Author Archives: dave cieslewicz

Last June UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin received $150,000 just for hanging around. She was scheduled to get another $250,000 had she stayed into June of this year, but instead she’s leaving for Columbia University. Her last day at the UW will be sometime around commencement in May. By most accounts Mnookin did a good job.Continue reading “Link Pay to Performance”

After a couple of false starts, Senate Democrats seem to have figured out how to work a potential government shutdown. House Dems should go along. Last fall Democrats forced a 43-day partial shutdown. They did so over the price of health care. While they didn’t get the extension of Obamacare tax subsidies that they wanted,Continue reading “Senate Dems Know How to De-ICE”

I go back and forth on this one. Sometimes I think I’m being paranoid. Other times I believe I’m right. Today I believe I’ve got a justified concern. My worry is that Donald Trump will try to steal the mid-term elections in November and then try to run again and stay in power after 2028.Continue reading “Does Paranoia Strike This Deep?”

I know, it’s becoming tiresome. But when you have a quote factory like Donald J. Trump it gets hard not to go there, especially during slow weeks when nobody else is saying things that are more stupid, crude, outrageous or all three at once. This week Trump picked Kevin Warsh to be the new FedContinue reading “The Quote & Quiz For 1/31/26”

It’s morning and I’m in mourning. One of my favorite columnists of all time, David Brooks, is leaving the New York Times after 22 years. He’ll move over full time to the Atlantic and he’ll do something vague at Yale. So, I can still find his writing if I look for it, but I’ll missContinue reading “Stability”

Looks like we’re entering the middle innings now. A couple of weeks ago I wrote that the race for Wisconsin governor was in the third inning. The first three frames were the preliminary moves: putting together a campaign, carving out an identity, choosing issues to emphasize and, crucially, raising money. The campaign finance reports, whichContinue reading “Guv Race Hits the Drop Out Phase”

Alex Pretti may not have died in vain. While the videos of Renee Good’s death were open to interpretation, Pretti’s killing looks like a flat out murder. It was so clear that even MAGA and Republican-leaning news outlets, like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, are decrying it and calling for a real investigationContinue reading “Pretti’s Death Creates a Chance for Sanity”

When it comes to my understanding of the Madison school district’s new grading system put me down as “emerging.” MMSD will expand its “standards-based” system to all of its regular high schools next year after a trial period at East. Instead of letter grades, students will receive words: advanced, proficient, developing and emerging. Here’s aContinue reading “In Defense of Failure”

This week’s quote comes to us from none other than Donald J. Trump, who said near the end of a nearly two hour rant before the White House press corps summing up his first year back in office: “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done.” A) “Is he freaking nuts? IContinue reading “The Quote & Quiz For 1/24/26”

The forecast was for “life-threatening” cold. So yesterday I drove north. Here in Watersmeet this morning I woke up to -23 with a windchill of -37 thanks to a cooling breeze from the northwest. Actually, it’s not all that much colder than it is in Madison where it’s -17. The dog stayed down there withContinue reading “Chilly Today”