First Published in Blasting News
Koch Brother written Scott Walker and the GOP’s Jim Crow
laws have turned Milwaukee into an open air prison for minorities.
The violence erupting in Milwaukee is the result of six
years of Walker and the GOP’s assault on Wisconsin’s largest city. Milwaukee
has been the oligarchs’ laboratory
since Walker assumed office. The GOP has
passed a series of egregious and insidious of laws designed to re-segregate
Milwaukee. When the laws are found to be
overtly racist by lower courts, those rulings are overruled by the most racist
GOP dominated State Supreme Court in Wisconsin’s history.
In 2011 incumbent Justice David Prosser, was defeated by
JoAnne Kloppenburg. Twenty-four hours
later, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nicklaus declared Prosser the victor
claiming she accidentally didn’t count 14,315 votes when she saved the results
on her personal computer. Nicklaus was Walker’s assistant before he
became governor and is the only person with access to the computer that tallies
Waukesha’s votes.
WI Supreme Court restores segregation in Milwaukee
The oligarchs’ laboratory Milwaukee and its suburbs are more segregated than most of the
nation. It has been reported the
chairman of one county’s Republican Party still refers to one mostly
African-American neighborhood in Milwaukee as “the colored section.” One of the most devastating of Walker’s
“reforms” has been to remove Milwaukee’s residency requirement for police and
fire fighters.
The 75 year-old requirement ensured the police and fire
fighters were invested in the community they served. The resulting white flight has tripled the
population of three rural counties around Milwaukee, where the percentage of African-Americans is under 2 percent.
The black poverty rate within the city is the second-highest in the
country. Walker has a history of
slashing of programs that benefit inner-city African-Americans, such as public
transportation. Governor Walker rejected
Fed. Funds for Amtrak's Hiawatha high speed rail line between Milwaukee and
Chicago.
Walker’s war on public education
Milwaukee’s public schools have become intensely segregated,
like Lloyd Barbee Montessori School whose enrollment is 92% black. Walker’s
expansion of charter schools and school vouchers is expected to strip $800
million from public schools over a decade. Walker’s $250 million cut in funding
from the U-W budget has been awarded to his wealthy hedge fund managers to
build an arena for the Milwaukee Bucks. One of the owners, Jon Hammes’ son donated $150,000
to a pro-Walker super PAC.
Legalizing bribery
Walker replaced the state’s nonpartisan Government
Accountability Board with two commissions made up of partisan appointees. The
board was responsible for election oversight and enforcing ethics codes. Walker replaced the Civil Service’s anonymous
employment exams with résumés, enabling racial bias, impossible to detect
because personnel files are not part of the public record.
A Republican three
judge panel has stayed a judges’ to issue ID cards to those who want one, declaring
ID law disenfranchises Milwaukee’s black and Hispanic population. The law will remain as written for the
November presidential election. In the
April primary when the law was in effect over 300,000 voters lost the right to
vote.
Governor Walker has called in the National Guard to beat
Milwaukee’s residents into submission after violent clashes have erupted over
the weekend. Is it any wonder the oligarch’s laboratory has turned
Milwaukee into a powder keg?
By Patricia Baeten
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