Biden's accomplishments

To the editor:

State Sen. Jeff Smith seemed to suggest that the reason Joe Biden's approval rating is in the toilet is because his accomplishments are not widely known. Perhaps a trip down memory lane will shed some light on his accomplishments.

His catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan started with the release of terrorists from the Bagram Air Base. One of these terrorists made his way to Kabul where he murdered 13 US military personnel. Biden, the delusional tough guy, decided to retaliate for these murders by droning the wrong vehicle and ended up killing 10 innocent Afghans including seven children. Now the Taliban is running amok killing Afghan men and torturing Afghan women and children. Heck of a job Joey!

Biden created a massive border crisis by orchestrating the ongoing daily super spreader events allowing nearly two million illegal immigrants from over 50 different countries into the United States. This does not even include the “gotaways” which is estimated to be another 500,000. This has resulted in record amounts of illegal drugs entering our country. Moreover, the open border has enabled child sex traffickers to get rich by selling children with ease.

He stopped the XL Pipeline which destroyed thousands of American jobs. Since oil is a global commodity, this not only resulted in higher gas prices for hard working Americans but it also made Biden grovel to Russia and Iran for more oil production. This puts America back in the Obama era when we had to pay Iran (the largest terrorist country in the world) for their oil which funded their terrorist activities.

Biden's agenda of defunding and demonizing the police has resulted in the largest increase in crime in decades. Even worse, this has led to a record number of police officers being murdered! Biden sometimes says he does not support defunding the police but his actions say otherwise. He has appointed Kristen Clark and Vanita Gupta both of whom have long advocated for defunding the police.

Biden's massive government spending has resulted in runaway inflation which adversely impacts low-income Americans. Biden does not care because today's Democrat party is owned by Big Tech, Big Media, Big Pharma and Big Education (aka the NEA) The Democrat Party of the 1960's and '70's that cared about the working class disappeared decades ago!

Biden has overseen far more COVID deaths than President Trump even though Trump didn't have vaccines or therapeutics while Biden has had both!

The reason Biden's approval rating is in the toilet is because people actually do know what he has done.

Ken Pazdernik Ellsworth

‘Gerrylaundering’ is not what the people want

To the editor:

I served with eight other Wisconsinites on the People’s Map Commission. Gov. Evers asked the commission to create legislative and congressional maps that would be without partisan bias or advantage, while holding true to traditional redistricting criteria.

We fulfilled those obligations. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave our maps A-plus grades. Meanwhile, the legislators drew maps to maintain partisan advantage. Princeton graded them Fs. After the Governor vetoed the legislators’ maps, the Wisconsin Supreme Court took charge.

Although the Governor supported the People’s Map Commission’s maps, he wasn’t allowed to present them to the Supreme Court. Why not?

Because the Supreme Court Justices declared they would only consider maps that differed as little as possible from the current maps.

This astounded me. For one year, we heard from nearly 2,000 citizens from all parts of Wisconsin. Never once did we hear, “leave the maps alone.” We learned from 18 redistricting experts: not one mentioned “least change” criterion.

A person must wonder why the Justices prioritized “least change.” There is nothing about “least change” in the Wisconsin Constitution. The legislature certainly didn’t follow “least change” when they redrew maps in 2010. The Supreme Court appears to want to cement the unfair partisan advantage of the current maps indefinitely. Robert Yablon, UW law professor, named this situation — where mapmakers perpetuate advantages — as “gerrylaundering.” Gerrylaundering is not right, not fair, not just. It certainly is not what the people of Wisconsin told us they want.

Annemarie McClellan

Former People’s Maps Commissioner

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