Opinion

Several provisions in the tax bill being advanced by congressional Republicans target student loan borrowers, students and the schools they attend. The impacts will be hurtful.

The Congressional Republicans have rushed drastic tax cuts through Congress with astounding speed — and irresponsibility.

Senate consideration of the GOP tax cuts on Friday was overshadowed by dark clouds.

Trump and the GOP-led Congress are pushing budget and tax cuts that will tie our hands to solve future problems.

The Senate election in Alabama, imminent final passage of tax giveaways by the GOP-led Congress, Trump’s continued sabotage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and threatened cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other domestic spending signal the moral bankruptcy of the GOP. Honorable and principled conservatives need to consider a new conservative party.

It is increasingly likely that the total price tag from all players in the 2018 governor's race will be more than $100 million.

It another good year for Cheap Shots, Isthmus’ annual tradition of delivering low blows to worthy recipients. Let’s get to it.

Kids who overdose on hard drugs all started with pot.

Media feasting on problems in John Doe report. Here’s a scorecard of biggest goofs.

Steady monthly losses since state overrode city residency law in effect since 1938.

His 11-month investigation of John Doe leaks yields no charges but lots of anger.

Total cost is $1,774 per Wisconsin household.

Bucks owner, other Weinstein board members knew Harvey was a predator, suit claims.

Funding could end embarrassment of "debtors prison."

Key supporter of Walker in 2010, who exempted fire fighters and police from Act 10.

And will that help Leah Vukmir?

Much worse than Chicago’s. And little difference between public and choice schools.

His sloppy report on John Doe leaks won’t help Attorney General’s reputation.

It’s supposed to be non-partisan. How and why did this change?

While the president may have succeeded in using Kate Steinle’s death to demonize undocumented immigrants, we are fortunate to live in a country where even the most powerful man in the world could not break the Constitutional guarantees and the rights of people accused of crimes, as established by our Founding Fathers. The presumption of innocence did not fail.

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin deserves chief credit for the reform. Ryan has pushed tax reform for years, and he keenly understands how high business taxes are undermining U.S. economic growth.

Somewhere along the line, Americans on the left began thinking incomes were a zero-sum game; if someone was making more money, it meant they were making less. But the idea that your life would be better if someone else was worse off is antithetical to an opportunity society. Envy may be a useful talking point, but as a general rule, deadly sins make for bad tax policy.

The DOJ report, commenced to investigate the leak of confidential information from the John Doe investigations to The Guardian newspaper, confirms many of the suspicions Republicans have had about the fairness of the probes.

Too much can be made of special elections in off-years, but Roy Moore's loss can only pay dividends for Wisconsin Republicans who support decency.

Last week, Trump's Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief before the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the rights of public employees that refuse to join unions.

A contribution is almost never a crime; a politician's actions in response to that contribution can be.

Undoubtedly, the tax bill's unpopularity is tied to the sagging public opinion of the GOP.

Walker signing bills to cut red tape for cosmetology and barber licences a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

Funding regulations hamper districts and don’t improve education, local officials say in survey.

Our liberal-progressive-socialist acquaintances are baying for the hides of those who protested their treatment at the hands of the speech police, blinding klieg lights and battering rams at the ready in their pre-dawn raids on private homes.

Hypocrites make inclusive greeting cause for loud grievance.

There was little media attention last month when the Dane County Board quietly passed a new wheel tax. It’s a big subsidy from Madison residents to those who live in rural areas.

If a culture that can produce something so twisted as a President Trump doesn’t give us reason to rethink our values, I’m not sure what will. Maybe we should try to re-emphasize the value of cooperation and play down competition a little bit.

Democrats are celebrating Doug Jones’ victory in last week’s special election in Alabama, but those who want to interpret that vote as portending victory for...

Like their national counterparts, the Wisconsin legislative Republicans would have us believe that the middle class will reap huge tax savings, when in fact those savings pale compared to the $1.5 trillion giveaway to corporations whose leaders won't even say whether they'll use their tax savings for more investment and workers' wages.

In my old age as the editor emeritus, I see a 100-year-old newspaper that is still young and vibrant and willing to take the chances and fight the fights that Mr. Evjue envisioned when those first papers came off the press on Dec. 13, 1917.

Kudos to Common Cause in Wisconsin's Jay Heck for taking a cue from my many columns that wonder why the Wisconsin Legislature is paid full-time salaries and benefits when it works but a few months a year.

I was paging through Peter Baker's "Obama: The Call of History" Christmas Day and realized again just how much I miss this man in the White House. If nothing else, he made us proud, unlike the childish and insulting person that occupies it today.

A balanced budget requirement could spell disaster for the American economy, especially during times when it is weak and needs help to protect businesses and jobs.

The war against unions has effectively left working people without a voice in dealing with employers. Gone are the days in so many workplaces where employees could effectively argue for pay and benefit increases that match the success of their employers.

Trump's unthinking and uninformed comments on everything from race to a free press are dangerously eating away at the foundation of our democracy.

It's nearly time to say goodbye to another year and to this one, I say good riddance. The year 2017 was a good news year...

The upside-down tree had its origins in Poland and other central and eastern European countries. According to historic accounts, the pagans who had been converted to Christianity began to view the fir tree as God's Trinity tree. By the 12th century, it was being hung upside down from ceilings at Christmastime in central and eastern Europe as a symbol of Christianity and God the son becoming a man, because it resembled the shape of Christ being crucified.

WHA-TV's production of "Our House: The Wisconsin Capitol" in late November was an impressive behind-the-scenes look at our state's most impressive building.

I can't tell you how many emails and anonymous phone messages I regularly receive from people who have been duped into believing the absolute lies that get passed around the internet these days.

Milwaukee’s Bruce Murphy has committed some solid journalism. He broke the Milwaukee County pension scandal that helped elect reformer Scott Walker as county exec...

State bill would require retroactive referendum.

Ron Chernow’s biography of U.S. Grant gives him the usual credit for his generous peace terms given at Appomattox, terms intended to heal the nation. But far fewer books recount the Reconstruction Period that followed.

Remember when Scott Walker tore up Jim Doyle’s fast-train deal and spurned $810 million in Obama stimulus money? Remember how that was going to wreck Wisconsin’s economy?

Since 2010, Illinois has lost a net 650,000 residents to other states.

The "effective altruism" movement, though sometimes controversial, is forcing donors and charities to think about accountability and transparency in philanthropy.

The tax proposals from both the House and the Senate contain promising provisions for our nation’s leading job creators, and are a step towards creating an equal playing field for small businesses across the county.

The president lied when he insisted there was no collusion between his team and the Russians. The only remaining question is how deep was his involvement.

It’s the children who have the most to worry about from a Trump regime. Not just the children in actual age but the budding offspring of business entrepreneurship.

The tax bill that just passed Congress and will be signed by Trump without a single Democratic vote has turned both sides into P.T. Barnums. How can the GOP sell it and how can the Democrats keep it alive as a negative campaign issue in 2018?

Tax benefits for the rich, coal for the rest of us.

Critical health programs, all of which have bipartisan support, have been fighting for Congressional attention for months.

It is troubling to see the John Doe investigations and fallout back in the news as it has escalated to the point where legislative leaders are calling for Elections Commission Administrator Mike Haas and other officials to resign, despite no accusations of wrongdoing or any recommendation by the DOJ for their resignation.

The level of what passes for acceptability in politics has taken a very wide swing.

I voted against this bill because it hurts middle class workers, hurts the poor, hurts working mothers, hurts students, hurts universities, hurts health care, hurts state and local governments, and will ensure the government won’t have the funds to fix our badly outdated infrastructure nor meet any other number of urgent priorities.

It isn't just Wisconsin wetlands and the water here that are being privatized, polluted and drained. It's the democracy itself.

Imagine that you take your doctor to court for a long pattern of negligence, and suddenly, there's a new judge on the case: your doctor! That's...

I've been raising the alarm about these GOP-led depredations against wetlands, groundwater and the wider environment, noting in particular the unbelievably short-sighted scheme on which Rep. Brostoff is focusing to turn over a million acres of irreplaceable Wisconsin wetlands to right-wing political control and private-sector 'development.'

Recent issues of DNR magazine Walker sought to end lack useful reporting about real issues facing the agency and the public.

Installing - - whew, no Senate confirmation needed - -  former Wisconsin developer, anti-science and inside-the-government pollution enabler Cathy Stepp as director of the US EPA Great Lakes region...

Walker now cites creating or retaining - - new category - - nearly - - new qualifier - - 30,000 jobs in 2017.

Already finding $30 million for Foxconn roadwork, and draining $134 million from Wisconsin transportation needs statewide for Foxconn, GOP Gov. and principle-free hypocrite Scott Walker wants a huge gob ($246 million) of a limited pool of federal funds to pay for Foxconn-related highway expansion which Wisconsin cannot afford on its own.

Because the US Supreme Court might order more equitably-drawn Wisconsin legislative districts and thereby threaten GOP domination, Gov. Walker and his allies are accelerating their war on public resources to get their ideological friends and donors what's grabbable right now.

On this week’s episode of the RightWisconsin Conversations, Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel talks about the Government Accountability Board and the push back on the Department of Justice report from the Ethics Commission and the Election Commission. Schimel also talks about state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers and whether the Department of Justice should represent the superintendent in a lawsuit by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty regarding the REINS Act.

RightWisconsin's James Wigderson talks with Marquette University Professor John McAdams talks about the university’s attempt to get rid of him and the hope that the Wisconsin Supreme Court will put McAdams back in the classroom. McAdams also talks about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the revelations in the recently released files.

Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow joins RightWisconsin Editor James Wigderson to talk about keeping taxes down, future growth in the county, and the lost chili recipe.

In a Twitter exchange, Hue takes the side of the John Doe investigators over Archer, which clearly indicates his bias in the matter.

The news of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s impending retirement is, at the very least, premature.

It is now time to update our FMLA to make it more flexible so people can take off to care for their grandparents, grandchildren, siblings and eligible family members deployed overseas by our military.

It is gratifying to see that a significant number of local school boards across the state have decided to add personal finance to their graduation requirements in the past seven years.

Leaders of the Wisconsin legislature will determine whether Christmas 2018 will be merry or just more expensive for property owners in Wisconsin. City and village leaders around Wisconsin are making one wish: that the Legislature takes a vote on the Dark Store and Walgreens loophole repair bills.

A conversation with 96-year old Marie Davidson of Milwaukee is like opening a living window on history. A singular voice that has witnessed the administration of every President since Warren Harding, she is especially frustrated by the one in charge now—the one who seems bent on reversing the progress made in voting rights and equal access to education.

The bill would tax gun manufacturers that sell guns in Wisconsin the same way we tax cigarette or alcohol manufacturers. With those funds — 0.5 percent of the manufacturer’s list price — we hope to address the physical, emotional, and financial costs that burden the victims of gun violence.

Bryce, Nehlen both weak, unqualified candidates to replace Ryan as speaker of the House

Nichols recounts how the Cap Times' advocated to have U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy expelled from the Senate and vows the paper will do the same regarding Roy Moore if Alabama voters elect him.

An astute social commentator who wrote with an eye toward exposing the cruel and unusual men of his times, Dickens would update his protagonist: make him younger and more conniving, put him in a crisp suit, give him better hair, perhaps make him speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Donald Trump's Federal Communications Commission voted in mid-December to eliminate “the First Amendment of the internet,” and in so doing it delivered the most brutal blow of 2017 to democracy in America.

When the Kochs say “Jump!” Scott Walker asks “How high?” So it came as no surprise that the governor of Wisconsin and his legislative allies moved this fall to make Wisconsin the 28th state to support the convention call.

If I were Dennis Degenhardt and running for the 58th Assembly seat left vacant by the premature death of Bob Gannon, I would not...

Johnson succeeded in getting a reduction of 23% in the profits subject to tax in proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability and S corporations. Any way you cut it, that makes him a hero for small companies.

In 2018, the Wisconsin prison population will be as high as it has ever been. This overcrowding is a serious safety concern not only for our front-line correctional officers and sergeants but also for inmates and our support staff of teachers, maintenance, administrators, etc.

If you are lucky enough to make an income three times the Wisconsin median income, the tax plan being decided in Washington DC will likely benefit you. But if you are like the rest of us who are the proven fuel in the US economy, those that spend all the income they receive on cost of living, it will be harder to find a benefit.

Reports that he's looking to the exits actually make sense.

Threatens 1,000,000 acres, opposed by hunting and fishing groups.

A big congratulations to members of the real Republican Party as they celebrate the loss of the hijacked Republican Party candidate in yesterday's special Senate election in Alabama. The contemptible Roy Moore loses a seat that had been held by the GOP for 25-years.

Yesterday I announced our Newsmaker of the Year here in Oshkosh.  Now I'm going to hand out our Person of the Year honoree.  The...

So the state is going to spend seven million dollars in a marketing effort to attract more millenials to Wisconsin bolster the workforce. The marketing campaign is going to focus on things WEDC thinks millenials care about: affordable housing, lower taxes and short commute times. But what they fail to take into consideration is that those are things those of us who have been independent adults for decades care about--but the generations that have followed us have all but abandoned.

When the Livestock Siting Rules were first enacted in 2006, one of the stated goals was to reduce the acrimony of bitter local fights about regulation of large livestock facilities. Unfortunately, the rules have not lived up to their promise.

A new law makes it possible for emergency medical personnel to perform basic health care for people in their homes. This new approach to health care delivery may soon be in your neighborhood.

Under my proposal the cost of free tuition at two-year and tech colleges is funded by repealing the manufacturing portion of the Manufacturing and Agriculture Tax Credit. Trading one manufacturers’ tax break for a pool of skilled workers is a good exchange.

Women in the industry have long been treated as second-class citizens.

A rogue state agency took my personal emails and filed them under "opposition research."

With 12 legislative days left until the Christmas break, Republicans and Donald Trump are running out of time. Without a single major bill passed since taking control of the White House, they are making a list and checking it twice.

All in all, Walker has made good on his promise that Wisconsin would be open for business, which has included consistently siding with environmental polluters. The Foxconn fiasco is just the latest example of a governor bent on ravaging our natural resources and destroying our environmental quality of life.

Another outrageous power grab by the Madison GOP.

The recent injunction at Lincoln Hills creates an opportunity for change. The job isn’t easy, and the state must support the facilities by ensuring that they have the resources, training and guidance to do the job right. By taking advantage of this moment and relying on data and research-based solutions, the administration can transform the facility to a healthier, safer environment for all youth and staff.

Spending money this way is not only stigmatizing and cruel, it is counterproductive.

Do not move Wisconsin public broadcasting to UW president’s office.

Throwing their power around, they are demanding that two civil servants in Wisconsin’s watchdog agencies be removed from office.

5 Reasons Schimel’s John Doe leak report is such a partisan hack job.

In a gift to prosecutors, the Wisconsin Supreme Court just issued another shoddy ruling, replete not only with shabby legal reasoning but also a savage callousness regarding criminal appeals.

The first lie and the cover-up always grow into something bigger. ... something both Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn are re-learning now.

The executive branch has the charge of enforcing laws passed by the legislature, but it is the judiciary who must decide what those laws mean and whether or not the executive is acting within them.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck gives his two cents after Sen. Al Franken announced his resignation.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck explains why he thinks Donald Trump will not be ousted from office anytime soon.

In "Two Minutes with Mitch" radio personality Mitch Henck gives his two cents on Democrat Doug Jones' victory over Republican Roy Moore in Alabama's special Senate election Tuesday.

In contrast to a bailout, H.R. 756 would put USPS on more sustainable long-term financial footing. In short, the legislation cuts costs, streamlines and secures mail delivery, strengthens accountability, and improves oversight. Additionally, it guarantees pension liability, improves employee health care, focuses on local service opportunities, and supports rural postal service access -- something we need in Wisconsin’s first Congressional District.

The word "decency" came to mind after Alabama’s U.S. Senate race this week, when a decent and moderate Democrat named Doug Jones stunned Roy Moore, the loutish and eccentric abuser of laws and allegedly teenage girls.

In the face of Trump-era nativism, leaders in Madison’s Latino community show persistence and altruism rather than empty outrage.

I suggest you pause to appreciate the Cap Times as the feisty, locally owned and historic institution it is — a beacon of progressive opinion, a source for probing and objective news and information, and a fountain of big-impact local philanthropy through our Evjue Foundation.

Fanlund, editor and executive publisher of The Capital Times, reflects on a New York Times feature about Neenah, which went from blue to red to back Trump.

Absurd FCC regulations have kept rural Wisconsinites without access to high-speed internet for far too long.

It wasn’t long ago that Wisconsin wielded oversized influence in national politics. At the beginning of the decade, the Washington Post reported that the state “could shape the direction of the GOP.”

High rankings strengthen our national reputation and that affects our ability to recruit and retain the best and brightest students, faculty and staff. Rankings matter to our partners and our competitors for benchmarking purposes. Employers use rankings to identify universities where they want to recruit. Rankings also hold up a mirror to ourselves and monitor our performance.

As 2017 draws to a close, thank you to all our faculty, staff, students and supporters who make UW-Madison a world-class institution. I look forward to an even better year in 2018!

Getting on the ballot isn’t hard, but it takes some legwork and attention to detail. If you decide to run for office, don’t make things any harder on yourself or your supporters by neglecting details that could keep you off the ballot.

It’s simple civics. In our constitutional republic, the legislature makes the law and the executive carries it out. This is part of our cherished “separation of powers” by which each branch of government acts to check and balance the others. But State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers has violated this fundamental democratic principle.

We should all be concerned by the precedent that shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments sets. What will happen if next the Trump administration decides, without our input, to shrink the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge? The consequences that would have on Wisconsin’s environment and the economy would be disastrous.

The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com. What’s in store for Wisconsin politics...

The legislation would eliminate the UW’s ability to offer ob-gyn residents training in abortion services as required by the national accrediting body, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Residents can opt out of the training but the sponsoring institution must offer it.

Republicans seem ready to squander their big success on taxes by hunting the white whale of welfare reform.

Evidently the strict marching orders from the Assembly speaker dictate that amendments offered by Democrats will not be put to a vote unless all Democrats can say ahead of time they will vote in favor of the final bill.

The Supreme Court’s decision will impact elections nationwide for decades to come — both for state legislatures and for Congress.

Trump has vilified and sought to discredit any media outlet that dares to report news that is not flattering to him. His attacks on the media have even incited threats of violence against reporters. Less visible are his efforts to use government power to threaten the independent media and to hand over control of key broadcast outlets to his corporate supporters.

It’s a good thing the term of veteran Brown County Circuit Court Judge Kendall Kelley isn’t up until 2021. His latest assignment may take him years to complete.

There’s more fuel in state capitols for incidents of sexual harassment and sexual encounters between consenting adults than other workplaces.

Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel has spent the last year picking the controversial issues on which he will base his campaign for a second term.

State leaders such as Walker and Ducey are stepping up to the plate when it matters most — not just during the campaign, but now, when their constituents desperately need solutions.

In the spirit of the holidays, state leaders gave the Wisconsin lottery a $48 million gift in the 2017-19 state budget. The gift will help keep down homeowners’ property tax bills this year and next. But it may come with several lumps of coal. One is the unusual use of state income and sales taxes to subsidize lottery expenses, and the other may be an end-run around the state constitution.

Recently, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty conducted an experiment to see how well school districts are complying with the state’s Open Records Law.

I urge Sen. Johnson to recognize the need to restrain the power of the president to launch a first strike, and the peril of any policy that would create more "usable" nuclear weapons. Instead, I hope he is inspired by the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize being awarded today to a group seeking to abolish nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

All too often, American inventions don’t stay home to create companies and jobs. The late George H. Heilmeier has long represented just such a missed opportunity – and he’s now a symbol of why there’s hope for a techno-industrial renaissance.

While the reality of job options in Wisconsin is far different than what so many people think, decades of perception are hard to change. Fortunately, a timely chance to color Wisconsin’s monochromatic branding slate has arrived.

“Net neutrality” is one of those buzzwords that inspires populist support, but it’s not as simple as the big guys conspiring to shove mom-and-pop websites into the internet’s slow lane. Behind the scenes, it’s also about a small handful of heavy users – the internet’s so-called “lane hogs” – hoping to avoid paying for the right to dominate available capacity.

The attorney general’s recommendations in its leak investigation report provide a good start to achieve accountability.

Do you support legislation that would eliminate permits to build on state wetlands?

Do you agree with the state's elimination of the minimum age of 10 to participate in mentored hunts?

The WisOpinion.com Insiders, Jensen & Chvala, debate the pros and cons of a federal tax overhaul now before Congress. Sponsored by Michael Best Strategies and the Wisconsin Counties Association.

The WisOpinion Insiders, Jensen & Chvala, handicap Tammy Baldwin's re-election race as national forces fight for control of the U.S. Senate. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Counties Association and Michael Best Strategies.

The WisOpinion Insiders, Chvala & Jensen, review the best and worst stories of 2017. Sponsored by Michael Best Strategies and the Wisconsin Counties Association.

The WisOpinion Insiders, Jensen & Chvala, talk about their Christmas gifts for Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Tammy Baldwin and other Wisconsin politicians. Sponsored by Michael Best Strategies and the Wisconsin Counties Association.