Free Republic

Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) is trailing Democratic challenger Tony Evers by 13 points in the upcoming Wisconsin gubernatorial race, according to a new poll released Thursday. Of the registered voters surveyed in the NBC News/Marist poll, 41 percent backed Walker in the race, compared to the 54 percent who supported Evers. When asked if Walker deserves to be reelected, 34 percent of the voters agreed with the statement. Sixty-one percent said a new person should be given a chance, and 5 percent were unsure.

Just last week, eight candidates for governor participated in the first broadcast Democratic primary debate, an event that showcased plenty of agreement, like on criticism of Gov. Scott Walker and the Foxconn deal and support for an early release program to reduce the state’s prison population. A forum held Sunday on Madison's east side featuring just four of the Democratic candidates covered more common ground on issues of school funding and the rights of undocumented immigrants. When asked to delve into the details of their ideas over the two hour event, the candidates attempted to differentiate their policies from the...

During Sunday’s broadcast of “The Cats Roundtable” on New York AM 970 radio, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker weighed in on a liberal judge defeating a conservative in a Wisconsin Supreme Court election. He said that conservatives needed to “wake up” because the left was “angry and their rhetoric is filled with hate.” “We had a bit of a wake-up call on Tuesday. On Tuesday in our state, Wisconsin, had the elections for Supreme Court justices. And for the first time in about 20 years in an open seat for the Supreme Court, a liberal judge defeated a conservative judge,” Walker...

RUSH: By the way, the Rasmussen presidential tracking poll for today: Trump at 51% approval. The rest of the Drive-Bys discount Rasmussen. They call it a Republican-slanted poll unit. They discount it. They prefer to use CNN’s where Trump is at 43 or 44. He’s climbing, even, in the CNN poll, but he’s not at 50%. You have Trump, and you wonder: In any poll, how could Trump be at 51%? He’s fighting an unaccountable special counsel. He’s fighting current and former deep staters, a dominant radical left-wing media. He’s fighting the ChiComs’ illegal trade practices, dealing with an insane...

MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee drivers will deal with orange barrels on the freeways for the next 10 years even if Congress passes a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, the head of the a Wisconsin transportation group said. Pat Goss, executive director of the Transportation Builders Association, says the state hasn't put itself in a position to use the federal money for two Milwaukee County freeway projects eliminated in 2017. That year, Gov. Scott Walker delayed construction on Interstate 41 north of the Zoo Interchange and abandoned plans to rebuild Interstate 94 past Miller Park because of a funding shortfall. Don't expect a $1.5...

MILWAUKEE — State firefighters union leader Mahlon Mitchell joined into a crowded Democratic field for Wisconsin governor on Monday, November 13th. In a kickoff event at Milwaukee Area Technical College's downtown campus, Mitchell criticized Gov. Scott Walker for seeking a third term totaling 12 years in office.

We have followed recent events in Wisconsin’s scandalous John Doe investigation of Governor Walker’s allies and supporters here (also citing background on the scandal) and here. State senator Tom Tiffany then updated us on the scandal’s aftermath. Now Senator Tiffany has directed our attention to Matt Kittle’s current MacIver Institute report “In John Doe’s shadow: Showdown looms in bitter battle over bureaucrats’ jobs.” Senator Tiffany has also forwarded Deborah Hawley Jordahl’s column commenting on current developments. Ms. Jordahl was herself a victim of the secret John Doe investigation. Her home was searched and turned upside down in a pre-dawn raid...

MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe investigation was more sinister and politically driven than originally reported. A Wisconsin Attorney General report on the year-long investigation into leaks of sealed John Doe court documents to a liberal British publication in September 2016 finds a rogue agency of partisan bureaucrats bent on a mission “to bring down the (Gov. Scott) Walker campaign and the Governor himself.” The AG report, released Wednesday, details an expanded John Doe probe into a “broad range of Wisconsin Republicans,” a “John Doe III,” according to Attorney General Brad Schimel, that widened the scope of the so-called...

Just before last year’s presidential election, Veritas founder James O’Keefe released footage of Wisconsin liberal activist Scott Foval bragging about disrupting Republican events and discussing busing people into Wisconsin from other states. The video doesn't make clear whether he was indicating the people were brought to the state to vote or for some other reason. Soon afterward, Schimel launched his investigation.

Wisconsin may become the first state in America to drug test able-bodied adults applying for food stamps, if Gov. Scott Walker gets his way. Walker moved ahead Monday with his plans, a move that has been blocked by the federal government or found unconstitutional when other states have tried. Wisconsin’s plan was approved by the Republican-controlled legislature more than two years ago, but it languished because it conflicted with federal rules prohibiting states from imposing additional eligibility criteria on food stamp recipients. Florida had a drug test requirement for food stamp recipients that a federal appeals court blocked in 2014,...

the Left engaged in gross abuses of criminal law to intimidate, harass and silence conservatives in the state. The specifics were chilling -- from pre-dawn raids on political activists' homes, to stifling gag orders preventing them from saying a peep about what was happening to them, all in pursuit of criminalizing and punishing the Badger State conservative movement. Eventually, one target violated his gag order and blew the whistle on the whole operation, eventually leading to investigations of the investigations, and multiple courts shutting down the witch hunts with extreme prejudice. ... ruthless the Left had become in its efforts...

On Wednesday, a Wisconsin judge unsealed an 88-page report on the state Department of Justice’s (WIDoJ) investigation into a leak of sealed evidence from the politically motivated “John Doe” investigation of Gov. Scott Walker, his supporters, and various conservative groups related to his recall election campaign. Despite concluding a crime was committed during the John Doe proceedings, WIDoJ recommends no criminal charges. Instead, the report recommends that former Government Accountability Board (GAB) lawyer Shane Falk be referred to the state judiciary’s Office of Lawyer Regulation for discipline and that contempt proceedings be initiated against John Doe special prosecutor Francis Schmitz and former...

In a move sure to annoy the academic left already hostile to him, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed an executive order effectively outlawing BDS in the state. "On October 30th, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed an anti-BDS measure, Executive Order 261, into law," the Louis D. Brandeis Center reports. "The Executive Order states that agencies may not 'execute a contract with a business entity if that entity is engaging in a boycott of Israel. Further, agencies shall reserve the right to terminate any contract with a business entity that engages in a boycott of Israel during the term of the...

The Republican Governors Association (RGA) slammed Hillary Clinton’s ex-spokesman and CNN political contributor Brian Fallon in a statement on Saturday after Fallon derisively claimed Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie was a white supremacist. “Brian Fallon’s attack on Ed Gillespie is shameful, disgraceful, and has no place in American politics,” said RGA Chairman Governor Scott Walker. “Ralph Northam, Hillary Clinton and CNN should immediately denounce Fallon’s blatant attempt to score political points from a tragedy, and CNN should question whether it serves the network and the viewing public well by giving a microphone to Fallon’s hateful rhetoric.” Fallon claimed that...

Wisconsin Democrats have demanded Gov. Scott Walker (R) join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a newly formed coalition of states that intends to move forward with the terms of the Paris climate accord after President Trump’s decision to pull out of the agreement. "President Trump’s rejection of fact, science and of the Paris Climate Agreement is an act that endangers every American. Gov. Walker’s silence on this issue echoes this shared anti-environment, anti-middle class agenda,” read the letter to Walker signed by 35 state representatives and 11 senators. "Given the recent reports on Wisconsin’s dismal slump in job creation, we cannot...

Now that the long Memorial Day holiday is over and legislators and the governor have returned from their road trips, we hope they have a better sense of the condition of highways around the state and a renewed sense of urgency on the need for upgrades and repairs. The first order of business, it would seem to us, is to come to some agreement on a state transportation budget for the next two years. Hopefully, hopefully, when that is done they will also take a longer-term view of Wisconsin’s highway construction needs and how best they should be met —...

He may have lost his bid for the Republican presidential nomination last year, but Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker remains the bete noire of the Left in one of its gestational cradles, particularly in the public school system. "The Occupy movement didn't start on Wall Street," Governor Walker told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). "It started on my street." "The tipping point was when a bunch of protestors showed up dressed as zombies for a special Olympics event." Similarly, he was familiar with the type of treatment U. S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently received when...

<p>MADISON -- A new audit shows huge cost overruns at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, with dozens of projects costing double or triple their original estimates.</p> <p>The Legislative Audit Bureau report finds that estimated costs for 19 major projects completed between 2006 and 2016 were $1.5 billion, double the initial projection. The audit also finds that the estimated costs of 16 ongoing major highway projects have increased by $3.1 billion.</p>

In addition to the Department of Natural Resources, a second state agency has scrubbed information on global warming from its website For years, the Public Service Commission featured material devoted to climate change, including strategies designed to reduce Wisconsin's reliance on coal. Then, sometime after May 1, the agency eliminated its global warming web page. ... The PSC's former global warming web page featured, among other topics, links on the potential for development of wind turbines on the Great Lakes and exploring the potential for injecting carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants in the ground. Those topics can be still...

Walker has long supported drug testing food stamp recipients, a policy he and Republican lawmakers approved in 2015 that has since been blocked by a federal court. Federal law does not allow states to impose drug tests on recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, better known as food stamps. "We have been forced to delay our implementation and are optimistic your administration will give states like Wisconsin the flexibility to provide the accountability the taxpayers demand," Walker said in his letter.