Yearly Archives: 2021

In 2021, the minimum wage will increase in 25 states and Washington, D.C. The size of the increases range from $0.08 per hour (a 0.8% increase) in Minnesota to $2.25 per hour (a 31.03% increase) in Virginia, and the effective dates for the increases range from October 2020 to August 2021. Increases in 18 states took effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

After these increases occur, minimum wages will range from the $7.25 per hour federal rate in 20 states to $15.00 per hour in D.C., $14.00 per hour in California, $13.69 per hour in Washington, and $13.50 per hour in Massachusetts. In New York and Oregon, state laws provide for regional minimum wages.

Below are some highlights from Ballotpedia’s annual report on minimum wage increases:

In 2021, the largest minimum wage increases based on state laws are $2.25 in Virginia ($7.25 to $9.50), $1.50 in New Mexico ($9.00 to $10.50) and Oregon ($11.25 to $12.75), and $1.44 in Florida ($8.56 to $10.00).Eleven states are increasing their minimum wage due to citizen initiatives approved by voters. The remaining 14 states and D.C. will have minimum wage increases due to bills approved by lawmakers.Nine states index their minimum wage to changes in cost-of-living or inflation; 13 states and D.C. have legislative bills scheduling specific increases; and three states have citizen-initiated measures scheduling specific increases.Out of the nine states with minimum wages indexed to changes in cost-of-living or inflation, eight have minimum wage laws passed through ballot initiatives, and one has a minimum wage law passed by the legislature.Florida voters approved Amendment 2 on November 3, 2020. The citizen initiative was the first time voters considered a ballot measure designed to set a $15 per hour minimum wage.Four states passed minimum wage increase laws in 2020: one ballot initiative in Florida and three legislative bills in Rhode Island, Virginia, and Vermont.Of the 30 states that have a minimum wage higher than the $7.25 per hour Federal minimum wage, 12 passed their existing minimum wage laws through ballot initiatives.Michigan’s minimum wage law requires an adjustment to the state’s minimum wage based on inflation unless the average unemployment rate for the year is 8.5% or higher. In 2020, the average unemployment rate is expected to be higher than 8.5% and the scheduled increase from $9.65 to $9.87 per hour was canceled.

(The Center Square) – The list of Republican lawmakers who will oppose Wednesday’s vote to certify the Electoral College results continues to grow, thereby trying to block former Vice President Joe Biden from becoming the nation's 46th president.

“On January 6th I will vote to give President Trump and the American people the fair hearing they deserve and support objections to the Electoral College certification process,” Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia said in a statement Monday night.

Her fellow Georgia Republican David Perdue said on Fox News Sunday he is urging his colleagues to object.

Both are involved in runoff races Tuesday.

A dozen Senate Republicans and at least 140 House Republicans have said they will object. Individual states last month certified their Electoral College votes, which showed Biden finishing with 306 votes to Trump’s 232. A minimum of 270 is required to claim the presidency.

The Constitution requires both chambers of Congress to meet before the inauguration to count the electoral votes of each state. What has in the past been a ceremonial event, several GOP legislators signed a letter pledging to object unless Congress agreed to investigate election results.

The official process begins with Vice President Mike Pence presiding over a joint session beginning at 1 p.m., at which time each state’s results are announced in alphabetical order. If a written objection is made regarding any state by one member of the House and one member of the Senate, members will adjourn to their separate chambers for up to two hours of debate.

Unless both the House and Senate vote to reject the count for the state in question, the objection is rejected and the process begins again with the next state.

It is difficult to see any objections succeeding in the Democratic-controlled House, and several Republicans in the Senate have asked their colleagues not to object, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who ask acknowledged Biden as the winner.

In a memo to Democratic colleagues, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “At the end of the day, which could be the middle of the night, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will officially be declared the next President and Vice President of the United States."

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri have been at the forefront of the fight.

“We went into this election with the country deeply divided and deeply polarized. And we’ve seen in the last two months unprecedented allegations of voter fraud,” he said in a statement. “I think we have an obligation to the voters and an obligation to the Constitution to see that this election was lawful.”

For his part, Hawley said, “I cannot vote to certify Electoral College results on January 6th without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state elections laws. And I cannot vote to certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election in support of Joe Biden.”

(The Center Square) – The case against the pharmacist accused of ruining more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine at a suburban Milwaukee health clinic may be changing.

Steven Brandenburg left jail in Ozaukee County on Monday. He is currently facing a felony destruction of property charge and a recklessly endangering safety charge. But prosecutors hinted that those charges could change.

Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol told the judge in the case that Aurora Health has “walked back” some of the allegations it originally made.

Aurora originally said Brandenburg accidentally left about 500 vials of the vaccine out of a refrigerator at their clinic in Grafton over the Christmas weekend. Aurora then said Brandenburg intentionally spoiled the vaccine. Now, according to the D.A., Aurora is saying the vaccine doses may not be ruined. The hospital is working with the vaccine’s maker, Moderna, to determine if the vaccine is still viable.

If it is, prosecutors would have to drop the recklessly endangering safety charge, and lower the criminal damage to property charge to a misdemeanor.

Ozaukee County is working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee, but no one is saying if federal charges could be coming in the case.

Monday’s court date also gave a window into a possible motive.

Gerol told the judge that Brandenberg is an “admitted conspiracy theorist,” and made a “full confession” to Grafton Police when they interviewed him about the vaccine doses. The D.A. says Brandenburg said he left the vaccine out of the fridge because he worried it would harm people’s DNA.

Brandenburg is free on a signature bond, which is common in almost all non-violent cases in Wisconsin. He has been ordered to surrender any weapons he has, and to not work as a pharmacist or have any contact with Aurora Health or its clinics. He was fired from his job at Aurora after his arrest last week.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor is sending National Guard troops to Kenosha ahead of the decision on charges in the Jacob Blake case.

Gov. Tony Evers on Monday deployed 500 National Guard troops to Kenosha to keep the peace.

“We are continuing to work with our local partners in the Kenosha area to ensure they have the state support they need,” Evers said in a statement. “Our members of the National Guard will be on hand to support local first responders, ensure Kenoshans are able to assemble safely, and to protect critical infrastructure as necessary.”

The deployment is the latest sign that authorities expect trouble once a charging decision is made.

Kenosha’s city council on Monday approved a resolution that allows for a two-week state of emergency “regarding potential civil unrest.”

Monday also saw Jacob Blake’s family and a number of protesters take to the streets.

The protestors say they want to see “change” in Kenosha. Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr. said his family “can’t just sit around” and wait.

Prosecutors in Kenosha have not said when a decision on charges in the case will come. Every indication is that it will come soon.

A Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake in the back during an attempt to arrest him back in August.

Video shows Blake fighting with officers, then walking around to the front of an SUV and then reaching inside. Police later found a knife inside the SUV.

Blake has remained paralyzed since the shooting. His family says he may never walk again.

The shooting in August sparked nights of rioting and fires in Kenosha. The violence in the streets ended only after Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people and wounded a third.

Rittenhouse has been charged in that case, although his lawyers say he fired in self defense.

This latest deployment to Kenosha is the second for the Wisconsin National Guard. About 500 Wisconsin troops were sent back in August.

(The Center Square) – State unemployment compensation trust funds continue to struggle, a new report published by the Tax Foundation reveals.

As of Dec. 17, 20 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have taken out loans from the federal government – totaling roughly $44.3 billion in Title XII Advances – which are required to be paid back with interest.

States entered 2020 with aggregate trust fund balances of $75 billion, which on net, now stand at $25 billion. Now 17 states and the Virgin Islands are in the red, the report found.

The states in the worst financial shape, from worst to least worse, include the Virgin Islands, New York, California, Hawaii, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, Minnesota, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Mexico.

State unemployment compensation trust funds are in the best shape in Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Mississippi, Utah, and Wyoming.

“A faster-than-expected jobs recovery has helped many states remain solvent,” the report notes.

In July, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the U.S. would return to 6.7 percent unemployment in the first quarter of 2023, a level already reached by November 2020, two years ahead of schedule.

“These significantly lower unemployment levels have stretched unemployment compensation trust funds further than many would have initially expected,” the report adds.

“Unemployment insurance taxes are imposed on a taxable wage base that is generally fairly low, so in many states, the majority – sometimes the overwhelming majority – of all UI tax revenues arrive in the first quarter of each calendar year,’ the report states. “States can, therefore, look forward to a substantial boost in trust fund balances in the early months of 2021. Nevertheless, outlooks in some states remain gloomy.”

The Tax Foundation notes that states will ultimately need to raise unemployment taxes to pay back their advances and replenish their trust funds.

(The Center Square) – Almost everything Wisconsin Democrats are hoping to accomplish this spring is tied to the coronavirus.

The budget, their long hoped-for Medicaid expansion, and just about everything else will be tied to the virus.

“At this critical point in our state’s history, we must get to work to ensure people have access to the support they need to get through the pandemic,” Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, told reporters in a pre-session news conference Monday. “Every legislative session we are sent here to take on the biggest issue of the state. We don’t get to choose the issues. The challenges facing the state are the ones that really require legislators act seriously.”

For legislative Democrats, that all comes down to the coronavirus.

Rep. Sara Rodriguez, D-Madison, said Democrats will champion their own coronavirus relief effort.

“We need to make protecting the health and safety of Wisconsin families and economic recovery a priority,” Rodriguez said.

The Democrats’ plan is almost identical to Gov. Evers’ proposal, with the addition of hazard pay and guaranteed paid sick time for health care workers.

But the so-called "Healthcare for Heroes" aspect of the Democrats’ coronavirus relief plan is actually part of their old proposal to expand Medicaid in the state.

“There are many reasons to expand Medicaid, and there are many reasons to expand Medicaid during the pandemic,” Hintz explained. “But in this case it gives us the opportunity to utilize some of the $300 million in annual savings by taking the expansion and making sure we are covering the new costs associated with hazard pay and other pay coverage.”

Wisconsin lawmakers will craft a new state budget this spring, and Democrats are looking at that through the lens of coronavirus as well.

“We are at a time where, while our revenues held-up better than some previous estimates, we will be waiting for the January revenue estimate from the Fiscal Bureau to set the table for the remaining six months of this [state budget] and what we can expect for the next [state budget].”

Hintz once again held-out hope that the federal government will provide a bailout to the states, including Wisconsin.

(The Center Square) – The new year for Wisconsin lawmakers is beginning much like the old one ended.

Gov. Tony Evers on Monday welcomed the state Legislature back to session, then once again tasked lawmakers with passing his version of a coronavirus relief package.

“I respectfully request that you prioritize the COVID-19 compromise bill – LRB-6592 – that I introduced several weeks ago now, and ask that the bill as drafted, which includes provisions agreed upon by Republican leaders and me, be the first bill taken up and passed by both respective houses so it can be sent to my desk without delay,” Evers wrote in a letter to lawmakers. “Time is of the essence, and frankly, we cannot delay any longer. It is time to move forward on legislation where there is agreement.”

The Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate have rejected the governor’s ideas at least twice before.

Legislative leaders say the governor’s plan does little to actually help fight the virus in Wisconsin. Much of Gov. Evers’ proposal focuses on shifting state employees, continuing a moratorium on evictions, and stopping the state’s Department of Public Instruction from tracking school and student success.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has said in the past that Gov. Evers’ demands to lawmakers are counterproductive.

“I would hope he’d reconsider his decision to walk away from the table," Vos said in December, the last time the governor told lawmakers to quickly vote on his proposal.

The governor’s demand comes as lawmakers return to Madison for the first time since last spring.

Republicans hold even stronger majorities at the Statehouse after last November's elections. In the Assembly, Republicans will enjoy a 60-38 supermajority, while in the Senate Republicans are one vote shy of a supermajority with a 20-12 advantage.

The coronavirus is already causing hiccups, however.

Most of Wisconsin’s Democratic lawmakers skipped Monday’s inauguration ceremonies after opting for virtual swearing-in ceremonies last month. Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oskosh, was one of them.

“I can tell you our constituents care far more that we are putting something out there, that we are getting behind things, that we are calling for bipartisan action than they do whether we’re there for an in-person ceremony or not,” Hintz told reporters during a virtual news conference.

Other Democrats are talking about avoiding time in the State Capitol unless and until there is a mask requirement for lawmakers.

“[W]hen we have committee meetings I will be in the building,” Sen. John Erpenback, D-West Point, told reporters on Monday. “Sometimes it will be in attendance, sometimes it will be on Zoom.”

“I don’t think you’ll see a lot of Assembly Democrats coming to the floor to give 20-minute speeches,” Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, added. “We’re not going to want to debate things ad nauseam in a room with people who shouldn’t be spending a lot of time together in close spaces."

“The general election is not an organizational exercise. It's a mass media exercise.”

– Roger Stone

All aspects of our lives were upended by the 2020 pandemic. The media reminded us daily of the violent social unrest and alleged racial injustice. They failed to cover abuses of our core democratic voting practices which cast long shadows over the efficacies of our election process. At a time so much went wrong and so little went right, when we needed unity, the media divided us even more.

Debates were postponed or canceled. Candidates missed events, and held others on the internet or TV. Joe Biden hid in the basement of his Delaware home for days, and refused interviews. The media did Kamala Harris’ campaigning for her while Biden remained AWOL from most of America.

President Donald Trump, Gallup poll’s most admired man in the U.S. the last two years, campaigned like a new age rock star. During the pandemic, he defied anyone to stop him. His whistle stops were more charismatic than any religious revival. Unlike Biden, he was all over the map until COVID-19 slowed him down. But during quarantine at Walter Reed Medical Center, he campaigned to the voters outside.

America was not prepared for mass mail-in voting, and questions remain how ballots were counted or made it to the polls at all. Many questioned the accuracy of voting software, while others wailed disenfranchisement and fraud. And the media fanned the flames for this yet blamed the president.

Contrarily, this election was a walk in the park compared to some the media has been a part of in the past. They have a history of disrupting presidential races by making accusations of fraud, covering up backroom deals, ignoring voting problems, and creating political chaos. They were a key player in fueling the U.S. Civil War.

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."

– John Kennedy

The 1800 contest saw Thomas Jefferson tie with his Democratic-Republican running mate Aaron Burr. Both had 73 votes. Congress was called upon to break the tie. Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, founder of the Federalist Party, despised John Adams. He seduced Federalists to vote for Jefferson and make Aaron Burr the VP. The media continued to publicize this rivalry between Hamilton and Burr for over three years, until a frustrated Burr, the sitting vice president, killed Hamilton in a duel.

The highly publicized 1824 election saw four candidates from the same party competing. Andrew Jackson got 99 Electoral College votes, John Quincy Adams secured 84, William Crawford won 41 and House Speaker Henry Clay 37. Since none won the majority, the House decided the election.

House speaker Clay had the dubious honor to pick the winner. Adams promised Clay the job of Secretary of State if he gave the election to him. Jackson was so furious he accused Adams and Clay of “election corruption” and resigned his senate seat.

The 1860 election was notorious for many things as newspapers nationwide tried to derail Abraham Lincoln, which further divided the nation over slavery. The New York Herald claimed if he won, “hundreds of thousands” of slaves would invade the North. And the press in the south convinced southern states to remove Lincoln from their ballot. In the end, Abraham Lincoln beat John Breckinridge, due to the Republican Party’s firm anti-slavery platform. And weeks after the election, South Carolina voted to secede; followed by six more Southern states. In February 1861, delegates from Southern states formed the Confederate States of America and selected Jefferson Davis as their official president.

In the election of 1872, one of the candidates never saw the final Electoral College vote. Misguided New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, a Democrat critical of Reconstruction, had tried to unseat Ulysses S. Grant. He didn’t stand a chance of winning and died before the election was finalized.

In 1876, when Democrat Samuel Tilden defeated Republican Rutherford Hayes, electorates in the College were tied. Democrats, influenced by Southern media on a bipartisan commission, made a shady deal to award Hayes the election if he would return power to the Democrats in the South.

The 1920 election featured two newspaper publishers, Democrat James Cox and Republican Warren G. Harding. Harding defeated Cox handily with strong media support. But the media completely ignored the candidate who finished third. And he was the most newsworthy.

Bernie Sanders’ predecessor, Socialist Eugene Debs who ran for president five times, ran his 1920 campaign from the most eccentric campaign headquarters: a prison cell. He was convicted for high crimes against government and sentenced to spend a decade in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

“The most heroic word in language is revolution. I am a proletarian revolutionist.”

– Eugene Debs

By 1948, the media felt they were now qualified to start calling presidential elections. Segregationist Southern Democrats pitted Strom Thurmond, their first Dixiecrat candidate, against the incumbent Democrat Harry S. Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey. NBC, CBS and Gallop all predicted Dewey would win. Led by the Chicago Daily Tribune, they took the pollsters’ bait and signed off on one of the most blunderous media headlines in the history of journalism: “Dewey defeats Truman.”

We all recall the fiasco in Florida in 2000. Again, the media forgot they don’t pick the winners, the voters do. By 8 p.m. eastern, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the API declared Al Gore the winner over George H.W. Bush. But when Bush won Florida, their newsrooms were covered with egg. The next day, they began a campaign to change the election results to vindicate their amateurish reporting.

Five weeks of recounting and ballot harvesting was highly publicized by the media, who favored Gore. When the Supreme Court ended this debacle, the media refused to let it go. As a result, our nation never recovered from the media’s Election Eve blunders. Judging by our latest election, we still haven’t learned; the media is a greater danger to elections than the voters who listen to them!

Topix’s Chris Tolles said, “People don’t trust politicians because of the media.” The media is no longer a watchdog over government. They’ve turned elections into high-priced advertising. In the 1800s when papers were in bed with favorite candidates, voters could read and decipher agitprop from both sides of the aisle. But each year, as the media has moved so dramatically left, this is no longer the case.

“Political candidates are products, and we sell the winners today.”

– Newsweek

Long before the pandemic, no presidential election was without conflict or adversity. This discord is fueled by the media to increase circulation. With today’s media appealing to identity groups and gullible Millennials, the media will have more influence over the future of our nation than voters will ever have.

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

– Thomas Sowell

Grosskreutz was observed prowling in the West Allis Police Department parking lot video taping personal vehicles, reports say.  Gaige Grosskreutz, the Black Lives Matter activist...

U.S. Rep. Ron Kind just flip flopped on Nancy Pelosi. For years, Kind, a Democrat, has tried to position himself as a moderate in...

The Wisconsin Right Now awards are here. Here's who we think did the right thing in 2020. We define winners as people or groups who...

(The Center Square) – Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairman James P. McGovern announced new rules for the 117th Congress, which will be introduced and voted on after the new Congress convenes.

The rules include “sweeping ethics reforms, increases accountability for the American people, and makes this House of Representatives the most inclusive in history” – including eliminating the words, “father, mother, son, and daughter,” from federal code.

The proposed changes reflect “the views and values of the full range of our historically diverse House Democratic Majority,” Pelosi said in a joint statement with McGovern.

McGovern said the new rules were a result of months of consultation “across our caucus and Congress.”

Tucked inside the package is a proposal to use “gender-inclusive language.”n The goal is to “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral,” their joint statement reads.

McGovern issued a separate announcement about “Changes [to] pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral or removes references to gender…”

Terms to be struck from clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, the House’s Code of Official Conduct, as outlined in the new proposal include “father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, [and] granddaughter.”

The terms would be replaced with “parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, half-sibling, [and] grandchild.”

The proposal also establishes a Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth “to prioritize our commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind in the 21st Century economy.”

Proposed reforms also include changing the process by which bills go to the floor, and making House documents more electronically storable and available.

They would also remove floor privileges for former members convicted of crimes related to their House service or election; make it a violation of the Code of Official Conduct for a member, officer, or employee of the House to disclose the identity of a whistleblower; make it a violation of the Code of Official Conduct for a member, delegate, resident commissioner, officer or employee of the House “to disseminate manipulated media, including photos and videos, known as ‘deepfakes,’” among other measures.

A section-by-section summary of the rules package is available online.

Sergeant Bruce Watson was killed in a motorcycle crash near the intersection of Shadow Creek Parkway and Kingsley Drive in Pearland. He had just completed a funeral escort when his department...

(The Center Square) – The fate of which party holds power in the U.S. Senate for the next two years is in the hands of Georgia voters.

Heading into the next session of Congress, Republicans hold a 50-48 advantage over Democrats with Tuesday's U.S. Senate runoff elections looming in Georgia.

Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue faces Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff, and Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is being challenged by Democrat Raphael Warnock. The runoff elections materialized after no candidate in either race garnered a majority of the vote in November's general election.

If Republicans win one or both of the elections, the GOP will retain control in the U.S. Senate. If Democrats win both elections, the chamber will be split, 50-50, with Democrat and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaker vote.

"We've got a job to do here in Georgia," Loeffler told supporters at a recent campaign rally. "America is counting on us. If you vote, we will win. If you don't, we will lose America."

"This election is about the difference that we can make in our lives when we elect people who care about the people more than they care about themselves," Ossoff said.

Perdue, who won 49.73% of the vote to Ossoff's 47.95% in the general election, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014. Before winning public office, Perdue was in business, and his previous jobs included serving as CEO at Reebok, Dollar General and Pillowtex.

Ossoff, an investigative journalist and media executive, ran for Congress in 2017 in the special election for Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

Loeffler and Warnock emerged from a pack of 21 candidates in the general election, where Warnock won 32.9% of the vote compared with Loeffler's 25.91%.

Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler, a businesswoman and co-owner of Atlanta's WNBA franchise, in December 2019 to fill the seat vacated by former Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired.

Warnock is senior pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

The circus surrounding Georgia's presidential election and Perdue and Loeffler's support for President Donald Trump have dominated the conversation regarding the runoff elections, pushing policy to the background.

Perdue and Loeffler have framed the runoff elections as saving America versus radical socialism.

Perdue has said an Ossoff victory would lead to illegal immigrants voting, police being defunded, higher taxes, private health insurance being taken away, small businesses going out of business and the U.S. Supreme Court being packed.

Republicans need to win the two Senate seats "to protect everything that Donald Trump accomplished in these first four years," Perdue said.

Ossoff has attacked Perdue for his stock dealings in the aftermath of learning about COVID-19 and his opposition of Medicaid expansion, which Ossoff said would help keep rural hospitals afloat and make health care more affordable.

"We've lost nine rural hospitals in 10 years here in Georgia," Ossoff told supporters at a recent campaign rally. "Where's David Perdue been? While the people are forced to move hours across the state just to get to the emergency room. That's not right."

Loeffler has painted Warnock as a radical liberal and Marxist who "wants to raise taxes, socialize health care, rip away our rights, and crush our economy with the Green New Deal." She has attacked Warnock for failing to support law enforcement.

"Violent crime in Atlanta is the highest it’s been in 20 YEARS – yet [Warnock and Ossoff] are totally silent," Loeffler tweeted. "By refusing to stand with law enforcement – and instead supporting defunding the police – they’re enabling the violence."

Warnock also has questioned Loeffler's stock trades after a senators-only briefing in January regarding the coronavirus, and he said Loeffler helped stall a second round of coronavirus aid for Americans for nine months.

"[Loeffler] made her priorities clear when she sold $3 million of her own stock, called unemployment relief 'counterproductive,' and stalled relief for nine months," Warnock tweeted. "Georgians learned long ago they can't trust Kelly Loeffler to look out for anyone but herself."

How will U.S. Rep. Ron Kind vote? That’s what Republican Derrick Van Orden, who gave Kind the race of his life in the last election,...

(The Center Square) – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, one day after Vice President Mike Pence and members of the U.S. House objected to it.

District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a nominee of President Donald Trump, said that Gohmert didn’t have standing to bring legal action.

The lawsuit requests the court to grant Pence as the president of the Senate overseeing the Joint Session of Congress “the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State” on Jan. 6.

Gohmert “alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives,” Kernodle wrote. “Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing.”

In response, Gohmert told Newsmax, “If I don’t have standing to do that, nobody does.”

Kernodle ruled that the 11 other plaintiffs, including Arizona Republican Electors, claimed an injury that is not “fairly traceable” to Pence.

Gohmert said the attorneys representing the plaintiffs will appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He later asked, “When no one ever has standing, what good is a court system?”

In their 43-page reply to the judge on Saturday, Gohmert and other plaintiffs argue, “Under the Constitution, he has the authority to conduct that proceeding as he sees fit. He may count elector votes certified by a state’s executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution.”

The day before the judge’s ruling, Pence’s attorneys filed a brief arguing that the plaintiffs “have sued the wrong defendant,” adding that Gohmert’s lawsuit objects to procedures in the law and “not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,” therefore he should not be the one being sued.

Pence’s brief states, “A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction.”

Kernodle replied that Rep. Gohmert “… alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives. Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing.”

“The other Plaintiffs, the slate of Republican Presidential Electors for the State of Arizona (the ‘Nominee-Electors’), allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to the Defendant, the Vice President of the United States, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief,” he added.

Republican Electors in seven battleground states cast Electoral College votes for President Donald Trump on Dec. 14, asking Congress to reject the votes certified in their states for former Vice President Joe Biden.

Gohmert and the other defendants argue that Pence acting as the president of the Senate has “exclusive authority and sole discretion under the 12th Amendment to determine which slates of electors for a state, or neither, may be counted.”

Gohmert says that he and 140 Republican members of the House will formerly object to some states’ Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.

Joining them in the U.S. Senate are 12 senators, four of whom are new members. The first to state his objection was Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, on Dec. 30.

(The Center Square) – Eleven U.S. Senators now say they will challenge some states’ Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 when the Joint Session of Congress begins.

“America is a Republic whose leaders are chosen in democratic elections. Those elections, in turn, must comply with the Constitution and with federal and state law,” they wrote in a joint statement.

“When the voters fairly decide an election, pursuant to the rule of law, the losing candidate should acknowledge and respect the legitimacy of that election. And, if the voters choose to elect a new office-holder, our Nation should have a peaceful transfer of power. The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations, and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.”

The group includes seven sitting Republican senators: Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., James Lankford, R-Okla., Steve Daines, R-Mont., John Kennedy, R-La., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. and Mike Braun, R-Ind.

It also includes four senators-elect who were sworn-in on Sunday: Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.

Their announcement comes several days after U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was the first senator to announce he planned to object. “I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on Jan. 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws,” Hawley tweeted Dec. 30.

The allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 Election “exceed any in our lifetime,” they wrote, arguing that Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission with full investigative authority to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of election irregularities in several disputed states.

Once the audit is completed, the states would then evaluate the commission’s findings and hold special legislative sessions in their states to certify the votes, and changes to their votes, if the audit warranted it.

“Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed,” the group said.

“… support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue,” they added. “A fair and creditable audit – conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20 – would dramatically improve Americans’ faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.”

So far, roughly 140 U.S. Representatives have indicated they will object on Jan. 6.

Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden’s team downplayed the announcement, stating that the Joint Session of Congress’ vote count was “merely a formality.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’s confident Biden will be sworn into office as the 46th president on Jan. 20.

Sergeant Daniel Mobley was struck and killed by a vehicle on I-75/85, near Williams Street in Atlanta, at about 9:00 am while on the scene of a previous crash involving...

(The Center Square) – State unemployment compensation trust funds continue to struggle, a new report published by the Tax Foundation reveals.

As of Dec. 17, 20 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have taken out loans from the federal government – totaling roughly $44.3 billion in Title XII Advances – that are required to be paid back with interest.

States entered 2020 with aggregate trust fund balances of $75 billion, which on net now stand at $25 billion. Now 17, states and the Virgin Islands are in the red, the report found.

The states and territories in the worst financial shape include the Virgin Islands, New York, California, Hawaii, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, Minnesota, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Georgia and New Mexico.

State unemployment compensation trust funds are in the best shape in Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Mississippi, Utah and Wyoming.

“A faster-than-expected jobs recovery has helped many states remain solvent,” the report notes.

In July, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the U.S. would return to 6.7 percent unemployment in the first quarter of 2023, a level already reached by November 2020, two years ahead of schedule.

“These significantly lower unemployment levels have stretched unemployment compensation trust funds further than many would have initially expected,” the report adds.

“Unemployment insurance taxes are imposed on a taxable wage base that is generally fairly low, so in many states, the majority – sometimes the overwhelming majority – of all UI tax revenues arrive in the first quarter of each calendar year,’ the report states. “States can, therefore, look forward to a substantial boost in trust fund balances in the early months of 2021. Nevertheless, outlooks in some states remain gloomy.”

The Tax Foundation notes that states ultimately will need to raise unemployment taxes to pay back their advances and replenish their trust funds.

As a local government reporter, I watch a lot of public meetings – from city councils and county boards, to criminal intake hearings and public listening sessions, to basically everything in between.

It has not been a walk in the park.

Many meetings have cut-out mid-livestream, with those in the meeting carrying on anyway, essentially operating behind closed doors for several minutes or longer.

Other meetings are hard to understand because of the cluster of screens, voices or background noise coming from unmuted mics. Often it’s unclear who cast which vote on an item.

Some meetings have mistakenly been posted under an incorrect streaming link, and one meeting required me to download a new program that crashed my computer several times.

I recently wanted to tune in to an important meeting, but could not find the streaming information anywhere, even though the agenda told me the meeting was open to the public through Zoom.

I emailed someone for the login information, and was discouraged from attending.

“It’s usually a long meeting,” they wrote. (Eventually, they gave me the info and I joined and watched the very long meeting – which is my right.)

Early on in the pandemic, the Wisconsin Department of Justice laid out guidance for making sure virtual meetings comply with the state’s Open Meetings Law. It calls for providing alternatives to those without internet access or who are hearing-impaired, and it encourages officials not to speak over each other and to identify themselves each time they speak.

There are some public bodies who do a phenomenal job, taking roll-call votes for every action item, or streaming meetings live to platforms like YouTube or Facebook that store the videos for later viewing.

But there’s still much more that can and should be done.

Wisconsin Right Now's first annual wall of shame awards are here: Who are the top 30 LOSERS of 2020? Yes, sadly, there were a lot...

A second officer also saw Blake twist toward Sheskey with a knife. "That officer said he too would have opened fire but did not...

Sergeant Gordon Best was killed in a vehicle crash on Highway 17 S, near 39th Avenue S, while responding to a call at about 4:00 am. His patrol car left the...

Electric-powered cars are now the rage. Tesla’s market capitalization is seven times larger than that of General Motors and 14 times larger than Ford’s, though it builds a fraction of the vehicles that those companies do. Many politicians are even considering banning gasoline-powered cars within a few years in favor of electric vehicles (EVs), all in the name of saving the planet.

This has significant meaning to me. As a third-generation automobile dealer, I need to get ahead of the curve and prepare for what is next. I want to sell what people want to buy. I have driven the Volkswagen Golf EV, the Honda Clarity plug-in (PEV), and now the Hyundai Kona EV. All have good road characteristics and operate similarly to gasoline-powered cars, with the exception of how they are powered.

I installed a Level II charger at my home. The cost: about $850. I am fortunate that my fuse box is located in the garage, so I did not need much additional wiring. The garage is where I charge these EVs overnight.

Some say that a 250-mile range is a must for an EV, and I agree. Charging one with a normal 120-volt plug requires about 54 hours so a Level II, 240-watt charger is needed – the same voltage that a home drier uses. To fully charge the Kona with its 64 kW battery requires up to ten hours. Plug in when you come home, and it is ready by the time you leave for work in the morning. A 250-mile range gets me just about anywhere I want to go.

The question remains: What is it like to have to depend upon a public charging station? Tesla has a robust, nationwide rapid-charging infrastructure, but Tesla uses a proprietary charging plug that does not work with other makes of vehicles. Volkswagen, as part of its diesel settlement, has constructed a large charging network under the name of Electrify America. Electrify America has the closest rapid chargers to both my home and my office.

Driving from my home and with about 25 miles of battery range (10% of capacity), I headed off to the Reston Virginia fast charger, located in an office park. It is a few miles farther than the local gasoline station that I normally use. It had three charging towers, each with two cords. One of the cords fits only the Nissan Leaf. There were four 350 kW chargers and one 50 kW charger to select from. I chose the 50 kW charger, plugged in the cord, inserted my credit card, and experienced my first public fast charge.

How long it takes a battery depends upon four things: the capacity of the charger, the capacity of the battery, the battery discharge condition, and the rate of charge that the battery will accept. The Kona will accept up to a 75 kW rate of charge.

Fast chargers will bring the battery only to an 80% total charge due to the limitations of lithium batteries. Charging above 80% will damage the battery. Since I arrived at the charging station with ten percent capacity remaining, I received an additional 70% charge, which gave me about 190 miles total range. It required one hour and ten minutes. The cost was $21.07, or 43 cents per kW. The cost would be about 34 cents per kW if I joined Electrify America for four dollars per month. Filling my gasoline vehicle for the same range would cost less – about $13. Charging an EV at a fast charger costs more per mile of range than filling up a gasoline-powered vehicle.

What struck me first was how this could possibly work for me if I had to rely entirely on fast chargers and instead of my home charger. I drive at least 80 miles each day, which means I would have to recharge my Kona every other day assuming that I did not do more driving than just between my home and the office. Since it required over one hour to charge the battery, I would have to spend over 200 hours annually charging my vehicle – the equivalent of 25 eight-hour working days. And this assumes that I never had to wait in line for another vehicle to finish charging and that the charging station was nearby when I needed one. If I lived in a town home, or an apartment, without access to a Level II home charger, I would have to rely entirely on the public fast-charging network. And instead of a 250-mile range, I would have only about a 190-mile range to work with.

I later charged with a 150 kW and 350 kW charger, but the time expended was no less. It was quite cold when I used the 350 kW charger. The charging time was actually about five minutes longer than when using the 50 kW charger. Perhaps the periodic cycling of my car’s heater was the reason. Using fast chargers can be quite boring, so make sure that you bring something to do.

Next, I used the nearest fast-charging station from my office. It is 12 miles distant, a 20-minute drive each way. If I had to rely entirely on this charger, it would require one hour and 40 minutes every other day, or 300 hours every year. This would be equal to 37 eight-hour work days annually.

I know that some EV drivers combine shopping and other activities while they charge their vehicles. This might work with the more common, publicly accessible, and slower Level II chargers, but probably not with the Electrify America charging network, since there is only a ten-minute grace once the 80 percent charge is achieved. Otherwise, 40 cents per minute is tacked on to the cost of charging.

Questions also arise about how many chargers would be needed to keep cars like mine on the road. One electrical cord could charge only about 20 cars each day (80 miles per day driving and 170 miles available driving range). Perhaps a more realistic capacity would be 12 cars a day, since it is doubtful many would be doing this in odd hours. Ten thousand cars like mine would require 416 charging cords (or 208 towers with two cords each). It would require only about 14 gasoline hoses (or seven towers) to fuel the same number of gasoline-powered vehicles at 50% capacity. One hundred thousand EVs would require over 4,000 available charging cords.

The other drawback to EVs is their higher cost. The MSRP of the 2021 Hyundai Kona Ultimate I have been charging is $46,985. The same model powered by gasoline has an MSRP of $31,370, or over $15,000 less. I have read that one reason for the price differential is that to manufacture a 1,000-pound battery requires the processing of 50,000 pounds of ore, and one must move 500,000 pounds of overburden to get the ore. The lithium, cobalt, copper, and rare-earth minerals required to manufacture the battery largely come from overseas. Eighty percent of battery manufacturing takes place in China, so this is likely to have an impact on our trade imbalance and energy independence.

EVs start their lives with a larger carbon footprint than gasoline vehicles. Another question is how these batteries will be charged, since electricity mostly comes from non-renewable energy sources such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. Some speculate that EV costs will decline with mass production, and that battery-charging times will be reduced with newer technologies. If this does not occur, then affordability, lack of range, and charging times will be major handicaps.

Besides the extra cost to purchase an EV and the larger carbon footprint, the greatest drawback by far will be what to do with all those hours spent waiting while one’s car is charging.