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Red State Welfare: Broken results from decades of Republicans evading the responsibility of government

Philosophy matters. And philosophy turned into law matters a lot. Particularly in this brave new world of severe climate change. The Jackson, Mississippi crisis of clean water should not surprise any of us. Like Michigan was when Flint’s water supply was crippled, it is a Republican-controlled state and Republicans will always prioritize tax cuts for the morbidly rich over building or maintaining infrastructure. Even in the face of climate-change-driven flooding. Nine of the ten poorest states in the nation are Red states; that is also no surprise. Republicans, after all, have philosophically opposed both unionization and the minimum wage...

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How fanatical election deniers in Wisconsin use Trump’s “Big Lie” to reshape the battleground state

Ever since claims of election fraud arose in 2020, Wisconsin has seen its share of quixotic attempts to taint the presidential results. A group of phony electors tried to claim the state’s electoral votes for Donald Trump. Wisconsin’s top lawmaker launched a yearlong inquiry led by a lawyer spewing election fraud theories. And its courts heard numerous suits challenging the integrity of the 2020 election and the people administering it. All those efforts failed, sometimes spectacularly. But on a more fundamental level, the election deniers succeeded. They helped change the way Election Day will look in 2022 for crucial...

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The Big Con: Trump was a relative latecomer to the Republican Party’s longstanding Game of Grift

The title of Maggie Haberman’s new book about Donald Trump is “Confidence Man” and, truth be told, Trump has been a con man his entire life. Haberman documents it all in excruciating detail. But when you compare Trump’s cons with the $50 trillion that the GOP has conned out of the American working class and given to the top 1 percent since 1980, Trump looks like a piker. He played his role in that GOP con, of course, setting up the very richest Americans to get more billions of dollars a year in tax breaks for the foreseeable future,...

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Port Milwaukee celebrates city’s growing Great Lakes cruise industry and its rebound since COVID pandemic

Mayor Cavalier Johnson was joined by officials from the City of Milwaukee, the State of Wisconsin, and the Great Lakes region on October 19 to celebrate a banner year for the city’s growing cruising industry. Mayor Johnson announced that his 2023 Proposed Budget would complete the financing package for the redevelopment of South Shore Cruise Dock, located immediately east of the Lake Express High-Speed Ferry terminal. “Milwaukee is a great destination, filled with attractions and hospitality. People from around the globe are clearly taking notice of our city, and the growing passenger and vessel visit numbers speak for themselves,”...

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Collapse of Neoliberalism: Oligarchs in America and Russia face a crisis once thought to be an opportunity

There is a reckoning coming. The kind of oligarchy that neoliberalism has brought to both America and Russia is so unstable it will not hold. Both nations are thus confronting dramatic transitions over the next few years. As Russia has suffered substantial defeats in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin may be looking at the end of his reign. There’s similar tough stuff facing Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and their GOP buddies. As the world watches its 40-year-old experiment with neoliberalism collapse, Republicans in the U.S. and Putin in Russia are facing a crisis they once thought would be an opportunity. Neoliberalism...

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Costs of incarceration: Wisconsin inmates and their families feel the financial squeeze of rising inflation

Across the nation, prison commissaries are raising prices on items that many consider basic necessities, from deodorant to fresh fruit, not provided by the state department of corrections. The markups come as decades-high inflation is also squeezing inmates’ families, making it harder for them to help. It is a burden that families should not have to shoulder, advocates say, and a situation that some worry will lead to unrest or violence. Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative, a think tank focused on policies in the criminal justice and legal system, said that by forcing prisoners and...

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