Monthly Archives: September, 2023

(The Center Square) – The legal challenge to Wisconsin’s pre-Roe abortion law could move more quickly after Planned Parenthood announced Thursday it will resume providing abortions in the state.

“With the recent confirmation from the Court that there is not an enforceable abortion ban in Wisconsin, our staff can now provide the full scope of sexual and reproductive health care to anyone in Wisconsin who needs it, no matter what,” President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin Tanya Atkinson said.

Planned Parenthood plans to resume performing abortions Monday.

A Dane County judge ruled in July Wisconsin’s pre-Roe abortion law didn’t apply to abortions. Judge Diane Schlipper said there is no such thing as an ‘1849 Abortion Ban’ in Wisconsin,” she said the state’s ban on abortion, instead, applies to feticide.

Gov. Tony Evers praised Planned Parenthood’s announcement.

“This is great news, but our fight to restore the same reproductive freedoms Wisconsinites had up until the day #SCOTUS overturned #Roe must continue,” Evers said on Twitter.

Planned Parenthood stopped providing abortions in June 2022, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Gracie Skogman, legislative director for Wisconsin Right to Life, said Planned Parenthood’s decision will be devastating for “pre-born children and women here in the state.”

Skogman also accused Planned Parenthood of ignoring the legal process that has yet to unfold.

“Our belief is that Planned Parenthood is putting profit over actually waiting for a final determination from the courts,” she added.

Wisconsin’s pre-Roe law bans nearly all abortions, except in certain cases to save a mother’s life.

Schlipper heard an argument against the law in June, and has yet to issue a ruling. However, she is expected to strike the law down. From there, the law is expected to be challenged in front of the new liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Republicans in Wisconsin want newly-elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz to recuse herself from that case because of what she said about the pre-Roe abortion law while running for the high court.

A panel of 16 experts commissioned by NASA released a report Thursday that found no evidence that unidentified anomalous phenomena – better known to many as UFOs – have an extraterrestrial origin.

Read the full report here:

(The Center Square) – Democrats at the Wisconsin Capitol may be trying to roll back school choice in the state after presenting a package of legislation they say would reinvest in public schools and bring transparency to voucher school spending.

“This is about public dollars, public schools and public oversight,” Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, told reporters.

The Democrats’ transparency plan would require the state to tell taxpayers how much money goes to voucher students each year.

“If this bill passes, each property tax bill would have a line that says something like: The gross reduction in state aid to your school district in the current year is a result of people enrolled in one of the choice programs. Or as a result of payments to a private school under the special needs scholarship program,” Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, said.

Andraca says the plan is not anti-school choice, but rather about transparency.

Larson, who has long been an opponent of school choice, said Wisconsin must choose between public schools or choice schools.

“Wisconsin cannot afford to fund two competing school systems,” Larson added. “We need urgent action to stop the unchecked expansion of the voucher programs and independent charter schools.”

Republicans at the Capitol secured a major expansion of school choice funding in the new state budget.

The plan, signed by Gov. Tony Evers, will eventually increase voucher payments from $8,399 to $9,874 per-student for younger students and from $9,045 to $12,368 for high school students.

The new state budget includes $1 billion more for traditional public schools.

Yet, Rep Francesca Hong, D-Madison, said Wisconsin’s public schools need more.

“Our budget cycle this past year, unfortunately, did not do enough,” Hong said. “Our children deserve more.”

Wisconsin’s public schools received more than $6 billion in state funding in 2021 and are on pace to receive billions more this yearvwhile enrollment is falling.

Public schools in the state are also in line for 400 years of per-pupil funding increase, after Gov. Evers used his veto to extend a two-year per-pupil increase for four centuries.

The push against school choice in Wisconsin also comes after a report last week that showed choice schools in the state saw better test scores with fewer state dollars than traditional public schools.

A closer look at the federal agency that sparked former President Donald Trump's first federal indictment shows that it has embraced far-left diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

The little-known federal agency called the National Archives and Records Administration was thrust into the national spotlight after it tipped off the U.S. Department of Justice over Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents.

On its website, the agency calls itself a "nonpartisan, independent" group. A deep dive by The Center Square into its records show it has embraced ideology around gender and race and has reportedly been unwilling to hand over some records of President Joe Biden to investigators.

In its 2022 budget request, the federal agency asked Congress for more than $28 million and nearly 150 news staff to “advance racial equity and support underserved communities.”

“A program increase of $20,052 thousand and 144 FTE to advance racial equity and support underserved communities,” the budget said. “This request includes funding to address staffing needs across the agency and funds targeted recruitment activities to ensure a diverse pool of applicants to help increase the diversity of NARA’s workforce.”

Part of the record-keeping agency’s equity spending, which has been encouraged and in some cases mandated by Biden since he took office, include a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion action plan.

NARA’s latest 2022 DEI plan pledges to double down on equity training for employees “to strengthen and foster an inclusive workforce.”

“NARA will demonstrate leadership commitment through developing a DEIA recognition program that will reinforce a culture of equity and inclusion,” the plan says.

In NARA’s most recent strategic DEI plan, the agency essentially pledges to work to get more minority applicants and leadership and lower the percentage of leading white Americans in the agency. The group’s 2012 report defines minorities as “all categories of current and potential employees identified as non-white.”

“NARA will provide training and support to hiring managers to increase the diversity of the NARA workforce,” the agency said, also pledging to “mitigate biases” and create “safe spaces.”

The agency said these recommendations came from a report created by the NARA Task Force on Racism that delivered a document to the agency’s leadership in 2021 recommending more training on things like “white privilege.”

“Address offensive behavior by staff with specific training on white privilege and systemic racism,” the report said.

The task force also defines “reverse racism” as “a fallacy that refers to discrimination against White people…”

“Anti-racist activists in the U.S. have largely deemed reverse racism to be impossible, as the power structure of the United States has historically benefited White people and continues to do so today,” the report said. “Reverse racism is often confused with racial prejudice against White people, which does exist, but lacks the systemic relationship of power that would qualify such prejudice as racism.”

The report acknowledges not all employees agree with the equity agenda but says ”the work of the Task Force needs to be done despite varying opinions and hurt feelings.”

Notably, that same agency worked to get classified documents back from both President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, neither of whom were charged, though NARA did reportedly inform the DOJ about both.

NARA leadership has rebuffed any claims of political bias or motivation, including in the agency’s role in Trump’s indictment.

“The National Archives has been the focus of intense scrutiny for months, this week especially, with many people ascribing political motivation to our actions,” Debra Steidel Wall, the acting archivist at the time, said in a memo to employees last year.

The agency has also come under scrutiny recently from the House Oversight Committee's Republican leadership. The Committee's chair, U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has spearheaded the Congressional investigation into Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings and the president's alleged role in them. Comer has also raised questions about political motivation at the agency.

IRS whistleblowers have testified that the Biden family and associates received roughly $20 million via about 20 overseas shell companies.

Comer has called for evidence from NARA, including details on whether Hunter Biden used Air Force 2 at taxpayer expense to help with the deals, but said NARA has pledged to potentially withhold some Biden records if it deems them to be "personal."

“However, 'personal records' are defined as those records 'which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of' the Vice President,” Comer said in a letter to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan. “The Committee has made clear that its investigation involves potential abuse by then-Vice President Biden of his official duties; it cannot be NARA that determines whether certain records ‘do not relate to or have an effect upon’ those duties.”

This national spotlight on NARA has drawn scrutiny.

“A taxpayer-funded agency, such as NARA, should not be staffed with one political party's affiliates, while the other party's affiliates are threatened with termination – assuming they manage to get hired at all – for protesting DIE ideology,” Mason Goad of the National Association of Scholars, told The Center Square. “But you are extremely unlikely to hear DIE advocates, at NARA or any other agency, advocate on the behalf of conservatives for the sake of ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ or ‘equity.’”

NARA did not respond to a request for comment on its equity policies but told The Center Square it would respond to Comer's requests for information.

"What the Archives is doing is making those who work there, and those who hope to be hired or promoted, sign a loyalty oath not just to one political party, but to the extremist wing of that party," Mike Gonzalez, an expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The Center Square. "The way the words in DEI are now defined, each of them lead to unconstitutional measures, too, so not proper for government use. This is the case for the unconstitutional quotas of 'diversity,' the language codes of 'Inclusion,' or the unequal treatment of races of 'equity.'"

(The Center Square) – The National Mail Voter Registration Form is no longer allowed in Wisconsin.

Waukesha County Judge Michael Maxwell this week banned the form because it asks questions not allowed by Wisconsin law, including a question about a voter’s race. The form also allowed people to register to vote in Wisconsin without providing other information required by state law.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty sued over the form and won.

“The legal issue in the case was simply that the statute did not call for [the extra information], so by including those requests, the form went beyond the statute and was unlawful,” WILL’s Lucas Vebber told The Center Square. “The Judge never reached those issues though because he determined the form was never lawfully adopted in the first instance.”

Maxwell said in his order the Wisconsin Elections Commission “failed in [its] most basic duty” to register voters using the appropriate forms.

A spokesman for the Elections Commission didn’t respond to questions from The Center Square.

Neither WILL nor the Elections Commission knows just how many people in Wisconsin registered to vote using the national form.

Vebber said it doesn’t matter because the judge’s order only affects voter registrations going forward, adding “no one was removed from the voting rolls as a result of the decision.”

“The Court gave them 14 days to withdraw all their illegal guidance, and to inform clerks that the national form cannot be used in Wisconsin. WEC could still appeal the decision,” Vebber said.

Wisconsin voters can register online, at their local election office and in-person at the polls on election day.

(The Center Square) – The second attempt from Wisconsin Republican lawmakers to cut taxes will end the same as the first Gov. Tony Evers said Wednesday.

Evers took to social media to promise a veto for the $3 billion tax cut that began its journey through the legislature Wednesday.

“I'll veto it. Plain and simple,” the governor said in a Tweet. “I’m not going to sign an irresponsible Republican tax cut that jeopardizes our state’s financial stability well into the future and the investments we need to be making today to address the real, pressing challenges facing our state.”

The Republican plan would lower Wisconsin’s second-highest personal income tax rate from 5.3% to 4.4%. That would mean a tax cut for married couples making between $36,840 and $405,550 a-year. Republicans say the cut would save the average taxpayer $722 a year.

They also want to eliminate Wisconsin’s income tax on the first $150,000 of retirement income. Supporters say that would make Wisconsin essentially tax-free for most retirees.

“I delivered on my promise of proposing a 10% middle-class tax cut that provided $1.2 billion in targeted tax relief to working families, seniors, caregivers, parents and veteran families because I believe that when we deliver tax relief, we should do it responsibly,” Evers added.

In July, the governor vetoed a $3.5 billion income tax cut out of the new state budget. He signed a tax cut for people making $18,420 as individuals, or $36,840 as a married couple.

The governor once again said Republicans are trying to cut taxes for top earners.

“After starting this biennium in the best fiscal position in state history, Republicans tried to give 11 filers who make $75 million a year an average $1.8 million tax cut per year,” Evers tweeted. “Now, they're trying to pass yet another tax plan that puts our state on a path to bankruptcy.”

Critics immediately jumped on the governor’s announcement.

“Unbelievable. Gov. Evers plans to veto another middle-class tax cut for families and seniors. It’s irresponsible to use budget surplus funds to recklessly expand state government,” Sen Julian Bradley, R-Franklin, said. “Middle class taxpayers deserve to keep more of their hard-earned money. Evers clearly doesn’t agree.”

“Wisconsin had a $7 billion surplus, and Gov. Evers thinks giving $2.9 billion of it back to the people who sent it to Madison in the first place is irresponsible??” Nick Novak with Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business group said. “The governor clearly has no interest in returning money back to the hardworking taxpayers who overpaid.”

Republican lawmakers hope to vote on the plan soon and intend to send it to the governor after that.

A group of Colorado voters filed a lawsuit Wednesday to prohibit former President Donald Trump from appearing on the Republican presidential primary ballot in the state.

The 115-page complaint alleges Trump shouldn’t be allowed to run for the 2024 Republican nomination for president under a clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Known as the disqualification clause, it states anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” cannot hold a state or federal office.

The 14th Amendment was passed by the Senate in 1866 and ratified in 1868 to provide civil rights for freed slaves. The clause prevents military officers who served in the Confederacy from serving in any public office. In 1872, a supermajority of each chamber of Congress voted to remove the clause.

Earlier this week, Maine officials announced they were looking at the 14th Amendment to prevent a candidate from holding elected office, but didn’t mention Trump in a statement.

Six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters – including former elected officials – represented by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics filed the lawsuit, according to a media release from the organization. The respondents in the case are Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Trump.

“I look forward to the Colorado Court’s substantive resolution of the issues, and am hopeful that this case will provide guidance to election officials on Trump’s eligibility as a candidate for office,” Griswold said in a statement.

Griswold’s office said Colorado law “is unclear on how to consider the requirements of the United States Constitution in determining whether a candidate is eligible for office, including the language of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”

No candidates have yet qualified for the 2024 presidential primary ballot in Colorado.

Trump, who holds a substantial lead in most polls over all other Republicans running for president, has been indicted in four criminal cases in the last few months.

The Colorado lawsuit alleges Trump “engaged in” an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, by knowingly and voluntarily aiding and inciting the insurrection before the event. Trump's campaign website didn't post an immediate response to the litigation.

"Almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election," Trump said in a post Monday on the social media site Truth Social.

One of the lawsuit's petitioners, Krista Kafer, a Republican and newspaper columnist in Colorado, said in a statement Trump “disqualified himself from running in 2024 by spreading lies, vilifying election workers, and fomenting an attack on the Capitol.”

“Those who by force and by falsehood subvert democracy are unfit to participate in it. That’s why I am part of this lawsuit to prevent an insurrectionist from appearing on Colorado’s ballot,” she said.

Colorado successfully kept someone off the ballot for president in 2012. Abdul Karim Hassan, a naturalized citizen, unsuccessfully argued before Judge Neil Gorsuch, now a U.S. Supreme Court justice, he was discriminated against because he didn’t meet the requirement of being a natural-born citizen.

House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., pushed forward the investigation into President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, Wednesday by calling out a federal agency that may be withholding information.

Comer put the spotlight on the National Archives and Records Administration, the federal recordkeeping agency that tipped off the Department of Justice when former President Donald Trump had allegedly held on to classified documents. Comer says NARA has held back certain information, claiming it is “personal.”

“In discussions between NARA and Committee staff regarding the Committee’s previous request for special access to Vice-Presidential records, NARA informed the Committee that certain documents in NARA’s custody would not be produced to the Committee – and, indeed, NARA would not inform the Committee of their existence – if NARA deems those records to be ‘personal records’ as defined by the PRA,” Comer said in a letter to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan.

Comer pushed back on that sentiment.

“However, 'personal records' are defined as those records 'which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of' the Vice President,” the letter said. “The Committee has made clear that its investigation involves potential abuse by then-Vice President Biden of his official duties; it cannot be NARA that determines whether certain records ‘do not relate to or have an effect upon’ those duties.”

Comer’s letter is part of an ongoing effort to learn to what degree the president was aware and involved in his son Hunter’s business dealings. IRS whistleblowers testified that the Biden family and associates received about $20 billion from entities overseas, including in Ukraine and China, via about 20 shell companies.

Long-time associate of Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, has said publicly that Hunter used phone calls from his father to help secure deals.

“Joe Biden never built an ‘absolute wall’ between his family’s business dealings and his official government work – his office doors were wide open to Hunter Biden’s associates,” Comer said in a letter to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan. “There is evidence of collusion in the efforts to spin media stories about Burisma’s corruption while Vice President Biden was publicly pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine.”

As The Center Square previously reported, Hunter Biden faces an array of legal challenges related to allegations of gun, tax and foreign influence crimes. Special Counsel David Weiss said in court filings Wednesday that Hunter could face another indictment before Sept. 19.

“Suspiciously, Hunter Biden’s associate had a media statement on Burisma approved by Vice President Biden himself the same day Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ for help with the government pressure facing Burisma,” the letter said. “Americans demand accountability for this abuse of government office for the benefit of the Biden family.”

Comer also has asked NARA for information on Air Force Two, which Hunter Biden allegedly used for travel in some of his dealings.

(The Center Square) – State Sen. Van Wanggaard spent 30 years in law enforcement and says he never came across anything as “sick” as a child sex doll.

Wanggaard on Tuesday led a Wisconsin Senate committee hearing on a plan to outlaw child sex dolls in the state.

“For $30,000, and it talks to you and everything else, I’m just thinking these people are really sick,” Wanggaard said.

The legislation would make it a crime to have one of the new realistic sex dolls designed to be a child.

“It’s not just what this doll looks like,” Wanggaard said. “I would imagine that there gotta be a set of operating instructions with this thing that talks about it being a minor.”

Wisconsin currently doesn’t have any laws regarding underage sex dolls. Five states – Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah and Hawaii – are the only states with laws against the dolls.

Wisconsin’s proposed law would mean a felony conviction, and up to three-and-a-half years in prison for a first offense. Anyone who owns a child sex doll that looks like a specific child would be looking at 15 years in prison.

Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, worried about loopholes that suspects could use to skirt the proposed law.

“If someone can say that it’s a dwarf,” Taylor added. “Someone who is smaller, and not a child.”

Sen. Jesse James, R-Altoona, said like in other child pornography cases, there will likely be plenty of evidence to show the doll is a child sex doll.

“When we come across child pornography cases, these aren’t just 10 images and stuff like that. We’re talking thousands of images,” James, who used to be the police chief in Altoona, told lawmakers. “This isn’t something that’s going to be a tiny case.”

Wisconsin law makes it illegal to have sex with a human being under the age of 18. Though there are other state laws that add penalties and prison time for having sex with people at other, underage ages.

(The Center Square) – Milwaukee Brewers’ owner Mark Attanasio is getting criticized in Wisconsin for his reported plans to boost his investment in an English soccer club.

The BBC reported that Attanasio is looking to increase his stake in the Norwich City club to 40%. Attanasio bought a 16% stake in the club last year.

Attanasio didn’t comment in the BBC piece, or in a follow-up in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

His decision to spend more on Norwich City comes as he is asking Wisconsin taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars to repair the Brewers’ ballpark, American Family Field.

“And at the same time begging Wisconsin taxpayers to bail him out for lavish stadium upgrades...? Weird,” Americans For Prosperity Wisconsin Director Megan Novak said on social media Tuesday. “Also – the Brewers paid half a million dollars in 6 months for lobbying but apparently couldn't afford a PR consultant to tell the owner that this story probably doesn't help his bailout cause?”

State Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, made the same point about Attanasio’s reported investment.

“So he can afford to upgrade his own @Brewers stadium? Great! That settles that,” Larson said in a Tweet.

Larson has been a longtime critic of the idea Wisconsin taxpayers should pay for renovations and upgrades at American Family Field.

Attanasio said the stadium district, which owns the ballpark, is running out of money and will need an infusion of cash soon.

The latest plan would tax the ballplayers, both from the Brewers and other teams, to pay for about $400 million in repairs.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, last week said the details on that plan may come this week.

Without taxpayer money, both Vos and Attanasio say American Family Field may go to rot.

The ballpark is owned and run by the public Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District, which means the stadium would continue to cost taxpayers even if the Brewers were to eventually leave.