast a Senate vote to abolish the lifesaving law. 

6. Johnson's embrace of Donald Trump. RoJo's enthusiastic support for John Miller John Baron Don the Con is a millstone around his neck. According to one local right-wing radio personality, "If you embrace Donald Trump, you embrace it all".

7. Johnson's hatred of Social Security. Johnson cannot be trusted to preserve your Social Security. During the 2010 campaign, he referred to your retirement plan is a "Ponzi scheme". In a 2013 speech, he called it "candy the left is giving away." He praised Paul Ryan's 2010 scheme to privatize Social Security. For his opposition to retirement security, he has earned a 0% lifetime rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans. 

8. Johnson's Koch connection. Johnson pays much more attention to the needs of his corporate masters than to those of his constituents. Rated 90% by the Koch brother's group Americans for Prosperity, Johnson has been described as the Koch's "Model legislator". He has already been propped-up through huge TV ad buys by Koch-funded Super PAC's. 

9. Johnson's awful record on veterans. Johnson has repeatedly voted against the interests of our veterans. In the only recent Senate ratings by veterans' groups, Johnson received 0% scores from Disabled American Veterans (2014) and Vietnam Veterans of America (2011). His role in the Tomah scandal is inexcusable. A 2015 release by Votevets is titled, "Ron Johnson has failed veterans."

These are just a few reasons that Ron Johnson will be a one-term Senator. There are many others, including his sheer stupidity, the rarity of his meeting with Wisconsin citizens, his ties to the increasingly unpopular Tea Party, and unresolved questions over the self-funding of his last campaign. You probably have your own favorites.

In November, Wisconsin will elect a new, more competent Senator. We will elect a Senator who pays attention to the wishes of his constituents. We will elect a Senator that we can again be proud of. We will elect Russ Feingold.

What is a Hero ?

 

Our society greatly overuses the term "hero". We have a video game series, Guitar Hero. We often speak of sports heroes. Some slack-jawed Cro-Magnons even have "Scott Walker is my Hero" bumper stickers on the back of their pick-up trucks. But what is a real hero? What constitutes a true heroic deed?

I like to watch sports and listen to rock music as much as the next guy. However, I would hardly consider top-performing musicians or basketball players as heroes. Legends ? Sure. Greats ? Definitely. Role models? Sometimes. However, simply being one of the top-performing practitioners in your field hardly qualifies you as a hero. Certainly, one would not consider even the world's most accomplished accountant, scientist, bond trader, or baker to be a hero.

I think that to be a legitimate hero, there must be some degree of personal risk in your actions. You need to knowingly risk arrest, injury, or even death to be heroic. However, even personal risk alone is not sufficient. Practitioners of extreme sports like rock climbing are constantly assuming risk, but they are hardly heroes. Daredevil Evel Knievel often risked his life, and fractured 433 bones in the process, but he would not be considered a hero.

In addition to risking personal harm, truly heroic deeds have a higher purpose. Some people are heroes by their act of saving others. Some are heroes for their role in furthering human achievement. Still others are heroes for advancing human rights and freedom.

Certainly, soldiers on the front-line of a military conflict are heroes. Someone facing enemy fire in defense of their country is a hero in anyone's book. And police officers and firefighters are heroes. These public safety workers often put themselves at risk in the cause of keeping the rest of us safe.

Our astronauts are definitely heroes. Anyone who rides atop an explosive mixture into a vacuum is definitely risking their life. Fourteen astronauts lost their lives in Shuttle accidents. Their high risk is in the name of one of the noblest of causes, the expansion of humanity into the cosmos.

The Founding Fathers of many countries are rightfully considered heroes. Those signing our own Declaration of Independence risked their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" in a heroic act of rebellion. Gandhi is a hero in the struggle for Indian independence, often risking jail and injury. Simon Bolivar was a military hero in the struggle for independence of Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia from Spain.

Although the history revisionists of the right would hardly agree, history's human rights champions are heroes. Many heroes were created in the US civil rights struggle. Workers registering voters in Mississippi during Freedom Summer were heroes. James Meridith (who integrated the U. of Mississippi) and Vivian Malone and James Hood (who integrated the U. of Alabama) were heroes. Those who led and participated in the Montgomery bus boycott were heroes. Those involved in the Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro were heroes.

Thousands of real heroes come from the ranks of the labor-rights movement. History is replete with beatings, shootings, and imprisonment of early union organizers. In addition to such luminaries as Joe Hill, Samuel Gompers, Mother Jones, and Caesar Chavez many heroes in the rank-and-file risked everything in order to attain safer and better conditions for workers.

Sometimes, people don't go out of their way to be heroes. They are by thrust into that role by fate. The passengers of crashed UA Flight 93 are heroes. The Sandy Hook teachers who tried to protect their students from a heavily-armed madman are heroes.

But politicians being heroes? Not so much. Sure, there are plenty of politicians who were heroes in other aspects of their lives. Bob Dole (WWII), John Kerry and John McCain (Vietnam), and Tammy Duckworth (Iraq) come to mind. And NJ Senator Corey Booker was a hero when he rushed into a burning building to save a neighbor. Rep. John Lewis (GA) is a true American hero. As a civil rights activist, he faced beatings many times for his efforts to end segregation and discrimination.

However, I don't think any current US politicians would be considered heroes for what they have done as an expected part of their job. Not even such impassioned pols like Elizabeth Warren, who fight for economic justice. Not inspiring pols like Bernie Sanders, a champion for the middle-class and veterans. And the self-serving Scott Walker is by no stretch a hero.

A recent group of true heroes are the healthcare workers who traveled to west Africa to battle the Ebola outbreak. Despite the extreme risk to their lives, these brave people provided care to thousands of suffering sick. They battled an awful epidemic. They deserve our utmost respect and support for this important work.

There are plenty of real American heroes doing heroic things every day. They should be honored for what they do to make America a better country. We don't need to make heroes out of people playing music or playing a game or running for office. 

(Originally published by Paul Adair in Germantown NOW, Just Sayin' blog September 29, 2014) 

Another Experience With Hate Radio

At least five right-wing gasbags spew their venom over the metro Milwaukee radio airwaves. With so many hours of dead air to fill, it is no wonder that many Milwaukee-area progressives have been singled-out on these shows. Last week, I wrote about one of my own experiences in being personally attacked on right-wing radio. Today, I would like to talk about a second.

For four years, I wrote a political blog in the Germantown NOW on-line newspaper. During the legislature's 2015 "emergency" rush to jam-through Right-to-Freeload, I published a series of informational blogs on the topic. In one of those articles, titled "Better Rethink This", I compared the then-24 states with Right-to-Freeload (RTF) laws to the 26 states where workers pay their fair share for their union contract negotiations.

Using highly reliable data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau, I compared the two groups of states with respect to poverty rates, average pay, insurance coverage, and workplace safety. By any of these quality-of-life measures, workers in non-RTF states were found to be much better off than those subjected to union-busting RTF regulations. 

Limbaugh wannabe and self-proclaimed World's Expert, Jay Weber, took exception to my fact-based arguments. He devoted an hour of air time to mischaracterizing my article. I welcome an adult and rational discussion on state policies as important as RTF. However, all we got from Weber were personal attacks, name-calling, and aspersion. Weber called those who disagree with his virulently anti-union opinions "ignorant" and "low-information". He then launched into an emotional tirade attacking me.

Actual numbers and statistics fail Weber, so he resorted to calling me a liar in as many ways as his Thesaurus would permit. At various points in his rant, he called these comparisons: "invented facts", "fake facts" (his favorite), "fake arguments", "false arguments", "a huge lie", "false statistics", "bunch of crap", "nonsense", "misleading", "misdirection", "invented narratives", "terribly dishonest", "bogus", an "intentional lie", and a "charade of an argument". Weber's attempt to dismiss the facts reminded me of a third grader's "Huh-uh !" playground argument. 

Weber's unnerved bluster was an attempt to cover his own lack of evidence for his position. While my article clearly linked to the data sources, he gave no such sources for his anti-worker opinions. During most of his rant, Weber was just content to hold-forth on the "proven success" of RTF and "the mountain of evidence" that it works. I guess that we must take his word for it, because after all, he is The Expert on such matters. 

Weber revels in being anti-intellectual and that theme saturates his ramblings. He said that I had a "condescending" tone (meaning I use big words). He said that I believe that readers are "cows and I came here to enlighten you". (I assume that my readers are intelligent and write to that intelligence). In a sneering voice, he prefaced part of my article, saying "Mr. Scientist is going to walk us through this because we are idiots."(I make no apologies for my scientific training and career).

And if ad absurdum repetition of his "Huh-uh !" argument was not enough to sway his listeners, Weber called me names that I haven't heard since elementary school. In addition to repeatedly calling me a liar for reporting factual data, Weber brought the discussion to an even more juvenile level by calling me a "clown" and a "clown-weasel" (whatever that is).

In an especially emotional outburst which destroyed any pretense of objectivity, Weber called me "an "indoctrinated "lib" who either realizes what he is doing or he is a complete pawn and patsy of the activist left who has completely swallowed their deceptive tripe."

Unlike most people who are victims of Weber's on-air tantrums, I had the ability to respond. I wrote a follow-up called, "Mr. Weber Loses the Argument". Rather than respond to this article with an adult discussion of any facts, Weber grew even more shrill and apoplectic. He grossly mischaracterized my writing. He questioned the number of readers of my blog. He was worked into such a snit that he refused to even mention my name. How dare I question the great and all-knowing Jay Weber?

If we plan to impose such radical policy changes on Wisconsin as Right-to-Freeload, we must have adult conversations on the merits. We must spend the time for rational public debate. On-air rants like Weber's childish outbursts add nothing constructive to the discussion.

I don't tell these tales of my own experiences with hate-radio because they are that important on their own. I tell them because my stories are all too common in the Milwaukee metro area. Too often, progressive thoughts and ideas are shouted down by the radio squawkers of the right. Too often, these school-yard bullies are not called-out for their anti-worker, anti-woman, anti-education, and often racist views. That must change.

One Interaction With Hate Radio

At least five Limbaugh wannabes spew their venom over the metro Milwaukee radio airwaves. With so many hours of dead air to fill, it is no wonder that many of my progressive friends have been singled-out on these shows. Being a typical activist, I am proud to have been attacked on-air several times by the far-right hate-radio crowd. Today, I would like to talk about one of those times.

In 2011, a member of the Germantown School Board resigned for personal reasons. A call went out for a temporary replacement for this board member, to be appointed by the the rest of the Board. With a 27-year private-sector chemistry career and having taught for several years at the college level, I believed that I have much to offer in such a post. I sent-in my resume and four other people did the same.

A decision was scheduled to be made at the October 10, 2011 Board meeting. In the meantime, the W.O.W. right-wing machine went into high gear. MacIver so-called "Institute" did internet searches on the five candidates. They discovered that-(horror of horrors !)- two of us had signed petitions to recall Alberta Darling. One of the other candidates actually had the gall to work for a nearby school system, so she was probably in a union ! But one woman was a frequent Board meeting visitor who often encouraged the Board to use the "tools" that Governor Walker had imposed on state public schools.

Before the Board decision, Mark Belling took to the airwaves. In his nasally whine, he whipped his listeners into a frenzy about how the unionistas were taking over Germantown schools. He went after me, the other petition signer, and the school employee. He even criticized my wife for being in a TV campaign ad against Darling. He strongly pushed the Walker-loving "Tool" woman for the job. On Belling's encouragement, the rabid right inundated the Board with calls and e-mails.

The evening of the big decision came. Belling's zombies packed the meeting room. Six stood-up and repeated Belling's bleatings about how terrible it was that petition signers would dare to volunteer to serve on the Board. (Actually, they sold me short. I was a petition circulator, responsible for hundreds of signatures) Like Belling, they attacked the school system employee for actually working for a school system (and possibly being a union sympathizer !). To a person, they endorsed the "Tool" woman candidate. Qualifications were not important for the job. Only extreme-right political purity.

One of of the most obsequious of the Belling water-carriers was State Rep. Dan Knodl. Attending in his capacity as an elected official, he criticized me and and other candidates, as well as advocating for "Tool" woman. For those not in his district, Knodl, member of Ozaukee Patriots, was instrumental in jamming through Right-To-Freeload and weakening Wisconsin Prevailing Wage laws.

The Board's vote deadlocked three times until a winner was decided. "Tool" woman was in the final two but ultimately, the school employee won. She had previously been on the Board, and could step right into the job. However, Belling's mob felt cheated. Their candidate did not win. One of the angry Belling-bots shouted, "You are ignoring the will of the people!" and "We are watching you!"

Several years later, both "Tool" woman and the "We are watching you!" guy were elected to the Board, where they remain to this day. And these are two of saner members of the Germantown Board! This is the Board that abandoned Common Core State Standards and, in their place, adopted what have been deemed "among the worst academic standards in the country". 

Because I never listen to hate-radio, I don't know how many other times Belling has felt compelled to influence the Germantown School system. His braying was especially loud in calling for the crucifixion of a district teacher who dared to tear-up a 2-dollar Walker campaign sign at a county fair. Belling certainly has influence and willing informants on our Board. According to him, an unnamed Board member called him to relay confidential information on the sensitive personnel matter involving the teacher.