A longtime Wisconsin factory worker charges the United Steelworkers threatened to have her fired for seeking to leave the union.
It’s another brazen act by Badger State Big Labor, emboldened by a union-friendly governor and the prospects of the state Supreme Court taking a left turn, a worker’s freedom advocate tells The Wisconsin Daily Star.
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Forget the ax, the Legislature’s budget-writing committee is about to take dynamite to Governor Tony Evers’ record $104 billion budget proposal.
The Democrat’s 2023-25 budget blueprint seeks a 24 percent spending increase over the biennium, funding a long list of liberal policy initiatives and grow government agenda items.
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DJ Ferguson didn’t get a COVID-19 shot. He was concerned about side effects and the rapid rate in which the vaccines were developed.
That decision cost him his place in line for a desperately needed heart transplant.
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Billing it a “breakthrough budget,” Governor Tony Evers rolled out a massive two-year spending plan on Wednesday that would dump billions more taxpayer dollars into a host of new programs, raise taxes by $1 billion-plus on businesses, deliver a sweetheart deal to the Milwaukee Brewers, and gobble up much of the state’s historic $7.1 billion surplus.
At approximately $104 billion, Evers’ budget proposal is the first to break the $100 billion mark and comes in at about $13 billion more than his 2021-23 plan and more than $16 billion higher than the current budget he signed into law in June 2021.
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The city of Green Bay is doubling down on its legally dubious policy on bugging City Hall, and it appears a lawsuit is in the offing.
In response to a warning letter from the Wisconsin State Senate, Green Bay’s Chief of Operations Joseph Faulds has issued a statement asserting the city will continue its audio surveillance, but it will provide notice about the recording devices.
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An Attorney representing the Wisconsin State Senate sent a letter this week to Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich demanding he immediately disable the audio recording devices planted in city hall. The letter also demands the city destroy all illegally obtained audio recordings.
“This surveillance activity is not only disturbing. It is unlawful,” writes Ryan J. Walsh, the attorney representing the lawmakers.
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Governor Tony Evers is getting pushback again for his latest plan to freeze out Wisconsin’s popular parental school choice program.
The Democrat, as he did in his last budget plan, is proposing to freeze enrollment in schools participating in private school choice program beginning in the 2024-25 school year at 2023-24 levels.
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Former Green Bay City Clerk Kris Teske watched as her election office was effectively taken over by liberal voting activists.
Emails show the clerk growing ever more concerned as the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL) and its network of liberal groups insinuated themselves into Green Bay’s election administration in the days leading up to the hotly contested 2020 presidential election.
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U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said ‘maximum transparency” from the Biden administration is critical after the U.S. military shot down yet another unidentified flying object over the weekend — this time near Wisconsin airspace.
The incident marked the fourth aerial vessel struck down over North American airspace since Feb. 4, when U.S. fighter jets liquidated a suspected Chinese spy balloon.
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The Wisconsin Judicial Commission, a state oversight group, has dismissed a complaint against state Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky, who told former President Donald Trump’s attorney that his lawsuit over the 2020 election “smacks of racism” and was an attempt to make his “king stay in power.”
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U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is urging fellow members of Congress to pass a measure to raise taxes on corporations with operations in low-tax foreign countries.
The legislation, called the No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act, would effect American participation in a global minimum tax, a major Biden-administration policy priority. In 2021, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen joined 130 nations to negotiate a framework to equalize corporate taxation so companies could not escape high taxes in their home countries. Two months ago, all 27 member states of the European Union agreed on a plan for their involvement in such a system.
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U.S. Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI-8) this weekend expressed heightened optimism about the prospect of banning all American use of the video-sharing application TikTok after the Senate version of his bill to do so gained bipartisan support.
Last week, Senator Angus King, an independent who is a member of his chamber’s Democratic Caucus, joined Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) in cosponsoring the legislation, known as the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act). The measure has enjoyed bipartisan backing in the House of Representatives since its introduction in December, being cosponsored by Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-8).
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The preview for Governor Evers’ budget for veterans in Wisconsin focuses on hiring more state workers, and doesn’t even mention the troubled veterans home at Union Grove.
The governor unveiled his proposal Thursday.
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As Gov. Tony Evers prepares to introduce his next biennial budget proposal, his administration can’t say how they have allocated a significant portion of the federal COVID aid Evers has nearly complete control over.
And as the governor calls for billions more in education spending, a new report shows there’s a massive amount of federal education aid the state has yet to approve for spending.
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The BadgersVote initiative “strives to provide University of Wisconsin–Madison students with everything they need to know in order to participate in their elections,” according to organizers. But is the campus-wide “public service” campaign really just a Democratic Party Get-Out-the-Vote effort underwritten by a taxpayer-funded university, a nonprofit research center, and liberal activist groups?
For some, the university-nonprofit partnership feels a lot like the Zuckerbucks scandal of 2020.
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Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D) on Thursday announced several budget items for Fiscal Years 2023-25 that would expand aid to Badger State veterans.
Priorities Evers mentioned included programs to assist ex-military personnel with employment, education, mental health and housing security. He said the proposal builds on earlier expenditures the governor and legislature made last year, spurred by recommendations of his Blue Ribbon Commission on Veteran Opportunity.
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Two state legislators from Wisconsin are urging colleagues to back their bill to strengthen crime victims’ rights to restitution in their state.
The bill authored by State Representatives Shae Sortwell (R-Gibson) and Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville) would halt the restoration of felons’ voting rights until after the perpetrators pay all fines, court fees, and victim restitution. In the Badger State, a convict loses his or her right to vote until he or she serves all prison time and completes any parole or probation that a court imposes. But that person may again vote before meeting his or her legal monetary obligations.
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The installation of audio recording devices at Green Bay’s City Hall without the general knowledge of the public is “unsettling,” more than likely illegal and an “egregious breach of privacy,” Green Bay-area lawmakers tell The Wisconsin Daily Star.
“Whether this is sheer incompetence or malevolence, it might be impossible to overstate just how jaw-droopingly brazen a violation of civil rights [this is],” said state Sen. Andre Jacque (R-De Pere.) He added that Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich and other city officials have exposed the city and themselves to “criminal and civil liabilities” for “snooping on citizens.”
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President Joe Biden paid a call on Wisconsin Wednesday, touting job creation and boasting that the Big Government agenda he laid out in this week’s State of the State address will get the nation’s economy humming.
But the president’s cheerleading tour conflicts with the realities on the ground for Badger State businesses dealing with higher prices, supply chain issues and labor shortages.
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Records obtained by The Star News Network show Green Bay city officials installed at least three audio recording devices in City Hall — without notifying the City Council or the public.
Alderman Chris Wery, who represents Green Bay’s 8th District, described the secret recordings as the kind of “Big Brother stuff” found in a George Orwell novel.
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Two nonprofit law firms challenging Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine School District’s (KMSD) gender-transition policy announced this week they’ve enlisted the expertise of two mental-health professionals including a prominent transgender psychologist.
The center-right Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), headquartered in Milwaukee, and the faith-focused Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), based in Arizona, filed the lawsuit last summer on behalf of parents of a daughter who attended Kettle Moraine Middle School. The anonymous plaintiffs assert that district officials defied their wishes and acceded to the daughter’s request that faculty and staff recognize her as a transgender boy and call her by her preferred male pronouns and chosen name.
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The University of Wisconsin System recently commissioned a study to examine students’ views on free speech issues. Roughly 10,500 students across 13 campuses responded. The survey offers numerous findings—some good, some bad—that merit deep consideration. One finding, however, is abundantly clear. There are two very different college experiences based on students’ views. Right-leaning students report that they are silenced, are pressured to agree with instructors, and face unwelcoming environments. Left-leaning students, on the other hand, enjoy a friendlier environment with fewer obstacles. These results call for significant institutional reforms.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Elementary students in the Madison Metropolitan School District will be treated to a weeklong introduction to gender identity and sexual orientation curriculum as part of the so-called Welcoming Schools agenda. Parents in the district received an email last week advising them about this week’s lesson plan, part of the Health and Social Emotional Learning curriculum. Children will learn about “different identities, which include gender identity, sex assigned at birth, and sexual orientation.”
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Campaign ads are headed back to TVs across Wisconsin ahead of the election for a seat on the State Supreme Court.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz’ campaign on Friday announced a $700,000 ad buy in the race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She’s one of four challengers trying to land the seat held by Justice Pat Roggensack, who has said she will not seek reelection.
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On Tuesday, Gov. Tony Evers will deliver his fifth State of the State speech before both chambers of the Legislature and the judiciary. Like many governors before him, a pronouncement that the state of the state is strong is all but to be expected. But is this truly the state of affairs in Wisconsin? Is state government serving the needs of its citizens and providing the services that we all expect? With a looming recession, is state government looking at how to help Wisconsinites — or at least not make things worse?
Here is what we hope the governor will say in his address.
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Tax reform is top of mind for Republicans this legislative session. But while a flat tax measure has taken center stage, another proposal by one legislative leader to eliminate Wisconsin’s personal income tax has seemingly disappeared from the tax cut discourse.
A new State Policy Network (SPN) survey shows a good deal of support for nixing the state income tax.
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More than eight months after Wisconsin Family Council/Action’s Madison headquarters was firebombed by pro-abortion extremists, the FBI is now offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the “identification, arrest, and conviction” of the individuals involved in the attack. “It’s about time,” said Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Council/Action, a pro-life organization that advocates for religious liberty and traditional family values.
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