Free Republic

MADISON – Together at last. All four of the lead GOP candidates for Wisconsin’s hotly contested U.S. Senate race appeared at a debate Monday, marking the first time these bitter rivals have shown up to the same debate since the campaign began. While the candidates threw verbal jabs and blasted negative advertisements and past voting records, their prescriptions for American policy could have come from the same doctor. Each candidate tried to appear more conservative than the next. Jeff Fitzgerald, who is in last place in the latest polls, pointed to his record as Assembly speaker during last year’s tumultuous...

MADISON — Eric Hovde’s wealth appears to be paying dividends. Hovde, a Madison businessman, has surged into second place among the Republican candidates contending for Herb Kohl’s Wisconsin U.S. Senate seat, according to the latest Marquette Law School poll, released Wednesday. That follows a report from left-leaning Public Policy Polling on Tuesday that showed Hovde actually leading former Gov. Tommy Thompson 31 percent to 29 percent. Hovde’s assets make him the wealthiest of the candidates, and he has lent his campaign at least $1 million, according to financial statements reported last week by The Associated Press. Hovde began running campaign...

The GOP Senate race has tightened since last month with former governor Tommy Thompson and wealthy businessman Eric Hovde the top contenders in a four-man field, according to a poll released Wednesday by Marquette Law School. Thompson led Hovde 35% to 23% among likely Republican primary voters in the survey, followed by former congressman Mark Neumann at 10% and state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald at 6%.A separate survey released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling found the Republican race even closer, with Hovde on top at 31%, Thompson at 29%, Neumann at 15% and Fitzgerald at 9%.Both surveys found Hovde on...

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson and wealthy political newcomer Eric Hovde are running neck and neck for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Wisconsin, according to a new survey by Public Policy Polling. Hovde leads Thompson 31% to 29% among people who say they plan to vote in the GOP Senate primary, followed by former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann at 15% and state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald at 9%, with 16% undecided. The Public Policy Polling survey shows a much tighter race than a poll last month by Marquette University Law School in which Thompson led Neumann and Hovde by double...

Tommy Thompson leads his three GOP rivals in the Aug. 14 Republican US Senate primary, but a quarter of likely voters polled were undecided in a survey taken June 13-16 by Marquette Law School poll. Thompson leads the four-way field with 34%, followed by Mark Neumann at 16%, Eric Hovde at 14% and Jeff Fitzgerald at 10%, among 344 likely primary voters (that result has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.4 percentage points). In possible November Senate matchups, Thompson leads Democrat Tammy Baldwin 49% to 41%. But Baldwin is tied with Republican Mark Neumann at 44%, and...

The story of Jay Gatsby (an excellently cast Leonardo DiCaprio) and the object of his affection, Daisy Buchanan (a gamine Carey Mulligan) gets the Baz Luhrmann treatment in this year’s adaptation of “The Great Gatsby.” If “Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet” and “Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge” taught us anything, it’s that a film can be set decades — or even centuries — ago and still feature current top 40 music on its soundtrack.

MADISON — Multimillionaire business Eric Hovde is piling his own cash into his campaign coffers in his bid for Wisconsin’s open U.S. Senate seat. Could this be deja vu for Wisconsin voters? The state’s soon to be senior U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican, self-funded his campaign in his successful 2010 Senate bid. Senate candidates’ campaign finance disclosure reports for the first quarter of the year were due April 15 to Federal Elections Commissions. As of Wednesday, only reports for Hovde and former Wisconsin 1st District U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann, both Republicans, were available on the FEC’s website. Reports for...

Madison - If primaries are held, voters would go to the polls on June 5 for recall elections involving Gov. Scott Walker, the lieutenant governor and four Republican state senators, under an agreement signed by a judge on Wednesday. The agreement also calls for primaries - or a general election in the event there are no primaries - to take place on May 8. As part of a stipulation entered in court, attorneys for the recall committees, their recall targets and the Government Accountability Board all agreed the state elections agency should receive an extension to certify petitions until March...

MADISON — The challenges begin. Four Republican state senators targeted for recall filed challenges late Thursday, contesting signatures collected on petitions in the campaign. Just how many challenges were filed was unclear late Thursday — the candidates weren’t talking and the Government Accountability, or GAB, was busy filing the challenge documents. State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, in an earlier news release, said he would contest 4,300 signatures as invalid, more than meeting the threshold to halt a recall election. The Committee to Recall Scott Fitzgerald needed to collect 16,742 signatures from the 13th Senate District electorate to force a recall....

MADISON — Four Republican state senators targeted for recall are expected to submit their challenges to the signatures that could result in voiding any elections. Today is the deadline for the senators to make any challenges to petitions filed with the Government Accountability Board. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has said he plans on challenging enough to stop the recall election against him. The other three senators haven't said how many signatures they will challenge. Those targeted senators are Van Wanggaard of Racine, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls and Pam Galloway of Wausau. Once submitted, it's then up to the...

MADISON — At an average rate of 2.7 signatures entered every second, Wisconsin’s recall petition vetting effort appears to be humming inside the Verify the Recall network. And a top official with the tea party-backed initiative said the review of hundreds of thousands of petitions to date has found numerous invalid signatures — validity issues that could spell problems for the campaign to recall Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, the group contends. Verify the Recall, a joint venture of the Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty and We the People of the Republic, tea party organizations aligned with fiscal conservative movements, bills...

Madison - Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Tuesday he will challenge thousands of signatures this week - enough to prevent a recall election against him if state officials agree. Fitzgerald made the comments Tuesday as the state Government Accountability Board disclosed it is considering using statistical sampling to determine how frequently duplicate names have appeared on petitions to recall Fitzgerald, Gov. Scott Walker and four other Republicans. The board's director, Kevin Kennedy, said the board is committed to creating a database of those who signed the Walker recall petitions to find people who may have signed twice. But the...

MADISON — The two titans of Wisconsin's highly watched GOP Senate race are each claiming victory in the campaign money chase. And each has a case to make, depending on how you crunch the numbers. Meanwhile, an also-ran is bowing out of the race, leaving three to contend for the GOP nomination to replace long-serving U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, a Democrat, who is retiring. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson on Monday announced his campaign had raised north of $656,000 in the last three months of 2011. The candidate has about $540,000 in cash on hand, according to a campaign news release....

FBI: Terror suspect plotted fuel attackAl-Marabh planned to blow up tunnelJail informant reported `martyr' bid JOHN SOLOMONASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh, who ran a print shop with his uncle in Toronto, plotted to steal a fuel tanker truck and blow it up in one of the heavily travelled tunnels between New Jersey and Manhattan, FBI documents allege. Al-Marabh, 36, was arrested Sept. 19, 2001, in Chicago in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. His arrest prompted an RCMP raid of his uncle's copy shop on Charles St. in Toronto. The U.S. deported him...

A former CIA officer was charged Monday with illegally leaking the identity of a covert officer and other classified information to journalists. John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer and author who defended waterboarding, was charged by the Department of Justice with one count of illegally disclosing a covert officer’s identity and two counts of violating the Espionage Act for illegally leaking classified national defense information. He was also charged with making false statements for allegedly trying to trick the CIA’s Publications Review Board to let him use information in his 2010 book, The Reluctant Spy. The investigation led by U.S....

Wow. One million signatures. Who could have guessed that one of the two entrenched American political parties — the one that claims the president of the most powerful nation on earth as one of its own and marshaled some $23.4 million in campaign spending for last year's wave of recall elections — would ever have the money and logistical wherewithal to gather 1 million signatures to recall a member of the other entrenched American political party? What a victory for democracy. Or should I say Democrat-acy? With the notable and laudable exception of the effort to recall Sen. Scott Fitzgerald...

A group working to recall state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Friday it has collected enough signatures to force the veteran Republican legislator into an election. Lori Compas, a Fort Atkinson photographer who serves as the recall group's chairwoman, said it had collected more than the 16,742 signatures needed to trigger the election, although she declined to say exactly how many. She said volunteers would continue to gather signatures through Saturday, the last day they are allowed. The signatures must be turned in to the state Government Accountability Board by Tuesday. "Over the last year we have watched Scott...

It’s been 36 years on Thursday since the ore boat Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a violent storm in eastern Lake Superior taking all 29 crew members with her. The storm of November 9-10, 1975, ranks among the most powerful to strike the Lake Superior region.

LOS ANGELES - Dealing a blow to the U.S. Senate candidacy of Republican Jack Ryan, a California judge ruled that several sealed divorce records likely to embarrass the candidate and his ex-wife should be opened to the public. Ruling on a request brought by attorneys for the Tribune and WLS-TV, Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider acknowledged that the resulting publicity from the disclosure would be harmful to the couple's son, a key argument Ryan had raised in seeking to keep the documents from public view. But Schnider said he had weighed the public interest of disclosure against the private interests...

Wisconsin Democrats still not allowed to vote even after returning to the stateMarch 14th, 2011 7:30 pm ET The Wisconsin Democratic state senators have now returned to the state, but they are still not having their votes counted in committee. Today Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald sent a letter to his members telling them that the Democrats' votes should not be counted since they are still in "contempt." It is the Republicans who passed a resolution officially holding the Democrats in contempt. Fitzgerald's letter can be seen below. "Please note that all 14 Democrat senators are still in contempt of...