Renown Wisconsin Cartoonist Konopacki Leaves Wisconsin for Florida

Artist leaves cold confederate state for a warm confederate state on the Atlantic

Madison, Wisconsin — As the openly racist Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans target everything from clean water, voting rights for black and brown people to an entire working class, there is a growing sense that people who spent their lives creating and living here are beginning to pack up and leave the state.

No empirical case for this exodus, just anecdotal.

Alarming is the case of Mike Konopacki, political and labor cartoonist.

Maybe, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin will wake up.

From the South-Central Federation of Labor in Facebook:

Good Bye, Wisconsin

By Mike Konopacki for Union Labor News

Time travels at the speed of life. After 66 years I’ve left the state that I grew up in. After 46 years I’ve left the city and the people that have shaped me. This July Linda and I sold our house near Vilas Park to begin retirement. We both grew up in Manitowoc, on the shores of Lake Michigan. The beach that Linda and I loved in our childhood has beckoned again, now it is the Atlantic Ocean at St. Augustine, Florida.

Leaving Wisconsin isn’t an easy thing to do. But given how our home state has betrayed its Progressive and New Deal legacy, Linda and I feel we are just leaving one Confederate State for another. At least Florida has milder winters. I can now give up winter biking and shoveling snow.

Linda and I are not alone. Recently my friends Nikki Mandell and Rick March also left Wisconsin. Nikki is a retired history professor from UW Whitewater and Rick was an influential folklorist for the Wisconsin Arts Board. Recently Rick wrote, “The Republican government visited upon our formerly progressive state every outrage on the reactionary wish list. Ultimately, Nikki and I opted to relocate to Portland, Oregon for a better climate, weather-wise and political.”

I came to Madison in 1971 to finish my BA in Political Science. My interest in politics came in the early 60s when our Catholic school comic books warned us of “This Godless Communism.” As a Cub Scout during the Cuban Missile Crisis I distributed “fall-out shelter” brochures. After high school graduation in 1969 the Vietnam War threatened with the draft. But in July of 1970 Nixon’s draft lottery gave me a high draft number, freeing me to finish my degree at UW Madison.

I arrived in Madison in August of 1971, one year after the Sterling Hall bombing. This was a heady time. Cops were still tear-gassing State Street. I admit I spent more time seeking out blues bands than engaging in politics, but when Watergate broke I got my first cartoon published in the Daily Cardinal. For the next year I contributed anti-war and Watergate cartoons. I decided that after graduation I’d become a full-time political cartoonist.

In 1973, Linda and I married. She found work as a registered nurse in the UW Hospital emergency room. Still in school, I spent my first summer as a husband teaching myself cartooning and devouring Watergate hearings on TV and reading the papers.

That fall I took a part-time school bus driving job for Madison Metro. In between morning and afternoon shifts I worked on my cartooning. After graduation I got some cartoons published in the Capital Times and was later syndicated by Rothco Cartoons in Yonkers, NY. In 1977 the workers at the Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal went on strike. The Madison papers busted the unions to facilitate the computerized transition from “hot type” to “cold type.” The workers created a strike paper called the Madison Press Connection. I contributed my Rothco cartoons to the PC until August of 1978 when the paper’s regular cartoonist left. For the next 16 months I did five local and state cartoons a week and learned how to do activist cartoons on behalf of working people. That was my introduction to labor cartooning.

In 1983, Racine native Gary Huck and I created Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons.

Everything I know about the labor movement I learned first hand from the workers as the Press Connection and the great people and activists at the Madison Federation of Labor, later the Dane County Labor Council, and now the South Central Federation of Labor. To all of these special people, too numerous to mention, I am deeply grateful.

These past few weeks away from my friends have filled me with a sense of loss, but I intend to continue cartooning for the labor movement.

I blame my upbringing in Madison for my choice of beach reading. I discovered the Jacksonville writer Stetson Kennedy. My first two books from the library are his Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was, and his expose of the KKK, The Klan Unmasked. I also read Rick March’s book A Great Vision: A Militant Family’s Journey Through the 20th Century. These books offer hope in desperate times. As Rick March writes in A Great Vision, "Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, we face the same challenges on a national level as the citizens of Wisconsin faced under Walker. Now progressives everywhere need to work smart, remain active, resist and not be demoralized."
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Mike Konopacki is the featured political and labor cartoonist for Union Labor News and many other publications.

C'mon Scott Walker, Are These People Really ISIS

Shot these photos Feb. 26, 2011 at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison.

Scott Walker compared these people to ISIS yesterday at the rightwing CPAC event held in National Harbor, Maryland.

Scott Walker Disqualifies Himself from Consideration of GOP Nomination

Scott Walker compares Wisconsin families to ISIS at CPAC
in National Harbor, Maryland

“Let me be perfectly clear: I’m just pointing out the closest thing I have to handling this difficult situation (ISIS) is the 100,000 protesters I had to deal with,” Scott Walker told reporters. Asked if he regretted the statement, he said, “No.” (DeFour, Wisconsin State Journal)

Updated - See Scott Walker Confuses Democracy with Terrorism (Matheson,  Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative Authentic News, Locally Grown)
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Scott Walker has disqualified himself from consideration for the American presidency by comparing protesting Wisconsin families to ISIS in a question-and answer session. His attempts to walk back his comments merely reinforce the fact this man is unfit for public office, much less the U.S. presidency.

National media ought to look into why Scott Walker avoids townhall-style question-and-answer sessions, holding zero in Wisconsin as governor.

Walker is a lightweight who can't think on his feet and has a pedestrian understanding of public policy, and no understanding of foreign policy.

Reports Craig Gilbert from the CPAC from National Harbor, Maryland:

An animated Scott Walker told a huge gathering of conservative activists that his battle with protesters in Wisconsin shows he has the mettle to take on ISIS as commander-in-chief.

"I want a commander-in-chief who will do everything in their power to ensure that the threats from radical Islamic terrorists do not wash up on American soil," Walker said.

"We need a leader with that kind of confidence. If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world," said Walker, who drew repeated cheers from the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering that draws thousands. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

This is typical Scott Walker of course, viewing Wisconsin families with whom he disagrees as terrorists and enemies.

The DNC put out a statement saying, “If Scott Walker thinks that it’s appropriate to compare working people speaking up for their rights to brutal terrorists, then he is even less qualified to be president than I thought"

So I say again Scott Walker can't handle policy questions.

This is why some progressive writers want Walker to be the GOP nominee and are trying to impose gravitas on the billionaires' minion who is afraid of interviews outside race-baiting Milwaukee hate radio and CPAC. (MacGillis, The New Republic)

As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Dan Bice put it two years ago: Scott Walker is not an "ideas guy," suggesting someone as error-prone as Walker who can't think on his feet "could earn him the distinction of being the Gov. Perry of the 2016 campaign." (Dan Bice chat transcript on Thursday, April 18, 2013) (Mal Contends)

Scott Walker is in Rick Perry territory, and much deeper than even Perry staggered in 2011-12.

I tell you as one of 100,000s who was at these rallies in 2011, at one event with my young nieces, Scott Walker comparing families with the most cold-blooded terrorists in the world is disqualifying for a number of reasons all of which lay bare Scott Walker's limited ability.

Walker four years ago said he considered planting agents provocateur among the citizens protesting the Wisconsin budget bill. This ought to be have provided a hint into who Walker is.

Scott Walker Is Unfit

One - Wisconsin families out in the streets that typically cold Wisconsin in February and March 2011 are not terrorists. This should not have to be said, then again Scott Walker is Scott Walker. (DeFour, Wisconsin State Journal)

Even The National Review bashed Walker for this latest exercise in imbecility. Writes Jim Geraghty: "That is a terrible response. First, taking on a bunch of protesters is not comparably difficult to taking on a Caliphate with sympathizers and terrorists around the globe, and saying so suggests Walker doesn’t quite understand the complexity of the challenge from ISIS and its allied groups. ... [Protesting citizens] they’re not ISIS. They’re not beheading innocent people. They’re Americans."

As Alec MacGillis writes in Slate: Protesters "were armed with signs and earmuffs, not swords and balaclavas."

Two - An elected representative does not "take on" the citizenry. This is America, he or she listens, gives people a hearing and then deliberates and makes policy.

That Scott Walker does not understand this foundation of democracy in the United States and that citizens are not ISIS make him unfit for office. Wisconsin families are not ISIS, Gov. Walker, not even "close."

Wisconsin Says 'No' to Anti-worker Law; GOP Says 'Yes'

Scott Walker and Republicans are following the out-of-state rightwing moneyed interests, ignoring Wisconsin.

Worker from Fitchburg, Wisconsin - Image from Citizen Action of Wisconsin

Secret Fracture between Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker Shows Moderate-Extremist Split in GOP

Scott Walker

Ruth Conniff has an important story in the Huffington Post [and The Progressive] that is easy to miss during the holidays.

Scott Walker's corrupt and no-compromise approach to ruling (and not governing in a representative democracy) has Republicans from the Tommy Thompson days disgusted with Walker.

When Thompson was governor, he was known to take offense if anyone questioned his commitment to public schools and support for the UW System. But Walker is a different type of Republican: Slash-and-burn, violate civil rights; and so corrupt, Tommy Thompson appears a William Proxmire by comparison.

Paul Fanlund writes in the Capital Times: "The recall is not about public employees nor is it about politics as usual. It is about Walker's toxic brand of political fundamentalism -- heartless and historically unprecedented -- that should repel fair-minded, mainstream voters everywhere."

Yep.

Even Walker knows the gig is up, as he hits the holiday air waves with his wife talking about "peace" in a new awkwardly acted spot.

Writes Kirsten Boyd Johnson: "The most comical part is that this is the best that Scott Walker can do even though he has been outspending his recall organizer opponents four to one in the contest so far."

An excerpt from Conniff's piece:

As the political crisis was brewing in Wisconsin last winter, Governor Scott Walker rebuffed former governor Tommy Thompson's advice to reach a compromise with public employee unions, according to a state senator as well as a friend of Thompson's who was involved in the political drama at the time.

"Tommy was beside himself that Walker was so dogmatic,' says the friend. 'We had lots of conversations about this--about how it was going to do nothing but cause chaos, and it was bad for the state. Businesses aren't going to move here in the middle of all this conflict."

Thompson, along with other moderate Republicans, reached out to Walker, the friend says, and urged him to sit down with union leaders and seek a compromise before Walker pushed through a law curtailing public employees' collective bargaining rights -- the issue that sparked mass protests and the state's first ever recall campaign against a governor.

"After a certain point, Walker quit taking Tommy's phone calls," the friend says. "I think Tommy was giving him advice he didn't want to hear."

Democratic State Senator Bob Jauch says that during the crisis, after he and 13 other state Democrats had fled the state to stall a vote on the collective bargaining issue, he spoke with former officials in Tommy Thompson's administration who said Thompson was trying to persuade Walker to reach a deal. "I heard it from three different people who talked to him," says Jauch.

Jauch also describes a recent meeting with Thompson at a memorial service for the president of the Wisconsin Capitol Correspondents Association, Dick Wheeler:

"I said, 'Tommy, you and I could have solved this whole thing over a cup of coffee.'" Jauch says. "Tommy put his hands on my shoulders and said, 'Bob, it would have been a pot of coffee, but absolutely we could have solved it.' "

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See Conniff's entire piece.

David Prosser Chokes Woman Colleague

Multiple sources say Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser (R-Wisconsin) grabbed fellow justice, Ann Walsh Bradley, by the neck and briefly choked her on June 13, the day before the Court corruptly ruled [4-3] against collective bargaining rights of state public employees and the open meeting clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. Justice Bradley also affirmed the attack.

Update: Two Wisconsin Agencies Now Investigating Alleged Judge-on-Judge Assault

Bill Lueders of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reports:

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument in her chambers last week, according to at least three knowledgeable sources. But other sources have offered a conflicting account, and Prosser on Saturday declared that the claims, once investigated, will be 'proven false.'

Details of the incident, first disclosed Saturday morning in a joint report by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, remain sketchy. The sources spoke on the condition that they not be named, citing a need to preserve professional relationships.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in an article published late Saturday, reported that the incident took place in Justice Bradley’s chambers on June 13, the day before the court issued its decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees.The sources who spoke to the Center and WPR said an argument about that ruling culminated in a physical altercation in the presence of other justices. They say Bradley purportedly asked Prosser to leave her office, whereupon Prosser grabbed Bradley by the neck with both hands. ...

In March, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reportedthat, in a disagreement over a case last year, Justice Prosser had called [Chief Justice] Justice Abrahamson a 'total bitch' and threatened to 'destroy' her.

Prosser is the former GOP speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly and is known to occasionally becoming unhinged. See video: David Prosser Gets Butchy, Ahh Bitchy.

Prosser won reelection by less than one percent after a 13-year former Assembly Republican caucus computer specialist [and now County Clerk of heavily GOP Waukesha County] who last year insisted—over the objections of I/T experts concerned about integrity of election data—that her election results collection-tallying system must be placed under her personal control for "security" (MJS) reasons claimed to have found 14,315 votes two after election day that tipped the race to her old boss, Prosser, after an incident in which she claims to have personally failed to save some election results. Prosser won the April race with some 7,000 votes out of some 1.4 million cast.

We have said before here that Prosser is a quarrelsome man who lost his 1996 race as a Republican nominee for congress in the right-leaning Wisconsin 8th district because he was a bad cultural fit for the bigoted milieu of traditional gender roles that predominates in Northeast Wisconsin. See also National ReviewTries to Masculate David Prosser.

This guy does not like women, an attribute typical of the self-loathing, closeted Republican.

If Prosser were to resign, a special election next April would be held.