Last weekend, a politically motivated gunman shot two Minnesota state representatives and their spouses at their doorsteps —killing two. This tragedy is just one example of how dangerously overheated our nation’s political climate has become.

In the meantime, Congressmember Tony Wied (R–WI-8) has introduced a bill that would halt federal funding to cities and states with high crime rates. No doubt the intent of his bill is to punish “Democrat” jurisdictions, it’s actually red states that lead the nation in violent crime. But cutting off funding to any jurisdiction makes his proposal counterintuitive at best.

The name of the bill—Stop Anarchists from Endangering Cities Act—is equally troubling. It implies that entire local governments promote anarchy, stoking fear, propping up ignorance, further inflaming political rhetoric rather than encouraging reasoned debate.

Even more concerning is that the bill sidesteps root causes of crime, many of which have been exacerbated by policies championed by Wied’s own party. If the draconian cuts outlined in the so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” pass, these problems only intensify.

Sociologists tell us that intensifying the products of poverty leads to jacking up crime.

It’s way past time for our leaders to call a rhetorical ceasefire and genuinely engage with solutions that serve the public good. 

You know. Making things work better in this country. Not grandstanding and raising the national temper.

Keith Schmitz GRNS Steering Committee

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?

In advance of the September 19th Zoom Townhall on Gun Violence, an article by David Kyle Johnson bats back the myths cherished by the pro-gun side. Johnson ran this around the time of the Parkland shootings, but because this issue hasn’t gone away, his points still have relevance.

As with so many issues in this country, what the majority wants doesn’t seem to count. The people for whom guns seem to validate their lives prevail too often with a whole bucket of misconceptions. These myths glue together their forces and usually have some appeal to those on the fence.

But essentially, all of the arguments for gun violence in America don’t hold up when you get out of America.

Atheism? The US has one of the most churched populations in the western world, yet the highest rate of gun violence.

Violent Video Games? Ever see what Japanese kids play on their screens? Yet, Japan had 17 deaths from gun violence in 2020.

Immorality? Try measuring what exactly that is.

There’s more in Johnson’s piece on pro-gun arguments that are like balloons – all shape but only air inside.

So, of course, for the gun fetish crowd, the causes of gun violence are everything except the always available gun in American society.

At the time Johnson wrote this article in 2018, violent gun deaths were going down, and as we all know, gun crimes (but not a lot of other crimes) have been rising in this country.

So what has led to the increase? Try the instability from the pandemic in 2020 and stress from a collapsing economy, for starters. And who was president in 2020? A man who is the very model of impulsive behavior.

The loosened gun laws passed over the last few years – including in Wisconsin – haven’t helped. It’s no accident that our freeways in Metro Milwaukee have been closed down because of road rage shoot-outs.

Thanks to our conceal and carry law, many people have their weapon right at hand in the glove compartment, available when the impulse strikes. Because the guns are now being carried around in cars, they are targets for break-ins, with the stolen guns going right out into criminal world.

But Johnson does not, as Wolf Blitzer would say, leave it there. Check out the list of common-sense gun measures that even members of the NRA can get behind.

The solution is to be as willing to push back as the weapon worships are to flood our neighborhoods with guns. The first step starts with attending our Zoom meeting on gun violence on September 19th.