Madison elementary art teacher posts students’ anti-Walker cartoons

MADISON — Some kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders in Madison public schools are apparently preparing for futures in either political cartooning or time on a psychiatrist’s couch.

Kati Walsh, an elementary art teacher at the Madison Metropolitan School Districtin July posted some of her students’ drawings of Gov. Scott Walker  in jail. Walsh suggests her young Rembrandts’ ideas for their sketches popped up out of thin air.

“One student said something to the effect of ‘Scott Walker wants to close all the public schools’… So the rest of the class started drawing their own cartoons and they turned very political. They have very strong feelings about Scott Walker,” the teacher wrote on her blog.

This young student at a Madison, Wis. school drew Gov. Walker behind bars.

This young student at a Madison, Wis. school drew Gov. Scott Walker behind bars.

This student drew Gov. Scott Walker behind bars and, says the student’s teacher, the governor being fitted with an orange  jumpsuit.

“The cartoons started getting a little inappropriate so at this point, we stopped drawing and discussed what a political cartoon was,” she wrote.

If the drawings weren’t appropriate, why did the art teacher publish them on her blog? It turns out these weren’t the inappropriate drawings.

“I did not publish the inappropriate cartoons that depicted any harm coming to Walker,” Walsh told Wisconsin Reporter in an email. “I made them throw them away and we talked about how when you disagree with someone, it’s OK to disagree with them respectfully.”

Walsh said she published the drawings because she thought it was “an amazing teaching moment.”

Via: Wisconsin Reporter

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MICHELLE OBAMA TO TOUT WATER IN SODA TOWN

MADISON — Wash this political trip down with a little irony.

When first lady Michelle Obama pays a call on Watertown on Thursday afternoon to urge Americans to choose water over soda, she’ll be making her latest health pitch in a southern Wisconsin community that earns its living, at least in part, on the sweat of soda bottlers.

The corporate office of Wis-Pak Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of Pepsi-Cola and other leading soft drinks, is located in Watertown. Wis-Pak, with production facilities and warehouses throughout the central U.S.,  is the community’s 10th largest employer, according to the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce.

Watertown also is home to the 7-Up Bottling Co., a family-owned business that for 75 years has provided full-service beverage distribution and supplied equipment to businesses in Dodge, Jefferson, Waukesha and Rock counties.

Susan Dascenzo, executive director of the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce, could not provide employment figures of the two soda distributors.

Officials from the companies did not return phone calls Monday afternoon from Wisconsin Reporter. But a local Republican brought up the interesting political-business juxtaposition not long after the first lady’s office announced plans to unveil her new health effort at the Watertown High School.

Via: Human Events

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House Democrats Declare The Tea Party Has Been Defeated…

MADISON, Wis.—The tea party, at least its widespread influence on Republican congressional candidates, "is over," declared the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party group charged with electing Democrats to the House.

"House Republican incumbents—and their candidates—are running as far away from the Tea Party as they can," a pre-election DCCC memo provided to Yahoo News reads. "Regardless of whether [Republicans] win or lose, the Tea Party of 2010 is over. They've been forced on defense in the message fight all cycle long, and now those who win will have done so by giving up on the Tea Party."

The memo argues that Republican lawmakers who arose from the tea party are now promoting bipartisanship and willingness to compromise in their re-election bids instead of embracing the hard-line messages that propelled their campaigns two years ago.

It is possible, of course, that this Democratic declaration is premature. Tea party-backed candidates dominated Republican primary contests across the country in 2012, launching what could be a new class of future Republican leaders. In Texas, Ted Cruz defeated the establishment candidate backed by Gov. Rick Perry, and in Indiana, Richard Mourdock forced longtime Republican Sen. Richard Lugar into early retirement. Looking to 2013, tea party groups who are begrudgingly backing Mitt Romney have vowed to press him, should he become president, toward conservative positions.

The tea party, a grass-roots network of conservative activists, drove many Republican House and Senate candidates to victory in the midterm elections two years ago, but its influence seems to be overshadowed in 2012 by the presidential election. Still, the infrastructure that was built since the movement launched in 2009 has been used to promote Republican congressional candidates and serve as a backup ground game for Romney's presidential campaign.

Regardless of the health of the tea party's influence this election cycle, Republicans are widely expected to retain control of the House.

Via: Yahoo

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