Politics & Government
Justice Kelly asks whether to ‘unrecuse’ himself in two cases
Justice Daniel Kelly, the conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who lost the April 7 election to Dane Co. Circuit Judge Jill Karofsky, is pondering whether or not to “unrecuse” himself from two separate cases involving Wisconsin voters. On April 15, Kelly, who was appointed to his seat by former Gov. Scott Walker, sent a letter […]
COVID-19’s missing cases
Every day, Wisconsin counties and the state Department of Health Services (DHS) post new updates on the number of people infected and the number who have died from COVID-19. The numbers creep up unevenly from day to day. On Monday, April 27, DHS logged 170 new cases, for a statewide total of 6,081 people who […]
State urges employers to avoid layoffs with Work-Share
Wisconsin’s revised Work-Share program is now up and running, enabling employers to schedule full-time workers as part-timers, while workers who lose hours can get unemployment compensation to make up for lost wages. Language making it easier for employers to implement a Work-Share program was included in the COVID-19 relief bill passed and signed into law […]
National Guard troops return from Afghanistan amid COVID-19 operations
About 150 soldiers of the National Guard’s 1st Battalion 128 infantry, are returning from a nearly seven-month mission in Afghanistan. According to the Guard, their return marks a continued draw-down of troops headed to the embattled country, officials say. The war in Afghanistan, at 19 years, is America’s longest-running war. Some soldiers deployed there today […]
Sen. Baldwin: Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds must go to small businesses
Responding to reports of “unjust enrichment” of wealthy CEOs and hedge-fund managers through the initial $350 billion in paycheck protection funding Congress allocated in the federal COVID-19 relief package, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and 20 of her Senate colleagues, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Small […]
U.S. Supreme Court tosses gun case as Kavanaugh urges future debate
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday avoided issuing a landmark Second Amendment ruling in a closely watched gun rights case, but set the stage for future legal battles. A divided court ruled that a challenge to New York City gun restrictions was moot because the city had later changed its regulations. The case […]
Trump’s defamation suits pose a chilling prospect for the press
In the long and dubious history of nasty presidential politics, the anti-Trump attack ad that the pro-Democrat super PAC Priorities USA paid NBC affiliate WJFW-TV in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to televise in America’s 134th largest market seemed tame enough. The 30-second spot uses rapid-fire audio snippets of Trump dismissing the seriousness of the nascent but fast-growing […]
Reopen Wisconsin rally brings hundreds who reject social distancing
Around 1,500 people gathered — against the advice of public health officials — around the Wisconsin State Capitol Friday to protest Gov. Tony Evers’ Safer-at-Home order. The order remains in effect until May 26 to slow the spread of COVID-19, which as of Friday afternoon had infected at least 5,356 Wisconsinites and killed 262, according […]
What is the Republican position on the pandemic? No, really.
Here are a couple of things you should know about the Reopen Wisconsin rally today: It’s too crazy for Sen. Ron Johnson — the guy who suggested we weigh the relative costs of merely wiping out 1% to 3% of the U.S. population (more than have died in all the wars in U.S. history) against […]
Evers takes ‘good cop’ stance on Safer at Home protest
On the eve of a planned protest in front of the state Capitol by people flouting the state’s Safer at Home order, Gov. Tony Evers said on Thursday that he won’t ask Capitol police to intervene or arrest participants — even though they would be there without a permit. “I celebrate the First Amendment and […]
Megadonor behind rallies: COVID-19 is “overhyped”
Wisconsin and the Evers administration are badly mishandling COVID-19, according to Elizabeth “Liz” Uihlein, who gave a rare interview to the Guardian, published on Thursday. Uihlien and her husband have been dubbed the ‘most powerful conservative couple you’ve never heard of,’ but they are well known to Republican political insiders in Wisconsin as the billionaire donors […]
What’s going on with Reopen Wisconsin?
As connections to large right-wing organizations are uncovered in the growing movement to reopen the economies of states around the country, organizers of the rally planned in Wisconsin continue to say they’ve turned down any outside influence. One of the organizers, Madison Elmer, posted in the private Facebook group associated with the rally, set for […]