The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute's article by John McAdams, defending the huge disparity in incarceration rates for blacks and whites, continues to spark debate.

We wrote about it yesterday, saying that McAdams's findings seemed to suggest a remedy like 40 acres and a mule.

Paul Soglin weighed in with the suggestion that McAdams's approach would also suggest that Milwaukee could tolerate more black murders.

Conservative Rick Esenberg responded to Soglin.

And Soglin offered a rebuttal to Esenberg.

And Esenberg volleys back.

It's an interesting back-and-forth, a much better exchange than the usual name-calling that takes place in the Cheddarsphere.

As every waitress/waiter seems to say these days, "Enjoy!"

Does Wisconsin lock up too many blacks?

When it's John McAdams asking that question, and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute is paying for the study* , you can be pretty sure what the answer is going to be.

Of course not.

In fact, McAdams, who holds the endowed Wingnut Chair of Political Science at Marquette University, seems surprised we aren't locking up more blacks for longer sentences than we do now.

Paul Soglin has already done an analysis and found that under the model used by McAdams, we are not only not locking up enough blacks, but are well below expectations for homicides in Milwaukee, too. There is room for quite a few more murders.

It's hard to know where to begin with McAdam's "study," funded by WPRI, a far-right "think tank." Perhaps here:

Marquette Prof. John McAdams, taking a brief respite from defending policies that lock up 10 times as many black people, per capita, as white, has taken offense at my recent post about Charlie Sykes's bullying of former we energies exec Dick Abdoo.

I'll have to thank Illusory Tenant for pointing that out.  Can't say I'm a regular reader of McAdams's drivel. (If you're attacked and don't know it, does it make a sound?)

He was so taken with the comment of one Sykes fan who responded to my post on this blog that he reprinted it in its entirety.  He didn't however, bother to reprint my responses, so I'll do that here:

There's a name for what Sykes did.

It's called bullying.

It is one thing to disagree with someone. It's quite another to try to silence them.

That's what Sykes did.