Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos
A safe place for moderates in a polarized world
Latest from the blog
A Project 2028 For the Dems
What on earth will my party do when we don’t have Donald Trump to kick around any more? Every day it looks like the Democrats will do better in November. It had already been a given that the Blues would take back the House, including Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, and the Wisconsin State Senate. But…
New Badger AD Has to Get It
If Chris McIntosh’s entire tenure as UW Madison’s Athletic Director wasn’t disappointing enough, his exit was even worse. Not only did McIntosh jump a ship that he had steered onto the rocks, but he left for a newly created, cushy and insular job at the Big Ten: Deputy Commissioner of Strategy. Strategy for what? Will…
WEAC Weighs in Early
It was a fair bet that the quiet Wisconsin gubernatorial race would get a little louder after the spring elections. And sure enough this week the big teachers union, WEAC, surprised a lot of people by endorsing Madison’s State Senator Kelda Roys. That was surprising to me mostly for the timing of it and, to…
Redistricting Gamesmanship
Somebody’s playing politics with gerrymandering. Actually, I suspect everybody’s playing politics with gerrymandering. After long and winding court fights, for the first time in a decade and a half Wisconsin conducted legislative races in 2024 under fair maps. The result was what was predicted by the experts: a slightly red state now has a Legislature…
Good Riddance, Chris McIntosh
Chris McIntosh said that leaving his job as UW Athletic Director was “bitter-sweet” for him. It certainly was for the fans. It was bitter to watch him operate in his job and sweet to see him go. McIntosh took a program that Barry Alvarez and Pat Richter built into a great success and ran the…
The Masters and Immortality
I spent a lot of last weekend watching the Masters golf tournament, the most pretentious spectacle in all of sports. The fans are “patrons” and the golf course is “the property.” “Stuffy” doesn’t begin to describe either the event itself or the broadcast. The property was referred to more than once as “the sacred sod,”…
The Rothman Paradox
The Rothman Affair may be running its course. That’s fine by me. After all, we’ve got a significant UW leader leaving every other day. We’ll write about Chris McIntosh some other time. Last week two senior members of the Board of Regents appeared before a Senate Committee and, despite believing that they were constrained in…
A Better, Fairer, Simpler Tax System
I just filed my taxes. It took me all afternoon. And there’s nothing exotic about our situation. No fancy investments, no foreign income, no capital gains… Just straight income and the standard deduction. So, why should it be this hard? And why should I be sitting here thinking that I missed something, got it wrong…
A Bad Day For Good Government
Yesterday, despite it being a glorious brisk and bright April day in Wisconsin, was a tough one for good government in a state that once prided itself on it. But before we get to that let’s talk about the good news. These days the very definition of good government is one without Donald Trump in…
Did They Make the Grade?
The State Journal sports page carried a story the other day that caught my eye for what was missing. The story was about how the Badger football program has been snapping up the best talent from Wisconsin high schools. My first reaction was, ‘good for them!’ The Badgers once prided themselves on building a recruiting…
Dyngus Day
My father grew up in South Bend, Indiana. In 1968, when I was nine-years old, we were in South Bend visiting my grandparents for Easter. Bobby Kennedy was in town as well. RFK was there because the Indiana primary was less than a month away and his political future depended on the result. The Monday…
What’s the Deal With Rothman?
Here’s a little intrigue to warm up a gloomy spring. University System President Jay Rothman has been invited to fall on his sword or, alternatively, to hand over his sword, surrender his university-provided housing and darken the doorstep of the Board of Regents no more. The Regents have asked Rothman to resign immediately or announce…
Conversion Therapy Ruling More Evidence for Appointed Courts
Chris Taylor will be the next Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. The political stars just align that way. But she won’t do it with my vote. Nor will I vote for the conservative on offer, Maria Lazar. The system isn’t giving me a choice I want. I want to vote for a respected lawyer or judge,…
A Good Obit is Worth 400 Words
Most people reach a point in their lives when they start reading obituaries. This happens because we all want to cull our Christmas card lists. As we age and we find ourselves on fixed incomes just as the cost of postage continues to spiral out of control, it’s important to keep those lists current. I’ve…
I Want the Dems to Win… Why Again?
As Wisconsin’s two-year legislative session raced to a close this month the Democrats had some leverage. They didn’t use it well. The Republicans still control both houses, but by much narrower margins since fair maps went into effect for the last election. The GOP runs the Senate, but by a thin 18-15 margin. That means…
The Quote & Quiz for 3/28/26
This week’s quote comes to us from none other than the Wall Street Journal editorial page. In opining against the massive taxpayer handouts being bandied about as the Chicago Bears play Illinois off against Indiana for their new stadium, the paper quoted a study on the value of these subsidies: “Nearly all empirical studies find…
The Dems’ Self-Loathing
Here’s a paradox. Democrats are likely to win the April Wisconsin Supreme Court race easily and then take the majority in the state Senate, retain the governor’s office and pick up the Third Congressional District seat in the fall. And yet, with all that potential winning, the party is less popular than Luke Fickell. This…
Taylor’s a Lock, Hong is For Real
It’s Christmas morning for Wisconsin bloggers. That’s right. There’s a new Marquette poll out. Let’s unwrap our gift from Uncle Charles and see what we’ve got. Taylor is a lock. Yeah, I know. Democratic operatives will hit the panic button to motivate voters, but Chris Taylor will win the Supreme Court race by a comfortable…
Public Broadcasting Survives
Last summer on my favorite public radio station, Rhinelander’s WXPR, I kept hearing how the impending elimination of federal funding was going to be “devastating” and how “life saving” alerts were at risk. And here we are several months since the money went away and yet good ol’ XPR is still going strong. As far…
Four Problems With the Environmental Movement
Wisconsin enviromentalists wouldn’t compromise, so the state’s premiere conservation program, the Stewardship Fund, will die this summer. It’s an old, sad story and it’s one reason that green policies, once widely popular and bipartisan, are now on the ropes. Refusal to compromise is just one of four problems plaguing a movement I was once very…
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