Free Republic

Former President Donald Trump was arraigned in New York on Tuesday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, but the largest blow to his hopes of reclaiming the White House might have occurred nearly 1,000 miles away in Wisconsin, where liberals secured a majority on the state's Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. Hours after Trump became the first American president to face felony charges, Judge Janet Protasiewicz claimed victory over former Justice Dan Kelly, a major Trump supporter and one of the Wisconsin Republicans central to the former president's attempts to throw out the results...

Janet Protasiewicz’s over conservative Dan Kelly will allow the court's new liberal majority to determine the future of key issues like abortion rights.Janet Protasiewicz, a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, NBC News projects, giving liberals their first majority on the state’s highest court in 15 years. Protasiewicz defeated conservative Dan Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice, on Tuesday in what became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history and one of the most closely watched elections of 2023. Protasiewicz’s victory will allow the court’s new...

Kloppenburg's campaign is working with Marc Elias, an attorney with Perkins Coie, a Washington D.C.-based firm with an office in downtown Madison. Elias is the same attorney who represented Democratic challenger Al Franken in his eight-month epic recount battle with incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. Franken eventually prevailed, winning his U.S. Senate seat by 312 votes. Prosser has hired Ben Ginsberg, a Washington-D.C. attorney who played a prominent role in the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential recount effort in Florida. He was also part of the team that represented Coleman in his recount effort. Prosser has also retained Madison attorney Jim Troupis, and...

"In the first place God made idiots," observed Mark Twain. "This was for practice. Then he made school boards." The San Francisco Board of Education's 4-2 vote last week to abolish the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, which has been active in the city's high schools for 90 years, tends to support his view. Why is JROTC being done away with? It isn't for lack of interest. More than 1,600 San Francisco students currently take part in its voluntary activities. "Kids love this program as if it's family," notes the San Francisco Chronicle. It is "a program that students...

<p>Two Kentucky fiscal courts recently lost another round with the latest federal court ruling regarding Ten Commandment displays in government buildings.</p> <p>In a Dec. 18 decision, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier court decision demanding Decalogue displays in McCreary and Pulaski courthouses and a Harlan County school be removed.</p>