Some Pictures From Milwaukee's March For Our Lives

Political Winners and Losers of 2017

Each December, the staff at Radio Free W.O.W. selects the biggest Political Winners and Losers of the past year. 2017 has been an incredibly busy year in the political arena. We had little difficulty in identifying Losers in this Walker/Ryan/Trump era. Winners were a little harder to come by. Here are our nominees:

Losers- The 8,900,000 American children who count on the Children's Health Program (CHIP) to access medical care and the 700,000 Dreamers who face deportation to countries they don't know. All are still waiting on Congress to do something about their situation.

Winners-The children of Wisconsin after Tony Evers won the State Superintendent race with 70% of the vote. The only areas carried by his wack-a-doo opponent, Lowell Holtz, were (sadly) my own Washington County and adjacent Waukesha County.

Loser- Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. Clarke was a regular fixture at far-right events. Known for a chest full of cereal-box medals, cowboy hat, and deaths at his jail. Clarke gave definition to the term "snowflake" when he had his deputies detain a man who looked at him meanly.

Winners- Lovers of the English language. 2017 politics popularized a number of formerly obscure and interesting terms like emoluments, dotard, collusion, narcissist, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and cofeffe.

Losers-The 58 people killed in October's Las Vegas shooting. The 26 people killed at a church in rural Texas in November. The other 14,683 Americans killed by gun violence in 2017. The 29,893 Americans injured in 2017 by gun violence. Still, Congress only offers thoughts and prayers instead of real solutions.

Winners- Foxconn executives for getting an unsophisticated rube of a governor to give them a cool $3 billion to locate a plant in southeast Wisconsin. This is the largest public subsidy to a foreign company in US history.

Loser- American leadership in world. We alienated our closest allies (Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Australia) while sucking-up to dictators (Russia, China, Turkey, Philippines). We ceded moral leadership by dropping-out of the Paris Accord. We alienated Arab friends with the move of our embassy to Jerusalem.

Winners- All of the comedians who have given us a bit of comic relief in these trying political times. Special kudos to Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Samantha Bee, Alec Baldwin, Anthony "the Mooch" Scaramucci, Melissa McCarthy, Omorosa Manigault, and Randy Rainbow.

Losers- The tiki-torch-carrying, polo-shirt-wearing Nazi wannabes who marched in Virginia in August. Of course, Trump thinks that some of them are good people.

Winners- Billionaires. The ultra-rich usually win, but their wholesale purchase of Congress is paying-off big-time. They are getting a huge tax break, despite what it will do to the middle class and to the national debt.

Losers- All of the politicians who betrayed the public trust by acting in sexually inappropriate ways. US Senator Al Franken, Senate candidate Roy Moore, Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Blake Farenthold, Rep. Trent Franks, and Rep. Joe Barton are the latest examples to come to light. One of the worst violators still occupies the Oval Office.

Winner-Robert Mueller, for assembling a top-notch team of investigators. They are carrying-out a thorough and impeccably honest investigation of interference in US elections by a hostile foreign government. Four solid indictments down and many more to follow.

Losers-The hardworking taxpayers of Wisconsin who were forced to pay $245 million for school vouchers and another $12 million for tuition tax credits to send other people's children to private, mostly religious, schools.

Winners- Democrats in deep red regions. Whether in W.O.W. counties, Indiana, or Texas, dedicated Democrats everywhere are making a difference. We always have an impact on purple-state statewide races. Sometimes, we can even pull-off an upset, as in the Virginia and Oklahoma legislature elections or the Alabama US Senate race!

Loser- Donald Trump, who showed that he has very weak political influence. His heavily-endorsed gubernatorial candidate in Virginia lost. His heavily-endorsed primary candidate for Alabama Senate lost. His heavily-endorsed general election candidate for Alabama Senate lost. Is there a pattern here?

Winners- The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, and the few other media outlets that still conduct investigative reporting. You are needed now, more than ever.

Losers- The 3.5 million people of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands who suffered from September's Hurricane Maria. FEMA's weak response was a national disgrace. The islands did, however, get badly needed paper towels. We also were amazed to discover that they are islands in the middle of the ocean.

Winners- People of the resistance. Millions of American patriots who were awakened by the most granny-starving, hate-filled, rights-restricting agenda the country has ever seen. They raised their voices through the Woman's March, the March for Science, airport rallies, taking a knee during the National Anthem, calling Congressional offices, knocking doors for candidates, and participating in town halls. America is now woke.

Ineffective Gun Controls, But Highly Effective Border Wall ?

Righties are often inconsistent in their opinions. The latest manifestation of that inconsistency is the MAGAtts' insistence that no gun control steps could possibly be effective in slowing the epidemic of gun violence. They tell us that there is nothing that we can do to lessen the odds that innocent men, women, and children will be gunned-down in our streets.

At the same time, many of these same folks insist that Trump's wall will be extraordinarily effective in stopping determined economic refugees from entering our country. They believe that once the dotard's Great Wall is erected, we will finally be safe from those darn illegals, their drugs, and their violence.

In just about any discussion with pro-death gun nuts, we are informed that there is nothing that will end the nearly daily American mass murders. They believe that there is no reason to ban weapon enhancements such as silencers, bump stocks, micro-penis compensators, high capacity clips, gat cranks, flash suppressors, etc. After all, once these devices are made illegal, psycho killers could still easily obtain them (assuming that they have access to a metal machine shop, an industrial-grade 3-D printer, or an outlaw arms merchant).

We are weary of hearing how inventive, resourceful, or handy crazy mass-murderers are. In reality, most of these sickos have neither the patience or engineering ability to boost the lethality of their guns on their own. Experts agree that making it illegal to produce, sell, or own lethality-enhancement devices such as these will go a long way toward cutting America's death count.

We are nauseated by the pro-death crowd telling us that we shouldn't have universal background checks. That there is no reason to ban gun sales to watch-list terrorists, the mentally ill, the senile, or domestic abusers. After all, these people will find someone who will sell them a murder weapon, no questions asked. Pro-deathers believe that nobody will ever report sketchy purchasers to the authorities. They think that no responsible citizens will gladly speak-up to head-off the next Sandy Hook massacre.

We are fed-up with pro-deathers who get into a semantics morass when the topic of banning semi-automatics and assault rifles comes up. (What do you mean by an assault rifle? What really is a semi-automatic?) They get into the circular argument that we shouldn't ban the carrying of weapons of war at the local mall. After all, there are already so many of these human-killing machines on our streets that it won't do any good to outlaw their carry, manufacture, or sale. They really believe that a halt to making new rapid-fire guns and aggressive buy-back programs will do nothing to lessen the chance that one will be discharged in your direction.

Despite all of the contrary evidence from other industrial democracies, pro-deathers keep telling us that common sense weapons laws will do nothing to stop the endless violence in American schools, nightclubs, concerts, and theaters. We are told that we must simply live (or die) with the consequences of America's all-guns, all-the-time, everywhere culture.

At the same time that the MAGAtts are claiming that common sense gun control would not be effective, they are touting Trump's wall as being the solution to all of America's problems. It will end the illegal drug problem. It will stop people from entering the country illegally. It will end thousands of terrorists from swarming our streets. They think that the Wall will be extraordinarily effective.

But Trump's folly, a wall that will cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, will simply not keep people out. Smart people determined to enter the US will easily find ways to fly over the wall, tunnel under it, go around it, or burrow through it. According to the Government's specs, a successful design should resist attempts to bore through for just thirty minutes. Last Wednesday, our own Jim Sensenbrenner stated that "...the Border Patrol says that the wall will slow-down people who are attempting to enter our country illegally by anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes...". So, our mighty Wall will be able to be breached in as little as twenty minutes. After that, people could stream through the created gap.

Many MAGAtts believe that common sense gun regulations-of the kind that have been effective in other industrial democracies-will simply have no effect in curbing gun violence in America. They believe that we should do absolutely nothing to protect our children and families from being gunned-down by madmen. Many of these same people have convinced themselves that a Great Wall, costing tens of billions of dollars, will keep people from entering the United States in search of economic opportunity. 

Many on the right believe that insane potential murderers could easily find ways around strong gun laws, but sane and determined migrants will not find ways through a stationary wall. They are convinced that gun laws are totally ineffective, but Trump's Wall will be extraordinarily effective. They are wrong on both counts.