Uppitywis Blogs

by Senator Kathleen Vinehout   Early in his term, Treasurer Matt Adamczyk (pronounced eDOMchek), was asked to sign a paper. The paper captured his signature.   Mr. Adamczyk recently testified at a Senate committee hearing saying, “My signature and the signature of the Secretary of Administration’s appears on state checks.”   But Mr. Adamczyk never sees any of the checks with his signature and never performs any functions overseeing payment of state bills. And he doesn’t want to oversee state funds. Instead, Mr. Adamczyk testified he wants to get rid of the whole constitutional Office of Treasurer

In our email this morning:

On Monday, February 26th, Massachusetts ethics attorney J. Whitfield Larrabee
filed a complaint for misconduct against White House Chief of Staff Reince
Priebus with the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation. 

The complaint states
that it is based on “Priebus’ corrupt attempt to influence investigations
by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) into
criminal activity involving associates of Donald J. Trump (“Trump”) and
Russian government officials.” 

The complaint alleges that Priebus
improperly spoke with FBI Director James Comey and FBI Deputy

by Senator Kathleen Vinehout   “Deputies are trying to figure out what caused a bridge on a rural road west of Arcadia to collapse.” The WEAU-TV story broke the same morning as a recent Legislative Audit Committee hearing on the State Highways Program.   As horrifying as the bridge collapse was, the story highlighted problems locals, others and I warned about for some time. Summer storms and floodwaters weakened older roads and bridges. State funds for local construction and maintenance did not kept pace with costs.   The recent audit, conducted by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB)

 By now we are all thoroughly familiar with the Steven Avery case, the Mischicot man and worker at a family-owned salvage yard who was convicted in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach just two years after his release from prison on a rape charge for which he was wrongfully convicted.

 The case became a national sensation with the airing of “Making a Murderer” on Netflix which made the compelling case that Manitowoc County, where the murder took place, framed Avery and his impressionable 16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, because authorities held a grudge against Avery for his lawsuit against

I was very sad to hear this morning that Ed Garvey passed away. Ed had been in a nursing home for the past two weeks, and died this morning after a long battle with health issues including Parkinson's disease. He had a long career in labor, notably working with the NFL teams through two strikes, and had run for public office both as Senator and as Governor of Wisconsin (though he lost both races). For many years he ran the Fighting Bobfest event in Baraboo and Madison, and the fightingbobfest.org web site. His ill health in the past few years demanded that he retire from those endeavors that

Locals ask is ‘new’ money real? By Senator Kathleen Vinehout   “Overall, our common-sense reforms brought us here – to the point we have a significantly better budget outlook.” Governor Walker said in his recent Budget Address. “We call this the Reform Dividend. And wow, as the fiscal bureau pointed out, that’s a whole lot of money.”   What is the “Reform Dividend” the Governor spoke about in his budget address? Where is it? How much is it? An inquiring mind wanted to know.   Rita Brunkow from Mondovi asked me. “Do you know what this “Reform Dividend” is? Who’s reforming what and where is the dividend

Yes, I know - it's a small, primary election. And it's incredibly important. It's your chance to make sure that our schools are supervised by someone who has shown himself to be a responsible adult who actually cares about our schools.  Your choice is between someone who clearly cares about public education in the state, or one of two people who strongly support charters and private education, the policies of Betsy DeVos, and who have been busy calling each other liars for some time now. Your choice, but I am voting for Tony Evers, and I suggest you do the same.

There are also other primary

By Senator Kathleen Vinehout   “Governors are a bit like salesmen,” I recently told a reporter. “They put good news in the headlines and bury bad news in the small print.”   Governor Walker recently released his two-year state budget. Amid much fanfare, he touted providing much needed money for schools, roads, and the UW. I went digging through budget documents released by the Governor. I knew there was more to the story.   First, I must say Wisconsin has one of the most opaque budgeting processes I have ever seen. For example, there is no clear table comparing actual spending in each fiscal year to

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

New estimate by LFB shows funding parity price tag is over $100M

ALMA, WI - For many years, voucher and charter school advocates sought funding parity while rural schools struggle to stay open. Senator Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma) responded to a new analysis done by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau pegging the parity price tag at over $100M.

 

Senator Kathleen Vinehout commented, “I cannot sit idly by while voucher and charter school advocates ask for more money when my rural public schools can barely afford the basics.”

 

“Taking $100 million away from 867,000 public school

Betsy DeVos was just confirmed to head the Department of Education. As expected, the senate vote was a 50-50 tie, and Vice President Pence voted yes to break the tie. The senate is now moving forward on other confirmation votes.

by Senator Kathleen Vinehout   “Public education in Wisconsin should provide high quality learning for ALL children no matter who they are or where they live,” Eau Claire School Board President Chris Hambuch-Boyle recently told me.   Chris and education leaders across the state read with interest details of the Governor’s plan for our next state budget. Governor Walker gave money to a number of new initiatives and reaped the praise of some education leaders.   The plan picks and chooses among various proposals advanced over the last few years. Some new programs are funded and some existing programs

On this morning's NBC NEWS' Meet The Press with Chuck Todd Paul Ryan defended the position of the president on many issues, with just enough pull-back to make himself sound sane. It is interesting to watch the line that Republicans are treading at the moment as they need to defend the antics of the increasingly erratic president while remaining loyal to their party and still looking like they are the adults in the room. He starts by back-tracking on the Iran sanctions

CHUCK TODD:

Speaker Ryan, welcome back to Meet The Press.

PAUL RYAN:

Thanks for having me.

CHUCK TODD:

Let's start with news of the--

Scott Walker is gearing up to present his new budget, which will be more of the same predictable stuff - tax cuts to the rich, small amounts of money to schools and broadband, which will only slightly make up for previous gutting of these items, and more.

We need to remind ourselves that there are alternatives.  Citizen Action of Wisconsin has an alternative budget for all, which you can read at the link below. It is a big shift in priorities from what we are doing now. I am including a video of Dr. Rober Kraig at Citizen Action, where he explains what went into making this alternative budget.

I used to have a friend who was in a terrible abusive relationship. Several times her boyfriend put her in the hospital, once having broken several bones in her face. Despite the pleas of all of her friends to leave this guy, she stayed. I'm not finding fault with her, lots of women in this situation stay, with a number of different reasons, though I suspect in her case it was a matter of astoundingly low self-esteem.

Why do I bring this up?  The story here is not that someone was abused - but the behavior of the abuser.  He knew exactly what buttons to push to keep this relationship going. He

Progressive Talk Radio returned to Wisconsin yesterday.

Mike Crute, one of the hosts of Devil's Advocates, recently purchased 1510 AM in the Milwaukee area, changing the format from Spanish-Language Sports to all-talk progressive radio. The station has limited coverage in the state (mostly the Milwaukee area) but is available via live stream everywhere.

A great deal of encouragement for this came from the Citizen Action Radio-Active project in Milwaukee, which has been monitoring right-wing talk radio in the Milwaukee area for some time now.

This is a commercial radio station, which means that to

By Senator Kathleen Vinehout   “Let me see how much you spent,” my mother said when I returned from the store. As the oldest of five children, I was often sent to the store to buy groceries. When I returned home, my mother checked the grocery bag, the receipt and counted the change.   I knew I could buy no more than exactly what was on her list. She knew how much everything should cost. I needed to answer for every penny I spent. Everything needed to add up.   This simple accountability seems to be completely missing at our Department of transportation (DOT).   My mother has now gone to live with the

I am starting a new Storify article on the Trump resistance in WIscosnin --- this may be a long one.

[View the story "Trump Resistance in Wisconsin" on Storify]

By Senator Kathleen Vinehout   “GOOD NEWS” read the text with a short article about how our pension funds grew 8.5%. My friend forwarded the article with a cryptic note, “apparently the lies keep working.”   In what seems to me to be an effort to get ahead of a bad story, the agency responsible for investing almost $100 billion in pension funds – the largest single pot of money anywhere in state government - issued a press release touting an 8.5% increase in its core fund.   As radio commentator Paul Harvey used to say, here’s the rest of the story.   Yes, things are better in 2016. However, in 2015

I know a lot of you are looking for something else to do today to avoid watching the coronation of our new president. 

a.  The Esquire Channel, if you happen to be able to get it, is showing a marathon of Parks and Recreation.

b. You can watch coverage of the protests in Washington on Democracy Now! - https://www.democracynow.org/ -- though it looks like their live feed is having a little trouble keeping up with the demand.

c.  Tell your family you love them. Tell your friends you have their back, particularly those who will need to have you stand behind them for the next four years (which means