Uppity Wisconsin

I love Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).

For a period during the Bush administration, it felt like the only compelling loyal Democratic opposition was from Waxman, Feingold and Kucinich.

But Waxman has earned the wrath of veterans the nation-over for his bizarre commitment to overseeing appropriating veterans' land in West Los Angeles

Writes Robert L. Rosebrock, director of The Veterans Revolution:

Veteran land is land that has been deeded to the Veterans to take care of their physical and emotional wounds. One of these lands the West Los Angeles Veterans' Home (WL VHA) the largest parcel on land for Veterans in the USA, was donated by Arcadia de Baker and John P. Jones in 1888 to the Government for the sole purpose of providing permanent care to our Veterans.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Workers Memorial Day

Location: Zeidler Union Square Park

Some will be wearing memorial ribbons. Some will hold candles. Some will read the names of those who died on the job last year in Wisconsin, plus the names of our fallen Wisconsin military.

Many will remember the Mother Jones motto: "Mourn for the Dead, But Fight Like Hell for the Living."

The event with speakers will take place at Zeidler Union Square Park, the workers'''' park, between 3rd and 4th Sts. on Michigan St.

At 5 p.m. citizens and speakers will join the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO, WisCOSH (the nonprofit worker health and safety group), and other groups.

Bobbie Webber, president of Milwaukee Professional Firefighter Local 215, will speak as will representatives for Gov. Doyle, Rep. Gwen Mooore (D-Wis.) and Sen. Russ Feingold. Also invited are Alderman Michal J. Murphy, DA John Chisholm and Mayor Tom Barrett.

Ceremonial atmosphere will be provided by the American Federation of Musicians Local 8.

A home-made dinner will take place afterward at the nearby American Postal Workers Union Hall, 417 N. 3rd St., $12 in advance, $15 at the door.

For more information contact WisCOSH''s Jim Schultz at (414) 933-2338.

The November election in Wisconsin is quickly becoming a battleground that may determine the direction of the country for the next four years. 

Uppity Wisconsin is trying to help by raising funds for progressive candidates in Wisconsin and the US.  You can contribute to the Uppity Fund by clicking on the widget on the left part of the site, or by going to our fundraising page .  Currently we're raising money for Tara Johnson, Alison Page, Jeff Smith, the Progressive Patriots, Tammy Baldwin, Chris Danou, and Barack Obama. You may make a one-time contribution by credit card, or make a recurring monthly contribution.

Contributing this way is easy, fast, and secure.  We'd like to thank the good people at Act Blue for making this easy for everyone. Help us break the thermometer by contributing.

Please let us know if there are other Wisconsin candidates you would like us to include and we'll be happy to consider it.

It's bad enough that the dispatcher who received Brittany Zimmermann's call for help soon before her untimely death last month has NOT been disciplined (her name isn't available for public consumption either, although she's a public employee).

Bad enough. But in today's Wisconsin State Journal, reporters Matthew DeFour and Patricia Simms crack open the story further in contribution to Isthmus journalist Jason Shepard's prize-worthy reporting about developments in Zimmermann's last moments of life.

The WSJ crew detail the sheer incompetence of Dane County's 911 Call Center Director Joe Norwick.

How does this guy - Joe Norwick - have a job come Mon., May 5, 2008?

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP), in conjunction with Rainbow Bookstore (Madison), sends books, free of charge, to prisoners in Wisconsin and other states who request them.

Many prisons have antiquated, non-accessible, and, in some cases, non-existent library facilities. As a result, prisoners have little or no reading or educational material. WBTP tries to address this problem.

WBTP currently gets about 30 requests a week and each package of 2-3 books costs on average about $3 to mail. During the past year, postage costs alone exceeded $3,000, and that's expected to double by the end of 2008.

The project is facing a financial crisis and must raise funds for postage immediately; it has temporarily suspended sending books to out-of-state prisoners until it raises money for postage.

Can you help? Checks can be made out to and mailed to: “Wisconsin Books to Prisoners”, 1019 Williamson St. #B, Madison, WI 53703.

Books are also needed, fiction and non-fiction, soft covers preferred. More info here.

Current Drop Off Sites for Donated Books:

Fair Ground Coffeehouse, 5901 W. Vliet St., Milwaukee WI 53208

Okay - I know that a lot of you are coming in here and reading Uppity Wisconsin these days. And that's great, it really is. But it's a little disheartening that we have such a small core of people contributing. And when I say contributing, I mean in any way.

We really could use some help building the database of web links here on the site - just click on submit link at the top of the page, and put in a link. Or even something as small as voting on a poll - We put up questions occasionally, either on a political issue, or on some question regarding the site (like the current poll). Could some of you vote on these things, or do you just not care about what direction things go here?

A few of us have been kicking around the idea of having a meeting for progressive bloggers and webmasters later in the year. It struck me that one good possibility might be to do this in conjunction with Fighting Bob Fest - but I'm very open to suggestions. Ideas ? Either comment here or drop me a line through the contact button at the top of the site.

I thought I would forward over this action alert from the folks at Fair Wisconsin:

Today Governor Jim Doyle will release his budget proposal to the Wisconsin Legislature. For the first time, he will call on state lawmakers to extend domestic partner health insurance to all state employees.

Please urge your state lawmakers to support domestic partner benefits today. Click here to send a message:

http://eqfed.org/campaign/DPB