Yearly Archives: 2022

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor exercised his veto pen on several Republican plans.

Gov. Tony Evers on Thursday vetoed seven pieces of legislation, including what would have been new laws for rioters, an expansion for school choice for younger kids, and a plan that would have changed the make up of some police and fire commissions in the state.

Evers said SB 296, which aimed to allow misdemeanor charges for anyone who attends a protest that becomes a riot and opened the door for felony charges for anyone who participated in the riot, violated free speech rights.

“This bill creates ambiguity, inconsistency, and contradictions in practical application that could be used to infringe on rights guaranteed under the First Amendment,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

Republicans wrote the proposal following the riots in Kenosha back in 2020. Lawmakers wanted to give prosecutors another way to charge people who flocked to protests and turned them violent.

Gov. Evers also vetoed SB 597, which would allow more young people to enroll in the state’s private school choice program.

“This bill would add to the pupil count that fuels the general state aid reduction,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

The governor claimed the school choice expansion could lead to higher local property taxes.

Evers also vetoed a plan, SB 117, which aimed to change the rules for appointing members to police and fire commissions in the state.

One of his other vetoes, of SB 563, kills plans to allow hunters in Wisconsin to hunt farm-raised bison, buffalo, sheep, antelope, or goats.

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The Biden administration has allowed a more than eleven-fold increase in the number of illegal immigrant offenders let out of Texas prisons and into the general U.S. population, despite federal immigration law requiring ICE to take convicts into custody after serving their time, usually in advance of deportation.

The disclosure emerges from state-initiated litigation that is beginning to shed light on what critics call the administration's secretive and lenient handling of immigrants beginning last year – treatment that is imperiling public safety, alarmed state authorities say.

Soon after President Joe Biden assumed office a year ago January, agents of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement began dropping their usually automatic requests to take custody from Texas authorities of immigrant convicts set to be released from the state's prisons and jails, so they could be deported.

In the past, few such convicts were exempt from the process. From 2017 to 2020, ICE had declined to take into custody from Texas no more than a dozen such so-called "detainers" a year – typically those in poor health or with unresolved immigration issues.

But from January 2021 to February of this year, Texas law enforcement officials testified in federal court last month, ICE declined to take custody of 170 – a number Texas persuaded ICE to winnow down to 141, but still an exponential increase over the years of the Trump administration. That increase reflects the impact in just one state of the new nationwide policy.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, whose state has joined Texas in suing the Department of Homeland Security and other federal immigration agencies over the issue, said testimony in the case being heard in U.S. District Court in Houston makes clear the Biden administration does not want the public to see how similar releases unfolded nationally in its first year.

“I’m appalled the Biden administration has adopted a policy of releasing alien drug cartel members, human traffickers and child sex abusers onto American streets,” Landry said.

Arizona, Ohio, and Montana are pursuing a similar lawsuit in Ohio. Last week the judge in that case, U.S. District Judge Michael Newman, appointed by President Donald Trump, issued a preliminary injunction favoring the three states. "Can the Executive displace clear congressional command in the name of resource allocation and enforcement goals? Here, the answer is no," Newman wrote.

Perplexed and irate Texas authorities said they learned about the new ICE policy on Feb. 5, 2021, just 16 days into the new administration, upon being informed that ICE in a single day would drop detainers on 11 released inmates – a typical annual number in previous years. ICE for the most part brushed aside their complaints, Texas officials said.

“They said, 'It's coming from above and we're just following the orders,'" testified Jason Clark, chief of staff for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “I was alarmed by the changes that they had made and whether those persons were going to be released back into the public.”

ICE did not respond to inquiries from RealClearInvestigations.

Detainer information is not public, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said, and thus the names, criminal records and current status of all the illegal immigrant convicts were not disclosed. "Of course, the States of Texas and Louisiana must do what they can to protect their citizens, so some of these criminal aliens have remained in state custody at the State’s expense," the states said in their original motion last year.

But in court it emerged that among those released after a "final order of removal" – and thus subject to deportation, at least in past years – was repeat offender Guillermo Torres, who was serving a five-year sentence after violating parole for smuggling more than 50 pounds of marijuana. Torres is a member of the Mexicles, a street gang with ties to drug cartels, according to Clark.

Also avoiding deportation was Ruben De Leon, who had served five years for a 2016 conviction for intoxicated assault with a vehicle and serious bodily injury, according to Clark.

Both men are now free. "We don't know where they're at," Clark testified.

In more than two dozen cases, Texas authorities' pleading managed to change minds at ICE. Initially exempt from a detainer, Clark said, was Juan Marroquin, who was being released after serving two years for molesting a 3-year-old and violating the terms of his probation. "Again, I had to intervene and call ... to ask ‘Why is this person not being deported?’" Clark said.

He was less successful in the case of Jose Lara-Lopez, who served two years for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old. ICE officials dismissed Clark's pleas, and "again reiterated that this was the new guidance that was coming down," he said.

Precisely how many convicts have been released under the new policy nationwide is one of numerous questions that former ICE officers and others say the Biden administration refuses to answer. Citing unnamed sources within DHS, the Washington Times reported on March 16 that in 2021, ICE issued 46% fewer detainers to law enforcement agencies than it had the year before, while arresting 48% fewer convicted criminals and deporting 63% fewer criminals.

ICE did not respond to questions from RCI about the accuracy of the unreleased figures, or when it plans to release a more comprehensive and detailed annual report the agency has provided in the past.

The administration's lack of transparency, former ICE officers and others say, is notably reflected by the withholding of ICE’s long delayed annual Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) report, which should provide statistical detail about how the agency and its field offices are handling the record surge of immigrants.

Traditionally, ICE has presented that report in December, two months after field offices turn in their data to headquarters. Those reports have provided a full complement of facts and figures on arrests broken down by crime categories, detainers and more. The agency did not meet that deadline.

Instead, on March 11, ICE released a shorter, congressionally mandated "annual report," which lacked much of the detail and precision of previous Enforcement and Removal Operations documents. The 31-page March report contains just seven pages addressing Enforcement and Removal Operations in general terms, while the comparable fiscal 2019 report had 32 pages dedicated exclusively to ERO.

“My biggest concern is people will think this is the enforcement report – it’s not,” said Jon Feere, an analyst with the Center for Immigration Studies who was a Trump administration appointee who served at ICE from 2017 to 2021.

The annual report and an accompanying press release stressed how new ICE policies, crafted through three separate memos issued between January and September 2021, were intended in large part to ensure that U.S. immigration enforcement operations “uphold our values as a nation,” according to acting ICE Director Tae Johnson. To that end, the Biden administration stressed “prioritization” and “discretion” for field officers deciding when to make an arrest.

As it proclaims these values, critics say, the March report obfuscates critical data. While a total number or arrests is given – “74,082 administrative arrests of noncitizens” – there is no breakdown of where or when the arrests were made. It also introduces new categories such as “aggravated felons” that traditionally were not used by the agency and lack precision.

“The Biden administration is doing everything in its power to keep criminal aliens in our communities, and the reason they haven't released the [ERO] report is because they don't want the public, or the courts, to fully understand the harm to public safety and national security they've created,” Feere said. “Thousands of deportable criminal aliens are in our neighborhoods precisely because of this administration, and the public deserves transparency.”

ICE’s March release also lacks data that would allow a comparison of what current ERO operations look like on the border and in the interior, an important metric in terms of evaluating both the agency’s effectiveness and pinpointing where issues with public safety may be most acute.

Both Feere and Robert Moore, liaison to ICE at Texas Criminal Justice, said the ICE agents and officials they’ve spoken with are fuming over the new policies they are forced to follow, and the blanket the administration has thrown for months over the genuine annual report.

The White House issued a version of the report earlier this year, but veteran ICE bureaucrats refused to sign off on what they regarded as a whitewash, Feere said.

“I don’t think they’re very happy about it,” Moore testified in the Texas lawsuit as he recounted phone conversations with ICE officials about dropped detainers.

One goal of the Biden administration’s secrecy, experts said, may be to keep federal judges who are dealing with litigation over new immigration policies unclear on what exactly has happened. In his preliminary ruling in Ohio, however, Judge Newman expressed little confusion while siding with Arizona, Montana, and Ohio. He wrote that the administration's 2021 memos that stress "prioritization" and allow wide discretion in ICE arrests violate the clear intent of Congress.

The most recent September memo from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Newman ruled, "neglects" the law's imposition of "a mandatory duty on DHS to detain certain noncitizens."

After Texas and Louisiana won a preliminary injunction last year against the Biden administration's new DHS policies, the case has returned to federal district court after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed the ruling.

Thomas Homan, whom President Trump named acting ICE director from January 2017 to June 2018 after more than three decades with the federal immigration service, testified as a witness for the two states. Homan told RCI that the current policies reflect a desire to relax immigration law and that in the process the administration is gambling with public safety.

“There’s been no valid reason for the drop in detainees and crime rates haven’t gone down, we know that,” Homan told RCI. “Public safety is significantly threatened by this. They don’t really want to arrest these people and remove them.”

Federal government lawyers have argued that the litigation amounts to a disagreement over policy, and that Mayorkas' memos fall within the discretion Supreme Court decisions have given secretaries to craft such procedures. The states countered with the same argument Judge Newman supported, in that DHS is ignoring clear congressional intent.

Some longtime ICE agents told RCI that what happened in 2021 merely accelerated disturbing trends and policies that have bedeviled the agency since the Obama administration. They also agreed with concerns raised by Clark, Feere, and others that rather than lead to increased safety, the new policies have effectively paralyzed ICE operations by subjecting them to prior approvals, review boards, and the like.

The upshot is a kind of national sanctuary policy, according to Homan and others. During the Trump administration, several cities controlled by Democrats refused to comply with ICE’s own detention requests, instead springing some illegal immigrants that in the past would have been deported.

Homan pointed to the case of David Mora, an illegal immigrant who killed his three daughters, their chaperone, and himself in a Sacramento church. The Merced County Sheriff’s Office said California’s sanctuary law meant ICE was never even notified when Mora was released from mental health custody last April.

“We don’t know if ICE is getting anyone out of Rikers Island, Cook County, or L.A. County jails,” Homan said, referring to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. “They’ve left a bunch of data out, but it’s clear the new policy has failed memorably and the real report must be devastating.”

The Federal Election Commission has fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee for disguising payments through a law firm for the infamous Steele dossier that gave rise to the now-discredited Russia collusion allegations, according to a letter made public Wednesday.

The commission found the campaign and DNC made total payments of slightly more than $1 million to the opposition research firm Fusion GPS through its law firm, labeling it as "legal and compliance consulting" when in fact it was for research related to the Steele dossier, according to the letter made public by the Coolide and Reagan Foundation that filed the original complaint.

Investigators "found probable cause to believe" the improper labeling of the expenditure violated federal election law and reached a conciliation agreement, the letter stated.

The Clinton campaign agreed to pay an $8,000 fine while the DNC agreed to pay $105,000, and both promised not to violate the requirements in the future.

The commission dismissed or did not further pursue complaints against the law firm, Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS or Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who wrote the dossier that the FBI ultimately concluded contained Russian disinformation, inaccurate or unprovable claims.

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(The Center Square) – The First Amendment attorney for the lead investigator Republicans hired regarding the 2020 election said before the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections Thursday that that election is over and it’s “pointless” to contest the president’s win.

“The only way to remove President Biden is by his death, resignation, impeachment or disability under the 25th Amendment,” James Bopp said in the meeting with True the Vote.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on March 8 extended through April the investigation Bopp’s client, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, asked for to examine decertifying the election. Vos argued election managers and mayors across the state have unanswered questions and there are unsettled lawsuits surrounding Gableman’s efforts. Assembly Democratic Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, condemned the extension. Former President Donald Trump praised it.

Bopp told the committee it had constitutional authority to act after the 2020 election before Electoral College votes were counted Jan. 6, 2021, but not after. He said the 2020 election was flawed but legislators should focus on reforming elections procedures.

Vos said in a March 22 interview on WSAU-AM that he believes most Republicans want to focus on reelecting former Gov. Ron Johnson and beating Gov. Tony Evers in the upcoming election.

“Focus on winning so that we can pass real laws that will strengthen our election integrity, instead of looking backwards, which is a self-defeating prophecy, and then we’ll end up with even worse situations going forward than we had in 2020,” Vos said.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said in November that local prosecutors, not the state’s attorney general, should investigate election fraud claims.

Vos said in the interview that he’s looking at withdrawing subpoenas issued in Gableman’s review so that a Republican attorney general elected in November could file criminal charges.

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(The Center Square) – Claiming government officials violated state election law, a lawsuit was filed Wednesday against the acting mayor, the former mayor and the city clerk of Milwaukee, Wisc.

Milwaukee voter Jim Engstrand, represented by the Thomas More Society, filed the complaint before the state’s Elections Commission.

The complaint alleges Milwaukee Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson, former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and Milwaukee City Clerk Jim Owczarski violated Wisconsin’s election bribery law, Statute § 12.11, by accepting private money from the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life to facilitate in-person and absentee voting and purchase and place absentee ballot drop boxes, a news release from Thomas More Society said. The complaint says Milwaukee’s privately funded absentee ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election were illegal under multiple Wisconsin Statutes and violated federal law.

“The Milwaukee complaint contends that Barrett and Owczarski entered into an agreement with the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a partisan, special interest organization, to accept $3.4 million to facilitate in-person and absentee voting in the city, which is a violation of Wisconsin law. The Center for Tech and Civic Life is a non-profit Chicago-based organization, led and staffed by former Democratic activists and funded by billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, to influence the 2020 election,” the release said.

The Milwaukee filing follows complaints against Racine, Green Bay, Kenosha and Madison, which asserted violations of election law and bribery of election officials by the Center for Tech and Civic Life. Walworth County and Brown County are among counties that have banned or are considering banning the use of what has been called “dark money” for elections, the release said.

Thomas More Society Special Counsel Attorney Erick Kaardal said in the release that 16 states have passed laws to ban or regulate the acceptance and use of private funds by public election officers.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Mike Gableman delivered a report March 1 to the State Assembly saying a “election bribery scheme” existed, voting in nursing homes was at an unprecedented high, and multiple incidents involved unlawful election activities. He said he has questions about the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the election operations in the “Zuckerberg 5” (Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha).

The Thomas More Society is a not-for-profit law firm headquartered in Chicago that handles cases regarding life, family, religious liberty, and election integrity issues.

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The economic fallout that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic put millions of Americans out of work. Without a steady source of income, many were unable to pay for basic necessities, like shelter. To address the issue, the U.S. Department of the Treasury enacted the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which allocated up to $46.5 billion to help Americans struggling to afford housing and utilities.

Due in part to bureaucratic delays at state and local levels, however, less than 40% of that money had been spent as of the end of January 2022 - and in much of the country, a large share of the population is behind on rent and facing possible eviction.

According to data collected between Jan. 26, 2022 to Feb. 7, 2022 by the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, about 4.4 million Americans agreed that they were either "somewhat likely" or "very likely" to have to leave their home within the next two months due to eviction. That amounts to 43.4% of the 10.1 million renters nationwide who are behind on rent payments.

Wisconsin is home to some 172,740 renters who owe their landlords rent, and an estimated 61.5% of them reported being either somewhat likely or very likely to face eviction in the coming months - the fifth largest share among states.

Many of those at risk of losing their home are not confident that they can afford to make future rent payments. Some are also burdened with multiple months of debt from back rent. A reported 64,680 renters in the state - or 37.4% of all renters with some rental debt - are three months behind or more on their rent. For context, 26.2% of renters nationwide who owe back rent are three months behind or more.

RankStateSomewhat or very likely to leave home due to eviction (% of all renters who owe back rent)Renters who owe back rent and are 3 or more months behind on rental payment (%)Renters who owe any back rent in state1Utah67.124.530,3702Alabama65.822.9133,1603Louisiana63.422.7110,6404Pennsylvania63.131.3299,7305Wisconsin61.537.4172,7406Maine60.316.330,8107Idaho59.419.422,8408Texas57.424.7634,4809Georgia55.225.5259,92010Wyoming55.042.618,75011Ohio54.716.9233,87012Illinois52.126.7495,44013Arkansas49.733.596,44014New Jersey48.629.7393,10015Oklahoma47.921.2169,00016California46.927.11,592,05017New Mexico46.531.857,04018Michigan46.034.7283,27019Nebraska45.09.339,07020Maryland44.443.1200,85021South Carolina44.443.6179,13022Mississippi42.959.1139,00023West Virginia42.231.147,68024Florida40.915.0608,57025North Carolina40.226.9211,82026Tennessee39.620.2142,98027Arizona38.315.0168,17028Oregon38.034.6111,53029New York37.725.81,303,39030New Hampshire36.232.224,70031Montana35.718.324,23032Massachusetts34.513.4229,09033Kentucky33.036.978,23034Kansas31.79.765,47035Washington31.621.3190,74036North Dakota31.316.825,46037South Dakota30.953.422,75038Minnesota29.524.699,11039Indiana28.211.6184,73040Virginia24.18.2211,29041Nevada24.151.3156,53042Vermont22.541.07,42043Rhode Island22.419.034,84044Missouri20.431.0203,72045Colorado19.216.377,92046Connecticut19.233.2120,37047Hawaii19.112.970,41048Delaware14.228.225,18049Iowa11.729.944,47050Alaska10.531.312,640

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(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is a three-star governor in economics, according to a new ranking of U.S. governors.

The report from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) grades the 50 governors by metrics related to economic freedom.

Evers, who’s running for reelection this year, placed 30th.

The "2021 Laffer-ALEC Report on Economic Freedom: Grading America’s 50 Governors" ranked each governor on current economic performance and fiscal and executive policies over their term in office. ALEC is a nonpartisan organization of state legislators focused on limited government, free markets and federalism.

Executive policies include union control, education freedom, and welfare dependency. Economic performance metrics ranged from interstate migration, education quality, Gross State Product growth, and unemployment rate. Fiscal policy included debt, corporate income tax, personal income tax, government spending per capita, and federal unemployment benefits.

Here are the Wisconsin governor’s rankings and scores:

Executive policy rank: 31

Union control: 17.Education freedom: 29.Welfare dependency: 27.

Economic performance rank: 24

Interstate migration: 27.Education quality: 16.GSP growth: 36.Unemployment rate: 14.

Fiscal policy rank: 33

Debt: 7.Corporate income tax: 38.Personal income tax: 41.Spending per capita: 35.Federal unemployment benefits: 18.

ALEC’s Chief Economist Jonathan Williams said the metrics differed from the group's 2020 report, which focused on COVID-19 lockdown policies.

The report names South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – all Republicans – as the top three governors nationwide. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, rounded out the top five.

The others who made the top 10 were Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (6), New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (7), Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (8), Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (9), and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (10).

The bottom 10 were all Democrats: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (41), Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (42), Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (43), Hawaii Gov. David Ige (44), New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (45), former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (46), Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (47), California Gov. Gavin Newsom (48), Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee (49), and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (50).

The top 10 governors shared some common traits: Lower taxes, policies encouraging domestic energy production, lower unemployment rates, and tended to be among those who cut off the enhanced federal unemployment benefits sooner rather than later, Williams said.

Here’s how the Midwest states ranked:

South Dakota: 1.Nebraska: 11.Missouri: 12.Iowa: 13.North Dakota: 14.Indiana: 19.Kansas: 27.Wisconsin: 30.Minnesota: 31.Ohio: 32.Michigan: 41.Illinois: 47.

The report ranked the governors of California, New York, and Illinois among the bottom 10. Those states have experienced population declines in recent years.

"There's a lot of competition for the bottom," Williams said. "They are looking to empower government to have a more command and control top-down economic system where it empowers politicians and not the markets, not business owners and individuals and of course, what we're seeing is revealed preferences, that is what we call it in economics, people are voting with their feet every single year away from states like New York and California and Illinois."

(The Center Square) – Americans are feeling the pain of inflation and many blame President Joe Biden for rising prices, new polling shows.

Soaring gas prices have brought that issue home for most Americans with the average price per gallon rising more than a dollar in the past year. An Emerson College March national poll found that the vast majority of Americans are feeling the pain of higher prices.

“Eighty-three percent (83%) of voters say they are experiencing some hardship due to increased prices on everyday items, with 40% reporting significant hardship, and another 43% reporting some hardship,” the poll said. “Seventeen percent (17%) report experiencing no hardship. When asked about who they blame for an increase in gas prices, a plurality (39%) blame the Biden Administration, 21% blame the sanctions on Russia, and 18% blame gas and oil companies.”

A poll released by Rasmussen Reports Monday found a similar trend.

“President Joe Biden’s policies have increased inflation, according to a majority of voters, who expect the issue to be important in November midterm elections,” Rasmussen said. “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 64% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the policies of Biden’s administration have increased inflation, while only eight percent (8%) think Biden’s policies have reduced inflation. Another 25% say the Biden administration’s policies have not made much difference in inflation.”

Aside from gas prices, Americans are seeing rising mortgage prices and interest rates. Mortgage rates rose above 4% for the first time since 2019 and the Federal Reserve indicated last week that there will be several new rate hikes this year.

Experts are worried as well. The National Association for Business Economics released a survey this week asking 234 economic experts about the U.S. economy and found inflation is top of mind.

“Inflation continues to be of prominent concern for a majority of the NABE Policy Survey panel,” said NABE Policy Survey Chair Juhi Dhawan of Wellington Management. “More than three out of four (78%) panelists expect inflation to stay above 3% through the end of 2023. When asked about what can be done to mitigate high gasoline prices, 31% recommend releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and almost a quarter (24%) believe no response is necessary.”

Republicans have hammered Democrats on this issue. With economic experts saying inflation will likely remain elevated for months to come, Republicans hope to make it a defining issue of the midterm elections.

“Nobody is buying Democrats’ weak attempts to avoid responsibility for rising gas prices,” said Mike Berg, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

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(The Center Square) – The U.S. Senate held the first day of confirmation hearings Monday for President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court, kicking off the consideration of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson, 51, serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She would replace Justice Stephen Breyer. He announced his retirement last month.

“Justice Breyer not only gave me the greatest job that any young lawyer could ever hope to have,” Jackson said in her testimony, referring to her clerkship for the retiring Justice. “But he also exemplifies what it means to be a Supreme Court Justice of the highest level of skill and integrity, civility, and grace. It is extremely humbling to be considered for Justice Breyer’s seat, and I know that I could never fill his shoes.

"But if confirmed, I would hope to carry on his spirit," she added.

Democrats pointed to the potential historic significance if the Senate were to confirm Jackson. She would be the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“And looking at your record, it is clear you have the qualifications and the experience and the knowledge needed to serve on the Supreme Court,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said. “And as a woman, it makes me very proud of that.”

Several senators gave reference to Jackson’s race.

“And yes – the first Black woman – nominated to serve on our nation's highest court,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. “They could never have imagined that the senators sitting before you would include the first women to represent California, Hawaii, and Tennessee; the first Jewish man to represent Georgia; the first Hispanic man to represent Texas; and the first Black man to represent New Jersey.”

Some Republicans appeared to welcome Jackson’s nomination, but several expressed concerns during the first day of hearings. Sen. Josh Hawley has been a leading critic of Jackson, claiming a “pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook." During the hearing, he pointed to several cases where Jackson’s sentencing in child porn cases were much lower than the federal sentencing guidelines.

Hawley's argument has gained traction among critics.

“The White House's whataboutist response to Judge Jackson’s very real record in child pornography cases is dismissive, dangerous, and offensive,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said ahead of the hearing. “We need real answers.”

Biden reaffirmed his nominee in a statement as the hearings began.

“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is a brilliant legal mind with the utmost character and integrity,” he said. “She deserves to be confirmed as the next Justice of the Supreme Court.”

The hearings are scheduled to go through Thursday.

(The Center Square) – The idea that Ukraine needs to be de-Nazified is factually incorrect, historians in the U.S. argue. Confusion about Nazis and neo-Nazis in Ukraine has arisen in part by a possible mistranslation into English of recent remarks made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In Putin’s Feb. 24 address, the English translation states that Putin wants to de-Nazify Ukraine. In reality he’s saying he wants to denationalize it, or commit genocide, a Houston-based historian told The Center Square.

Any characterization of the Ukrainians as neo-Nazis is absurd and ridiculous, a renowned Jewish historian in Brooklyn also argues.

Putin declared that Russia was invading Ukraine “to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime.” He’s referring to Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine, although Kyiv hasn’t committed genocide. (Ukraine’s capital city is spelled, “Kiev” in Russian and “Kyiv” in Ukrainian.)

“To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine,” Putin said.

But the word "nation" in Russian and Ukrainian is “нация,” which is pronounced, "natsi-ya,” Roman Cherwonogrodzky, historian for the Ukrainian American Cultural Club of Houston, told The Center Square. It doesn’t refer to the World War II-era political party led by Adolph Hitler.

In a one-minute clip of the section of his remarks regarding the military operation and genocide, Putin is using the word, “ге-ноци-д” (ghe-natsi-d), Cherwonogrodzky said, meaning to de-nationalize Ukraine.

When Putin said, “we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” Cherwonogrodzky said, “he’s using a different conjugation of the same word he used for genocide, ‘de-nats i-ficatsiya.’”

In a Feb. 21 address at the 53:33 mark, Putin used the same word, "natsiya-nalism" referring to Ukrainian nationalism, and “neo-Natzism,” referring to the German political movement. And at a March 18 rally at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Putin used the same word for genocide, “ghe-natsi-d.”

What Putin is really saying is his goal is to eliminate the nation of Ukraine, which is genocide, Cherwonogrodzky said. The definition of genocide is “The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group."

What many may not realize, Cherwonogrodzky added, is during “Soviet times, it was illegal to speak, read, write, or culturally express Ukrainian ethnicity or nationality without permission. If one was not a "Good Communist (Soviet/Russian)," they would be marked and treated as Ukrainian Nationalists (наци-оналисты pronounced natsi-onalisti).”

“The Russian word for genocide is ‘геноцид’ pronounced ‘ghe-natsi-d,’" he said. “In Russian, the ‘o’ is pronounced as a soft, short ‘a,’ which you can hear Putin pronounce.”

Putin’s claim that Ukraine needs to be de-Natzified “is absolutely absurd and offensive; that’s ridiculous,” Dr. Henry Abramson said in a lecture explaining Ukrainian Jewish history. Abramson, a specialist in Jewish history, is dean at the Avenue J campus of Touro University in Brooklyn, New York.

He said that historically, Jews have lived in Ukraine for well over 1,000 years and 96% of the time they’ve peacefully coexisted with non-Jewish Ukrainians.

He pointed to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey of 18 Central and Eastern Europeans, which found that only 5% of Ukrainians wouldn’t accept Jews as their neighbors compared to 14% of Russians who wouldn’t. These Ukrainians represent the smallest number of any of the Europeans surveyed, he noted.

The fact that Ukrainians overwhelmingly elected Volodomyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, as their president should be evidence enough that they don’t need to be de-Nazified, he said.

In another lecture, he explained how Jewish and non-Jewish Ukrainians formed an alliance against the Russians in the 1960s, which ultimately led to Ukraine’s independence in 1991.

Today, some 40,000 Ukrainian Jews have the opportunity to move to Israel, but Rabbi Meir Stambler in Kyiv said they’re staying to fight.

Stambler, the chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, told The Jewish Chronicle, “Jews are very, very involved in everything in Ukraine, in the government, business, the army as well.

“Jews are here, we have very good years with our Ukrainian neighbors, we are part of the population. But the ground is soaked with blood here, Jewish blood. We feel part of the population so it’s very difficult. But it’s important because you can’t build anything without learning your history.”

Based on present-day borders, one of every four Jews killed in the Holocaust was murdered in Ukraine, the National World War II Museum states. “Before World War II, the 1.5 million Jews living in the Soviet republic of Ukraine constituted the largest Jewish population within the Soviet Union, and one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe.”

Before and after the Holocaust, Ukrainians were systematically killed by Soviet leaders.

In 1932 and 1933, Joseph Stalin orchestrated the Red Famine, called “Holodomor,” which means "death inflicted by starvation."

“While it is impossible to determine the precise number of victims of the Ukrainian genocide, most estimates by scholars range from roughly 3.5 million to 7 million (with some estimates going higher). The most detailed demographic studies estimate the death toll at 3.9 million,” the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota states.

In 1946 and 1947, Leonid Brezhnev orchestrated another manmade famine targeting Ukrainians. Confiscated food from this region was sent to new Eastern Bloc countries, starving Ukrainians in the process. What happened was comparable to Holodomor, Serhii Plokhy wrote in his 2015 book, "The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine": “Close to a million people died as a result of the new famine that hit southern Ukraine especially hard, including the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions.”

In 2014, a significant depopulation of ethnic Ukrainians occurred in Crimea under Russian occupation. Crimeans, Crimean Tartars, Jews and Ukrainians were oppressed, jailed, killed, sent to Siberia, or fled to Ukraine. By spring 2014, local pro-Ukrainian activists began leaving, “feeling unsafe amid the Russian crackdown on everything Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar,” Euromaidan Press reported. Meanwhile, Russia began militarizing Crimea by relocating military personnel there, and more than one million Russians were also relocated to the peninsula, changing its demographics.

Likewise, prior to 2014, there were roughly 4 million people living in the southeast Ukrainian region of Donbas. Now there are less than two million. Since 2014, “it’s estimated that 415,000 Ukrainians fled from the pro-Russian states to Ukraine as refugees, 925,500 fled abroad, and approximately 13,000 soldiers and 3,400 civilians were killed,” Cherwonogrodzky said.

By: Rebecca Kleefisch Gas prices, energy bills, and propane heating costs are ridiculous. When Joe Biden entered the White House, gas prices in Wisconsin were...

(The Center Square) – Twenty-one states filed a brief in support of South Carolina’s call for a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals review of the state’s Fetal Heartbeat Act.

The brief asks for the appeals court to review a preliminary injunction of a three-judge panel’s ruling to uphold the injunction against the law, which Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law in February 2021.

The law limits abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected and requires the health care provider to offer a mother to view an ultrasound, hear the heartbeat and view information on the fetus’ development before an abortion.

South Carolina previously banned abortions after 20 weeks. A fetal heartbeat can be detected after six to seven weeks, according to the American Pregnancy Association.

"From the day I signed the Heartbeat bill into law, we knew it would be an uphill battle – but a battle well worth fighting," McMaster said in a statement. "We’re grateful that Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 20 other states share our goals of protecting the right to life and our concern with the three-judge panel's apparent disregard for South Carolina’s sovereign authority.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall led the amicus brief, which was joined by Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.

“The Fetal Heartbeat Law is about protecting the lives of unborn children, but it’s also about protecting the Constitution and the rule of law,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that justifies abortions and, in fact, we believe abortion violates the constitutional rights to life and equal protection.”

The brief said 24 states currently require a provider to offer to display an ultrasound image to a mother.

“Yet the courts enjoined South Carolina’s ultrasound disclosure law,” the brief read. “Same for South Carolina’s requirement that abortion providers make the fetal heartbeat audible for the pregnant mother if she would like to hear it – a law that at least 16 other states have also enacted. And same for South Carolina’s requirement that an ultrasound be performed before an abortion is conducted – a requirement shared by at least 12 other states.”

(The Center Square) – A bipartisan group of senators passed a resolution 57-40 that would overturn the federal mask requirement on airplanes and federally regulated public transit. Now that measure’s fate is in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

So far, Pelosi has not spoken publicly on the resolution, which would overturn an announcement from the Transportation Security Administration earlier this month that said the mask mandate would be extended through April 18.

“At CDC’s recommendation, TSA will extend the security directive for mask use on public transportation and transportation hubs for one month, through April 18th,” the TSA said. “During that time, CDC will work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor. This revised framework will be based on the COVID-19 community levels, risk of new variants, national data, and the latest science. We will communicate any updates publicly if and/or when they change.”

That announcement was particularly controversial because CDC officials said in February that masks are no longer necessary except for those living where hospitals are overrun with patients, which means about 70% of Americans can go without masks.

"We want to give people a break from things like mask wearing ..." CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in the February announcement.

Governors and local officials around the country have lifted their mask mandates as well, even in some of the most restrictive areas. Meanwhile, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic announced this week they dropped their mask requirement.

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, voted to keep the mandate in place while all other Republicans voted to get rid of the mandate.

"Those who work for airlines are compelled to incessantly remind paying customers not only to wear a mask while we board, but in between bites and in between sips,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who introduced the measure. “'Sir, please put your mask on in between peanuts' ... The absurdity."

Paul’s measure would overturn the TSA rule through the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress the authority to undo executive branch regulations usually within 60 days with a simple majority vote.

“...the Senate said enough is enough, and sent a message to unelected government bureaucrats to stop the anti-science, nanny state requirement of travel mask mandates,” said Paul, who is a physician. “Since March 2020, unelected bureaucrats have incessantly declared that we should ‘follow the science.’ But the same bureaucrats continue to defy science by imposing an ineffective and restrictive mask mandate for individuals traveling on public transit and airplanes. As the entire world is learning to live with COVID, the federal government still uses fear mongering to stubbornly perpetuate its mandates, rather than giving clear-eyed, rational advice on how to best protect yourself from illness. That is why I forced this vote, and I applaud the Senate for rejecting this nonsense.”