GOP Gerrymandering has left Wisconsin’s electoral boundaries ranked under developing nations
The United States is becoming a land filled with “democracy deserts,” where gerrymandering and voting restrictions are making voters powerless to make change, like in Wisconsin. And the new round of redistricting could make things even worse. Since 2012, the Electoral...
Bounce Milwaukee encouraged its workers to form a union as it prepares to reopen after a pandemic hiatus
While other hospitality industry operators bemoan that their cupboard is bare when they try to hire workers, the owners of one Milwaukee venue are pursuing a dramatically different approach. Bounce Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Area Service & Hospitality Workers...
Poor Air Quality: Wisconsin see unprecedented level of smoke due to wildfires driven by climate change
Smoke has been funneling into Wisconsin at an unprecedented level due to wildfires and weather patterns, impacting air quality and sensitive groups. Researchers argue climate change is driving extreme heat that’s fueling wildfires and degrading the air people breathe....
Clear Warnings: Scientists understood in 1856 that humans were already increasing carbon dioxide
By Sylvia G. Dee, Assistant Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Rice University Long before the current political divide over climate change, and even before the U.S. Civil War, an American scientist named Eunice Foote documented the underlying...
Healthcare Capitalism: Pfizer and Moderna hike up COVID-19 vaccine prices on orders worldwide
With some of the world’s wealthiest countries continuing to oppose temporary patent waivers for COVID-19 vaccines in order to more rapidly deploy life-saving shots worldwide, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna have raised the price for European Union...
HIPAA Rights and COVID: It is not a violation of the law if businesses require proof of vaccination
As businesses reevaluate their public health requirements, such as lifting face mask mandates for customers who are vaccinated against COVID-19, questions about medical privacy are back in the spotlight. The question of whether it is legal to ask a maskless people if...
An immoral indifference: Why the ideology of refusing the COVID-19 vaccine is un-American
By Christopher Beem, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State Decades ago I helped organize a conference that brought together vaccine skeptics and public health officials. The debate centered on what...
Control for another decade: Republicans prepare to gerrymander electoral maps to rig next election
Ten years ago, Republicans pulled off what would later be described as “the most audacious political heist of modern times.” It was not particularly complicated. Every 10 years, the U.S. constitution requires states to redraw the maps for both congressional and state...
A People’s Military: 10 ways the American armed forces can be reinvented to provide a real national defense
As a ROTC cadet and an Air Force officer, I was a tiny part of America’s vast Department of Defense (DoD) for 24 years until I retired and returned to civilian life as a history professor. My time in the military ran from the election of Ronald Reagan to the...
Battle of Bamber Bridge: The little know racially motivated attack on Black soldiers during WWII
By Alan Rice, Professor in English and American Studies, University of Central Lancashire A bloody, little-known battle between Black and white U.S. soldiers in northern England 78 years ago forced a reckoning over the military’s unequal treatment of minority troops....
Ending the Games: How the Olympics became little more than a traveling circus of the global sports industry
The empty seats in the stadiums of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were a blessing in disguise, for the sporting spectacle, no matter how good, was not be able to dispel the fact that the super-spreader event was held in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis and...
The lasting impact of GANEFO: When the IOC was forced to admit sports could not be separated from politics
By David Webster, Associate Professor of History / Professeur Agrégé, Département d’Histoire, Bishop’s University The Olympic Charter states one of the fundamental principles of Olympism is that “sports organizations within the Olympic Movement shall apply...
