Monthly Archives: February, 2024

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s election managers say as long as there is a house number and a street name, absentee voting witness slips don’t need a city, the state, a zip code or anything else.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission clarified the rule for absentee ballot witnesses address information.

The commission told clerks to error on the side of counting ballots and issued five specific clarifications as to when ballots are not to be rejected.

An absentee ballot may not be rejected if:

The witness’s street number, street name, and municipality are present, but there is neither a state name nor a ZIP code provided;The witness’s street number, street name, and ZIP code are present, but there is neither a municipality nor a state name provided;The witness’s street number and street name are present and match the street number and street name of the voter, but no other address information is provided;The witness certification indicates that the witness address is the same as the voter’s address with any or any combination of the following words: “same,” “same address, “same as voter,” “same as above,” “see above,” “ditto,” or by using quotation marks and/or an arrow or line pointing to or from the voter address.”

The clarifications come after a Dane County judge struck down Wisconsin’s law on absentee ballot addresses, saying the law was inconsistent.

That judge told the Elections Commission to instruct local election clerks how to handle absentee ballot witness slips that are missing part of the witnesses’ address.

Republicans said the judge’s ruling opened-up another opportunity for fraud.

State Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin, said it again.

“I am deeply concerned about the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s decision to issue guidance on incomplete witness addresses on absentee ballot certificates,” Maxey said. “The Commission had two clear options: either pass an emergency rule for the normal legislative process or listen to an appointed judge in Dane County. Unfortunately, they chose to sidestep the legislative process by issuing guidance.”

Maxey said lawmakers could have clarified the law, and the Elections Commission could have clarified the absentee ballot envelope. But he said the Commission chose to go its own way.

“I hope the Commission decides to reconsider its actions and uphold the integrity of our electoral process,” Maxey added. “I’m very disappointed the commission doesn’t take election integrity as seriously as the people of Wisconsin.”

President Joe Biden addressed the nation late Thursday to respond to news that the special counsel tasked with investigating his handling of classified documents had chosen not to charge him, but also questioned his mental capacity.

The blockbuster special counsel report, while clearing Biden, sparked questions about Biden’s mental fitness when it called him an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden is 81 years old.

“The special counsel released his findings today about their look into my handling of classified documents,” Biden said. “I was pleased to see he reached the firm conclusion that no charges should be brought against me in this case. This was an exhaustive investigation going back more than 40 years, even into the 1970’s when I was still a United States Senator.”

During the remarks, Biden blamed his staff for the handling of classified documents and attempted to dispel questions about his memory.

As The Center Square previously reported, Special Counsel Robert Hur said Thursday that he found evidence that Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen" but said the evidence "does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

The nearly 400-page report said Biden did not commit a crime but that he was careless with the documents.

"We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter," the report said. "We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president."

Former President Donald Trump faces charges for the same allegations of mishandling classified documents, one of his multiple indictments across several states. Former Vice President Mike Pence was also not charged though he did hold on to classified documents and then return them after leaving office.

Biden came under investigation for the same allegations after federal authorities found classified documents stored at his home in Delaware as well as one of his offices in Washington, D.C.

“I was especially pleased to the Special Counsel make clear the stark distinction and difference between this case and Mr. Trump’s case,” Biden continued.

Biden argued he more readily handed over any documents and cooperated with federal authorities while Trump did not. Biden said he cooperated completely with the investigation and gave a five-hour interview in person with the special counsel.

Biden also argued the headlines about his willful retention of documents are misleading.

The special counsel made note of Biden’s poor memory in the report, saying the president could not remember key events such as the details of when he was vice president or when his son died.

Biden made a point to address those concerns late Thursday.

“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said. “Frankly, when I was asked the question I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business. Let me tell you something.

“I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away,” Biden said, arguing that he was managing the Israel-Hamas crisis while dealing with the special counsel’s interview.

“The bottom line is the matter is now closed,” Biden said.

Reporters immediately questioned Biden about his memory Thursday evening after his remarks.

“My memory is fine,” Biden responded, before pointing to his accomplishments since taking office.

Notably, while answering a question from a reporter about the Israel-Gaza conflict, Biden appeared to call Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi the president of Mexico.

Biden's political opponents online immediately responded to that blunder in what is the first of likely months of ongoing attacks on his mental fitness.

"Joe Biden is unfit for the office of the presidency," U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Thursday. "President el Sisi is the President of Egypt not Mexico."

When asked why he should be the Democrat to take on Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, Biden said he is the most qualified.

“I did not break the law,” Biden said to reporters. “Period.”

The DOJ report lays out Biden's mishandling of classified documents but said ultimately mitigating factors prevented a formal legal charge.

"Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," Hur said. "These materials included (1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and (2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods. FBI agents recovered these materials from the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home."

One of those mitigating factors, according to the special counsel report, was that jurors would be sympathetic to Biden's poor memory.

"In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse," the report said. "He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ('if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?'), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ('in 2009, am I still Vice President?')"

President Joe Biden won't be charged with a crime over his handling and sharing of classified documents.

The 388-page Justice Department report found that Biden was careless with classified documents, but didn't commit a crime.

Read the full report here:

President Joe Biden won't be charged with a crime for his handling and sharing of classified documents, but the report clearing him of wrongdoing raises questions about his memory.

The 81-year-old President is seeking another four-year term. After years of gaffes, on and off the campaign trail, the 388-page special counsel report highlights Biden's trouble remembering things, including the year his son died.

"In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse," according to the report. "He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ("if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?"), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I still Vice President?"). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he 'had a real difference' of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama."

That's not the only time Biden's memory is mentioned in the report.

"Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023," according to the report.

Another part said jurors would be sympathetic given Biden's memory.

"Given Mr. Biden's limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence," according to the report.

That was repeated elsewhere in the lengthy report.

"We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," according to the report. "Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness."

(The Center Square) – One of the Republicans in charge of the legislature’s audit committee made strong accusations for against Gov. Tony Evers’ administration over nearly $100 million in COVID-19 relief interest.

Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, on Tuesday grilled the Secretary of the Department of Administration, Kathy Blumenfeld, over an audit from December of last last year that shows the state accrued $97.2 million in interest on the $3 billion the federal government sent Wisconsin as part of the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds in the American Rescue Plan.

Wimberger and other Republican lawmakers say the $97 million should be returned to the state’s general fund.

But Blumenfeld and the Evers’ Administration wants to keep the money in a special account, which Wimberger said the governor wants to spend on his own.

“It just seems like the things that the DOA is doing is over the edge. It's beyond awful. And who is personally responsible, and whether the agency is responsible, I guess it's up in the air,” Wimberger said during a hearing.

“We feel confident in our position,” Blumenfeld told lawmakers. “These funds were received by the federal government, and therefore they belong to the federal appropriation. We don’t feel like we have the statutory authority to transfer them to the general fund.”

Blumenfeld said she and the DOA are waiting for clarification as to how the money can be spent.

Republican lawmakers have been advocating for years to have some control over how Wisconsin spends its federal money. Those calls ramped up after the pandemic, and a string of questions about how the Evers Administration spent the billions of dollars the state received.

Wimberger said allowing the governor to hoard all of Wisconsin’s federal money is dangerous.

“If the federal government can give the state money, and the governor is in control of all the money that's given by the federal government, and then can accrue interest in a way that is untouchable by the legislature or the there's no power of the person anymore, there is essentially a shadow government where the executive branch has control of not only federal money but in an untouchable interest account to the tune of $100 million dollars in growing so far,” Wimberger said.

(The Center Square) – Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says Democrats in the state continue to hate him for what he did more than a decade after he took office. But he said the current redistricting effort, and the political change that could follow, are more a reflection of the feft’s hate for former President Trump.

Walker told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber the effort to flip Wisconsin toward Democrats is a direct result of last spring’s election that flipped the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

And that election, Walker said, is a direct result of the Democrat’s fundraising and campaigning in the state.

“It is a reflection of what happens when the feft is driven largely by their hate and disdain nationally for President Trump. They see Wisconsin is a key state, which it is. And they've just been better at Republicans and conservatives at pouring money into things like the supreme court race,” Walker said. “It's hard to deny the enormous advantage that was held by the liberal candidate in that race and then they were really good at targeting. You know they put a million and a half just into the University of Wisconsin campus at Madison.”

Walker added that the new liberal-majority Supreme Court now needs to decide what it will do with its majority.

“We have to wake up to the reality that with this new liberal majority, they're kind of setting aside judicial restraint and basically doing what [Justice Janet Protasiewicz] said during the campaign, which was she's going to throw the maps out, that she's going to throw Act 10 out, and she's going to do the other things,” Walker explained. “The rest of the justices have to decide whether they want to be justices or they're just going to be political hacks.”

Walker said Act 10, which radically transformed how teachers unions could negotiate with their local schools, remains popular with both taxpayers and local school leaders. He said Act 10 has saved the people of Wisconsin nearly $20 billion since it became law in 2011, and he said many local superintendents and school board members would be sad to see it overturned.

“People need to realize this, if [Act 10] gets reversed, it doesn't go back to the way it was years and years ago. It means all this money that right now is actually going into the classroom, that's able to reward exceptional teachers, that’s able to put curriculum and things for kids in the classroom could potentially now be sucked up by the union bosses, and used for all sorts of outrageous things,” the former governor said. “It would take money out of the classroom we we be back at where we were the year before I took office.”