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Governor Evers' campaign has recently posted a website responding to attacks on Evers' actions as the unrest in Kenosha unfolded. Here's the opening paragraph:

"Republicans are trying to mislead Wisconsinites for their own political gain. Despite their arguments, the facts show the state authorized additional law enforcement support the first night of unrest in Kenosha and that Gov. Evers ordered up the Wisconsin National Guard within eleven hours, continuing to expand the Guard’s presence each day. The truth is, local law enforcement and leaders from both parties praised Gov. Evers’ response."

Read the whole piece debunking the lies the GOP is telling.

A suggestion to you all.

What has the GOP done for this country? You'd have to go all the way back to, believe it or not, RICHARD NIXON!

Be totally honest with yourself.

Can you name any achievement that this party has pushed or enacted? And no, fat-cat tax cuts, stuffing the courts with unqualified corporatist judges, or a brutal border policy that ignores the suffering these people are fleeing do not count as anything that benefits us.

It's time we start calling the GOP the Party of Mediocrity to help wake up voters to what this tribe is doing to our country and this state.

Back in Wisconsin, the Party of Mediocrity failed to do anything to address the COVID crisis. And don't count on them passing anything beneficial -- including funding the police -- because, god forbid, that would mean taxing their wealthy donors.

The Judge Brown-Jackson hearings when it came to the GOP members of the judiciary committee was a Mediocrity Circus. It had everything from Lindsay Graham asking what the Judge's religion is from to Dixie Disaster Marsha Blackburn asking Brown-Jackson asking her to define what a woman was to the GOP's OANN obsession over seven cases around the sentencing of child pornographers.

And don't forget. The Party of Mediocrity got us into this recession and let the pandemic rage, which Joe Biden is struggling against the Party of Mediocracy's obstruction. Yet, yesterday's unemployment numbers show this to be the lowest since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was on the screen.

We have to ask voters: Do you want this country to not only be what it can be but put into power a party so mediocre that they have to engineer their one-party rule to stay in control?

The event may be over, but the work continues. If you want to find your community's volunteer who has agreed to receive notices about shady doings in your town or village.  Just click the link to see the list.

Court plans few map changes”

I was dismayed but not surprised that our Supreme Court voted 4-3 to basically maintain the current legislative district maps. The most specious argument seems to have come from Justice Rebecca Bradley who contended that the justices must make as few changes as a way to “respect the past choices lawmakers have made.” Where was the respect shown to all of the lawmakers ten years ago when the maps where drawn behind closed doors using computer algorithms known only to a few, to maximize Republican’s advantage? Where was the respect shown to the voters of Wisconsin who have repeatedly voiced their desire to eliminate partisan redistricting?

Justice Bradley further contends,”Claims of political unfairness in the maps present political questions not legal ones.” She further states that the questions, “must be resolved through the political process and not by the judiciary.” How can the voters use the political process when the current political process has essentially been stripped of meaning?

Is not the right to vote a legal question? Is not the right to have all votes counted equally a legal question? How can issues so fundamental to our democracy not have the weight of a “legal” question to this Court? The outrageous maps created ten years ago removed any chance of reform through the political process. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has just placed our democracy on very thin ice for another ten years. With global warming, it is unclear just how long this ice will even last.

Mark Gennis

Mequon

WILL DEMOCRACY SURVIVE IN WISCONSIN? We hear from respected legal analyst, Jill Wine-Banks:

• Author of The Watergate Girl 
• Co-host, #SistersInLaw and iGenPolitics Podcasts
• Former Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutor
• General Counsel of US Army in Carter Administration

Democracy is once again in peril, and Wisconsin is a prime example.

We explore the statewide and national implications of the erosion of democracy with Ms. Wine-Banks, Representative Evan Goyke (moderator) and Wisconsin Representatives Deb Andraca and Jonathan Brostoff.

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RSVP Sunday, December 5th, 7-8:30 pm. You will receive a link to join the webinar when you sign up.

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Any donation is welcome. After you rsvp, you will be taken directly to the donation page!  Or, if you prefer, send a check to:

Grassroots North Shore
5600 W Brown Deer Rd, #116
Brown Deer, WI 53223

Please write "fundraiser" on the memo line.

For those of you (1st 15 people) who donate at the level of $200 or more, we have a special thank you gift, a sampler of four beers from The Minocqua Brewing Company.  

  

What we do and why you should support us . . .

Heartland Forward a Bentonville, AK think tank, came out with a report covering entrepreneurship across the country and the results for Wisconsin that were shockingly dismal but not surprising.

When it comes to entrepreneurial development, Wisconsin ranks 45th. Our neighbor Minnesota, on the other hand, comes in 25th.

This report is yet another sign that, with the thankful exception of having a Democratic governor, our state is in the grips of a regressive Republican party.

This ranking reflects a real problem for this state because the job creators in any economy are new companies. These jobs generate income growth that is good for Wisconsin, and that income will bring revenue into our state treasury.

Wisconsin Wish List

Ask any Badger state resident if they want to see our economy grow, and the answer will be yes. But the problem is you won’t be getting any of this because Robin Vos and company have other things on their mind.

Emblematic of the problem is several years ago, I had the chance to talk to the head of Research Park on the west end of Madison. This gentleman was chief of staff to Tommy Thompson, a life-long Republican, and let me throw in a practicing Catholic.

Among the research happening there was the application of embryonic stem cell therapy. He told me that he had invited a number of state legislators to view what goes on in the labs. The reply from Robin Vos, “I will not spend the time because my mind is already made up on this.”

Vos may have had a personal aversion to the research, but my money is on he knows his base is opposed to embryonic stem cell research, and for him, politics always comes first.

His base also includes Wisconsin’s wealthy one percent, who hates to see the state spend money on anything, but they love their tax cuts. But investment is what we need to pull us out of the entrepreneurial basement.

Wisconsin Is More Unified Than We Think

There is a lot of stuff the people of both parties in this state want – clean water, marijuana legalization, Badgercare expansion, increased education funding, increased money for law enforcement; this list goes on, but kids, in this state, Santa is not coming.

We can’t get what we want because not exactly the state’s best and the brightest have their legislative seats locked down because of the way the districts are engineered to keep them in power. So the only constituency they have in their minds is the state’s wealthiest.

Sure, you and your family have voted Republican for generations. Still, unless we fix our legislative map problem, you’ll have to learn to live without clean drinking water, broadband access, or in this case, an entrepreneurial-friendly state which could open up opportunities for all of us.

The state motto, after all, is FORWARD!