Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos
A safe place for moderates in a polarized world
Latest from the blog
Crowley Still Has The Edge
The latest Marquette poll is out and it’s sort of good news for Democrats. Kind of. The bottom line is that Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley still has pretty much the same edge that he held over Republican Tom Tiffany a month or so ago. Although, an already close race appears to be tightening a…
Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad
There will be three state constitutional amendments on your November ballot. While it’s likely that all three will pass, the YSDA editorial board (composed of our publisher, editor and chief editorial writer, all currently occupied by the same person) supports two of them. Veto overreach. The first amendment would further restrict the Governor’s line item…
Kill the Bill
The so called “Protect College Sports Act” protects only the schools, coaches and administrators. It’s a ripoff for the players and the taxpayers. The bill passed the U.S. Senate last night, but is likely to die in the House, as well it should. Here’s what this awful legislation would do: Revenue Sharing & NIL: It increases…
Let’s Do Something Radical on Property Taxes
Here’s a modest idea: what if we took schools off the property tax? I mean entirely. Doing that would address multiple problems while creating one big new one. First, the good news. Here are the problems it would address. High property taxes. Wisconsin has the 10th highest property taxes in the nation and schools make…
Here’s How to Use $3 Billion
The State of Wisconsin has a projected $3 billion surplus. Here’s the YSDA plan for it. Put $1 billion toward state parks. Our parks and natural areas have an estimated $1.3 billion in deferred maintenance. That’s everything from deteriorating roads and trails to failing waste treatment facilities at campgrounds. Parks are important for tourism, but…
MMSD’s Five Clouds
Strategic plans are always a waste of time and resources. Because they are always written by committees they read like what committees write. They say nothing. And often at great length. Nobody ever looks at a strategic plan after it is finished. Employees hate these exercises because they see them for what they are and…
Why Does AI Want to Kill Us?
Today I want to explore a question I raised in passing yesterday in my piece on data centers. It goes to the “soul” of artificial intelligence. In recent months there has been this growing concern that AI has loosed its chains and is now running rampant. And the assumption is that it intends to do…
Sorting Out Data Centers
Data centers have become central to election campaigns all over the country this fall and that’s certainly true here in Wisconsin. So, let’s think about them. Like most pols, both David Crowley and Tom Tiffany were all over data centers as recently as a year ago. Both touted them as job generators and harbingers of…
Notes on Conservatism
One of my summer projects was to do some ideological remodelling. I ripped my convictions down to the studs and then rebuilt them. But I left the foundation in place. I never questioned being a moderate. The question was whether I wanted to build back as a nonpartisan, moderate Democrat or a conservative independent. So,…
How Much Does it Matter?
Okay, folks, let’s take a deep breath. Even though we’ve dodged the bullet of a Francesca Hong nomination, the predictable breathless babbling is oozing up from both sides. To hear the partisans tell it this will be yet another “most consequential election of our lifetimes,” never mind that we’ve already had a couple dozen of…
We’re Back
Welcome back to regular installments of YSDA. I took the summer off — except for far more frequent check-ins on the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary than I had anticipated as the Democrats were a lot more entertaining than we had a right to expect. The idea was to spend time on book projects. That was pretty…
A Crazy Idea
Back in May I decided to once again take the summer off to focus on book writing projects. But I added one fateful caveat: I would occasionally write about the Wisconsin governor’s race. How was I to know that the Democrats would turn their primary into a demolition derby? I couldn’t look away. Now that…
Thanksgiving
This is a day of thanksgiving in more ways than one. When it was revealed last week that Francesca Hong had Tweeted about her desire to cancel Thanksgiving because it is a “colonizer” holiday, I thought that was the least of the troubles ahead for the presumptive Democratic nominee. Instead, it may have been the…
Your DSA Platform Questionnaire
It’s likely to be too little too late. My very limited sample size along the Maple Mile (the mile-long walk I take each day through my Madison West Side neighborhood with my dog, Maple) shows that David Crowley lawn signs have popped up in the last few days. They now outnumber the Francesca Hong signs…
The Post Mortem Before the Election
Moderates might take some solace in Abdul El-Sayed’s much narrower than expected victory in this week’s Michigan Senate primary. But I don’t think it provides much hope in heading off Francesca Hong. For one thing, Michigan moderates could rally around one candidate in Haley Stevens while our primary has been a mess and three moderates…
Some Hope for the Fall Race
An article in yesterday’s State Journal gave me some hope that the fall campaign between presumptive gubernatorial nominees Tom Tiffany and Francesca Hong might be more enlightened than I have thought. Okay, so probably not, but you never know. The occasion for my (very limited) optimism was a lengthy piece in which the paper printed…
Some Questions For Francesca Hong
At this point, based on the latest Marquette poll results, it looks like a certainty that Francesca Hong will be the Democratic nominee for governor. Tony Evers’ Hail Mary in the form of David Crowley looks to be either falling to the end zone turf or being intercepted and run back the other way by…
Socialism is Toxic in November
Being a socialist could well bury a candidate in the general election. The trouble for Democrats is that it could win a candidate their nomination in August. It was conceded that the latest Marquette poll, which came out yesterday, was going to be of limited utility. But limited is not the same as useless. I…
Disarray
My party is being very much my party. Just as its crowded gubernatorial primary was coalescing around the candidate most likely to win in November, that candidate’s campaign stumbled hard, her less electable opponents pounced and, just like that, somebody else will get the nomination. Sara Rodriguez, who had been steadily gaining momentum saw it…
Still Anybody’s Race
Since I last wrote about the Wisconsin governor’s race a whole lot of water has rushed under the bridge. Let’s review. Up until Monday, it appeared as if the race was coming down to Francesa Hong, representing the hard-left wing of the Democratic Party, and Sara Rodriguez, representing the moderates. Hong has been surprisingly strong…
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