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Police in Minneapolis have discovered a new way to fight the wave of black violence and mayhem that is now an every day fact of life in their city: Blame the white victims for drinking too much. Why not: Nothing else has worked. First, Minneapolis police tried ignoring the problem. But dozens of victims, videos, witnesses, police reports and 911 calls made that impossible. Then they tried denying it: A spokesman for Minneapolis police department told me that race has nothing to do with anything involving crime and anyone who thinks differently is a bad person. That lasted about as...

The Annual Fiscal Report, which reports Wisconsin actual, not forecasted financial performance, reflects continued good stewardship of Wisconsin’s finances. Don’t be confused by Mary Burke, and the media’s previous sky is falling headlines. Wisconsin is in better shape than during the Burke/Doyle years by every metric. Wisconsin ended the fiscal year with over a half billion cash on hand. That is the second largest cash balance Wisconsin has had in the 21st century, second only to last year’s fiscal year. The rainy day fund, since Doyle’s last day in office, has increased 16,500%. Even with our tax cuts, we have...

A new Marquette Law School poll finds the Wisconsin gubernatorial race tied with Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Democratic challenger Mary Burke each getting 47 percent support among likely voters. The most recent Marquette poll's findings, released on Wednesday, contrast a previous Marquette poll which showed Walker leading Burke by 5 percentage points. The most recent poll's findings underscore what other polls have shown about the race: that Walker and Burke are only separated by a small margin. The new Marquette poll also suggests that Burke has, at the very least, not totally lost her chance to win the race...

Teachers in Wisconsin's public schools have learned a major lesson from the state's landmark 2011 law neutering public sector unions, with more than a third dropping out of their labor organization. Given no choice but to join and pay dues to the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) for decades, teachers have for the last three years been able to opt out. And that is what tens of thousands have done as a result of Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, also known as Act 10. “Given the evidence, it shows that the union's hold is softening," Patrick Wright, vice...

Wisconsin attorney general candidate Susan Happ is calling for background checks on all gun sales. Happ's campaign released a statement Monday noting saying background checks are an obvious solution to gun violence.

Perhaps the most hard-fought Senate race this year will be ColoradoÂ’s showdown between Democratic senator Mark Udall and Republican congressman Cory Gardner. The RealClearPolitics average of polls in the race shows Gardner holding a lead of 1.3 percentage points. The outcome may determine control of the U.S. Senate, and the margin of victory could be less than the 11,000-vote margin by which Democratic senator Michael Bennet was reelected in Colorado in 2010. But there is a significant difference in this yearÂ’s Senate race. In 2013, a new Democratic state legislature rammed through a sweeping and highly controversial election law and...

Earlier this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker released a new ad in response to an EMILY’s List campaign regurgitating the usual “War on Women” blather. But rather than fighting back with a clear, unapologetic defense of pro-life principles and policies, it tries to defuse the situation with mealy-mouthed equivocation: Hi, I’m Scott Walker. I’m pro-life. But there’s no doubt in my mind the decision of whether or not to end a pregnancy is an agonizing one. That’s why I support legislation to increase safety and to provide more information for a woman considering her options. The bill leaves the final...

“Renewable” energy is unreliable, and can never replace secure base load sources like coal, natural gas, and hydro. And now a bunch of greenies have embarrassed themselves and proved the point. Attempting to show how wonderful solar power is, a band of self-righteous greenie demonstrators in Madison, WI, the Berkeley of the Midwest, instead demonstrated that reliance on renewables means brownouts and blackouts. Protesting a proposed rate increase by the local utility, Madison Gas & Electric, they made utter fools of themselves, and showed by reliable power from hydrocarbons is the only way to have secure energy supplies. The MacIver...

Friday on PBS's "News Hour," syndicated columnist Mark Shields pointed out, "among young Republicans, 61 percent of Republicans -- young Republicans under the age of 30 are in favor of same sex marriage." New York Times columnist David Brooks "applauded," the GOP for "doing absolutely the right thing in withdrawing" and letting the country have its way. Brooks said "I sort of applaud the minimalism here. Sometimes you let the country have its way and you don't try to determine the shape of the country, you sort of modestly step back and let the country figure out what it believes....

MADISON, Wis. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday may have blocked Wisconsin’s voter identification law, but an election reform expert is calling the decision purely procedural and expects the requirement to be in place at some point in the future. The high court didn’t give a reason for its decision in a brief order overruling the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, but three of the nine justices who dissented said there is a “colorable basis” for the court’s conclusion due to the proximity of the upcoming general election Nov. 4. Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas,...

MADISON, Wis. - The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked Wisconsin from implementing a law requiring voters to present photo IDs. Related Content US Supreme Court blocks Wis. voter... New bike path will connect Madison,... Court orders tribal night deer case... Dogs, bird rescued from hoarder... » View More The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday declared the law constitutional.

AUSTIN, Texas – A federal judge likened Texas' strict voter ID requirement to a poll tax deliberately meant to suppress minority voter turnout and struck it down less than a month before Election Day — and mere hours after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a similar measure in Wisconsin. The twin rulings released Thursday evening represent major and somewhat surprising blows to largely Republican-backed voter identification rules sweeping the nation that have generally been upheld in previous rulings. Approved in 2011, Texas' law is considered among the nation's harshest and had even been derided in court by the Justice Department...

VAN DYNE, Wis. — Republican Gov. Scott Walker is under investigation, and he is reviled by the largest political force in his state. But you’d never guess that by watching him amble through the stalls at a central Wisconsin dairy farm. Walker converses with a casual ease rare among politicians. He strolls with a light step through a massive cow barn at Ruedinger Farms on Wednesday. The only thing hanging over his head is the mechanical hawk that chases away the pigeons. You wouldn’t guess from his demeanor how hated he is. County prosecutors are still investigating him. And the...

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked Wisconsin from enforcing its strict voter identification law in this year's election.. By a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal from civil rights lawyers who argued it was too late to put the rule into effect. Lawyers for the ACLU had noted the state had already sent out thousands of absentee ballots without mentioning the need for voters to return a copy of the photo identification. It would be "chaos," they said, for the state now to have to decide whether or not to count such ballots because the voters failed to...

woman from Liberia who was detained at O’Hare International Airport was monitored for the Ebola virus as a precaution while being temporarily held at the Kenosha County Jail, though she showed no signs of being sick, officials said Thursday. The woman was sent back to O’Hare and the custody of federal authorities at about 5 a.m. Thursday, according to the Kenosha County sheriff’s department, which did not say why she was detained The woman was sent back to O’Hare and the custody of federal authorities at about 5 a.m. Thursday, according to the Kenosha County sheriff’s department, which did not...

MADISON – During a luncheon yesterday in Madison, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester, 53rd District) said that Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy should go. Speaker Vos made the comment during a lunch-time speaking engagement with Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha, 64th District). The comments made by the Assembly Speaker came after he responded to a question from Jeff Mayers of WisPolitics.com regarding campaign finance laws. Vos said that the GAB will not exist in its current format two years from now. “I promise you that two years from now the GAB will not be in the current format....

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Reporter was barred from covering a campaign rally Tuesday in Madison for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke and featuring first lady Michelle Obama. Melissa Baldauff, communications director for the state Democratic Party, informed Wisconsin Reporter on Monday it wasn’t allowed to attend the event at the Overture Center because the online publication isn’t a legitimate news source. This marks the second time in about a week the Burke camp has dictated press coverage of a campaign fundraiser in Wisconsin headlined by the first lady. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Meg Kissinger reported White House and Burke staff tried...

KENOSHA (WITI) — The Kenosha County Jail is taking precautions — monitoring an detainee for signs of the Ebola virus. Local officials are in close contact with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — along with other federal officials. The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office confirms with FOX6 News that at 1 a.m. on Wednesday, October 8th, a woman came into the jail from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. As officials screened her, they realized she is from Liberia — a country hard hit with the Ebola outbreak. Officials say the woman was brought in as a federal immigration...

The short version is that the targets initially succeeded at the federal trial court level in obtaining an injunction shutting down the investigation (which already was on hold because of a state court judge’s ruling), and allowing the civil damages lawsuit against the prosecutors/investigators to go forward in federal court. The Court of Appeals reversed, finding that there was no ground for the federal courts to intervene in a state investigation, particularly where a state judge already had effectively shut it down (which is on appeal in the state court system). Here are the grounds stated in the Petition to...

If you haven’t previously read about who Judith Faulkner is, it’s imperative – especially if you live in Wisconsin – to read this post first, Will Money & Power in Wisconsin Politics Influence Health Care Policy?, particularly the last third of it. You see, it turns out that one of the biggest backers of liberal politicians and big labor in Wisconsin is actually none other than….an evil corporation!