Friday, August 4, 2023

Wisconsin gerrymandering: Spotlight on Assembly District 15

 
What's wrong with this picture?

Cracking Milwaukee County.

Map:  Wikipedia

The GOP takes a bite out of Milwaukee County.  West Allis, to be specific, which typically votes Democratic.  The rest of the district is located in Waukesha County, which historically votes Republican.

The district is represented by Dave Maxey (R-New Berlin), who was first elected to the Assembly in November 2022.

The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as 
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive.
The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'packing' as 
the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.


Related reading:
A lawsuit aimed at rewriting Wisconsin's legislative maps to favor Republicans less was filed Wednesday at the state Supreme Court, a day after the state's highest court flipped to liberal control for the first time in years. [emphasis added]
[snip] 
The current maps tilt heavily in Republicans’ favor, with 63 of the 99 Assembly seats and 23 of the 33 Senate seats leaning toward the GOP, according to a December analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Other posts in the series:

2024 presidential nomination poll: Michigan GOP voters continue to swoon over Trump as party goes bankrupt

 

A hypothetical 2024 Presidential match-up between President Biden and former President Trump is statistically even, each candidate receives 44%. Eight percent would vote for someone else and 5% are undecided.

A grain of salt?  Best to take this poll with the whole friggin' box!



This is what happens when the crazies take over.

Raw Story, 7/16/2023
Michigan's Republican Party has less than six figures in its coffers 16 months ahead of the November 2024 presidential election. 
The Detroit News obtained a recording of a closed-door meeting of the state GOP committee on July 8 that one participant described as a "Festivus-style airing of grievances" that included a physical altercation as party officials revealed their bank accounts had only $93,000. 
“What I will confirm right now is that we have $93,231.90 in our accounts," said Dan Bonamie, the state committee's budget chairman. "We have not taken loans out. We are working on the debt.”

August 2023

July 2023
When hubris is synonymous with humiliation (Talkin' about you, Francis Suarez).  (7/25)

June 2023
Polling at 5%, Mike Pence to announce presidential campaign in Des Moines.  (6/1)

May 2023
Among West Virginia GOP voters, if you're not Trump, you're nobody.  (5/30)
GOP continues to boogie its way to doomsday.  (5/2)

April 2023

March 2023

February 2023

December 2022

November 2022

Day 1007 of GOP election denier hysteria (Trump Big Lie Clown Show Circus, GOP voters edition)

 
ATTACK Of the Clown Show zombies
Starring 70% of gop voters
Headline:  CNN, 8/3/2023
The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate has ticked back up, according to a new CNN poll fielded throughout July. All told, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaners say Biden’s win was not legitimate, up from 63% earlier this year and through last fall, even as there is no evidence of election fraud that would have altered the outcome of the contest. [emphasis added] 
The new poll, conducted in the run-up to former President Donald Trump’s indictment on Tuesday over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, suggests the share of election deniers among his partisans has climbed to a level last seen before hearings held last year by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack

Will the real Julaine Appling please stand up!

 

VCY, 8/3/2023
This already-bad event was made worse by the Neo-Nazis showing up and others also not from Watertown illegally protesting. As a result of all this, the organizers of this drag queen debauchery received far more sympathy and attention than they should have. There’s a way to protest what we disagree with, and a way not to. Doing it wrong hurts way more than it helps.

Juliane, these are the people you have chosen to go to bed with as a result of your homophobia.
 

Related posts:
Longtime Wisconsin Family Action crackpot Julaine Appling clutches her pearls again.  (6/18/2023)

GET ME REWRITE: College Board refuses Florida request to bowdlerize Advanced Placement Psychology course

 
The governor and presidential candidate
from hell
Headline, WMFE (NPR), 8/3/2023
The only way districts in Florida will be allowed to teach the Advanced Placement Psychology course is if they omit chapters on gender identity and sexuality. 
The College Board says it will not change the content of the course to suit the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, or the Florida Department of Education’s specifications.   
In a statement, the board said, "Our policy remains unchanged. Any course that censors required course content cannot be labeled AP or Advanced Placement, and the AP Psychology designation cannot be utilized on student transcripts."

Related posts:

GET ME REWRITE: Meet Trump sycophant, election denier, and sham congressman Tom Tiffany

 
Headline:  Wisconsin Public Radio, 8/2/2023
In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany called it "another sham indictment of Donald Trump" and referred to a "sweetheart plea deal" related to an investigation into President Biden's son Hunter Biden. 
"Anyone else seeing this two-tiered system of Justice on full display?" Tiffany wrote. 
In December 2020, after Biden defeated Trump in the presidential election, Tiffany joined more than 100 House Republicans in signing onto a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the election results.

Related posts:

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Thanks to his involvement with fake electors scheme, Wisconsin State Embarrassment Ron Johnson finds his way into Trump indictment

 
HeadlineMilwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/3/2023
Indictment screenshotU.S. Department of Justice

From the Journal Sentinel: 
Paragraph 101 of the indictment outlines U.S. Ron Johnson's involvement in a failed attempt to hand slates of false electors to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6. 
About 20 minutes before a joint session of Congress was set to convene to begin certification of Biden’s victory that day, Johnson chief of staff Sean Riley told a staffer for Pence that Johnson wanted to hand-deliver to Pence votes from Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan who posed as fake presidential electors for Trump.
 
Related posts:
2023. 
Wisconsin Embarrassment:  "Our Dumb Senator" wears a tin-foil hat.  (5/1)
Long-running Wisconsin show of political incompetence, "Our Dumb Senator", renewed for another 6 years  (3/30)
"Our Dumb Senator", starring Ron Johnson, is Wisconsin's long-running farce.   Now its in 13th year!  (2/15)
Snookered again: Wisconsin elects insurrectionist Ron Johnson to a third term in the U.S. Senate.  (1/4)

2022
Unfortunately, too many Wisconsin voters thought Ron Johnson deserved a third term in the U.S. Senate.  (12/25)
Meet the GOP troglodytes of the United States Senate.  (12/16)
Dear Wisconsin voters, I'd like to report a certifiable election problem. This fraud is posing as our U.S. Senator and thinks he deserves a third term. Best, Retiring Guy.  (10/20)

What's the matter with Iowa? Kimmi the Clown's frantic antics

 
Headline:  Des Moines Register, 8/2/2023
The 109 soldiers are tasked with "deterring illegal border crossings and preventing the trafficking of illegal substances by cartels through Texas," Reynolds announced in a news release Wednesday afternoon. They will remain in Texas until Sept. 1.

Related posts:
2023
July

June

May

April

March

January

2022

2021

2018
What's the matter with Iowa? Health benefit plans mean you're screwed when it comes to pre-existing conditions.  (10/5)

Wisconsin gerrymandering: Spotlight on Assembly District 5

 
What's wrong with this picture?

Cracking the suburbs of Green Bay and packing the residents of the City of Green Bay.

Cracking the suburbs of Appleton and packing the residents of the City of Appleton.

Map:  Wikipedia

Located in northeast Wisconsin, the district comprises most of the eastern half of Outagamie County, including the city of Kaukauna, as well as the town of Hobart in western Brown County. The district also includes nearly all of the Oneida reservation spanning the two counties.

Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) has represented the district since January 2023. 

The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as 
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive.
The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'packing' as 
the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.


Related reading:
A lawsuit aimed at rewriting Wisconsin's legislative maps to favor Republicans less was filed Wednesday at the state Supreme Court, a day after the state's highest court flipped to liberal control for the first time in years. [emphasis added]
[snip] 
The current maps tilt heavily in Republicans’ favor, with 63 of the 99 Assembly seats and 23 of the 33 Senate seats leaning toward the GOP, according to a December analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Other posts in the series:

Wisconsin gerrymandering: Spotlight on Assembly District 4

 
What's wrong with this picture?

Cracking the suburbs of Green Bay.  

Packing the residents of the City of Green Bay.

Map:  Wikipedia

Located in northeast Wisconsin, the district comprises part of central Brown County, including the villages of Ashwaubenon and Allouez, and parts of the city of Green Bay and the village of Howard.

The district has been represented by election denieDave Steffen (R-Howard) since January 2015.

The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as 
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive.
The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'packing' as 
the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.


Related reading:
A lawsuit aimed at rewriting Wisconsin's legislative maps to favor Republicans less was filed Wednesday at the state Supreme Court, a day after the state's highest court flipped to liberal control for the first time in years. [emphasis added]
[snip] 
The current maps tilt heavily in Republicans’ favor, with 63 of the 99 Assembly seats and 23 of the 33 Senate seats leaning toward the GOP, according to a December analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Other posts in the series:

Wisconsin gerrymandering: Spotlight on Assembly District 3

 
What's wrong with this picture?

Cracking the Appleton and environs.

Map:  Wikipedia

Located in northeast Wisconsin, the district comprises most of the north half of Calumet County, including the parts of Appleton and Menasha that fall within Calumet County, as well as parts of southeast Outagamie County, including the village of Kimberly and part of the village of Little Chute.

The district has been represented by election denier and all-around sleazebag Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) since January 2017.

The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as 
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive.

Related reading:
A lawsuit aimed at rewriting Wisconsin's legislative maps to favor Republicans less was filed Wednesday at the state Supreme Court, a day after the state's highest court flipped to liberal control for the first time in years. [emphasis added]
[snip] 
The current maps tilt heavily in Republicans’ favor, with 63 of the 99 Assembly seats and 23 of the 33 Senate seats leaning toward the GOP, according to a December analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Other posts in the series:

Wisconsin gerrymandering: Spotlight on Assembly District 2

 
What's wrong with this picture?

Cracking the suburbs of Green Bay.  Cracking the cities of Manitowoc and Two Rivers in half.

Map:  Wikipedia

Located in northeast Wisconsin, the district comprises most of northern Manitowoc County, including the city of Two Rivers, as well as most of the southern half of Brown County, including most of the city of De Pere. 

The district is represented by Shae Sortwell, one of the most egregious Republicans in the lower chamber, since January 2019.

The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as 
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive.

Related reading:
A lawsuit aimed at rewriting Wisconsin's legislative maps to favor Republicans less was filed Wednesday at the state Supreme Court, a day after the state's highest court flipped to liberal control for the first time in years. [emphasis added]
[snip] 
The current maps tilt heavily in Republicans’ favor, with 63 of the 99 Assembly seats and 23 of the 33 Senate seats leaning toward the GOP, according to a December analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Learn about Shae:
GET ME REWRITE: Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) introduces bill to increase gun violence.  (1/18/2022)GOP hypocrisy alert: Abortion foe Shae Sortwell wants to risk the lives of thousands by reopening the economy too soon.  (4/17/2021)
The Shae Sortwell compensation chronicles: "Can I show you my....?"  (5/24/2019)