Demanding that the Biden administration “trust the science,” U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany (R-WI-07) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO-03) are reintroducing a bill calling on the re-populated gray wolf to be removed from the Endangered Species List.
The Trust the Science Act also would require wolf populations to be managed by states, not by “one-size-fits-all” federal government regulations.
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The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project has again asked for all governors to proclaim Feb 6. Ronald Reagan Day in honor of the 40th president’s birthday. Once again, Gov. Tony Evers has refused to do so.
The liberal governor, however, has been glad to issue all manner of proclamations celebrating everything from Tamil Language and Heritage Month to Transgender Day of Remembrance.
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All Michigan taxpayers will get inflation relief checks and retirees will average four-figure savings in a plan Michigan’s top Democrats say answers the call for helping families.
The size of those relief checks wasn’t announced.
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by Anthony Gockowski Democrats have introduced a bill that would make illegal immigrants eligible for MinnesotaCare, a state-subsidized health insurance program. The bill, sponsored by State Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and State Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, would allow “undocumented noncitizens” to qualify for the program. Lawfully present noncitizens are already eligible. The Minnesota House People of Color and Indigenous Caucus identified the bill as one of its top priorities during a Jan. 25 press conference. “The time is now to reduce health disparities and increase individual, family, and community resilience,” said Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis. “Quite frankly, we spend more in terms of emergency medical assistance compared to paying through MinnesotaCare for all the undocumented immigrants.” According to the Department of Human Services, MinnesotaCare is designed for working Minnesotans who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. The program is financed by both state and federal dollars. Roughly 102,000 Minnesotans were enrolled in the program in 2021. Under the DFL’s bill, eligibility would be expanded to the estimated 81,000 illegal immigrants in the state. Democrats attempted to pass a similar bill last session, but it died in committee. “We should not use both state and…
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Minnesota issues an average of $514 million in state-funded grants to nonprofits each year but demonstrates “pervasive noncompliance” with oversight measures, according to a new report published Thursday.
The report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) specifically looked at whether the Minnesota Department of Education and the Department of Public Safety’s Office of Justice Programs are complying with grants management policies.
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The city of Detroit will receive $24.8 million to redesign existing transportation infrastructure in high crash areas to reduce traffic fatalities.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the money is part of $800 million in grant awards for 510 projects through the Safe Streets and Roads for All Grant Program.
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Gov. Evers’ pick to head Wisconsin’s Department of Veterans Affairs will have some questions to answer regarding what he knew about the troubles at the state’s veterans home at Union Grove, and just what he did to address the issues.
Emails obtained by The MacIver Institute’s news service and shared with The Center Square show current VA secretary nominee James Bond was first alerted of the staffing shortage and problems with care at Union Grove back in 2019.
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At a time when fare revenue and passenger trips have plummeted, the Minneapolis transit system has given its employees pay increases.
Top administrators at Metro Transit saw significant pay increases by as much as $55,000 in case from 2020 to 2022. Also, one bus driver made $201,853 and another bus driver made $195,717 last year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median hourly wage for bus drivers in the United States is $23.37 which equates to $48,600 for a 40-hour a week position.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill into law that aims to move the presidential primary to earlier in the 2024 primary season.
Whitmer said the change would boost the economy.
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The Democrat-dominated Michigan Legislature wants to scrap the retention part of the 2016 read-by-grade-three law.
Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, introduced Senate Bill 12, which aims to stop the state from possibly holding students back who are one or more grade levels behind on reading. The law also requires reading intervention and ongoing monitoring assessments to support student literacy.
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A Hopkins principal accused Libs of TikTok of spreading “false and hateful claims towards LGBTQ youth” after a report from the popular Twitter account said the school is offering chest binders to students without parental knowledge.
The Libs of TikTok report begins with a picture of a flier that is hanging in a hallway at Hopkins West Junior High School. The flier includes the contact information for the school’s “health mentor,” Caroline Hickey, who offers to talk with students about “gender norms,” “gender and identity,” and “circles of sexuality.”
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Nearly half of the University of Wisconsin System students who responded believe administrators should ban the expression of views that some students feel cause harm to certain groups of people, according to an extensive survey on campus freedom of speech released Wednesday.
Some 68 percent of those surveyed say students should report an instructor who says something in class deemed harmful to certain groups.
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Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) signed a bill last week prohibiting gender transition surgeries and puberty blockers for minors in most situations.
Cox signed the Transgender Medical Treatments and Procedures Amendments (SB 16), introduced by State Senator Mike Kennedy (R), a physician, which bans “permanent and life-altering” gender transition treatments for minors as well as puberty blockers for patients not already diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
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In his state of the state address last month, Gov. Tony Evers boasted about Wisconsin’s low unemployment rate. What the Democrat failed to mention is Wisconsin’s dismal labor participation rate, a number that underscores one of the biggest economic challenges facing Badger State businesses.
“Our labor force participation rate is worse today than it was at the bottom point of COVID when our economy was shut down,” said Scott Manley, Executive Vice President of Government Relations for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.
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A clerk in Ottawa County, Mich., has declined a $1.5 million election grant from a nonprofit linked to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, citing qualms about accepting private funds for public election administration, as a growing number of states and localities across the nation are moving to refuse, restrict or ban so-called “Zuckerbucks.”
Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck announced Tuesday that he was removing the elections division of his office from consideration for funding by the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, after reporting in November that the county was a finalist in the network’s “Centers for Election Excellence” program.
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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) signed legislation Tuesday that has been condemned by the pro-life community as the most extreme abortion measure in the nation, one that creates a “fundamental right” to abortion at any time during pregnancy, and denies parents the right to know if their minor daughter undergoes an abortion.
Walz signed the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act to enshrine in state statute a “fundamental right” to abortion, without any restrictions, and to contraception, sterilization, fertility treatment.
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There’s now a lawsuit over Wisconsin’s bail reform amendment and welfare-to-work ballot question.
Two groups that represent former prison inmates, WISDOM – a statewide faith-based organization –and Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, filed the suit in Dane County Court on Tuesday.
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The Badger Institute, a free-market think tank that has operated in Milwaukee for since 1987, is expanding with a new office near the state Capitol.
While the policy-research center, known in its early days as the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, will keep its principal headquarters in Cream City, its educational consultant Jim Bender and communications vice president Michael Jahr will staff the new Madison office. Badger leadership expect the new capital-city presence to bolster the think tank’s government-relations efforts.
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A federal court convicted a Dearborn, Michigan, man of joining the Islamic State (ISIS) and training in terrorist tactics from 2015 to 2018, the Department of Justice said in a press release.
Ibraheem Musaibli traveled to Syria in 2015 and enrolled in an “ISIS-run religious training camp” before moving on to a military training facility, where he learned how to operate a machine gun, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement. He then swore allegiance to ISIS and served as a member of the terrorist organization for the next two and a half years, a rare instance of a U.S.-born individual leaving America to support the notorious terrorist organization, according to The Detroit News.
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Democrats just passed the Protect Reproductive Options Act, which critics are calling the most radical abortion law in the nation, if not the world. But they’re not done yet.
Next on the Minnesota DFL’s agenda is HF 91/SF70, which would essentially repeal what remains of Minnesota’s regulations on the abortion industry, including medical protections for infants who survive abortions and a ban on using public funds for the procedure under MinnesotaCare.
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Protesters gathered in Milwaukee over the weekend to condemn police brutality following the release of video showing the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by Memphis Police officers.
Unlike the scenes of looting, violence and whole city blocks in flame that accompanied the anti-police protests during the long, hot summer of 2020, the demonstrations in Milwaukee and elsewhere were mostly peaceful.
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A Wisconsin resident has filed an ethics complaint with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission alleging Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice candidate Janet Protasiewicz violated the state Code of Judicial Conduct
Randall R. Cook, a citizen and GOP supporter from Barron County, filed the complaint Monday asserting that the Milwaukee County judge has “announced how she will rule on issues that will likely come before the Supreme Court, such as abortion and the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s legislative maps.”
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A Michigan doctor was sentenced to 16.5 years in prison for his part in a health care fraud scheme that billed more than $250 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and health insurance programs and illegally distributed over 6.6 million doses of opioids.
In September 2021, Francisco Patino, M.D., 68, of Wayne County, was convicted at trial in the Eastern District of Michigan of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and pay and receive health care kickbacks, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering.
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U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota introduced two pro-life bills in the U.S. House of Representatives this month.
The Republican congresswoman’s proposed pieces of legislation include the Defund Planned Parenthood Act (H.R. 371) and the Protecting Life and Taxpayers Act (H.R. 372), according to a press release.
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Wisconsin’s governor says he will 100 percent veto a flat tax, and the top Republican in the State Assembly says he knows that.
Both Gov. Tony Evers and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos talked about the proposal to take Wisconsin to a 3.25 percent flat income tax during appearances on TV over the weekend.
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U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is asking the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide information about the effects that COVID-19 vaccines may have had on numerous aviation professionals and the agency’s response to those effects.
Johnson wrote a letter to FAA Acting Administrator Billy Nolen and Office of Aerospace Medicine Federal Air Surgeon Susan Northrup last week requesting an investigation into the conditions of commercial pilots Greg Pierson, Bob Snow and Wil Wolfe. The three were all in their 50s or 60s and the latter two received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while Pierson got the Pfizer shot. The senator also wants investigations to determine vaccine effects on agricultural pilot Cody Flint and air-traffic controller Hayley Lopez, respectively 33 and 29, who both obtained the Pfizer jab.
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Minnesota’s top marginal corporate tax rate, 9.8%, is the second-highest the nation, according to an analysis the Tax Foundation released Tuesday.
The North Star State is one of the 44 states that levy corporate income taxes. Nationally, on average, these taxes accounted for 7.07% of state tax collection and 4.04% of state general revenue in fiscal year 2021, the report said.
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The latest reading readiness proposal at the Wisconsin capitol, with the backing of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) in tow, may have a chance at becoming law.
State Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, and State Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Cameron, on Friday introduced their plan for students having trouble reading. It builds on a 12-year-old law assessing reading readiness of 4K through second grade students.
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Schools available to participate in and student enrollment are up in Wisconsin for its choice program.
The state’s Department of Public Instruction on Friday released the list of schools available for the 2023-24 school year. At 339, it’s 25 more than this year.
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The Michigan Legislature late Thursday approved about $1 billion in tax changes highlighted in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s State of the State address.
The two changes include boosting the earned income tax credit and repealing the retirement tax.
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Wisconsin’s record budget surplus is growing once again.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau on Wednesday said the surplus will now hit $7.1 billion by July.
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The Minnesota House passed legislation after seven hours of debate late Thursday night that would require the state’s electricity grid to be 100% carbon-free in 17 years.
This is an unrealistic timeline that could endanger the lives of Minnesotans if it fails while causing their electricity bills to skyrocket, Republicans argued throughout the night.
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A Milwaukee County Supervisor has resigned under a cloud of misconduct in office allegations.
Supervisor Dyango Zerpa, who represents the county’s 14th District, is leaving to “pursue other opportunities,” his attorney Michael Maistelman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Maistelman did not return a call from The Star News Network seeking comment.
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A universal school lunch bill that’s fast-tracking its way through the Minnesota Legislature received an official price tag this week.
HF5/SF123 would ensure all K-12 students are served free breakfast and lunch in public schools, regardless of family income. It would also cost the state $387 million over the next two years and nearly $419 million in the subsequent two-year budget cycle. That’s according a non-partisan fiscal analysis provided to legislators in the House Education Finance Committee on Wednesday.
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The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld the process by which Republican legislators amended two 2018 ballot initiatives passed by Michigan voters.
One ballot proposal would have increased the state’s minimum wage to $12 per hour in 2023 and increased tipped wages to the full minimum wage. A second ballot measure would have forced businesses to adopt extensive paid sick leave for employees. The proposals would have gone into effect on Feb. 20.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called for “immediate” relief to some Michiganders from rising prices in her State of the State address Wednesday evening.
Whitmer, the Democrat who won a second term in November, said three proposals will make a “real difference” to many residents who are “facing the pinch right now” at the grocery store and with medical bills and prescription costs.
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The national left is all in on Wisconsin’s crucial Supreme Court race, a contest that will not only determine whether conservatives or liberals control the high court, but the fate of Gov. Tony Evers’ liberal agenda and, possibly, the 2024 presidential election.
Conservative Supreme Court candidate Daniel Kelly, a former justice on the court, says the race is about the very survival of the constitution and the rule of law.
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The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that a college instructor is not entitled to unemployment benefits after he was fired for refusing “to abide by his employer’s COVID-19 vaccination and testing policy.”
Three appeals court judges agreed last Tuesday that Michael Larson, an English teacher for Minnesota State College Southeast-Winona (MSCS), committed employee misconduct by failing to follow its COVID vaccine and testing requirements, which means he is not eligible for unemployment benefits per state law.
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In a show of pro-life solidarity, 47 Republican U.S. senators are re-introducing a bill that would establish a permanent prohibition on federal funding for abortion, replacing the current restrictions with a single, government-wide standard.
The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the lawmakers say, attempts to clean up inconsistent and haphazard policies that have regulated federal funding for abortion.
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California recently announced a ban on all gas-powered vehicles by 2035. This is a decision that will have wide ranging negative implications for Minnesotans.
Residents in the Gopher state may be curious how an administrative decision made halfway across the country will affect them, but the answer is relatively simple: last year Governor Tim Walz and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) unilaterally finalized a rule to cede their regulatory authority over automobile emissions to regulators in the Golden State.
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Residents in a Twin Cities suburb are voicing concerns about the vulgar language and sexually explicit content in pro-LGBT and “anti-racist” school library books.
During the open forum portion of the Eastern Carver County School Board meeting in Chaska Monday evening, community members requested more transparency and input about the books that children and teenagers in the district can get their hands on.
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On this National School Choice Week, a new study by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty shows parental choice programs continuing to outperform public schools, particularly in the state’s largest city.
“Apples to Apples: Accessing Wisconsin State of Education”, accesses Badger State educational performance across public, charter, and private voucher schools.
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The Michigan Department of Transportation has commissioned a study about enacting highway toll roads to raise revenue to fix roads.
The study follows a growing tax revenue hole from increasing fuel efficiency that leads to fewer fillups at the pump and more electric vehicles whose drivers don’t pay state or federal fuel tax.
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Looking to improve transparency and efficiency at the state’s troubled Parole Commission, state Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) has released the “Parole Transparency Act.” The bill, according to Wanggaard, aims to ensure victims can be involved in and informed about the parole process.
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In his fifth State of the State address Tuesday evening, Gov. Tony Evers began laying out how he plans to use Wisconsin’s $6.6 billion surplus, pitching a spending bender of big government initiatives already with a price tag to date of around $1.3 billion. But there’s more to come. Evers is still constructing his biennial budget plan, set for release in a few weeks.
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The CEO of Minnesota’s largest abortion provider is also a sitting legislator who is sponsoring and voting on bills to expand abortion access.
Rep. Ruth Richardson, DFL-Mendota Heights, voted in favor of the “Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act” last week, a bill that would enshrine the “fundamental right” to abortion in Minnesota law.
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Last week, a woman was filling up her vehicle at a convenience store in the 2700 block of Madison’s E. Washington Avenue when a “man pointed a gun at her face and demanded she give him the keys,” according to the Madison Police Department incident report.
A man.
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The Michigan Court of Claims has entered an order certifying the $20 million class-action settlement against the Unemployment Insurance Agency.
The settlement resolves a class-action lawsuit against the agency claimed in 2013 it falsely accused unemployment recipients of fraud and seized private property without due process.
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After Gov. Tony Evers finally relented and ordered TikTok banned from state government devices, Wisconsin’s Republican congressional delegation asked University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman to follow suit. A UW System spokesman on Wednesday said the schools will follow part of the lawmakers’ request and restrict TikTok from UW System-owned devices.
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The organizers of a Milwaukee-area event on the dangers of woke indoctrination say they’re working with local law enforcement after receiving a number of threats.
Meanwhile, a theater in suburban Chicago has canceled a “reforming sex education” event after reportedly being bombarded with threats.
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