The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency has chosen a vendor to design and install a new $78 million computer system to replace its previous system, which was riddled with flaws.
Deloitte will build the new system for filing UIA claims for workers and employers.
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The Republican caucus in Wisconsin’s State Assembly has voted to ban election integrity watchdog Rep. Janel Brandtjen from attending party meetings.
The caucus sent Brandtjen a letter, dated Nov. 11 and signed chair Rep. Rob Summerfield, to explain the decision. It did not, however, specify any specific issue the caucus took with the legislator.
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A Minnesotan will be the third most powerful Republican in the U.S. House come January.
U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer was elected by his caucus Tuesday for the House majority whip position, defeating Reps. Jim Banks and Drew Ferguson. He will be outranked by just the speaker and majority leader.
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There is a growing chorus of Milwaukee Democrats who say the state is missing the mark by expanding I-94 instead of focusing on buses and bicycles.
The Department of Transportation on Friday announced plans to widen I-94 between 70th Street and 16th Street in Milwaukee. That includes the lanes around American Family Field. The ultimate goal is to add new lanes, going from the current six lanes up to eight lanes.
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The cost of Michigan’s food stamp program has more than doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The costs have increased from $1.70 billion in 2018-19 to $3.61 billion in 2021-22 with one month left in the fiscal year.
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Rodney Maki, a former law enforcement officer, is suing the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis for religious discrimination after it denied his vaccine accommodation request.
“Because Maki’s sincerely held religious beliefs prevent him from becoming vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine, and because the Bank’s Policy was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest, Maki is entitled to relief under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” the lawsuit claims.
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Advocates for the right-to-work law in Michigan warn that repealing the law that has been in effect since 2013 would hurt the state economy.
For the first time since 1984, Democrats hold a trifecta in the Michigan state legislature with control of the House and Senate and the governor’s office. Democrats have talked about repealing the right-to-work law since it was passed in 2012.
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The U.S. Department of Labor accused an industrial cleaning company of employing minors for work at three slaughterhouses across the Midwest, including two in Minnesota.
A lawsuit filed in federal court last week claims Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI) employed at least 31 children between the ages of 13 and 17 to fulfill sanitation contracts at JBS USA plants in Grand Island, Nebraska, and Worthington, Minnesota, and a Turkey Valley Farms facility in Marshall, Minnesota.
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The University of Michigan recently hired five faculty members under its Anti-Racism Faculty Hiring Initiative who have “expertise in inequality and structural racism,” campus officials announced.
The faculty will deepen the university’s expertise “on issues of race and racial justice and tangibly impact education and society,” according to an Oct. 28 statement by the university.
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Democrats seized a political trifecta in Lansing for the first time in 40 years, and now two legislators are suggesting changing the state’s education policies.
State Sen. Dayne Polehanki, D-Livonia, tweeted possible policy priorities, including repealing right-to-work, providing “adequate funding” for schools, and repealing the retirement tax.
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Steven D’Antuono, the FBI agent in charge of the investigations into both the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, is set to retire at the end of the month, just weeks before the Republican Party is projected to take the House and likely apply increased scrutiny to those probes.
An internal FBI memo, written by FBI Director Chris Wray and circulated on social media, revealed that D’Antuono will be retiring at the end of the month from his role as assistant director of the bureau’s Washington field office, to be replaced by Agent David Sundberg.
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Well, that didn’t take long.
Long before the votes were tallied on Tuesday night, the establishment went to work on the disappearing red wave. Mitch McConnell’s self-serving warning that “candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome” had long been forgotten in a wave of pollyannish polling. Once the Republican sweep failed to materialize, it was resurrected in a New York minute.
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When Eastpointe residents criticized Mayor Monique Owens in a Sept. 6 city council meeting, she claimed the residents were “assaulting” her.
Now, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that defends free speech, filed a federal lawsuit accusing Owens of “abuse of authority.”
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Minnesota is the third most charitable state in the U.S., according to a new report from WalletHub.
WalletHub divided 19 metrics into two categories in the report released this week. Minnesota ranked third for volunteering and service, and it ranked seventh for charitable giving. Overall, the North Star State falls behind Maryland and Utah.
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Wisconsin’s new wolf hunt plan doesn’t include a target number for the state’s wolf population.
The Department of Natural Resources on Thursday unveiled its new plan.
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Michigan taxpayers will pay at least $7.75 million for a new entertainment venue in Downtown Lansing.
The Michigan Strategic Fund on Wednesday approved $5 million of taxpayer dollars for the venue. The Center Square reported the planned $21 million venue in February.
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by Anthony Gockowski State Rep. Tony Jurgens, a Republican, endorsed a Democrat in a crucial race that helped the Minnesota DFL reclaim the majority in the Senate for the first time in six years. With Democrats already controlling the governor’s mansion and the House before the election, the Senate was the last line of defense for state Republicans. Come January, Democrats will control that chamber (and the whole of state government) with a narrow 34-33 majority. A key race that helped flip the Senate was in District 41, covering the Cottage Grove and Hastings areas. Democrat Judy Seeberger pulled off an upset victory over Republican Tom Dippel, winning by just 321 votes. Jurgens, who has represented the area in the House since 2016, endorsed Seeberger over Dippel just days before the election. “I won’t agree with Judy on all political issues, but the job is much more than partisan politics,” Jurgens said in his endorsement before taking shots at “extreme right-wing organizations.” Importantly, Jurgens lost to Dippel in the Republican primary for this seat by more than 20 points. He also lost the party’s endorsement to Dippel but still went to the primary. According to Hastings Progressives, a group backing Dippel’s opponent, Jurgens also placed a Seeberger…
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The people who lobby for local governments in Wisconsin are once again talking about more state money.
The League of Wisconsin Municipalities on Thursday said the wave of local tax referendum questions show the need for funding “reform.”
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The top Republican in the Wisconsin Assembly says he’s willing to work on “solutions” with Gov. Tony Evers.
Speaker Robin Vos on Thursday said he sees Republicans offering the governor compromises on abortion, school choice and taxes.
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Mayo Clinic has declined to consider a kidney transplant for an unvaccinated woman with stage-four kidney disease, she told Alpha News.
That woman, Amy Broten, received a letter Nov. 1 informing her that her kidney transplant evaluation was denied.
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With control of the state legislature and Governor’s office for the first time since 1983, the Democrats will likely try to repeal the state’s right-to-work law, the signature accomplishment of Michigan’s Republican party.
In January 2019, the Michigan House Dems introduced two bills to repeal the right-to-work law. If a current effort is successful, it would only impact union members in the private sector. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in the Janus decision that public sector unions can’t require non-members to pay agency fees. The Supreme Court ruled the Constitution prohibits it.
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A pediatrician who works as director of the “gender health program” at Minnesota’s largest children’s hospital believes kids as young as three years old can claim a “transgender identity.”
A two-minute clip from Dr. Angela Kade Goepferd’s 16-minute TED talk from September 2020 recently went viral. In the clip, Goepferd claims children have the ability to determine the “truth about their identities” around the time they start talking, even if it “doesn’t line up with other people’s expectations.”
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The next four years at the Wisconsin Capitol are likely to be the same as the last four years.
Governor Evers took the governor’s mansion. The Republicans held on to the legislature, but fell just short of a supermajority.
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Prosecutors in California dropped charges this week against an election software CEO who was accused of improperly sending election-related information to China, with officials citing potential “bias” in the presentation of the case.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said concerns about both the “pace of the investigation” and “potential bias in the presentation” of the charges led them to drop their case against Eugene Yu, the CEO of election software company Konnech.
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Republican businessman John James has won the race for Michigan’s newly created 10th Congressional District seat, narrowly defeating Democrat former judge and prosecutor Carl Marlinga in the hotly contested election. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, James had 49 percent of the vote to Marlinga’s 48 percent, according to Click on Detroit.
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Gov. Tim Walz won a second term in office Tuesday night, beating back a challenge from Dr. Scott Jensen in what was a disappointing night for Republicans locally and nationally.
Soaring inflation and rising crime were expected to carry Republicans to victory, but the opposite happened as Walz cruised to a win and the DFL was on the verge of claiming both chambers of the Minnesota Legislature as of late Tuesday night.
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U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has eked out a reelection victory over former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes by 1 percentage point.
Johnson earned 50.5% of the vote, compared to Barnes’ 49.5%. Johnson declared victory on Wednesday but at noon, The Associated Press was among those yet to call it; CBS and NBC were among those projected Johnson the winner.
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Voters on Tuesday approved the pro-abortion Proposal 3, an amendment to the Michigan Constitution that will enshrine a “right” to kill unborn children.
With 52% of the vote counted, Proposal 3 had garnered the approval of 53.4% of voters and was rejected by 46.6%, according to election results posted by 12:40 a.m. Wednesday, Bridge Michigan reported.
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Republican challenger Tudor Dixon fell short Tuesday night as Democrat Gretchen Whitmer won a second four-year term as governor.
With 68% of the vote counted, Whitmer was leading with 51.7% to 46.6% for Dixon, The Associated Press reported. Fox News, among others, called the race for Whitmer.
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Incumbent Democrat Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin is projected to hold onto his seat, fending off Republican challenger Tim Michels, according to both NBC and Reuters.
Evers secured 50.9% of the vote, compared to Michels’ 48%, with 88% reporting, according to multiple forecasters. The victory gives Evers his second term as Wisconsin’s governor, following a four year term where he often sparred with the GOP-controlled state legislature, according to Fox 6 Milwaukee.
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Veterans and voters represented by the Thomas More Society, a conservative non-profit public interest law firm, filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Election Commission for allegedly mishandling military absentee ballots.
The group on Friday asked the Waukesha County Circuit Court to order state election officials to “sequester,” or set aside, all military absentee or mail-in ballots before the election.
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A federal court has ordered Ann Arbor Public Schools to stop gagging conservative students’ political speech about Proposal 3.
The court order follows Skyline High School officials’ refusal to read a conservative senior’s and Republican Club President’s statement during announcements, citing its political nature.
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A former counselor at Hazelden Betty Ford’s adolescent treatment center in Plymouth is speaking out about a controversial policy that allows young people to be housed according to their gender identity, not biological sex.
He told Alpha News it hasn’t gone well and believes it’s time people know the truth. Alpha News agreed to protect his identity for this interview as he continues his counseling career away from Hazelden.
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The slivers of information that Reince Priebus is seeing in Wisconsin has him expecting Republicans to win up and down the ballot.
Priebus, who used to lead both the Wisconsin Republican Party and the RNC, told Jay Weber on News Talk 1130 WISN Monday that data collected by both organizations show independent and undecided voters breaking for Republicans.
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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison claims to be the “People’s Lawyer.” But documents say he spoke at a lavish Hawaii retreat in June 2021 partially funded by companies he’s investigating, including Meta and Google.
A 2021 retreat agenda of the Attorney General Alliance says Ellison participated in a lunch conversation at the Grand Wailea hotel with New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas about managing high-profile criminal matters.
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Nearly 70% of Minnesota small business owners said in a survey that it’s best for business if Republicans control Congress.
Between Oct. 1 and Nov. 2, Alignable asked 4,795 randomly selected U.S.-based business owners “What outcome to the November midterm elections would benefit your business the most?”
Alignable Head of Research, Corporate Communications and News Chuck Casto told The Center Square Thursday that the national survey included 367 Minnesota businesses.
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Four candidates vying for school board positions in Rochester said they will replace harmful policies and political agendas with higher academic standards, restored discipline, and a balanced budget.
They attribute the rise in violence and fall in academic standards to the policies and leadership of the current board.
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Less than a week before the election, the Michigan Supreme Court approved allowing local clerks to follow Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s election challenger rules enacted this year.
Last month, a Court of Claims ruling struck the election challenger rules, saying they violated state election law because they didn’t go through the rulemaking process.
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The firing of a Milwaukee election official this week after she sent military ballots to a state representative highlights another election vulnerability in Wisconsin, where a rash of election administration irregularities and legal breaches have been exposed since 2020.
During a press conference on Thursday, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson announced that Kimberly Zapata, deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, was fired after she requested that three absentee military ballots be sent to the home of Republican state Rep. Janel Brandtjen. Brandtjen turned the ballots in to the Waukesha County sheriff last Friday.
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A new report shows how Minnesota’s proposed social studies standards are “unacceptably politicized” and “deficient.”
Earlier this week the Center of the American Experiment published a report by historian and academic Wilfred McClay titled “Minnesota’s Academic Standards Among the Nation’s Worst.”
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Video from the mid-1990s has surfaced showing Keith Ellison doubting the legal culpability of a convicted police officer killer.
Power Line’s Scott Johnson recently posted unearthed footage from a November 1996 panel discussion Ellison participated in regarding the death penalty.
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Early voting has begun in Wisconsin, and so has the Republican election watch.
Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Paul Farrow said Thursday that the party has increased its focus on both poll workers and poll watchers to make sure that there are eyeballs watching to vote count this year.
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When in the spotlight at the Mackinac Policy Conference, Wayne County committed $32 million of federal COVID relief to small businesses in impoverished areas.
The New Economy Initiative, a nonprofit that helps small businesses develop, added $22 million of private donations for a total of $54 million. But six months later, the county pulled the plug on the three-year initiative, Crain’s Detroit first reported.
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There’s a lawsuit in Green Bay that accuses the city’s election boss of not allowing poll watchers to actually watch people vote.
The Republican National Committee filed the lawsuit Tuesday. It claims that Green Bay Clerk Celestine Jeffreys is partially blocking election observers.
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Concerned parents whose children attend Hastings Public Schools found a creative way to protest the availability of a sexually explicit book.
At last Wednesday’s school board meeting, parents and grandparents held up signs protesting the district’s approval of Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer,” a graphic novel that depicts oral sex and masturbation.
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Less than a week before Election Day, Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon received two pieces of good news.
First, her poll rankings against Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have tilted significantly in Dixon’s favor. Second, she garnered the endorsement of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
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A brash leader bogged down by scandal engineered by his opponents gets fired by a democratic nation, and then plots a comeback.
Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu or Jair Bolsonaro?
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A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin says racial and political differences during the coronavirus outbreak are more concerning than before.
A team at UW-Madison looked at death rates in the early days of the virus in the spring of 2020.
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Michigan schools are spending $6 billion of federal COVID relief to recover from pandemic learning loss with solutions ranging from summer school to support dogs to even a new amphitheater.
Spending records obtained by more than 90 records requests show schools deploying a range of recovery mechanisms, including smaller class sizes, more tutoring, facility improvements and new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.
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The Minnesota Parents Alliance packed a room in Golden Valley Sunday afternoon for an event geared toward Somali parents, many of whom were shocked and alarmed to discover some of the materials available to their kids.
Public school priorities are increasingly at odds with the family values and religious beliefs of the Somali community, speakers at the event explained.
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