Free Republic

A panel of federal judges has ordered the Wisconsin Legislature to redraw legislative boundaries by November, rejecting calls from those challenging the maps to have the judges do the work. The three-judge panel released its decision in the redistricting case Friday. The state is expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case. State attorneys had asked for the Republican-controlled Legislature to be allowed to draw the maps if the Supreme Court orders them redone. Democrats who sued over the boundaries wanted the judges to do that. …

Immigration officials arrested 16 criminal aliens from Mexico during an enforcement surge in Milwaukee this week, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Of the criminal aliens arrested, two had been previously deported and two had outstanding orders of deportation. All 16 were living in the U.S. illegally and convicted criminals — having committed crimes like assault with a deadly weapon, battery, grand theft auto, drug possession with intent to distribute, drunk driving, and receiving stolen property. According to ICE, the two day surge was the agency’s latest effort to “prioritize the arrest and removal of convicted criminals living illegally in...

Union membership in Wisconsin has declined nearly 40 percent since legislation was passed that gutted collective bargaining for public workers, according to federal data. The percentage of public and private workers who were union members was about 8 percent, or 219,000 people, in 2016, down by 136,000 members from 2010 levels, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The agency’s report shows the percentage of Wisconsin workers in unions is below the national average of 10.7 percent, The State Journal reported. …

The morning after Donald Trump was elected president, Andrea Myklebust’s sheep needed new hay. Distraught by the results from the night before, feeling like this was the first day of a suddenly altered American reality, she walked down the driveway of her farm to meet the man who brings her feed for her flock. Myklebust didn’t know for sure, but she suspected he had voted for Trump, a person she considered odious, dangerous and unqualified for the job he had just won.

Politico magazine has an interesting piece up today titled “What Do You Do if a Red State Moves to You?” That title is actually close to being the opposite of what the piece describes. It’s not about red staters moving into the cities. It’s about blue staters deciding, for one reason or another, to colonize a small county in rural Wisconsin and then being horrified to find not everyone who lives there shares their political outlook. The author suggests the cultural smugness of these progressive transplants is one reason some people in this rural county voted for Donald Trump. The...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Health officials are investigating how a rare rat virus called the Seoul virus infected eight people in Wisconsin and Illinois. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says all eight people had direct contact with rats at Illinois and Wisconsin ratteries, which are rat-breeding facilities.

<p>In 2016, students at the University of Texas at Austin staged a protest involving the public carry of sex toys. The protest was supposed to somehow change people’s minds about the exercise of Second Amendment rights on Campus. The protest made national news for a day or two. No discernible effect was noticed at any administrative or legislative level.</p>

If ignorance is bliss, progressive kids at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are among the most blissful when it comes to the ABCs of free speech. The Student Coalition for Progress recently petitioned to have the campus Young Americans for Freedom chapter deemed a hate group and its members subjected to “intensive diversity training.” YAF, for the record, is largely a Reaganite bunch. But apparently spreading love of free markets and other conservative ideas creates “a hostile environment on campus.” Triggering the whiners was a visit from conservative columnist Ben Shapiro, who spoke about how “safe spaces” limit free speech —...

A teen from Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, was charged with a felony after a high school dodgeball game took a violent turn. Jacob Sigler, 18, was charged with one count of substantial battery in connection with the Oct. 11 incident at Ellsworth High School. According to the criminal complaint filed back in December, Sigler punched another student in the head after a game of dodgeball. The victim and his mother reported the incident to police. The then 16-year-old told police that during gym class, Sigler and three other boys were throwing balls at him. He then threw one back at Sigler....

Image from Fox6now.com 63rd and Euclid in Milwaukee It was a dark and cold winter night on Tuesday, 27 December in Milwaukee, at 10 p.m. The sun had set more than three hours ago. There was no moon, but there was a cold breeze. The temperature held at 23 degrees. The blustery wind of the afternoon had dropped off. A 36-year-old Milwaukee resident was walking his dog in a secluded neighborhood. Street lights were far apart.Two teenage criminals were in a car, cruising for trouble. They found it. The armed teens attempted to rob the man. He had a...

Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel: A man walking his dog Tuesday night near his home shot two people who tried to rob him, killing one and wounding the other. Deonte M. Thomas, 17, of Milwaukee was shot to death and his 18-year-old companion was wounded, police said. The 36-year-old man had a concealed-carry permit. The incident happened about 10 p.m. in the 6500 block of W. Euclid Ave. when the two robbers were driving around looking for a possible victim, Ald. Mark Borkowski said. “Obviously these people picked the wrong person, but not everyone has concealed carry,” Borkowski said Wednesday. “We...

Wisconsin has made incremental progress in restoring the right to keep and bear arms in the last few years.  Representative Jesse Kremer has been an active Second Amendment supporter in the legislature. He was re-elected in the 2016 presidential year.  The state has built on the Constitutional amendment passed in 1998, with 74% of the vote. The people have the right to keep and bear arms for security, defense, hunting, recreation or any other lawful purpose Representative Kremer seems to believe that the amendment, now Article 1, Section 25 of the Wisconsin state constitution, means what it says. Wisconsin...

Professor D is keepin' it real in his sick mind Wisconsin State Representative Dave Murphy (R) drew national media attention this week by having a normal, ethical reaction to the sort of sick, hate-filled sewage that passes for education in America’s universities these days: Turning up the heat on the long-smoldering relationship between state lawmakers and the University of Wisconsin System, leading Republicans are threatening to pull any hope of more state funding unless a new course at UW-Madison called “The Problem of Whiteness” is canceled. . .

A Florida teenager has died in a bizarre accident at a closed water park in a resort area in the Wisconsin Dells. The teen and two other juveniles snuck into the Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park Wednesday night, according to Lake Delton police. The trio then slipped into a restricted area and climbed to the top of a water slide. While trying to sled down the snow-covered slide, the boy got caught in the snow and tumbled off the ride while trying to free himself, police said.

GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin are reportedly threatening to block additional state funding unless a new course at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, called “The Problem of Whiteness” is canceled. State Rep. Dave Murphy told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he has told his staff to pore over university course offerings to make sure “they’re legit.” “We are adding to the polarization of the races in our state,” Murphy told the newspaper about the course. Murphy planned to push for more funding for the UW system in the next state budget, but said he would rethink that support if the university chose to...

Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton made GQ magazine's list of 2016's least influential people. Drew Magary, who complied the "anger-fueled list of everyone who ruined our year," said he had no choice but to put Clinton on it. . . . "Would it have killed you to visit Wisconsin, Hillary? I know it's full of fat people and bad pretzels, but sometimes you gotta come out of your fundraising hole and kiss some babies," he quipped.

A University of Wisconsin-Stout student who was in a hurry to get to an important class presentation got some help with a necktie instead of ticket from a Menomonie police officer who stopped to talk to him about his speeding. A video posted on the police department's Facebook page Tuesday shows officer Martin Folczyk pulling his squad car behind Trevor Keeney's car in a parking lot Nov. 30. When the two get out of their vehicles, Folczyk tells Keeney he stopped him for his speed going down Eighth Street. Keeney, sounding rushed, explains that he was in a hurry because...

Governor Scott Walker sent a letter this week asking President Elect Donald Trump for help. In it, Walker asks Trump for immediate action on some controversial issues in the state like refugee placement. The letter is just over three pages long. Walker writes specifically he has expressed concern about refugee resettlement from countries with "terrorist ties".

Eight years ago, Wisconsin Democrats were in the catbird seat; they held the Governor's office, the majority in both chambers of the state legislature, two U.S. Senate seats, five of the state's eight congressional seats and handed Barack Obama a rousing victory in the presidential election. So it's no wonder that Wisconsin's winning election night results for Republican president-elect Trump and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson were a bit of a jolt to most pundits' sensibilities; for years they have believed that Wisconsin was a deeply blue state, powered by the public sector unions, that traditionally supports Democrat candidates in a...

Members of the Black Panthers of Milwaukee, some armed with guns, marched through the Sherman Park neighborhood on Sunday to protest what they called the "genocide" of African Americans at the hands of law enforcement. The afternoon march, which they called a "human rights tribunal," was held in the name of Sylville Smith, Jay Anderson and others who have been killed by police officers. "This is genocide. It can't go on. Any other country, any other people it would be declared as such," said Dr. Alli Muhammad with the Revoluntionary Black Panther Party. The group on Friday called for the...