I’m out bitches. It’s been an interesting past three years, and I definitely enjoyed most of it. To all the real Badgers out there who had my back on all Mifflin-related issues, you guys are swell. To the rest of you, thanks for the page views. Never change, Madison. Keep… Read more »

Mifflin happened this weekend; it looked a lot different than it has in the past, but we still had a pretty good time. It bugs the crap out of me that the city gets to call it a huge success and act like they beat back the menace that is… Read more »

State Street is getting a major facelift, with construction currently happening on the 100 block and plans for development on the 500, 700 and 800 blocks in the works. The question is whether or not this is a good thing for the downtown area. To answer that question, the first thing… Read more »

So the city and the university have finally drawn the line in the sand — according to a letter from the Madison Police Department, “There will be no Mifflin Street Block Party.” They are also cancelling having an unsanctioned good time anywhere that weekend. Good. I’m sick of the half-assed attacks… Read more »

Voter registration is moving online around the country and Wisconsin needs to get on board. In a rare agreement on voting policy, red and blue states alike seem to agree that offering online voter registration is a good idea. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 17 states already… Read more »

Gov. Scott Walker spent the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference dancing around the idea of running for president in 2016. Walker told Politico in an interview Friday he was not ruling out a run for president. Walker also declined to commit to serving a full second term if… Read more »

The Associated Students of Madison is using student segregated fees to reimburse several students for the cost of attending the Conservative Political Action Conference this month, the latest bad idea in a long tradition of bad ideas for using segregated fees. The students attending the event will be from different… Read more »

I want to talk about the “UW-Madison Confessions” Facebook page and the manufactured controversy that has recently surrounded it. If you’re the rare student not aware of what’s going on, here is the gist: two weeks ago, someone started a Facebook page allowing University of Wisconsin students to post anonymous… Read more »

A report by the Government Accountability Board came out Monday saying it could cost the state as much as $14.5 million to end same-day voter registration. State Republicans are still considering the measure to end same-day registration anyway, because, of course they are. Following in the footsteps of the Voter… Read more »

A fight resulting in a shot being fired outside a concert at The Frequency Jan. 28 has led the venue to eliminate hip-hop shows in the future. The small music club on West Main Street announced on their Facebook page they would no longer host local, regional or national hip-hop shows.… Read more »

Earlier this month, the State Assembly and Senate passed new rules for acceptable behavior in the Capitol gallery that prevent people from recording in any way the actions on the Assembly floor. Republicans were able to move the new rules through without support from Democrats. There were a couple other… Read more »

Hello, dear readers. My name is John Waters and writing opinion columns here at The Badger Herald has been my game for the last three years. It’s been an awesome and at times ridiculous part of my college experience I wouldn’t trade for anything. I am genuinely excited about the… Read more »

Several CEO’s, like Papa John’s John Schnatter, have made headlines in the last few weeks saying that Obamacare will force them to raise prices. Ian’s Pizza part-time owner Nick Martin thinks it’s about time national chains have to take care of their employees. Martin told the Huffington Post that he… Read more »

Nine Republican assemblymen made the news Tuesday with some peculiar requests. Chief among them: a desire to arrest federal officials who attempt to implement Obamacare. I have talked at length in the past about the benefits of moving the nation away from universal coverage based on emergency care and toward coverage… Read more »

Wisconsin just can’t make up its mind. On the same night we helped re-elect President Barack Obama and elected Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., both obviously Democrats, we once again turned sole control of the state Legislature to the Republican Party. What does this mean going forward? The first indication of… Read more »

With the presidential election coming up this Tuesday, I find myself asking, why the heck do we vote on a Tuesday? The answer, as CNN showed, is we passed a law in 1845 to vote on the first Tuesday in November to accommodate people traveling by horse and buggy. That’s… Read more »

Following the tragic shooting at a spa in Brookfield, Democratic lawmakers said they plan to introduce legislation that would force people under restraining orders to prove they have given up their weapons. The current law requires people with restraining orders to give up their weapons either to law enforcement or… Read more »

With three weeks until the Nov. 6 elections, Wisconsin is a microcosm of the entire country, with both the presidential and senatorial races within a single percentage point, according to a Marquette University Law School poll. With overall national polls showing the presidential race just as tight and the senate… Read more »

President Barack Obama looked to begin his rebound from his loss in the first debate with a rally on Bascom Hill, and he did not disappoint. According to officers I talked to at the event, 30,000 people turned out for the president, with even more turned away at the door.… Read more »

This week, Wisconsin once again found itself in the middle of a union labor dispute. This time it was about referees, not teachers, and the people getting screwed were our favorite millionaires, not our children. After the “Inaccurate Reception” ruined my Monday night, it managed to bring the country together… Read more »

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the Public Policy Polling released a poll Thursday that has President Barack Obama with a six point lead over Mitt Romney in Wisconsin. This joined several other polls all giving the president about a five to seven point lead heading into the final six weeks of the… Read more »

The Government Accountability Board said Thursday it does not want to see the state Supreme Court rule on the voter ID bill before the Nov. 6 presidential election. Kevin Kennedy, director of the state GAB, said he doesn’t believe there is enough time to implement the law and told Attorney… Read more »

A report by The Nation came out Wednesday showing Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, wrote a letter of support for the Kenosha Community Health Center to open a similar health center in Racine. The ensuing media conversation about this fact shows the flaws in our nation’s health care… Read more »

So this is my last article of the year. It has been interesting, as always, and I want to leave with a simple message: Go vote. Today is the Democratic primary, and I have already endorsed Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett as the candidate needed to take on Gov. Scott Walker.… Read more »

It’s Mifflin time again! I hope everyone enjoys this last chance of the semester to blow off steam with one of the University of Wisconsin’s best-known traditions. Oh, right, I forgot; we have rewritten the past few years of Mifflin history and turned it into the Drunkpacolypse that must be… Read more »

With the recall primary two short weeks away and the ultimate battle looming a month later, the candidates are all in campaign mode. I’ve sat down to see how I think they are doing, and toss out some grades as the candidates take on the issues. Kathleen Falk: She attempted to… Read more »

Is Gov. Scott Walker “more Nixonian than even Richard Nixon himself”? According to John Dean, the man who served as White House council to Nixon and who became a key witness for the prosecution during the Watergate trial, Walker is just that. In a two-part article for the legal analysis website… Read more »

The Government Accountability Board announced last month that 900,938 people officially signed in favor of the first gubernatorial recall in state history. For the Democratic Party, the question is: “Now what?” After a year of concerted efforts, millions of dollars, one round of recall elections and a Wisconsin Supreme Court… Read more »

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, thinks that America is facing an “epidemic” where women are “adopting a single motherhood lifestyle” because they are going to get paid by the government. Grothman has said “unwanted or mistimed” pregnancies are “the choice of women” and that to believe otherwise is… Read more »

Gov. Scott Walker’s decision not to challenge any of the recall signatures means that after a year of recall activity, Wisconsin is getting close to the main event. The deadline for Walker to challenge recall signatures passed without incident Monday, leaving only a review by state elections officials between Wisconsin and… Read more »

GOP candidates for the U.S Senate seat in Wisconsin have jumped on board with their party’s presidential candidate hopefuls in denouncing President Barack Obama for his policy of mandating all employer health insurance must cover birth control. After checking that we are indeed in the 21st century, I decided to lay out… Read more »

How much responsibility do American companies who manufacture their products overseas have to the workers making those products? The Student Labor Action Committee’s request that the university terminate its relationship with Adidas over $1.8 million in severance pay owed to workers in PT Kizone Indonesia throws this question into the… Read more »

The Republican Party reached a new low last week, rejecting outright a series of proposals brought to a joint legislative hearing on infant mortality. Wisconsin finds itself among the worst of all states with infant mortality rates. The number of infants who die in Wisconsin in the first year of their… Read more »

A year later, it turns out refusing $810 million from the federal government to overhaul Wisconsin’s rail was still a bad idea. The Legislature recently approved $31.6 million to be spent on the Amtrak line from Milwaukee to Chicago. That amount won’t cover all the necessary costs either, with the… Read more »

Imagine the NFL passed a new rule in the offseason, rewarding the Super Bowl champions Green Bay Packers by allowing them to set the order for the upcoming draft. Would you expect the Packers to be fair and set up the draft based on record? Of course not. They would… Read more »

The “Recall Walker” movement got underway Tuesday, and apparently Gov. Scott Walker does not think he had anything to do with it. Walker said in a news conference Tuesday that “the bottom line is we did what we said we were going to do when we were campaigning.” The truth,… Read more »

Wisconsin needs referendums, not recalls. Ohio voted yesterday in a nonpartisan issue referendum to repeal a collective bargaining bill similar to the one passed in Madison earlier this year. The referendum provided the taxpayers an opportunity to respond directly to the union busting legislation in a single vote. Wisconsin voters… Read more »

The special jobs session is drawing to a close, and it is clear the Republicans are more interested in protecting their own jobs than creating any for Wisconsin. In the last month, a session that was supposed to be aimed with “laser beam focus” on the issue of creating jobs… Read more »

Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to freeze state workers’ pay for two years is just another partisan power grab. The governor’s plan is to freeze wage increases across the board for all state employees over the next two years. Following the controversial bill earlier this year that removed union bargaining rights,… Read more »

There is a growing problem on campus involving moped parking. Along with an increase in the cost of parking permits, there has been a noticeable decrease in available parking spots. This has led to a parking nightmare for students trying to get to class on time. Although the increase in… Read more »

The bill moving through the Capitol right now aimed at preventing felons from gaining employment will cost Wisconsin. A bill proposed by State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, would permit employers to both refuse employment for applicants convicted of a felony and fire current employees with the same conviction, even if the… Read more »

Republicans use the term “class warfare” when the President asks the top 1 percent to pay its fair share. Rep. Paul Ryan said “class warfare makes for great politics but rotten economics,” and I, for one, agree. However, if you really want to see class warfare and how it makes… Read more »

“Scotty doesn’t know” is now not only the best line to ever come out of Matt Damon’s mouth, but a new staple for our governor. This is the governor who finds himself in a place of ignorance in the middle of an evolving John Doe investigation. He probably doesn’t like… Read more »

This article is for a great person and a good friend who is currently in the hospital recovering from the brutal low-point of a sunny and warm Saturday afternoon. Waking up early Saturday morning, we were all expecting the worst, with a rainy forecast that had been dogging us for… Read more »

Count, challenge, vet, count, challenge, vet, count… Across the state, in gymnasiums and courtrooms, the process is the same. The battles are different, with the gym crowd recounting by hand the votes cast in the recent Supreme Court election under the careful eyes of journalists, police officers and groups of… Read more »

“I give up.” That was how Jon Stewart put it after delving into the taxation realities of America’s big businesses. And I’m going to shock some of my more regular readers and say I completely agree with him. Okay, so no surprise there, but I’m not here to lambaste the… Read more »

Kloppenburg was robbed! Waukesha pulling votes out of thin air to ensure a Prosser/Walker/Koch victory! All right — probably not. What an election it was, though — huge voter turnouts, too-close-to-call election day, razor-thin margins of victory and the eventual 14,000 “oops” in Waukesha. So as it stands today, did… Read more »

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently ran an investigative piece on a University of Wisconsin research group called UW Pain and Policy Studies Group. The investigation found the group repeatedly advocated against stricter regulations in the use of painkillers known as opioids. Perhaps the most notable of these painkillers is OxyContin,… Read more »

History is a powerful thing — just ask University of Wisconsin professor Bill Cronon. One of our own history professors, he recently received an open records request from the Republican Party for applying a bit of history to the current debates raging within Wisconsin. Before we even get into how… Read more »

With Gov. Scott Walker’s signature, the battle over the rights of Wisconsin unions officially moved beyond the legislative process and spilled over into the courts. The first sign was a temporary restraining order issued by Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi, preventing the publishing of the union bargaining law until a… Read more »

Imagine for a second you are a Republican state senator in Wisconsin, newly elected in 2010. You spent your entire campaign season listening to the spin that America didn’t like this “hope-y, change-y thing,” the Democratic base wasn’t energized and this was your time. You had the mandate of the… Read more »

Chancellor Biddy Martin has shown an unwavering commitment to transparency and discussion that is currently unrivaled in the city of Madison. Where Gov. Scott Walker flippantly referred to the budget repair bill as “just another bill” in his letter to Wisconsin, Martin recognizes the incredible significance surrounding these proceedings. The New… Read more »

Outside the Capitol, thousands have gathered, and despite Fox News’ best attempts to spin it otherwise, the protests have been peaceful. With 70,000 people in attendance at an impromptu rally, there were no arrests and no major incidents of any kind. Union workers, teaching assistants, public school teachers, students of… Read more »

This is Wisconsin, right? Well then where are the 250,000 jobs our new governor promised us when he was elected and declared Wisconsin “open for business?” There has to be a bunch of construction jobs stemming from the $810 million dollars the federal government gave us to build high-speed rails.… Read more »

Sunday was a historic day of sorts, with more people tuning in to watch the Super Bowl than any other program in television history. What we were all treated to was a weird combination of football and politics. As ESPN columnist Jeff MacGregor put it: “Sunday night was not football in… Read more »

Yesterday, a federal judge in Florida ruled the newly passed health care legislation unconstitutional. Florida, along with 25 other states, including Wisconsin, had filed a lawsuit to stop the reform and the judge agreed, concluding, “Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the act with the individual mandate.”… Read more »

It’s time to party like its 1997, Wisconsin; the Packers are going back to the Super Bowl. After marching into the eyesore that is Soldier Field, the Pack wasted no time shutting up all the FIBs in attendance by jumping out to a 14-0 lead and cruising to victory. Sunday… Read more »

I hope everyone had a great break and that Santa brought you a lot of presents and old friends and good times. Unfortunately, for several Americans in Tucson, Ariz., a gun ensured they would never again enjoy the holidays. That’s a pretty stark and unrelenting thought, and I want it… Read more »

The Big Ten underwent a little makeover on Monday. Commissioner Jim Delany rolled out the monikers for the newly created football divisions, and after much deliberation the Big Ten went with Leaders and Legends. Really? I know a lot of questions are running through your head right now, so let’s… Read more »

Promises. They are tricky little buggers (pardon my English) in the world of politics. Readily made and easily forgotten; just last week I was talking to my dad about Gov.-elect Scott Walker. He said to me, “You know what, I remember every promise politicians make. I remember Al Gore and… Read more »

As we all know, Ron Johnson is the newest senator of Wisconsin, ousting Russ Feingold from the seat he has held since 1992 and costing the American people one of their greatest advocates. I’m here to say, Wisconsin, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You should be ashamed because you… Read more »