Pete Buttigieg

With so many candidates declaring their presidential candidacies for 2020, I'd better start these candidate caricatures early.

To say that South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a long shot to become the 46th President of the United States is to belabor the obvious. The last time a sitting mayor won his party's presidential nomination was in 1812, over two centuries ago (but who's counting?), and that guy lost to James Madison. (Besides, that guy, DeWitt Clinton, was also serving as Lieutenant Governor of New York at the time, and yet his demonstrated skill at multitasking still failed to impress the electorate.)

On the other hand, every other candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination is a long shot as well, simply by virtue of there being so many of them.

So what does Mayor Buttigieg bring to the party? He's a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, openly gay and married, and at 37 years of age would be the youngest president in U.S. history, succeeding the oldest. He has been mayor of his fairly conservative city since 2012, winning 80% of the vote in his reelection bid. He remains "highly popular" there and a "sure bet" for a third term had he chosen to run, according to the South Bend Tribune.

As he seeks to take the leap from South Bend to the White House, here's his elevator pitch:

"For what it's worth, I have more years of government experience under my belt than the president, and more years of executive experience than the vice president, and more years of military experience than I think anybody to reach that office since George H.W. Bush. So I get that I'm the youngest person in the conversation, but I think experience is one of the main reasons I hope to be taken seriously."

As a veteran, he has practical opinions on American foreign policy and believes that the Corrupt Trump Administration is frittering away our leadership of the free world. As a rust-belt mayor, he has had to deal with the Corrupt Trump Administration's hamfisted tariff policies and the worsening trend of megacorporations pitting municipalities against each other to see which can prostitute itself more than the rest.

"Economic development incentives have their place, but that doesn't mean that you can — and actually I think the example that's most vividly showing this now is what's happening in Wisconsin with Foxconn. Even when you do land a company also often you're landing one if they're that sensitive to incentives that may not be that sticky and may respond to somebody else's incentives in a few short years."

With a crowded field, it's anyone's race to win, and Democrats have developed a preference for fresh new faces in the past 50 years. Hardly anyone outside Georgia had heard of Jimmy Carter when he was just one of a dozen presidential aspirants in 1975; Barack Obama had held political office for only two years at the national level when he launched his campaign in 2007 in a field of eight.

So could Buttigieg go all the way? Stranger things have happened.

One of them is declaring national emergencies as we speak.

An Apple for Evers

Here in Wisconsin, State Superintendent of Public Schools Tony Evers is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate running against incumbent Republican Governor Scott Walker.

Having made it difficult for urban public school districts to fund themselves and simultaneously diverting public funds to private schools, Walker now touts himself as a leader in education. Whatever gains have been made in Wisconsin education he has claimed for himself, while blaming Evers for everything that has gone wrong.

Third-party ads by shadowy outside interests — Republican groups have outspent Democratic groups two to one — accuse Evers of not using his office to illegally revoke the teaching licenses of some teachers who were caught using school computers to view pornography. (In the most prominent case, the teacher's sister had sent him risqué emails, which he passed along to other staff.) In fact, state law at the time only addressed sanctions against teachers whose conduct directly affected students; Evers supported resulting legislation to expand the law to include sexual misconduct in which no actual student was involved.

Polls have suggested that the race is a toss-up, but I tend to believe that Walker still has the edge here. Including the effort to recall him in his first term, he has won statewide election three times. Suburban and rural resentment of Milwaukee and Madison, the disappearance of good-paying union jobs, and a steady sprawl of exurbanites from Chicago and the Twin Cities are turning Wisconsin more red than purple.

The Democrats' argument against Walker in past elections, that Wisconsin's economy has lagged behind neighboring states, doesn't work for them this year. (Apparently, it didn't work for them in past years, either, but let's move on.) Instead, Democrats now complain that current employment gains have come at the cost of profligate give-aways to firms such as Uline, Amazon and Foxconn.

Another Democratic campaign theme is that our roads are falling apart because Walker refuses to pay for their upkeep. And the savings get passed on to you in the form of auto repair bills!

Doing anything about shoring up public education, trimming corporate welfare, or fixing potholes costs money, and if Republicans are about anything, it's whipping up preemptive sticker shock. Fighting back against being painted as a Taxandspendliberal is going to require more charisma and dynamism than I've seen out of Mr. Evers so far.

Even if Evers should win in November, he'll face a legislature gerrymandered to tilt so Republican, there would have to be over a dozen Republican legislators each caught in bed with a dead girl, a live boy and a Colin Kaepernick jersey for Evers to get any of his agenda passed.

Besides, see how your auto repair bills boost the private sector economy?

Environmental Stewardship: Watershed Restoration

It's time once again to lend the blog to my dad for his monthly Environmental Stewardship column. Take it away, Dad!

With the location of the Foxconn factory in the Village of Mt. Pleasant, Lake Michigan water going to Waukesha and the reorganization of Root-Pike WIN, “watersheds” are certainly in the news. First of all, what is a watershed? According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a watershed is “the area of land that catches rain and snow and drains or seeps into a marsh, stream, river, lake or groundwater.” All of us live in one or more watersheds.

Marker at 85th Street just west of Cooper Road in Pleasant Prairie

At the largest level, did you know we have a continental divide (or sub-continental divide) right in our backyards? This divide separates the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River watershed from the Mississippi River watershed. It goes right through the area to be developed by Foxconn. Some of the water that falls on that area flows south to the Des Plaines River and thence down the Illinois River to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Rain and snow falling on the east side of the divide will go into the Pike River and then into Lake Michigan.

Major watersheds may be broken up into smaller watersheds fitting that same definition and generally based on a single river and its tributaries. Thus, most of us [in eastern Racine County] live in the Pike River, Root River, Des Plaines River, Oak Creek or Fox River watersheds or in a somewhat different kind of watershed without a named river such as the Wind Point watershed.

It should be noted at this point that all (or most) of these rivers were recently assessed and classified by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) as being “impaired” using the Wisconsin’s Consolidated Assessment and Listing Methodology (WisCALM). This methodology basically is to determine whether the river is swimmable and fishable, checking on nitrogen, phosphorus, biological oxygen demand and e. coli levels.

But rather than wringing their hands in despair, organizations such as the Root-Pike Watershed Initiative Network have worked out long-term Watershed Restoration Projects to upgrade and improve these rivers and their watersheds. According to the latest WIN newsletter, they “have helped raise more than $1.4 million for watershed restoration projects” and “More than 40 projects are in some phase of planning, design or implementation.” Within approved Watershed Restoration Plans for the Root, Pike and Wind Point watersheds, are more than 500 project recommendations. “Approved” means by both the WDNR and EPA; local governments are also adopting or endorsing these plans.

Pike River in Mt. Pleasant, Racine County

Obviously, these plans and projects involve good environmental stewardship. I have been involved with some of the removal of invasive, alien plant species along the rivers and in the wetlands. I have also assisted in the planting of native species in these areas. These projects will continue once the weather warms up again in the spring. Organizations such as Weed Out! Racine can use lots of volunteers. To volunteer, contact Melissa Warner or Dave Giordano, the Executive Director of Root-Pike WIN, or any of the other organizations that make up the “Network.”

May I also suggest that you visit one of the major restoration successes in the city of Racine; make sure you get down to Samuel Myers Park in most any season of the year. This restoration project was carried out under the direction and fund raising of Dr. Julie Kinzelman, Laboratory Director for the Racine Health Department. It is located on Lake Michigan just south of Gateway Technical College (junction of 11th Street and Pritchard Drive). Invasive plant species were removed, native species planted, proper grading and a board walk with educational signage installed. Acceptance of a large grant from the U.S. Forest Service for additional native tree planting has just been approved by the City Council. This will more than double the amount of tree canopy and stormwater infiltration, thus improving our health as well as that of the Lake.

Q Toon: WeatherProphecy with Lauryl Sulfate

Rain falls on the just and the unjust, as the Good Book says; but there's always some holy roller assuring us that the rain was intended for the unjust all along. It's just that God has crappy aim.

The crack about Hurricane Harvey pummeling Houston because of its lesbian mayor (who left office last year) came from Ghostface look-alike Ann Coulter, who was, no doubt, merely making a desperate effort to tweet something —anything— more outrageous than Donald Trump does.

But her tweet that former Mayor Annise Parker was a more credible explanation for Hurricane Harvey than climate change provides the launching pad for this week's cartoon.

I woke up the morning after drawing this cartoon to find that nearly every other editorial cartoonist on the AAEC site had drawn cartoons about hurricanes and climate change, but it's important to note that the destruction we've witnessed from Harvey and Irma cannot be blamed on one factor alone.  Nick Anderson penned an excellent long-form cartoon for the Texas Tribune on unfettered development contributing to flooding in and around Houston, and while 600 trillion gallons of water is going to wreak havoc on the best of ecosystems, I highly recommend Anderson's well-researched opus.

Houston isn't the only place where developers regard the wetlands in particular and the environment generally as a nuisance getting in the way of their profits. Here in Wisconsin, the Republican governor and his Republican-run legislature are greasing the skids for the building of a huge Foxxcon plant, legislating that any legal challenges from environmentalists must go straight to the Republican-run State Supreme Court for judgment. Since Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce has successfully packed that court with their paid stooges, the outcome of any environmental lawsuit is a foregone conclusion in favor of whatever degradation Foxxcon might have wrought.

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Incidentally, I have no idea where Hurricane Jose plans to go. I had been checking storm predictions on windy.com daily as Florida braced for Irma's assault, and the precise tracks predicted for the two hurricanes changed from day to day. The site originally had Irma blustering up Florida's east coast and crashing into the U.S. again where Georgia meets South Carolina, but it moved her path westward a little bit each day. As of this morning, windy.com has Jose brushing against North Carolina's outer banks, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, but mostly staying out to sea.

I think the good citizens of the landlocked state of Vermont may rest easy. Until the snows fall, anyway.

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Tune in again tomorrow for a bonus cartoon on another topic about which all the other members of the AAEC site have already picked the bones clean.

Q Toon: Avant la Deluge, Quoi?

As some of you may know, I draw my syndicated cartoons over the weekend to be released to LGBTQ newspapers and magazines, and the weekly ones hit the newsstands the following Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Has anyone else noticed how often these days last weekend's news seems like it happened ages ago?

Before Hurricane Harvey decided to park itself over Houston for most of this week, Donald Joffrey Trump issued a memorandum aimed at ridding the U.S. military of transgender service members. Before that, he held one of his campaign rallies in Phoenix, Arizona to tease his pardon of Joe Arpaio, the sadistic anti-Latino former sheriff of Maricopa County, convicted of contempt of court.

Stealing that particular show was a guy placed prominently in the audience standing behind Trump; he wore a white t-shirt proclaiming that Trump and the GOP are not racist and repeatedly holding up a hand-made "Blacks for Trump" sign. He certainly caught social media's attention, and people checking out the web site advertised on his t-shirt discovered that he also believes that Hillary Clinton was colluding with ISIS to wipe out all black and white women, and that Cherokee Indians are "the real KKK slave masters."

So while I'm usually hesitant to joke about the mentally ill, I still worry about a nation where seemingly insane ideas are cherished as gospel by astonishing numbers of Americans. The man at the podium and his loyal fans are particularly susceptible, believing that thousands of invisible Americans swelled the crowd at Trump's inauguration, Mexican rapists are hurling 60-lb. bundles of marijuana over our border fences, and transgender soldiers are bankrupting the Pentagon. We've got anti-vaxxers, birthers, Jade Helmsters, and people who actually buy the powdered bone drink mix hawked by Alex Jones.

There are people who firmly believe, all evidence to the contrary, that tax cuts will balance the budget. People still believe that shifting the cost of society from the people who make the money to the people who do the work is a recipe for properity. Wisconsin is betting that a $3 billion subsidy to lure Foxconn here will be worth the investment, even though the state is unlikely to break even for another 25-40 years — even if you believe Foxconn will still be around in 2058.

But people believe that stuff, because they desperately want to.

Heck, a full third of respondents to a Fox News poll released yesterday believe Trump is "drawing the county together."

So, yeah, I totally made up that transgender Latino soldiers for Trump guy for this cartoon.

Only because I've completely lost faith that such a person couldn't possibly exist.