Yearly Archives: 2024

(The Center Square) – On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted to override nine vetoes from Gov. Tony Evers, including the vetoes that scuttled PFAS clean-up money, millions of dollars that were earmarked for hospitals in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls and a plan that would allow advanced practice registered nurses to work more independently.

“The legislature has passed hundreds of bills to solve problems facing Wisconsin businesses and families. Most of these bills were signed into law, but many were vetoed by a governor more focused on politics than policies that help everyday Wisconsinites,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said Tuesday. “Overriding the governor’s obstructive vetoes is the last, best way to address these critical issues.”

The override votes came one day after Evers sued the legislature over nearly $200 million that is attached to some of his vetoes.

Most of that money is the $125 million that’s supposed to go toward PFAS clean up in Wisconsin.

“For the fifth time this legislative session, I voted to provide Wisconsin families with the largest investment in clean drinking water in state history – five more times than every Democrat legislator in this state combined. The bill that Gov. Evers vetoed (SB 312) would have created a grant program that targets this critical funding to areas of the state most heavily impacted by PFAS contamination while protecting innocent landowners from financial ruin,” Sen Duey Stroebel, R-Cedarburg, said.

Evers has accused the legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee of obstructing his plans to clean up Wisconsin’s drinking water, and of delaying his other actions across the state.

LeMahieu said Evers is simply playing the game.

“While Gov. Evers plays politics, the legislature will continue to do the right thing on behalf of the people of our state,” LeMahieu added.

Senate Democrats responded with game-playing accusations of their own.

“Coming in to do all these veto overrides was clearly a stunt to try to appeal to voters ahead of the fall election,” Den. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, said. “Clearly Republicans were hearing from things in their district and wanted political cover. I don't think they got political cover today. I think what they got was people realizing just how afraid they are.”

But Tuesday’s veto overrides are largely symbolic.

While Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate have a veto-proof majority, Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly do not.

With less than half a year until the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump holds a sizable lead over incumbent President Joe Biden in several swing states.

While the overall national polling varies and shows a tighter race, Trump holds significant leads in several swing states.

According to Real Clear Politics, Trump leads in a slew of key battleground states like Arizona (+5.2), Georgia (+4.6), Michigan (+0.8), Nevada (+6.2), North Carolina (+5.4), Pennsylvania (+2.0), and Wisconsin (+0.6).

Other polling has shown Trump with a dominant lead in the Sun Belt while performing less well against Biden in some rust belt swing states.

“As the old saying goes, good gets better and bad gets worse, and it’s clear President Biden is in bad shape right now,” Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, former campaign manager for U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and co-founder of South and Hill Strategies, told The Center Square. “Five and a half months is an eternity in politics, and there’s theoretically still time to right the ship, but it’s getting late early for the president, especially when Father Time remains undefeated and doubts about his age continue to grow. “

According to the Real Clear Politics’ national polling average, Trump leads Biden 46.1% to 44.9%.

A New York Times poll released this week showed leads for Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania but slightly trailing Biden in Wisconsin, raising concerns among supporters.

Trump’s lead has been in large part fueled by minority voters flocking to his side.

Meanwhile, Biden’s approval rating has plummeted since taking office. While that is not unusual for incumbents, Biden’s approval is lower than recent presidents.

Gallup recently released polling data showing that in the 13th quarter of Biden’s presidency, he averaged a 38.7% approval rating, worse than Trump at the same time in his term.

“None of the other nine presidents elected to their first term since Dwight Eisenhower had a lower 13th-quarter average than Biden,” Gallup said.

Axios reported this week that Biden and his team think the polls don’t represent Americans’ actual feelings and that the president’s position is strong.

“They're still 50% (well 45%) to win, per betting markets,” pollster Nate Silver wrote on X. “But Biden has been behind Trump in polls for a year now. His approval is in the tank, and voters have been clear they think he's too old. If Trump wins, history will not remember Biden kindly.”

Meanwhile, Trump spends valuable campaign time in a series of court appearances for his myriad of federal prosecution court dates.

“I’m under a gag order,” Trump told reporters after a court appearance Tuesday. “Nobody has actually seen anything like it ... I'm beating him in every poll and I have a gag order, so I think it's totally unconstitutional."

Republicans have blasted Biden for Trump’s prosecution, accusing Biden of using the Justice Department against his political opponent.

“Despite Far Left Democrats’ illegal election interference, President Trump is beating Joe Biden in the polls!” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., wrote on X Tuesday. “Voters see right through the sham Biden Trials and know President Trump is the best choice for president.”

As rioters take over college campuses setting up encampments, committing acts of violence, vandalism and antisemitism forcing some graduation ceremonies to be canceled, a coalition of Jewish groups has sued Palestinian groups arguing they are “collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.”

The global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the Schoen Law Firm, and the Holtzman Vogel law firm sued AJP Educational Foundation Inc., otherwise known as American Muslims for Palestine, and National Students for Justice in Palestine. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Virginia, Alexandria Division.

The plaintiffs are nine American and Israeli victims of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. They include survivors of the attack, family members of those Hamas murdered, and civilians still under fire from and displaced by Hamas’ continued aggression. The lawsuit alleges the plaintiffs continue to be injured by AMP and NSJP organizers who are knowingly providing “continuous, systematic, and substantial assistance to Hamas and its affiliates’ acts of international terrorism. AMP and NSJP are thus liable to Plaintiffs for the damages they incurred because AMP and NSJP aid and abet Hamas’s terrorism.”

They say they’ve experienced “a wide spectrum of physical and emotional injuries” as a result of the violence allegedly orchestrated by AMP and NJSP and are seeking compensatory damages.

“It is time that Hamas and all of its agents, like AMP and NSJP, be held responsible for their horrific actions,” they said in a joint statement. “We want to go on record to expose these groups for the terrorists they are and make certain that they are stopped from operating in the United States and other countries they infiltrate.”

Hamas, the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), was designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. “It is the largest and most capable militant group in the Palestinian territories and one of the territories’ two major political parties,” according to the National Counterterrorism Center.

The lawsuit alleges AMP and NSJP are “collaborators and propagandists for Hamas” because on October 8 they responded to a Hamas founder’s call to hold “resistance” events on college campuses. The NSJP published a “tool kit” for Palestinian students in the U.S. to use against Israeli “occupiers” and “Zionist media campaigns,” The Center Square reported.

AMP and NSJP maintain Hamas’ attack was justified, call for the destruction of Israel and death to Jews, and have targeted American Jewish students with acts of violence.

After Oct. 7, antisemitism and violence escalated against Jews in America by nearly 400%, The Center Square reported. Since then, violence has increased on college campuses with leaders failing to stop it, another report found.

The call to violence was responded to differently by Republican and Democratic governors. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an emergency declaration, instructed the state university system to deactivate pro-Palestinian student groups on campuses, and Florida law enforcement officers proactively cracked down on protestors.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott advanced efforts to combat antisemitism and state troopers quelled rioters attempting to take over the University of Texas in Austin. Unlike campuses in California and New York that were taken over by pro-Hamas encampments and in-person instruction and graduation ceremonies were canceled, no campuses were taken over in Texas and Florida, rioters were arrested, and graduation ceremonies are going forward.

After “day-of-rage” protests occurred last October, a poll found that a majority of Muslim-Americans surveyed, 57.5%, said Hamas “was justified in attacking Israel as part of their struggle for a Palestinian state,” The Center Square reported.

Included among them was U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, who was censured by Congress for her unapologetic support of Hamas. She claimed, the phrase being used by rioters, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” means it’s “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”

Hamas disagrees. Its preamble to the 1988 Hamas Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement includes the famous claim, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it,’” The Center Square reported.

White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby has also acknowledged, “Hamas does have genocidal intentions against the people of Israel. They’d like to see it wiped off the map. They’ve said so on purpose. That’s what’s at stake here.”

“This case is very simple: When someone tells you they are aiding and abetting terrorists—believe them,” Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center said.

Richard Edlin, Vice Chair of Greenberg Traurig, said free speech doesn’t include hate speech. “It is deeply ironic that the same people carrying signs saying, ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Jews’ claim they are protected by free speech,” he said. “They are not. Free speech has never included the active support of terrorism, and it has never protected the destruction of private property or the brutalization of innocent men, women, and children of many faiths, not just Jews.

“If the defendants believe they can set up operations in America to create a mass culture of fear, threats, violence, and intimidation to undermine our cherished educational institutions, affect our governmental policies, and force Hamas’s evil ideology on American or Israeli soil, they are about to find out how mistaken they are.”

(The Center Square) – Six months before Election Day, Milwaukee’s mayor has made a change at the top of his city’s elections commission.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson on Monday announced Paulina Gutiérrez as the new executive director of Milwaukee’s Election Commission.

“Paulina’s integrity and capabilities are ideally suited to this position. She will lead the office at an important juncture when public scrutiny of the work of the department will be extremely high,” Johnson said in a statement. “I have confidence in her, and I will make certain the department has the resources it needs to fulfill its duties.”

Johnson’s statement was silent on the fact Gutiérrez’s promotion means the former head of the commission, Claire Woodall, is being replaced.

The mayor told WISN TV that Woodall was offered a different position at the city, but he added that she apparently doesn’t want that job "as it stands right now."

Johnson also said the decision to make the change has more to do with the latest cycle of mayoral appointments than anything else.

Woodall has been in charge of the commission since 2020. She was appointed by former Milwaukee Mayor Tim Barrett, and she came under intense scrutiny for how she handled the 2020 election.

Woodall also faced questions after one of her chief deputies, Kimberly Zapata, mailed three fake military ballots to a Republican lawmaker.

Zapata said she mailed the ballots to warn State Rep. Janel Brandtjen about a weakness in Wisconsin’s electoral system. Zapata was convicted in the case, and last week a judge sentenced her to probation and a fine.

Gutiérrez has served as Milwaukee’s deputy director at the elections commission since early 2023. She begins her new position immediately. She sent an email to the Elections Commission staff over the weekend.

"Change, especially when it is unexpected, can often be unsettling," she wrote. "The experience of changing leadership is demanding and uncertain as we navigate uncharted waters and relearn to collaborate and communicate as an organization.”

Johnson made four other appointments Monday. He named Jim Bohl as city innovation director, as well as naming Jordan Primakow to be Milwaukee’s new legislative liaison director.

Johnson named former alderman Khalif Rainey to be Milwaukee’s new director of the office of African American affairs. And finally, the mayor named Veronica Rudychev as city labor negotiator.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Democrat leadership continued its push for drop boxes as Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a response brief with the Wisconsin Supreme Court to allow them.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers filed a brief in early April looking overturn a ruling from 2022 that said ballot drop boxes are not allowed under state law.

Kaul wrote that, by spring 2021, 570 drop boxes were placed across 66 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties and the share of Wisconsin voters casting an absentee ballot increased from 6% to 30% from 2002 to 2022.

Kaul argued Wisconsin law does not prohibit drop boxes.

“Voting should be safe, secure and accessible — and drop boxes are,” Kaul said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the use of drop boxes has been swept into the broader and baseless attacks on our elections and our democracy.

“Through our filing, we’re arguing that Wisconsin law does not prohibit the use of drop boxes, and that clerks should be able to determine whether to offer this convenient method of voting in their communities.”

U.S. House committees are investigating “ideological bias” of National Public Radio (NPR), a nonprofit news organization established by Congress and partially funded by taxpayers.

NPR has come under fire after its former editor Uri Berliner said it had "lost America's trust" and criticized NPR’s Chief Executive Officer, Katherine Maher, for her focus on combating “misinformation” and reportedly criticizing the First Amendment.

Maher, who is connected to several global economic organizations, including the World Bank and World Economic Forum, has donated solely to Democratic political candidates, The Center Square first reported.

The House investigation is being spearheaded by House Energy and Commerce Committee chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA, and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith, R-VA. An oversight hearing is scheduled for Wednesday to examine NPR’s alleged “viewpoint discrimination.”

“NPR is entrusted with Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars. Serious allegations from a then-senior editor who spent decades at NPR reveal NPR engages in viewpoint discrimination and ideological bias that caters to a narrow, leftwing audience,” Rodgers and Griffith said in a joint statement. Citing a list of allegations, they said they “are deeply troubling and merit congressional investigation.”

NPR is funded by taxpayer money and donations from the general public and large philanthropic organizations, including the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation has funded advocacy efforts for years related to “green energy,” “global warming” and now “climate change,” most recently dedicating $1 billion “to advance people-centered climate action.” This includes funding several news outlets’ climate desks, including NPR’s, as stated on its funds’ various websites.

The foundation’s efforts were instrumental in pressuring President Joe Biden’s directive to halt new permits for liquified natural gas exports, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Biden administration did so at a time when US LNG exports, led by Texas, have provided a lifeline to European allies that were previously depended on Russian oil, The Center Square exclusively reported. Natural gas has proven to be one of the cleanest energy sources and most reliable, with 2023 being a record year for domestic natural gas consumption, made possible by Texas production, The Center Square reported.

The Rockefeller Foundation was one of NPR’s founding donors helping its “Climate Desk” to launch in 2022 “to do stories that shape the national conversation on climate change,” it said. NPR claims, “climate related weather disasters are upending the way people live from China to California, from Pakistan to Florida. These extreme events have caused a global food crisis, the rise of new diseases and the displacement of millions of people.”

Initial climate reporters were funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Rockefeller Foundation, NPR said. From Oct. 1, 2022, through June 30, 2024, the Rockefeller Foundation donated $500,000 to NPR for its “climate change news.”

“Charities controlled by members of the Rockefeller family and billionaire donors were key funders of a successful campaign to pressure President Biden to pause new approvals of liquefied natural gas exports from the U.S.”, the Journal reported. The funds it refers to include the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) founded by John D. Rockefeller’s great-grandchildren, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, founded by his five sons.

John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in 1870, building his wealth in kerosene and gasoline to become the first billionaire in America and the wealthiest person in the country. By 1880, Standard Oil controlled 90% of the oil produced in the U.S., CNN Business reported. “Rockefeller's estimated $1.4 billion net worth in 1937 was equivalent to 1.5% of U.S. GDP. According to this metric he was (and still is) the richest individual in American business and economic history,” according to Harvard Business School.

In 2018, the RFF created the Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas, explaining its efforts to prioritize opposing coal and help “groups that are fighting the development of oil, gas, plastics, and petrochemicals infrastructure.”

Its goal is to curtail U.S. oil and gas production and prevent development “of massive new domestic infrastructure” as “an urgent and necessary part of solving the climate crisis.” It stated core purpose “is to limit ongoing oil and gas production; prevent the lock-in of GHG-emissions for new and expanded oil, gas, and petrochemical infrastructure; and weaken the industry’s financial standing and political influence.”

The RFF, through the FCOG, finances numerous groups “to enact aggressive policies at the state and national levels to reduce carbon emissions; disrupt the life cycle of fossil fuels from drilling and mining to transportation and exporting,” among other actions.

Dozens of NPR articles share a common theme in highlighting natural gas plant pollution, its harm to the environment and its effect on climate change. Regularly cited sources also appear to work for advocacy groups funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, including the Environmental Integrity Project. Many articles claim industrial air pollution from oil and natural gas companies is already, or will in the future, primarily negatively impact low-income, black neighborhoods.

The Gulf Coast environment primarily in the oil and gas producing states of Texas and Louisiana would suffer, especially if more LNG export facilities are built, NPR-affiliated authors wrote. In one report, it warns, “Soon more natural vistas here could be lost,” referring to Cameron Parish, Louisiana, a major oil and natural gas hub. It also solely interviewed opponents of LNG plants in the parish, reporting that after the U.S. became the top LNG exporter, “as the industry has grown, so has opposition.”

In other articles, NPR posits that tax credits helped fund union workers’ six-figure salaries and water pollution allegedly created by oil and gas companies created racial inequities.

NPR also claims Biden’s LNG permit ban “doesn’t affect more than a dozen plants that are already operating, or that are under construction or have received permits. Nor will it halt the export of gas.”

It also reported LNG exports “drove up utility bills for citizens,” a claim refuted by federal data, The Center Square first reported.

NPR also claimed, “oil field flaring emits five times more methane than expected,” when data from the World Bank, EIA, EPA and other agencies found that natural gas companies in the Permian Basin produce some of the cleanest natural gas in the world, The Center Square first reported. As natural gas production and LNG exports exponentially increased, Texas producers also led the United States in emissions reductions, the data shows.

A high-ranking official with the New York Police Department said protesters had weapons including knives and hammers as well as pamphlets with "Death to America!" written on them.

Michael Kemper, a NYPD's chief of transit, posted photos Friday of what police confiscated from the protesters.

“For those romanticizing the protests occurring on college campuses, ‘Death to America!’ is one sentiment that runs counter to what we believe in, what we stand for, and what many have fought for on behalf of this country,” Kemper stated on X. “And if you think the words written on this piece of paper are disturbing … you should hear the vile, disgusting, hateful, & threatening words coming out of the mouths of far too many of these so called ‘peaceful protestors.’”

Kemper posted a video of a pamphlet that stated, “Death to Israeli Real Estate” and “Death to America!” The pamphlet also stated, “DISRUPT/RECLAIM/DESTROY Zionist business interests everywhere!”

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry posted on X photos of items he said the police confiscated from protesters who took over Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. The photo showed gas masks, ear plugs, helmets, goggles, tape, hammers, knives, ropes, and a book on terrorism. The book is by Charles Townshend, Professor of International History at Keele University in England. It was published in 2011 and is 161 pages.

"These are not the tools of students protesting, these are the tools of agitators, of people who were working on something nefarious," Daughtry said on X. "Thankfully, your NYPD was able to prevent whatever they were planning and stop them before they could do it."

Kemper asked who was organizing the protests.

"However, as we have been stating for the past 2 weeks, there is an underlying radical indoctrination of some of these students. Vulnerable and young people being influenced by professional agitators. Who is funding and leading this movement?" Kemper asked on X.

Kemper also posted a letter from The New School requesting the NYPD's assistance in removing protesters from their campus on Friday.

"The actions and continuing escalation of these individuals are a substantial disruption of the educational environment and regular operations of the university," the letter stated.

The New School is a university in New York City. It closed all academic building on Friday and classes were moved to online. The college said classes on campus would resume Saturday.

Fox News reported that 56 protesters were arrested at The New School and New York University.

(The Center Square) – A Northwoods’ congressman says he has the science on his side in the debate over what to do about the gray wolf.

Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany got his plan to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list through the House. It was a close vote, just 209 to 205, and the plan faces a dim future in the U.S. Senate.

Still, Tiffany said there’s more than enough evidence that the gray wolf population is large enough to remove it from the protected list.

“The science is clear; the gray wolf has met and exceeded recovery goals,” Tiffany said in a statement. “[This vote] represents an important first step towards restoring local control over the skyrocketing gray wolf population in Wisconsin.”

Tiffany said there have been plenty of attacks on dogs, deer and cattle in Wisconsin that prove his point.

Keith Mark, founder and CEO of Hunter Nation, said the proposal to de-list the gray wolf should get a vote in the Senate.

“Wildlife should not be a partisan issue. Unmanaged wolf populations are causing significant problems in states that have both Republican and Democrat Senators,” Mark told The Center Square.

Hunter Nation has been one of the loudest voices in the debate over how to handle wolves in Wisconsin.

Mark said Tiffany’s plan is not only based in science, it is based in the government’s own data and suggestions.

“What message does it send when we place an animal on the list, set population goals and establish strict management criteria for de-listing, and when the animal achieves the pre-set population goals, it is not taken off of the endangered list? By every metric set from the onset, wolves have far exceeded every population goal established. Gray wolves are no longer endangered. They need to be managed at the state level like all other wildlife,” Mark added.

But even if that did happen, the future of wolves in Wisconsin is likely sealed.

The Wisconsin DNR is moving ahead with its own wolf management plan that essentially forbids wolf hunting and trapping.

Hunter Nation is opposed to that, as is Tiffany and many of Wisconsin’s other Republican congressmen.