Yearly Archives: 2023

(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.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., raised fresh concerns Wednesday when he froze during a news conference, the second time he has done so this summer.

McConnell, 81, appeared to struggle to hear a question from a reporter about running for reelection during a news conference in Covington, Kentucky. After the question was repeated, McConnell gave a small chuckle and then froze, looking straight ahead. An aide then stepped in and repeated the question loudly in McConnell's ear. McConnell continued to stare ahead.

The aide then told the gathering of reporters they would need a minute. After a pause, McConnell took another question about Kentucky's attorney general, Daniel Cameron, a Republican who is running for governor.

McConnell said he thought the governor's race would be close but spoke quietly through the response before being led away from the cameras.

It was the second such incident this summer.

On July 26, in the middle of his remarks to the media, McConnell stared ahead and stopped talking. After an awkward pause, fellow lawmakers ushered him to his office.

After that incident, McConnell returned to answer questions, telling reporters he was "fine."

McConnell suffered a fall and ensuing concussion and broken rib earlier this year.

The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, found that 88% of voters, including 76% of Trump-first voters, support some form of legal abortion. Included in this 88% are those 37% who believe it should be legal in all circumstances and 51% who believe it should only be legal under certain circumstances.

"You would assume that the pro-lifers are more hardened in their support, but Republicans are actually more open-minded on this issue than their counterparts across the aisle," said Mike Noble, founder and CEO of Noble Predictive Insights, which conducted the poll.

An especially salient issue especially since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, abortion has been on the ballot in seven states in the intervening year, with anti-abortion measures failing on each occasion. Earlier this month, an Ohio ballot measure to make it harder to add items such as abortion rights to the state constitution failed, earning only 43.3% of the vote in a state where former President Donald Trump won 53.3% in 2020.

Significantly, 51% of the subset of voters who said they support abortion in some circumstances said that they only support abortion if there is no heartbeat detected, a stage of a fetus’s development that occurs between five to six weeks after conception, which is reflected in the ongoing increase in the number of states adopting “heartbeat laws” that ban abortion if there is a heartbeat detected. According to a study by the University of California, San Francisco, one in three women learn they are pregnant more than six weeks after conception.

This position was fairly consistent across party lines and levels of education in that subset of voters taking the middle position, with 54% of Republicans, 49% and Democrats, 47% of independents, 54% of those without a college degree, and 47% of those with a college degree believing that abortion should only be legal before there is a heartbeat.

Meanwhile, 80% of voters who say they support abortion in some circumstances support abortion if the mother’s life is in danger, 74% if conception is the result of rape or incest, and 70% if there is likely to be no quality of life due to detected health complications.

Of voters polled, only 12% said abortion should be illegal under all circumstances, including 20% of Republicans, 5% of Democrats, and 9% of independents. Strikingly, younger voters were the most likely to support complete bans on abortion, with 14% of voters 18-34 opposing any abortion compared to 12% of those 35-44, 13% of those 45-54, and just 10% of those over 55.

The poll was conducted from July 31 to Aug. 3 and included 2,500 voters – 1,000 Republicans, 1,000 Democrats and 500 independents. The margin of error for the aggregate sample was ±2.4% and each political group was independently weighted. For information about the methodology, visit www.noblepredictiveinsights.com.

(The Center Square) – The latest plan for Milwaukee’s American Family Field would use tax money to keep the stadium up to date, but those taxes wouldn’t come from the people of Wisconsin.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, on Wednesday told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber they are looking at a plan to tax ballplayers to pay for the ballpark.

“Remember, if a player comes one-time to Wisconsin, they file a Wisconsin income tax return. So, every single player who visits pays Wisconsin income taxes.” Vos explained. “If the Brewers leave, every dollar of that income tax would never be here.”

Vos said Republican lawmakers at the Wisconsin Capitol are considering a plan that would find the $400 million that American Family Field needs for maintenance and repairs from those income tax dollars.

“We’re focusing on using a sizable chunk of the income taxes that players pay, nothing that you and I pay, and using that to help keep the team here,” Vos added.

He hopes to release the details after Labor Day.

Vos also said Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to cut the Stadium District a one-time check is dead. But Vos said the idea of having Milwaukee and Milwaukee County pay something for the stadium is not.

“There has to be a local contingency,” Vos said. “In the Fiserv Forum deal it was basically one-third/one-third/one-third. In the Stadium District up in Green Bay it was a local effort, the state had some money in it but very little. Here we are where the state is looking to fund something like 50%, 60%, 70% using the players’ salaries. The balance should be paid for by the people who are going to most directly benefit, and that’s the city and county of Milwaukee.”

MIlwaukee County’s executive and Milwaukee’s mayor have both in the past said they want to keep the Brewers in town and are open to helping pay for American Family Field.

Milwaukee County supervisors and Milwaukee aldermen, however, have vowed to not spend a “dime” on the ballpark.

Vos isn’t saying how he intends to have Milwaukee and Milwaukee County chip-in, though he is ruling out “taxing” some of the city and county’s new sales tax money.

“[The sales tax] freed-up hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the next 20 or 30 years which we can choose to invest in local economic activity, like the Brewers,” Vos said. “To say ‘You and I realize that if the Brewers leave, that sales tax goes down.’”

Brewers’ owner Mark Anatanassio said last week he thinks talks about a ballpark funding deal are in “the sixth inning,” and said he’s optimistic that a deal is in the works.

The moderators for the second Republican presidential primary debate have been set, but the candidate leading in the polls has yet to show any interest in attending.

Fox News announced Wednesday that Stuart Varney, Dana Perino and UNIVISION’s Ilia Calderón will co-moderate the debate from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET on Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Varney, one of Fox Business News's original anchors, is the host of "Varney & Co." Perino co-anchors "America’s Newsroom" and serves as co-host of "The Five." She is also a former White House press secretary under George W. Bush. Calderón is co-anchor of UNIVISION’s weekday evening newscast "NOTICIERO UNIVISION" and its newsmagazine "AQUÍ Y AHORA." She co-moderated the final debate between Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in March 2020.

Former President Donald Trump, who is leading the polls by a wide margin, skipped the first debate on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. Instead, Trump participated in a pre-recorded interview with ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired at the same time as the first debate. Trump previously confirmed media reports that he would pass on "the debates."

Trump holds a big lead over the rest of the candidates. He frequently posts poll results on his social media platform that show him ahead of the rest of the Republican pack.

A Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, found that 53% of surveyed Republicans picked Trump, followed by 18% naming Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence and entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy came in at third and fourth place with 7% and 6% support, respectively. The poll was conducted before the first debate.

On Wednesday, Trump called President Joe Biden a "Manchurian Candidate." Author Richard Condon's 1959 novel "The Manchurian Candidate," which has twice been adapted to feature films, is about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an assassin. Trump also said "Biden’s only campaign strategy is Indicting me."

Trump faces 91 charges across four indictments in Florida, New York, Georgia and Washington, D.C.

(The Center Square) – Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Tuesday outlined a new $2.9 million tax cut plan.

The Rochester Republican said Democratic Gov. Tony Evers needs “to fix his veto mistake and sign this middle-class tax cut.”

The state budget in July was without a $3.5 billion tax cut courtesy of Evers' veto.

As proposed, the "Returning Your Surplus" would lower Wisconsin’s second highest personal income tax rate from from 5.3% to 4.4%. That would mean a tax cut for married couples making between $36,840 and $405,550 a-year.

“The average taxpayer is expected to see a reduction of $772 in taxes," said Rep. Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva. “Our current surplus is the result of the taxpayers paying too much, rather than the government spending too little. Our goal is to get the surplus out of Madison and back into the pockets of its rightful owners: the taxpayers.”

Evers said the first proposal didn’t do enough for middle class families. He signed a small tax cut for people making less than $27,630.

It's unknown if he'll veto the new proposal.

Rep. John Macco, R-Ledgeview, said the governor should explain to Wisconsin taxpayers just what he plans to do.

“This is your money that the government took too much of, and it’s only fair that it is given back to you,” Macco said. “We are also expanding income tax relief to Wisconsin retirees. No one who has worked their entire life in Wisconsin should be forced to move to another state because of our tax code.”

The Republican plan would also end the state’s income tax on the first $150,000 of retirement income in the state.

Vos said the tax cut plan will get a hearing later this week, with the goal of voting on the package next week, and sending it off to Evers after that.

School choice has become a heated topic in state houses nationwide, with six states enacting universal school choice programs this year, which allow public funds to follow students to private schools. Critics say it draws funding away from traditional public schools.

School choice debates aren’t likely to go away during the election season, with the topic coming up at the Republican debate last week and the surge of legislation to implementation. Experts told Chalkboard the issue is here to stay and will play a role in the 2024 election.

According to The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll, conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, a slight majority, 51%, of voters say they support some kind of school choice measures. Of those, 34% of voters say tax dollars should follow students regardless of the situation, and 17% said they support targeted school choice programs for low-income Americans.

“When you look at the party breakdowns, you see a split,” said Mike Noble, CEO and founder of Noble Predictive Polling. “Democrats say the dollars should stay in the schools right now. Republicans are on the opposite end of that spectrum and say tax dollars should follow a student regardless of the situation and let the parents decide what’s best.”

The poll of 2,500 voters found that some strongly oppose school choice measures, with 31% responding that they think taxpayer dollars should only go toward public schools and not be used for school choice initiatives. About a fifth of voters, 18%, were unsure of their stance on school choice.

The poll asked 1,000 Republicans, 1,000 Democrats and 500 independent voters about their views on schools and found that support for universal school choice was highest among Republicans at 50%, followed by independents at 35%. Democrats reported the least support, with only 18% saying they supported universal choice initiatives.

A fifth, 22%, of Democrats said they “support school choice initiatives but think that tax dollars should primarily be directed towards lower-income Americans to help them access better educational opportunities for their children,” more than Republicans (12%) or independents (16%).

“Again, we’re seeing that this is a wedge-issue topic on education,” Noble said. “Democrats usually do much better than Republicans on education, but I think Republicans have dialed in a pretty good message and approach.”

Noble said the framing makes it an easy sell for parents.

“Who doesn’t want to have a choice?” Noble said.

Robert Enlow, president and CEO of nonprofit EdChoice, says the ideal of choice is here to stay across all political parties, but the debates about what that looks like will continue into next year's election.

“What choice looks like is going to be an evolution in the next 24 months,” Enlow said.

Enlow said that parents want more customization of public schools while questioning what the money is being used for.

“The era of one-size-fits-all education is dead,” Enlow said.

“The support for choice has increased over the last 20 years to the point where it is undeniable,” Enlow said. “COVID supercharged the demand for customization.”

Enlow compared the evolution of school choice support to a perpetual motion machine, where advocates once were educating and pushing and driving the conversation about school choice, but it’s on its own trajectory now.

“Parents have been added to this mix, they are driving the conversation now,” Enlow said.

Those with children under the age of 18 and those with older children are more likely to support universal school choice initiatives than those without children, according to the poll.

Republican presidential candidates have put the U.S. Department of Education on notice.

Several candidates said at last week's debate that they want to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education entirely.

Eliminating a Cabinet-level agency with 4,400 employees and a $90 billion proposed budget is a challenge that could take years to accomplish if any of the candidates could get the Congressional support needed to move forward with such a plan.

Getting the votes to dump the Department of Education would be a challenge on its own.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., re-introduced a bill in February that would terminate the department on Dec. 31, 2023. Massie's bill has 28 cosponsors. All of them are Republicans. To have a chance of becoming law with a Democrat-controlled Senate, any such measure would need bipartisan support.

Former President Ronald Reagan wanted to eliminate the Department of Education shortly after it took its modern form as a Cabinet agency in 1980. The Department of Education is primarily responsible for providing grants to public school districts and aid to college students.

Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, said any serious effort to dismantle the Department of Education would require a thoughtful plan to phase it out.

"If we're serious about this, and I think that we should be, it's something that we'll need a plan of phasing out the offices within the department that no longer serve a valid purpose and then moving other offices to different agencies within Washington," he told The Center Square.

For example, Butcher said the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights could be moved to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has a Civil Rights Division. And the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics could find a home within the U.S. Census Bureau, he said. Butcher said the federal government should also get out of the student loan business altogether.

"Washington should not be in the business of loaning money to students for college, it just shouldn't," Butcher said. "And what we have now is they monopolize the student loan market. They run some 90 plus percent of federal loans, and they have squeezed out the private sector."

Butcher said Pell Grants and Stafford loans could be moved to the United States Department of the Treasury "and then the remainder would be eliminated."

Butcher estimated it would take seven to 10 years to phase out the Department of Education.

Businessman and GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy didn't get into details during the debate, but made it clear what he wants to do with the Department of Education.

"Let’s shut down the head of the snake, the Department of Education," Ramaswamy said. "Take that $80 billion, put it in the hands of parents across this country."

Former Vice President Mike Pence also said he'd shutter the Department of Education.

The Heritage Foundation laid out a more detailed plan in 2020. That plan estimated immediate savings of more than $17 billion and more over time.

"Savings over a decade would far exceed the immediate total, as a gradual phase-out of programs, such as Title I, is realized, restoring revenue responsibility to the states," according to the report.

The Congressional Budget Office's primer on eliminating Cabinet-level departments said savings from closing any such department would depend on multiple factors.

"Eliminating a department could result in considerable budgetary savings to the federal government if some or all of the programs operated by that department were also terminated," according to the CBO. "The amount of savings would eventually be equal to the department’s full budget for the canceled programs, minus any income that the department had received through its operation of those programs. Initially, however, the government could incur one-time costs for terminating programs or activities, such as paying the cost of accrued annual leave and unemployment benefits to federal employees whose jobs had been eliminated or paying penalties for canceling leases for office space."

The CBO also noted that many decisions would have to be made along the way to closure.

"In deciding whether to eliminate one or more of the current departments and whether to terminate, move, or reorganize its programs and activities, lawmakers would confront a variety of questions about the appropriate role of the federal government," according to the CBO. "In particular, lawmakers would face decisions about whether the activities of a department should be carried out by the public sector at all, and if so, whether the federal government was the most effective level of government to conduct them. Even if lawmakers concluded that state and local governments were best positioned to operate a program or activity, they would still have to decide whether the federal government should coordinate particular activities that crossed state borders and whether programs administered by different states should meet national standards. In addition, lawmakers would face choices about how to organize most efficiently the activities of the federal government."

The Department of Education was started in 1867, when President Andrew Johnson signed legislation creating the first Department of Education.

The National Education Association, the largest labor union in the nation, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the elimination of the Department of Education.

A federal judge in former president Donald Trump’s election interference case set his court date for March 4, in the heart of the Republican primary battle.

The former president faces charges that he worked to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump, who was processed in Fulton County, Georgia, last week for similar charges, unsuccessfully fought to have this Washington, D.C. trial pushed until 2026, after the presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set the date, which is the day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen key states vote for their pick in the Republican field.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said Monday that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators in the case will be arraigned Sept. 6.

Trump faces 91 charges across four indictments in Florida, New York, Georgia and Washington, D.C. The other charges are related to Trump’s alleged payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and his handling of classified documents.

Trump's court date for the alleged payments is in late March, and the classified documents court date is set for May, both in the middle of a heated election year. The Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin July 15 of next year.

Trump, who is far and away the Republican frontrunner for president, has blasted the indictments as political weaponization of the legal system.

“It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING,” Trump wrote on social media, referring to reporting from the New York Post that aides for Biden and Smith met just before the indictment was announced.

“If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they ‘knew nothing,’ Trump added. “It’s all a BIG LIE, just like Russia, Russia, Russia, & not knowing about son’s business dealings. DISMISS CASE!”

Most Republican candidates at the Republican debate last week pledged to still support Trump for president if he wins the nomination but is convicted.

Two out of three American voters are not in favor of transgender female student athletes competing on women's and girls' sports teams.

The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll of 2,500 registered voters across the U.S., conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, found that 67% of voters are opposed to males who identify as females playing girls' or women's sports.

Men who took the poll were 75% against allowing transgender females playing girls' or women's sports and women were 60% opposed.

Republicans were 89% opposed, 6% supportive and 5% unsure, while Democrats were 45% opposed, 36% supportive and 19% unsure. The only subsection of voters to support transgender females playing female sports was those who identified as "strong Democrats." Those "strong Democrats" were 43% supportive with 37% opposed and 20% unsure.

"The group driving that support are very left-leaning Democrats," said Mike Noble, founder and CEO of Noble Predictive Insights, which conducted the poll. "It is pushed by Democrats on the left. Biden's administration has really embraced it."

Noble said the issue was an opportunity for Republicans to connect with independent voters and moderate Democrats. Two out of three voters who describe themselves as independent were against allowing transgender females from playing female sports.

"This is a huge opportunity for Republicans this election to use it as wedge issue," Noble said. "They don't have a lot of wedge issues. This is a good issue for Republicans."

Lia Thomas became the focal point of the transgender athlete debate in 2022 when Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship.

Thomas was ranked 65th in the 500-meter freestyle in 2018-19, the last season Thomas swam for the Penn men's team, according to Swimming World Magazine. Thomas won the NCAA championship in the 500 freestyle in 2022 while competing for the Penn women's team.

Paula Scanlan, a former swimmer on the Penn women's team and a teammate of Thomas, has been critical of the decision to let Thomas compete against women.

Since then, states and schools districts across the country have engaged in controversial debates about whether to allow biological males who identify as females to participate in girls and women's sports.

The poll was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights from July 31 to Aug. 3. Unlike traditional national polls, with limited respondent count of about 1,000, Noble Predictive surveyed 1,000 registered Republicans, 1,000 registered Democrats, and 500 independents, culminating in a sample size of 2,500. The margin of error for the aggregate sample was ±2.4%, with each political group independently weighted. For information about the methodology, visit www.noblepredictiveinsights.com.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin Democratic congresswoman wants more done at the federal level to stop the type of gun violence that left 24 people shot and three dead in Milwaukee over the weekend.

Milwaukee’s Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore blamed gun laws for the weekend shootings.

“Combating the gun violence crisis requires a collective effort, and I remain committed to championing efforts in Congress to invest in what works and to strengthen our gun laws to prevent these deadly weapons from flowing unabated into our communities and ending up in the wrong hands, including initiatives that have bipartisan support but continue to be blocked,” Moore said.

Milwaukee Police say the weekend shooting tally included a shooting that left nine people wounded, a separate shooting that saw four people wounded and a double shooting that left a 17-year-old girl dead.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson on Monday said that cannot happen again.

“I insist our criminal justice system fully prosecute and punish those responsible for this violence," Johnson said in the statement. "I am directing our Office of Violence Prevention to take every reasonable step to educate, intervene and mediate so that we can reduce the gun violence here."

But Republican State Rep. and former Milwaukee city councilman Bob Donovan said Milwaukee leaders need to do more on their own.

“Two mass shootings over the weekend left a path of death and destruction in Milwaukee. Where is the plan from the city and Mayor Johnson? I cannot believe how public safety in Milwaukee has deteriorated in the last three years. Mayor Johnson owes the citizens a strategy to turn this chaos around. After all, he promised he would when he was elected to the city’s highest office,” Donovan, R-Greenfield, said. “The beleaguered citizens of Milwaukee and the surrounding area deserve that. I am a member of the Assembly who represents a portion of Milwaukee residents and I stand committed to working with Milwaukee to address this chaos.”