Author

Ruth Conniff

Ruth Conniff

Ruth Conniff is Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner. Conniff is a frequent guest on MSNBC and has appeared on Good Morning America, Democracy Now!, Wisconsin Public Radio, CNN, Fox News and many other radio and television outlets. She has also written for The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, among other publications. Her book "Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers" won the 2022 Studs and Ida Terkel Award from The New Press.

Kevin Nicholson | Photo via Nicholson for Wisconsin campaign

Nicholson drops out of GOP governor’s race

By: - July 5, 2022

On Tuesday, Republican candidate Kevin Nicholson announced he is dropping out of the primary race for governor. Nicholson, a Marine Corps veteran and self-described “political outsider,” was the choice of 10% of Republican voters polled by the Marquette University Law School Poll last month, compared with 27% for construction company executive Tim Michels and 26% […]

Tim Michels speaks at the Republican Party of Wisconsin's 2022 state convention. (Screenshot | WisEye)

GOP gubernatorial candidates on emergency contraception

By: - July 5, 2022

Wisconsin’s Republican gubernatorial candidates celebrated when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, eliminating federally protected abortion rights at any stage of pregnancy. All of the GOP candidates support Wisconsin’s 1849 felony abortion ban, which remains on the books, making all abortion illegal, even in cases of rape and incest. The only […]

COMMENTARY
Pro- and anti-abortion rights protesters clashed outside the Capitol in Madison on the day Roe v. Wade was overturned | Photo by Rose Cooper

Bad news Wisconsin women: The state Legislature is now in charge of your body

By: - June 27, 2022

Knowing it was coming did not make it any less of a kick in the gut. On Friday the highest court in the land officially revoked women’s status as full people.  The Court made history, as Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote in their scathing dissent, “rescinding an individual right in its […]

Wisconsin Democrats hold a press conference ahead of Gov. Evers' special session on June 22 to repeal the state's 1849 felony abortion ban | Photo by Luther Wu

Wisconsin leaders react to Supreme Court decision eliminating abortion rights

By: - June 24, 2022

Wisconsin politicians reacted swiftly to the news on Friday that the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned the precedent set by Roe v. Wade, which had established a federally protected right to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.  Republicans, who earlier this week refused to take up Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ call to repeal Wisconsin’s […]

COMMENTARY
Lionel Stander In 'The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight'

Michael Gableman, Ron Johnson and ‘The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight’

By: - June 24, 2022

It was a very different Michael Gableman who appeared in court on Thursday from the sneering, bombastic, defiant Gableman who was slapped with a contempt order for his performance in a different Dane County courtroom a week ago.  Last Friday, after Gableman mocked attorney Christa Westerberg and denounced Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington, proclaiming […]

Sen. Minority Leader Janet Bewley at the podium in the Assembly chamber surrounded by (left to right) Rep. Francesca Hong, Dr. Eliza Bennett and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer. Democrats called a press conference on the day Gov. Tony Evers' called a special session to take up repealing Wisconsin's 1849 abortion ban. Republicans gaveled in and out of the session without taking action | Photo by Luther Wu

Republicans leave Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban in place

By: - June 23, 2022

Republican leaders of the Senate and Assembly gaveled in and out of a special session called by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in less than 30 seconds Wednesday afternoon, rejecting the governor’s call to discuss repealing Wisconsin’s 173-year-old abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Anticipating that the Republicans would […]

Sen. Ron Johnson tried to transmit Wisconsin’s fake electoral votes

By: - June 21, 2022

Text messages between staff members for Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and then-Vice President Mike Pence show that Johnson tried to hand over fake electoral ballots for Donald Trump from Wisconsin and Michigan to Pence ahead of the certification of the 2020 presidential election  on Jan. 6, 2021. Wisconsin was one of seven states won […]

COMMENTARY
Donald Trump

Needed: Some courageous Wisconsin Republicans 

By: - June 20, 2022

It is just astounding that Wisconsin Republicans continue to push their “election integrity” nonsense, even as the world watches the dramatic Jan. 6 hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives, presenting compelling evidence that then-President Donald Trump riled up a violent mob with false claims of “election fraud” and attempted to steal the 2020 presidential […]

COMMENTARY
Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman leads the partisan review of the 2020 election. (YouTube | Office of the Special Counsel)

 Gableman’s contempt and the destruction of democracy

By: - June 11, 2022

It’s not really a coincidence that, the morning after the first, explosive public hearing by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman — the man appointed by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to lead the partisan probe of the 2020 election in Wisconsin […]

A Stop The Steal is posted inside of the Capitol Building after a pro-Trump mob broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, breaking windows in the deadly insurrection attempt aimed at stopping Congress from certifying Joe Biden's win in the November election. Photo by Jon Cherry | Getty Images

Wisconsin’s starring role in the Jan. 6 insurrection 

By: - June 9, 2022

Wisconsin is “Ground Zero” in the fight to defend democracy, according to Brad Woodhouse, co-chair of the Defend Democracy Project, a nonprofit group based in Washington, DC, whose mission statement declares that its “one objective” is “that American voters determine the outcome of elections.”   “Wisconsin is one of the most important, fought-after, battleground states. There’ll […]

People attend a "Fight4Her" pro-choice rally in front of the White House at Lafayette Square on March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. A coalition of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood and Population Connection Action Fund gathered to demand the end of the 'Global Gag Rule'. (Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images)

Abortion care on wheels

By: - June 7, 2022

As the nation braces for a decision that could come any day from the U.S. Supreme Court ending federally protected abortion rights — and making abortion a crime from the earliest stages of pregnancy in some states — women’s health care advocates have been thinking outside the box about ways to protect abortion access. Here’s […]

COMMENTARY
A beat up, battered US flag hanging on a baseball backstop

Raising a red flag on Memorial Day

By: - May 30, 2022

As a national holiday, Memorial Day is meant to bring us together. Even if we differ on the politics that led our country into the many wars the U.S. has fought over the years, I can appreciate my neighbors who raise a flag, hands on hearts, at the veterans’ memorial at the local park. It’s […]