Wisconsin

The history of democracy has always been a battle between conservatives trying desperately to restrict the right to vote and progressives battling to increase it. Conservatives predicted the world would end if anyone other than older, white, male, property owners voted.

Study: Wisconsin Republicans fear and loathe women even more than other Republicans doToday is the twentieth anniversary of Joe Biden's Violence Against Women Act, signed by Presdient Clinton on September 13, 1994.

Tom Petri has been the most mainstream of Wisconsin's 5 conservative congressmen. First elected in 1979, he's generally considered a "moderate" in Congress and has been part of Steve Israel's Center Aisle caucus of Blue Dogs and mainstream Republicans. This has also guaranteed that he wouldn't face any serious challenges from Democrats while Israel ran the DCCC.

There are quite a few of them but the ones progressives have a stake in, in chronological order, are Hawaii (August 9), Wisconsin (August 12), and then a late super-Tuesday on August 26 for Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma. That same day has primaries in Alaska, Missouri, Oregon and Vermont with interesting races but no races that pit a progressive against a shill from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.Up top is the brand new video from one of the most grassroots campaigns anywhere, the Tom Guild campaign for the open Oklahoma City congressional seat.

Mike Krsiean (left) with his 700 pound Berkshire Boar (right), who he's named Barney FrankMike Krsiean is a Republican crackpot who envisions himself in Congress.

Unless you were completely out of it last week, you probably saw something about Wisconsin prosecutors accusing Gov. Scott Walker of overseeing a sweeping “criminal scheme” to illegally coordinate fundraising and campaign activity among conservative groups in a broad effort to help him-- and Republican senators-- beat back recalls in 2011 and 2012.

A few days ago we took a look at the first of our progressive candidates for the Wisconsin state Senate, Assemblywoman Penny Bernard Schaber from Appleton.

Screen cap from Billionaires for Wealthcare (click to enlarge)"Shit just got real. 'Scott Walker Involved in Criminal Scheme' is currently the BANNER headline on the front page of 18 Wisconsin newspaper sites. The breath and depth of the coverage is simply devastating.

With Steve Israel running the DCCC there is no chance of the Democrats winning back the House, literally, none whatsoever. Israel is leaving too many vulnerable Republicans on the table and squandering DCCC money on ridiculous races that aren't long shots, but NO SHOTS. People think I'm being apocryphal when I say he's flushing resources down a toilet with a PVI of R+15. But I'm being literal.

It has been over ten years since Wisconsin endured a kind of deer holocaust. The terminal deer and elk disease, chronic wasting disease (CWD), descended upon its deer population with such vengeance officials declared “CWD eradication” zones in which fauns and does would be killed before bucks. Thousands of deer carcasses were stored in refrigerated trucks in La Crosse while their severed heads were tested for CWD.