Author Archives: dave cieslewicz

Let’s say you’re a public official with $3 million burning a hole in your pocket. Pick the option that aligns with your values.  Get it out to local small businesses contending with the lingering effects of the COVID-19 shutdown.  Increase efforts to attack the homeless problem, which was made worse by COVID.  Bolster food pantries,Continue reading “$1000 For Dane County Employees? Bad Idea”

From time to time here at YSDA we consider creating a new weekly feature which would be called something like Oh, For Cryin’ Out Loud. In OFCOL we’d highlight the inanity of the week. Michael Gableman alone could provide fodder nonstop. The only challenge would be to decide which of Gableman’s stupid moves and dumbContinue reading “Let’s Make a Virtue of Resilience”

What other region would put up with a moniker like “The Rust Belt”? Would the West Coast be okay with “The Drought Belt”? How about “The Wildfire Belt” for the Mountain states? Or the “Flooded Cities Belt” for the East Coast? But virtually every news outlet, including local ones, uses “Rust Belt” without a secondContinue reading “Midwest: Rust Belt No More”

I’ve served as an aide to politicians and as a politician myself and here’s what I’ve learned: activists have no role in a public official’s office, and when they start pushing for their own agendas they should be shown the door as soon as possible. This comes up now as the Biden Administration is bleedingContinue reading “Purge the Activists”

Anybody else tired of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis kicking Mickey Mouse around? Here’s the back story. A few weeks ago Florida passed a law, supported by DeSantis, which restricted formal teaching about gender identity (but not any discussion of it) in K-3 education. The left went ballistic, dubbing it the “don’t say gay bill.” UnderContinue reading “Leave Mickey Alone”

The UW Madison is about to do yet another really dumb thing. According to a story in today’s Wisconsin State Journal, Chancellor Rebecca Blank, who will soon (but not soon enough) leave for her new job at Northwestern, is proposing that the school should pay athletes for being students. That’s right. Blank would pay theContinue reading “The Pay for Grades Hoax”

This week we’re inaugurating a new weekly feature here at YSDA: a Sunday morning essay about the Midwest. I’ve been thinking about the Midwest for a long time, at least going back to my days as Mayor of Madison. I would go to national conferences, many in Washington, DC, and get the feeling when IContinue reading “Midwest: Bad Weather”

America is likely to get a moderate third party in the same way that a woman needs a man, which as we all know, is the way a fish needs a bicycle. I’ll pause here and let you sort that out. Okay, let’s move on then. My point is that it’s all but impossible toContinue reading “A New Party of the Center”

Sen. Ron Johnson is a national embarrassment for Wisconsin. I want him gone. So, in the August Democratic primary I’ll vote for the candidate that I think has the best chance to beat RoJo. That’s my only real consideration. I wish I could have another one. That other consideration would be what that Democrat standsContinue reading “Senate Race: Anybody Else?”

We’ve been struggling with a way to write about the move by the Madison School Board to change the name of Jefferson Middle School — in a way that says something more enlightening then that it’s a really bad idea. Well, our old friend Harry Peterson published an oped in the Wisconsin State Journal recentlyContinue reading “Don’t Cancel Jefferson”