Tuesday, March 4, 2025
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Tuesday, March 4, 2025

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Eric Hovde and Ronald Reagan: The Left’s Unfair Attacks

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This is an opinion column.

I attended a Hovde event recently so I could report on the experience with all of you. The polls show that Hovde is now breaking even with Baldwin. Everyone in Wisconsin knows that the history of polling here demonstrates that any conservative within 5 points of the Democrat is actually breaking even or even slightly ahead.

The Hovde event was held at a farm in a horse barn in Fitchburg and was very well organized, but the most interesting part is that there were many hundreds of voters in attendance; the most I’ve seen for an event for a senate candidate in 40 years.

The event was followed two days later with the U.S. Senate candidate debate between Hovde and Baldwin. Baldwin came off as tired and lacking energy. Worse, I have heard her ads on the radio, and the blatant nature of her lies shocked me.  She’ll say anything, and she’s desperate to hold onto power.  Did you ever notice how Democrats can’t win without lying about their own true positions on the issues?

Terrence wall
Terrence wall at the reagan ranch.

I also heard an ad against Joan Ballweg that also was deceptive, saying she took out a government loan that she didn’t pay back; that was called PPP if you recall, and every business owner did that at the urging of the government.

This all occurred during the week leading up to my visit to the Reagan Ranch and the Reagan Presidential Library. Leftists’ attacks on Republicans go all the way back to those Reagan years; it’s nothing new, but it has become much worse recently with outright lying and fabrication of their leftist positions and making lies about the conservatives. It demonstrates the desperate position the left is in – they’re looking at losing their power to tell the rest of us what to do, to take our incomes, and to push their own socialistic agenda down our throats.

Like Trump and Hovde, President Reagan also presented an existential threat to the tyranny of the left.

It’s interesting to compare Reagan’s humble nature to the power-hungry nature of the left. Example – at the ranch, Reagan used one of those fiberglass shower stalls that would have barely fit him, and he slept in a bed that wasn’t even long enough to hold his feet; he had a bench positioned at the end of the bed to hold his feet.  And this was while he was president.  World leaders who visited the ranch were stunned at the simplicity of it; no massive palace or Russian dacha.

Likewise, an hour and a half away – the presidential library buildings where Reagan and Nancy are buried are also very Reaganesque; very low key and low rise, in Spanish revival style. I’m sure he must have approved. Inside, however, is a very modern and incredibly impressive museum that tells the whole story of Reagan’s life and his impact on the world.

They even had a replica of the Berlin Wall with holes in it that kids (and adult kids like me) can crawl on your hands and knees through to get a real feeling for what it was like for a trapped East Berliner to escape to freedom by digging a tunnel under the Wall. The library also contained Reagan’s Air Force 1 plane, along with his limo, and President Johnson’s Marine 1 helicopter. You actually get to walk through Air Force 1, and in doing so, I realized how unsophisticated and unpretentious it was back then. The whole experience was very well done and reminded me of the need for each of us citizens to fight back, to fight for our freedom, and to not let the left hijack this great nation.

The fight this election year is about so much more than who gets to lead us; it’s about the very direction of this country.  Do we want to continue down the failed path of socialism and tyranny of regular American citizens who just want to be left alone, or do we want to, as Reagan said, chart a new course?  A course that involves individual responsibility and freedom, freedom from government interference, and freedom to make our own choices. The left is all about choice when it comes to aborting yet-to-be-born children, but never about choice when comes to choosing where your children can go to school. They don’t want you to be able to choose your own path in life. They want to do that for you. They want to choose where your income is spent, what job you hold (only green jobs allowed), what car you drive, and even what kind of showerhead, dishwasher, and stove you can use.  They’ve stuck their nose into every aspect of our lives.

They scream “hands off my body”, but they sure love to put their hands on my job, my income, my house, my children, my business, and on every single aspect of my life.  As Reagan said, it’s time to choose.  Choose wisely, or it will be the last choice we ever make.

T. Wall has appeared on Fox News, Jesse Waters Show on Fox, Newsmax, CBS, NBC, Spectrum News 1, USA Today, X.com, YouTube, and numerous Madison and Milwaukee news programs and local newspapers (Wisconsin State Journal, Capital Times, Middleton Review, Middleton Times-Tribune, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a dozen other Wisconsin papers) and previously wrote a column for InBusiness magazine and the Middleton Times-Tribune for five years each.  T. Wall holds a degree from the UW in economics and an M.S. in real estate analysis and valuation and his full-time career is as a real estate developer.  Disclaimer:  The opinions of the writer are not necessarily those of this publication or the left!

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State and local law enforcement are being put in harm's way with Illinois’ migrant sanctuary policies, the Illinois Sheriffs Association says.

Association Executive Director Jim Kaitschuk said the National Sheriffs Association put out a note to their state partners that there are 700,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement administrative arrest warrants that are active. But, that doesn’t matter in Illinois.

“Illinois law enforcement is precluded and prohibited from participating in any activity that is solely related to civil enforcement,” Kaitschuk told The Center Square.

Illinois law, through the TRUST Act and The Way Forward Act, prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials if a civil detention order is the only thing ICE has against someone.

While Kaitschuk said they can cooperate when there are criminal orders, law enforcement not being able to cooperate with civil warrants can still cause security concerns.

“Unfortunately things do go wrong, right, and then we’re in a situation where you may not know anything about what’s occurring,” Kaitschuk said. “So, we’re kind of blind in those cases.”

Daily immigration arrests nationwide haven’t been comprehensively published, but some estimates are more than 21,000 immigration detentions across the country since Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump took office.

Last week, state Sen. Omar Aquino, D-Chicago, told a group of immigration advocates that Illinois will stand strong.

“You are not going to come into our house and just try to take people and separate families in this state,” Aquino said. “People have rights. They are human rights.”

Illinois law also limits ICE from using local county detention facilities. Kaitschuk said the state’s sanctuary policies prohibit police from even knowing whether they have a suspected illegal immigrant in their jail.

“And [ICE] they’re having to go to people’s houses and at the point in time, the problem then is that you may be subjecting people then that weren’t involved in any other criminal activity other than being here … not legally and open them up to being subjected to ICE at that point in time in that residence, as opposed to if they were at the jail, where they wouldn’t have been,” Kaitschuk said.

Illinois and Chicago officials are on the other side of the U.S. Department of Justice in litigation over migrant sanctuary policies. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is due in front of the U.S. House Oversight Committee Wednesday to discuss the city’s migrant sanctuary policies.

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Trump Gains More Ground in War Against DEI

A major shift is underway in the way large companies talk about and fund Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.

President Donald Trump began the transition when he signed an executive order last month eliminating DEI policies and staff at the federal government and extending the anti-DEI policy to federal contractors.

Private companies, some of which had already begun the transition before Trump took office, remarkably began backing off their DEI policies, even if only symbolically with little internal change.

Costco resisted, pushing back on the Trump administration, but other major brands like Amazon Wal-Mart, Target, and Meta announced a pullback from DEI. Media reports indicated DEI discussions on earnings calls has plummeted.

Others, such as Wisconsin-based financial services company Fiserv, have not yet made a change, at least not publicly.

A murky legal future awaits companies willing to take the risk to stick with DEI policies, particularly in hiring.

Fiserv receives hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts.

According to Fiserv’s website’s Diversity & Inclusion page, the company is “committed to promoting diversity and inclusion (D&I) across all levels of the organization, in our communities and throughout our industry."

Fiserv says that it “partner[s] with people and organizations around the world to advance our D&I efforts and create opportunities for our employees, entrepreneurs around the world and the next generation of innovators.”

The company's diversity and inclusion page includes a careers section that discusses “engaging diverse talent” and events to connect with “diverse candidates.”

Critics of DEI initiatives and policies say they discriminate against white men and Asians and lead to hiring and promotion decisions based on factors such as race and sexual orientation rather than merit.

In its 2023 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, the company boasted that "60% of director nominees for the 2024 annual meeting reflect gender or racial/ethnic diversity."

According to an April 2024 report from Payments Dive, Fiserv was “buoyed by sales to government entities” in Q1 of 2024 and reported $500 million in revenue from those contracts. The U.S. Coast Guard contracted with Fiserv in 2024 to help with payroll, according to HigherGov, among other government contracts.

Fiserv did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A watershed moment against DEI came when during the Biden administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against longstanding affirmative action policies at American universities, one key example of white and Asian Americans being discriminated against.

Trump’s election has only solidified the new legal framework for what is permissible when considering race and gender in hiring, promotion, and workplace etiquette.

From Trump’s order:

In the private sector, many corporations and universities use DEI as an excuse for biased and unlawful employment practices and illegal admissions preferences, ignoring the fact that DEI’s foundational rhetoric and ideas foster intergroup hostility and authoritarianism.

Billions of dollars are spent annually on DEI, but rather than reducing bias and promoting inclusion, DEI creates and then amplifies prejudicial hostility and exacerbates interpersonal conflict.

DEI has become increasingly controversial as activists use the moniker to advance every liberal policy on race and gender, often at taxpayer expense. In the federal government, DEI had become widespread and infiltrated into every part of governance, from racial quotas for promotions at the Pentagon to driving healthcare research at the National Institutes of Health.

At private companies, DEI policies guided investment decisions via ESG (Environmental, Social Governance) as well as personnel decisions with racial quotas for company board rooms. Those ideas are out of favor with the Trump administration.

Some of the companies resisting the shift from DEI could face legal action.

A coalition of state attorneys general sent a letter to Costco alleging it is violating the law, as The Center Square previously reported.

“Although Costco’s motto is 'do the right thing,' it appears that the company is doing the wrong thing – clinging to DEI policies that courts and businesses have rejected as illegal,” the letter said.

This week, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit against Starbucks for similar policies.

"By making employment decisions based on characteristics that have nothing to do with one’s ability to work well, Starbucks, for example, hires people by thumbing the scale based on at least one of Starbucks’ preferred immutable characteristics rather than an evaluation of an applicant’s merit and qualifications,” the lawsuit said. “Making hiring decision on non-merit considerations will skew the hiring pool towards people who are less qualified to perform their work, increasing costs for Missouri’s consumers."

A 2022 Starbucks document touts a DEI goal: “By 2025, our goal is to achieve BIPOC representation of at least 30% at all corporate levels and at least 40% at all retail and manufacturing roles.”

Bailey called the Starbucks policies discriminatory and illegal.

"With Starbucks’ discriminatory patterns, practices, and policies, Missouri’s consumers are required to pay higher prices and wait longer for goods and services that could be provided for less had Starbucks employed the most qualified workers, regardless of their race, color, sex, or national origin,” Bailey said. “As Attorney General, I have a moral and legal obligation to protect Missourians from a company that actively engages in systemic race and sex discrimination. Racism has no place in Missouri. We’re filing suit to halt this blatant violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act in its tracks."

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