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All-Star Milwaukee Brewers invest in The Avenue to make positive impact off the field

Leadership of The Avenue and 3rd Street Market Hall recently announced its two newest investors: Milwaukee Brewers stars Ryan Braun and Christian Yelich. Both of the Major League players will make significant investments in the project. The plan follows their work last fall, when the duo teamed up in an off-field effort to support their native Southern California with equally impactful results. “Seeing how California Strong had such a positive community impact on our hometowns reinforced the importance of supporting the cities that support us,” said Yelich. “I’ve quickly grown to love Milwaukee in my time here and want...

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Wisconsin’s TANF financial assistance program is failing to help enough people climb out of poverty

The law creating the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANF) turned 23 years old on August 22, and it has not improved with age. At the national level and here in Wisconsin, TANF is now serving only a very small fraction of the families who are living in poverty and may be eligible for assistance. In Wisconsin, if we compare the share of families with income below the federal poverty level who got direct cash support in 2017 to the ratio in 1996 when TANF began, 52,000 fewer families are now getting that assistance. The erosion of direct...

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Community leaders deliver petition seeking to bar local law enforcement collaboration with ICE

Dozens of Milwaukee community members gathered on September 5 for a press conference at City Hall, before giving public testimony and delivering over sixteen-thousand petitions to the Fire and Police Commission during their general meeting. Community members expressed their desire to see the commission adopt a policy of non-collaboration between the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Public speakers included a diverse range of faith and civic leaders, each highlighting their shared solidarity and concerns with the current policy language on local immigration enforcement. “Community members need to have trust that local law enforcement is...

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Semantic Arsenals: The language of “Warspeak” in news leaves us fatigued and shell-shocked

By Robert Myers, Professor of Anthropology & Public Health, Alfred University In a manifesto posted online shortly before he went on to massacre 22 people at an El Paso Walmart, Patrick Crusius cited the “invasion” of Texas by Hispanics. In doing so, he echoed President Trump’s rhetoric of an illegal immigrant “invasion.” Think about what this word choice communicates: It signals an enemy that must be beaten back, repelled and vanquished. Yet this sort of language – what I call “warspeak” – has relentlessly crept into most aspects of American life and public discourse. After the Columbine shooting, I...

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Unspooling the mythology of World War II on 80th anniversary of its bloody beginning

“The sufferings of the many pay for the luxuries of the few.” – Greta Thunberg Sunday, September 1 marked the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II. On that day in 1939, German troops crossed the border into Poland, setting off the greatest war the world has ever known. No war—and maybe no event of any kind—has been so thoroughly chronicled, both at the time it occurred and after the fact. But, like so many of the iconic events in America’s past, the rendering that endures in the culture is a stew of fact, fiction, and fairy...

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The political divisions of 1860 and 1968 as a lesson for the 2020 elections

By Austin Sarat, Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College Nasty, divisive elections are nothing new in the United States. As someone who teaches and writes about the importance of historical memory in American law and politics, I believe the 2020 election will rival the ugliest America has ever witnessed. There are lessons that can be learned from examining this election’s parallels with two previous presidential elections – 1860 and 1968 – both of which left America deeply divided. Slavery and geography in 1860 In the lead-up to the 1860 election, the nation was splintered by the question...

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