Free Republic

Milwaukee, WI - Area home sales soared 75% in November compared with the same month last year, an increase attributed mostly to efforts to close purchases before a tax credit for first-time homebuyers was set to expire.The federal tax credit of up to $8,000 - part of Congress' economic stimulus plan - has been extended to home deals that close by June 30 instead of Dec. 1 of this year. But uncertainty about whether it would be extended helped Realtors post sales numbers that the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors called staggering."The majority of that was the homebuyer tax credit,...

Gary Sherman….Gary Sherman….Gary Sherman. I should know that name. Now I remember Gary Sherman was the critical vote needed desperately by Governor Doyle to preserve open carry in Wisconsin five years ago. He is the Assembly Representative who voted for SB214 and then switched his vote against it to sustain the Governor’s veto of SB214. This legislation was the concealed carry law that passed the legislature with a bi-partisan two thirds super majority. By convincing Representative Sherman to switch his vote, the Governor was able to guarantee that his veto of SB214 would be sustained by just one critical vote,...

<p>GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Some Wisconsin communities that have installed high efficiency traffic lights are discovering the energy-saving bulbs are a hazard in a snow storm.</p> <p>City officials say the LED lights use less electricity and don't give off enough heat to melt ice or snow. So when the snow falls and the wind blows, the traffic lights are obscured.</p>

It might go against the adage "oil and water don't mix," but a University of Wisconsin professor and the City of Beloit's fleet manager are experimenting with technology that allows motor scooters, cars and trucks to use a combination of gasoline and water as fuel. They're testing a system that uses voltage from a vehicle's battery and alternator to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Those molecules are then burned as supplemental fuel -- reducing the amount of gasoline needed and resulting in a cleaner-running engine. The system has been used to power a Vespa scooter with distilled water. A...

Back door gun registration is being proposed for Wisconsin by Senators Coggs, Taylor and Lassa; Representatives Richards, Staskunas, Turner, Young, Sinicki, Berceau, Colon, Grigsby, Fields, Pasch, Kessler, Zepnick and Toles. SB 367 is yet another attempt to infringe upon lawful gun owners in Wisconsin by making it a crime not to report a lost or stolen gun within 48 hours of discovering the loss or theft. I am not clear how anyone will know if a stolen gun that shows up at a crime scene just 5 hours after it was stolen is your gun or to whom it belongs....

Republican lawmakers critical of efforts to battle climate change vowed to fly next week to the Copenhagen summit to undercut President Barack Obama's promises of strong U.S. action. Members of the minority party in Congress said they would highlight a scandal over leaked e-mails from leading climate scientists which they said backed their suspicions that the global warming threat was overblown and too costly to act on. "I will not be one of the sycophants that says climate change is the biggest problem facing the world, and we need to do all these Draconian things that cost jobs," Rep. Joe...

MADISON, WI - A combination of heavy snow, strong wind and freezing rain continued to pound Wisconsin early Wednesday as many residents attempt to dig out. Heavy snow and strong winds pummeled Wisconsin overnight as a major snowstorm crept across southern Wisconsin on Tuesday night. The storm has caused widespread power outages, hundreds of school closings and treacherous travel for those braving the roadways. State offices and the University of Wisconsin campuses are closed as well. The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the southwest corner of the state through Wednesday evening. The Wisconsin State Patrol said as...

Mary Spicuzza | 608-252-6122 | mspicuzza@madison.com In a nutshell Wisconsin would require new semiautomatic handguns sold or manufactured in the state to produce identifying codes on every shell they expend under a bill currently in the Legislature. The bill would require that semiautomatic handguns manufactured on or after Jan. 1, 2011 produce codes, known as a "microstamps," on their expended cartridges. The bill would also require gun manufacturers and dealers who sell handguns that produce microstamps to disclose guns' makes, models and serial numbers to law enforcement agencies when microstamped expended shell casings are collected during criminal investigations. It would...

The suspect in a quadruple homicide was charged Friday afternoon with killing his girlfriend and their 23-month-old daughter after telling the girlfriend's older children that the victims had been involved in a bad car crash in Middleton and wouldn't be coming home. According to the criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court, Tyrone Adair called the daughters of Tracy Judd around 7:20 p.m. Thursday to tell them that Judd, 33, and their daughter, Deja, had been in a crash near the Branch Street Retreat bar and restaurant and wouldn't be coming back to their town of Middleton home, which...

Two women and two girls were shot dead in Madison and Middleton Thursday night in separate incidents and police were searching for one man who they believe to be responsible for the killings. Suspected in the deaths is Tyrone M. Adair, 38, police said. He is described as black, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, 175 pounds with brown eyes. He may be driving a silver GMA Acadia with Wisconsin license 342-EBI. Police said he should be considered armed and dangerous. A mother and her daughter were found shot to death in their car in their garage at 6827 Park Edge...

Milwaukee Public Schools' health officials want to make condoms freely available to students in many of the district's high schools, as part of an effort to combat the health risks that sexually transmitted infections and other communicable diseases pose to young people. If the proposal wins the support of the School Board, the new policy could take effect as early as next school year, making MPS one of a few districts in the nation that provide contraception to students. Kathleen Murphy, the district's health coordinator, said that data continues to show that middle and high school students are engaging in...

A convicted sex offender has been charged with beating and sexually assaulting a elderly woman as she gave him a tour of a rural Kandiyohi County church last month. According to charges filed Monday, Lindon Roy Knutson, 61, left the 73-year-old victim bloodied on the ground outside the Crow River Church on the afternoon of Nov. 24. Knutson has been convicted of a string of sexual assaults dating back to 1973 and has spent much of the past three decades in prison. In Wisconsin, he was committed as a habitual sex offender, most recently at a mental health institution in...

Nov. 24, 2009 – When considering a charge of battery to a law enforcement officer, the officer must be in the course of performing official duties – but the officer need not be acting lawfully. In State v. Haywood, 2009AP30, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected a defendant’s argument that an officer was not acting as a law enforcement agent when the officer improperly remained in the defendant’s home. A violent struggle Gary Post, a Milwaukee police officer, went to a home in search of Dione “Edjuan” Haywood. Marline Nicholson, a woman known to Post, opened the door to say...

A Rock County man sentenced to two years in federal prison for shooting a deer while he was on probation for domestic violence has had his case overturned by a federal appeals court. The case could have far-ranging impact in the gun-rights debate. For Steve Skoien, it meant he'll be home for the holidays. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled earlier this month that, in light of a major Supreme Court ruling about individual gun rights last year, prosecutors need to show that a lifetime ban on gun ownership for those convicted of domestic violence has a...

At a conference for environmental journalists in Wisconsin, Al Gore dodged questions on the many identified errors in his global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. "We're very close to that political tipping point," Gore said. "Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions." While the audience of environmental journalists were largely in agreement with Mr. Gore's presentation and his positions, one Irish journalist and filmmaker asked Gore about the many scientific errors that were found in Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. "A judge in the British High Court,...

Fort Hood soldier returns home to Wis. Updated: Friday, 27 Nov 2009, 12:54 PM EST Published : Friday, 27 Nov 2009, 12:53 PM EST LODI, Wis. (AP) - A Wisconsin soldier injured in the Fort Hood shootings spent Thanksgiving with his family, reminding all of everything they have to be thankful for. Army Reserve Specialist Grant Moxon was shot in the leg when Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire Nov. 5, and three of Moxon's friends died. Moxon told WISC-TV in Madison the memories are still raw, and Thanksgiving at home means a time to recover emotionally as well as physically....

MADISON, Wis. — Seven and a half months into Ta-Shai Pendleton’s first pregnancy, her child was stillborn. Then in early 2008, she bore a daughter prematurely. Soon after, Ms. Pendleton moved from a community in Racine that was thick with poverty to a better neighborhood in Madison. Here, for the first time, she had a full-term pregnancy... --snip-- The lives and pregnancies of black mothers like Ms. Pendleton, 21, are now the subject of intense study as researchers confront one of the country’s most intractable health problems: the large racial gap in infant deaths, primarily due to a higher incidence...

Police in Wisconsin are trying to determine why a Minneapolis cab driver jumped from his cab before it crashed, and why his passenger ran from the scene. Baldwin police say a Blue and White cab crashed into a light pole and then hit a parked car in the Greenfield Elementary School parking lot around 6:40 p.m. Sunday. Responding officers found the driver, Abdi Mohamed Askar, 38, lying on the sidewalk. People who witnessed the crash followed the passenger when he ran away. Police caught up with him two blocks away and arrested him for leaving the scene of an accident....

Raleigh, N.C. – Democrats are having to work harder than expected to defend a lot of their Senate seats in 2010, but it doesn’t look like Wisconsin will be one of them. Russ Feingold leads former Governor Tommy Thompson 50-41 in a possible match up. He takes 88% of the Democratic vote to Thompson’s 82% of the Republican vote and also holds a 47-41 lead with independents. Thompson no longer has the popularity that propelled him to four terms as Governor. 45% of voters in the state have an unfavorable opinion of him to just 38% who view him positively....

Revenge of the Iraqi detainees: Brett Favre jokes Fri Nov 20,2009 By Rick Chandler You think you know how to torture, America? Waterboarding is for schoolchildren. Detainees locked in an internment camp in Iraq are mocking their captors -- members of the Wisconsin National Guard -- with Brett Favre jokes. Evil bastards! It all started when the National Guardsmen began decorating their trucks and other areas of Camp Cropper with Packers colors recently. The prisoners picked up on it, did some research (Wiraqipedia?), and began with the Favre barbs. What goes around comes around, I suppose. I blame Dick Cheney....

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A new report says nuclear power plants would take too long to build and are too expensive to make any impact on global warming. The report, released by Wisconsin Environment, an environmental advocacy organization, notes scientists believe developed nations must reduce emissions dramatically by 2020 to limit global warming. The report says the first new nuclear reactor in the United States probably won't be completed until at least 2016. Money that would go to new plants would be better spent on renewable sources. State Rep. Mike Huebsch, a West Salem Republican, has pushed to repeal Wisconsin's...

A Spooner man involved in the Interstate 35 bridge collapse gets prison time for brutally beating a toddler. Michael Stoner was sentenced to 7.5 years for beating his fiance's 2-year-old daughter Emma. Stoner attacked Emma Manning the same day as the Interstate 35 bridge collapse. He and Emma's mother were in a car that plunged into the Mississippi River. Stoner told reporters the two swam to shore and ran to the hospital to be with the girl. What he didn't mention was that Emma was in the hospital there because she was beaten so badly she had to be flown...

Detainees at a camp in Baghdad, Iraq have found a way to get under the skin of guard troops from Wisconsin. And it has to do with football and a painful chapter for some Green Bay Packers fans who consider Brett Favre a traitor for joining the rival Minnesota Vikings. First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen of New Richmond says the detainees are familiar with Favre and picked up on the troops' discussion about the quarterback's performance with the Vikings. Lt. Col. Tim Donovan says the detainees at Camp Cropper needle the guards about Favre's success as a Viking.

Another day, another stimulus reporting snafu.Of all the problems found in the latest round of stimulus reporting, add another one: congressional districts that don't exist. In Wisconsin, about $3.5 million has been awarded to projects in six non-existent congressional districts, including the 0th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 39th and 55th, data from Recovery.gov shows. Those grants are listed as creating or saving 4 jobs so far.ABC News reported yesterday that White House officials have found 700 mistakenly credited congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants.Earlier this month, a Journal Sentinel review found that the number of jobs reported in...

[SNIP] Charged Tuesday According to a criminal complaint, Charles Avey wrapped a necktie around Cody's neck and strangled him Sunday afternoon inside a minivan parked at a Germantown Wal-Mart. He was charged Tuesday in Washington County Circuit Court with first-degree intentional homicide in Cody's death. He admitted to killing Cody as payback to the boy's mother, the complaint says. The killing occurred within an hour or so of Trista Avey going to the Grafton Police Department and reporting an assault at the hands of her husband one week earlier. Charles Avey allegedly started strangling her inside the couple's Grafton apartment...

The Seventh Circuit last week vacated a man’s conviction for possession of a firearm after having been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. However, the court did not strike the statute down as unconstitutional, but remanded the case to the district court to give the government the opportunity to “establish a reasonable fit” between the “statute’s means and its end.” Addressing the record made before the district court, Judge Diane S. Sykes wrote for the court, “The government … has premised its argument almost entirely on Heller’s reference to the presumptive validity of felon-dispossession laws and reasoned by...

<p>Contact your Senators and let them know what you think!</p> <p>U.S. veterans or subsidies for United Nations (U.N.) bureaucracy.</p>

The pickings are apparently so slim in the linguistics field that three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists took on the conundrum of Sarah Palin's speech patterns. That's how it was reported, a conundrum, suggesting that they went off in search of a solution to a problem that didn't exist. Now, it was pretty good fun when Tina Fey took on Palin. There was one episode of "Saturday Night Live'' when Palin was a guest and Fey and Palin were on the set at the same time. I didn't know who was who. There were cards wandering around Foggy Bottom who had...

Darwinizing Everything --snip-- The Darwinians, who took over biology in the 19th century, are still busily engaged in mythmaking, comforting the feebleminded who accept their explanations as wisdom, denouncing the heretics who call their bluff. They wear S on their chests: Science, the equivalent of Superman in intellectual circles. They are phonies. Bring out the kryptonite of critical analysis. It scares them to death, even though they never had special powers to begin with...

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Funeral services for the second Wisconsin soldier, Russell Seager, killed in the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting spree will be held Monday. PICTURES: Fort Hood's Fallen Heroes Seager, 51, of Racine, Wis., was a psychiatrist who joined the Army a few years ago because he wanted to help veterans returning to civilian life, said his uncle, Larry Seager of Mauston. Russell Seager's brother-in-law, Dennis Prudhomme, said Seager had worked with soldiers at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Milwaukee who were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He also taught classes at Bryant & Stratton College in Milwaukee, said Prudhomme,...

Mark HoffmanSurrounded by white corn drying the traditional way, manager Jeff Metoxen talks about the benefits of white corn to a group of visitors from Germany last month at the Tsyunhehkwa Agricultural Center in Oneida. Oneida embrace planting, harvesting of white corn as a staple of diet, culture Mark HoffmanWhite corn has far fewer rows of kernels than its sweet corn cousin. Oneida - George Washington's troops at Valley Forge may have starved to death without the white corn an Oneida Indian chief gave them in the winter of 1777 during the Revolutionary War. Now, the Oneida, like other...

From across the banks of the Sheboygan River, after night fell in tiny Kiel, there was a final beauty in the flickering lights spread across Veteran’s Memorial Park.Hundreds of mourners, friends and family of Amy Krueger, strangers too who came to learn who she was – and wonder why she died – burned candles in her memory and slowly lifted them aloft. Held them there.This is a place, a small town far from Fort Hood, where the 29-year-old soldier’s memory will be held forever – where the monument near the dais where they cried and sang is for all those...

OSHKOSH, Wisc., Nov. 12, 2009 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has created a new task force to enhance existing department efforts to counter the threat from roadside bombs, the No. 1 killer in Afghanistan. Gates announced the new task force today, and said he expects its members to spend the next six months reporting to him about the best way to deal with the improvised explosive device threat in Afghanistan. The task force will be co-chaired by Ashton Carter, undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics; and Marine Lt. Gen. John M. “Jay” Paxton Jr., the Joint Staff’s operations chief....

In Arizona, the budget has grown so gloomy that lawmakers are considering mortgaging Capitol buildings. In Michigan, state officials dealing with the nation's highest unemployment rate are slashing spending on schools and health care. Drastic financial remedies are no longer limited to California, where a historic budget crisis earlier this year grew so bad that state agencies issued IOUs to pay bills. A study released Wednesday warned that at least nine other big states are also barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services. The report by the Pew Center...

Madison — Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is among the Republicans lining up for an endorsement from Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor. Walker sought help in his run for governor Friday in a half-hour meeting with Palin after her invitation-only Wisconsin Right to Life event. Time magazine's Web site first reported on the meeting Wednesday, and Walker spokeswoman Jill Bader confirmed it was accurate. "Sarah Palin is one of many national political figures we're reaching out to help on the campaign trail to be part of Scott's effort," Bader said. She said Walker will...

After Sarah Palin spoke to 4,000 people at a Wisconsin Right-to-Life event last Friday night, she met for thirty minutes with Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County executive and the Republican frontrunner for governor in 2010. With incumbent Democrat Jim Doyle not seeking re-election, Walker is favored by many GOP powerbrokers to win the September primary next year and perhaps beat whomever the Democrats nominate. In a room at the fabled Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee (just a block from where Jerry Seinfeld had lunch earlier that day at Zarletti), Walker made the case to Palin and a few of her...

MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee Army reservist's military identification earned him some street cred Tuesday, when he says four men who mugged him at gunpoint returned his belongings and thanked him for his service after finding the ID. The 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student said he was walking home from work about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday when he was pulled into an alley and told to lay face down and with a gun to his neck. Four men took his wallet, $16, keys, his cell phone and even a PowerBar wrapper from his pants pockets, he said. But the hostile tone quickly...

Robbers return Army ID, Thanked him for service.

Supervisor Toni Clark is subject of secret criminal investigation Milwaukee County Supervisor Toni Clark is the subject of a secret criminal investigation into possible campaign finance abuses, the Journal Sentinel has learned. Clark declined Tuesday to answer questions about the matter. Last month, she filed three amended campaign reports with the county Board of Election Commissioners. In those reports, Clark admitted she took in and spent money from her campaign fund in the past three years after she earlier swore that her campaign was inactive during those times, according to public records filed with the board. .... Trip not probed...

Federal Bench: Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution. Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also another in a series of activist judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is not...

This 640-pound concrete elk statue lies on its side in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye’s home in rural Viroqua. The dead buck lies about 20 feet away. A love-struck buck ran out of luck a week ago. The seven-point buck was killed when it rammed a 640-pound concrete statue of an elk in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye's home in rural Viroqua. Bucks often fight during the breeding season, commonly called the rut. Dominant bucks defend breeding territories and female deer by sparring with subordinate bucks. Antler battles sometimes result in the death of one or...

A love-struck buck ran out of luck a week ago. The seven-point buck was killed when it rammed a 640-pound concrete statue of an elk in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye's home in rural Viroqua, Wis. Bucks often fight during the breeding season, commonly called the rut. Dominant bucks defend breeding territories and female deer by sparring with subordinate bucks. Antler battles sometimes result in the death of one or both deer, but usually end with the biggest buck winning and the smaller buck high-tailing it out to another area. Mark Brye, who owns Brye Plumbing in Viroqua,...

http://www.funkymonkeyphoto.com/ We are trying to get number 11 to win. He has spinal bifida and plays wheelchair hockey. The winner gets their picture on the front of a calender. He and his family heavily supported me while I was in Iraq and I would like to repay them by helping him out now. Thank for voting!

Wisconsin Governor Doyle has ruined the state (WI is a microcosm in the mold of the Feds). Our dem gov bowed out of the gov race a couple months ago. So, of course the GOP is running several candidates. Who's going to fill the dem opening, so far, NO ONE! What Democrat can run on the lib ticket? Is Wisconsin paving the way for a democrat defeat across the nation in 2010? The DNC's only hope is bambi. What hope is that? WE HAVE NO SERIOUS DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR IN THE STATE OF WISCONSIN!THIS IS HUGE! IS THIS...

On Tuesday, November 3, the Wisconsin State House unanimously passed Assembly Resolution 15. This resolution requests the participation of the Attorney General in the “friend of the court” brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case, McDonald v. Chicago. The case will address the application of the Second Amendment to the states through either the Due Process clause or the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case has major implications for the legality of restrictive gun laws not only in Chicago, but also in other cities across the United States. Full support by the Wisconsin Assembly and other...

WEST ALLIS, Wis. – Sarah Palin rallied thousands of abortion opponents Friday night with a a stark warning that the same philosophy that allows abortion rights could soon be invoked to allow the government to cut off health care for the elderly or children with special needs. Speaking to a fund-raising banquet of Wisconsin Right to Life, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee asserted that if policy-makers don’t believe a child in the womb is valuable, then “perhaps the same mind-set applies to other persons.” “What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn’t have...

2 killed, 4 wounded; some were to go to Afghanistan with assailantBy Don Walker At least six soldiers from Wisconsin were among the 43 people killed or injured by an Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood, and an Army major said Friday night that the shooter was scheduled to deploy with a Madison-based unit. The man identified as the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was to be sent to Afghanistan. Madison's 467th Medical Detachment, also known as a combat-stress unit, was also in the process of being deployed with him, according to Maj. Claudia Jefferson, an Army spokeswoman. "Hasan was supposed...

Democrats seized on Friday's report that the nation's unemployment rate has reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent to call for further tax and spending measures to bolster the economy. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) said the unemployment news was confirmation that the $787 billion fiscal stimulus signed into law in February WAS NOT BIG ENOUGH.“The bottom line is that additional action is required," Obey said. "An effective short term boost would mean a stronger economy, less unemployment and ultimately lower deficits.”Liberal Democrats, including Obey, have said for months additional stimulus efforts are needed. President Barack Obama...

Russell Seager, a 51-year-old nurse practitioner from Mount Pleasant, Wis., was among those killed in Thursday's violence. Seager, like others at Fort Hood, was preparing to deploy to Iraq, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. His uncle, Larry Seager, told the paper that he was eager to go abroad and had "pushed officials for deployment." "He wanted to get in there and help the soldiers coming home and leaving," Larry Seager told the paper. "I still can't believe it. Such a foolish thing," he said of the shooting. He learned of his nephew's death Friday morning when he received a...

Amy Krueger joined Army in aftermath of Sept. 11 attacks. In Kiel, Wis., a rural community of 3,200, feeling for the military runs so strong that, every Veterans Day, the high school invites local vets to lunch. So it was not entirely surprising that the week after Amy Krueger, a college student preparing to be a social worker, watched the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on television, she and her roommate walked into an Army recruiting office to enlist. She felt she needed to be "an army of one," a story in the local Tri-County Times quoted Krueger as saying...