Armed Man Seeking Wisconsin Governor Arrested In State Capitol — Then Returned With Assault Rifle

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A man illegally brought a loaded handgun into the Wisconsin Capitol, demanding to see Gov. Tony Evers, and returned at night with an assault rifle after posting bail, a spokesperson for the state said Thursday.

The man, who was shirtless and had a holstered handgun, approached the governor’s office on the first floor of the Capitol around 2 p.m. Wednesday, state Department of Administration spokesperson Tatyana Warrick said. The man was demanding to see the governor, who was not in the building at the time, Warrick said.

Planned Parenthood Says It Will Resume Abortion Services in Wisconsin

On Thursday, two months after a state judge declared a 19th century anti-abortion law too ambiguous to enforce, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI) announced that it would resume abortion services in the state.

PPWI halted abortion services in June 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections that were recognized in Roe v. Wade. PPWI had cut off such services because it was uncertain whether a state law from 1849, which is still on the books in Wisconsin but had been blocked by Roe when it was decided in 1973, forbade the organization from continuing to provide the procedure.

GOP-Led Wisconsin Senate Votes To Fire Nonpartisan Official Targeted By 2020 Election Skeptics

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted Thursday to fire the battleground state’s nonpartisan top elections official, prompting a legal challenge from Democrats who say the vote was illegitimate.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a lawsuit that Senate Republicans don’t have the authority to oust Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe and accused them of attacking the state’s elections.

Wisconsin GOP votes to remove state’s elections chief

Wisconsin Republicans voted Thursday to fire the state’s elections chief just months before the battleground state’s presidential primary.

State senators voted 22-11 along party lines to fire Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, a bipartisan board that oversees election administration in the state. Wolfe’s position is a nonpartisan, non-voting one tasked with implementing the decisions made by the three Democratic and three Republican commissioners.

Wisconsin Supreme Court chief justice accuses liberal majority of staging ‘coup’

MADISON, Wis. — The conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday told the new liberal majority in a scathing email that they had staged a “coup” and conducted an “illegal experiment” when they voted to weaken her powers and fire the director of state courts.

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, in two emails obtained by The Associated Press, said that firing and hiring a new state court director was illegal and ordered interim state court director Audrey Skwierawski to stop signing orders without her knowledge or approval.

White Wisconsin cop caught on video repeatedly punching a Black teenager in the face

A white Wisconsin police officer repeatedly punched a 17-year-old Black teenager in the face, while a mall security officer restrained the teenager, according to cellphone video filmed by a bystander.

The incident took place Friday afternoon in the Mayfair Mall parking lot in Wauwatosa, a Milwaukee suburb. After the teen fell to the ground, the mall security officer and the police officer tried to hold the teenagers’ arms behind his back. The teenager asks for someone to call his mom, and the cop punches him in the back and the face again.

Will Wisconsin Get Foxconned?

President Trump, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and House Speaker Paul Ryan got a big political boost from the news that the Foxconn corporation is promising to bring thousands of  jobs to Wisconsin in a new factory for flat-panel display screens.

But caution is in order, as the Taiwan-based electronics giant is one of the world’s most brutal employers, notorious for driving workers to suicide.

Who Moved My Teachers?

The school of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison never used to have trouble attracting applicants with dreams of becoming teachers. Its graduate program is ranked fourth in the country by U.S. News & World Report, and until recently, its undergraduate program in elementary education typically received between 300 and 400 applications for its 125 spots. Now, says Michael Apple, a professor in the program, it only gets about one applicant per opening.

What happened? Scott Walker became Wisconsin’s governor in 2011 and promptly enacted a wide-scale rollback of unionization rights for state employees. That law, Act 10, effectively wiped out the ability of teachers and other public-sector workers to bargain collectively over salary and benefits.

Wisconsin Republican urges cuts to college aid to keep poor students from buying ‘goodies and electronics’

A Wisconsin Republican called for cuts to federal student aid because he doesn’t approve of the way some beneficiaries spend their money.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) complained Tuesday during a congressional hearing that low-income students are spending their Pell Grant funds on commercial goods that he deems unnecessary, reported Inside Higher Ed.

Wisconsin judge orders state GOP to redraw gerrymandered legislative districts

A federal court issued a ruling on Friday that the Wisconsin Republican Party is sure to dislike — namely, ordering it to redraw its state legislative districts so they aren’t gerrymandered to Republicans’ advantage.

This was a follow-up to a ruling in November in which a federal court determined that Wisconsin had drawn up its districts so as to give Republicans a constant advantage in state elections, according to The Washington Post on Saturday. The Wisconsin GOP’s actions were part of a larger national process in which Republican congressional leaders redrew nearly half of all congressional districts after the Republicans won 21 state legislatures during the 2010 midterm elections. As a result, even though Democratic state legislative candidates in Wisconsin received more votes than Republicans in the November 2016 elections, they only won 39 of that state’s 99 districts. Republicans are planning to appeal Friday’s decision to the Supreme Court.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources deletes accurate climate science from agency webpage

A webpage run by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources used to explain to visitors that climate change is both occurring and is the result of human activity. Now, visitors to the same webpage will find false information claiming that the cause of climate change is still a matter of scientific debate.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the department, which is in charge of the state’s environmental policy, among other things, quietly scrubbed language from a page about the Great Lakes and climate change, striking out entire sentences about human contributions to climate change.

Wisconsin Is Systematically Failing to Provide the Photo IDs Required to Vote in November

Madison, WI— Zack Moore, a 34-year-old African-American man, moved from Chicago to Madison last year. He worked at a car wash and then a landscaping job before breaking his leg and becoming unemployed. After staying with his brother, he’s now homeless and sleeping on the streets of Madison.

On September 22, he went to the DMV to get a photo ID for voting, as required by Wisconsin’s strict voter-ID law. He brought his Illinois photo ID, Social Security card, and a pay stub for proof of residence. But he didn’t have a copy of his birth certificate, which had been misplaced by his sister in Illinois, so the DMV wouldn’t give him an ID for voting. “I’m trying to get a Wisconsin ID so I can vote,” Moore told the DMV. “I don’t have my birth certificate, but I got everything else.”

This Embarrassing Interview Signals Donald Trump May Be In Trouble In Wisconsin

With the Wisconsin primary just a week away, the remaining presidential candidates are descending on the Badger State. National frontrunner Donald Trump, who hasn’t made a campaign appearance in several days, ventured Monday morning into unfriendly territory: Wisconsin talk radio, where hosts have been viciously criticizing Trump for months.

On Monday morning, influential radio host Charlie Sykes grilled Trump for nearly 10 minutes in an often uncomfortable interview, at one point scolding him for sounding more like a “12-year-old bully on the playground” than a candidate for president.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Appointed By Scott Walker Once Mocked 'Queers' Who Get AIDS

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) newly-appointed state Supreme Court justice, Rebecca Bradley, once wrote columns calling gay people "queers" and arguing that individuals who get AIDS deserve no sympathy.

Bradley is a conservative judicial superstar, rising through the ranks during Walker's tenure with the support of groups like the Wisconsin Club for Growth. The governor first named her to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in 2012, and then he elevated her to Wisconsin Court of Appeals in May 2015. In October, when a vacancy arose on the state Supreme Court, Walker again gave her a plum appointment.

Wisconsin Poised to Gut Its Campaign Finance and Anti-Corruption Laws

Scott Walker's presidential bid may have failed, but the Wisconsin governor and his Republican allies are making a massive push to transform the way the state conducts elections and investigates illegal campaign activity. If they're successful—and by all indications, they will be—by the end of this week, they will have uprooted Wisconsin's anti-public corruption laws and lifted restrictions on the money pouring into state elections.

Welcome to the Wholly Owned Koch Subsidiary Formerly Known as Wisconsin

Starting today, three bills are being rammed through the Wisconsin legislature that will put the final nails in the coffin of our state's long history of clean elections and accountable governance.

The same group of GOP leaders who attempted to gut the state's open records law over the 4th of July weekend are now calling for secrecy in campaign spending and for dismantling the two major avenues for investigating political corruption.

What could go wrong?

Stung by the campaign finance probe into a "John Doe" criminal investigation into potentially illegal coordination between Governor Scott Walker and independent secret money groups, the Koch-ALEC cabal is on the warpath.

Majority Of Wisconsin Voters Have Had Enough Of Scott Walker

Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) was forced to drop out of the presidential race in September amid plummeting primary poll numbers. Now, the governor is experiencing another set-back in the polls -- this time with Wisconsin voters.

Sixty-two percent of the state's electorate doesn't want Walker to run for a third term as governor, according to a Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday. Only 35 percent of voters expressed support for another run. Republican voters are much more enthusiastic about the idea, with 79 percent favoring an additional term.

Girls Charged In Slender Man Attack Will Be Tried As Adults

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge ruled Monday that two 13-year-old girls accused of stabbing a classmate to please the online horror character Slender Man will stay in adult court, where they could face a sentence of decades in prison.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren said he was worried that the girls would stop receiving mental health treatment and be released into the community with no supervision when they exited the juvenile system at age 18. Keeping them in the adult system would protect people longer, the judge said.

Scott Walker to sign legislation expanding gun rights in Wisconsin

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) plans to sign two new laws on Wednesday that expand the rights of gun owners by removing a 48-hour waiting period for those looking to purchase a firearm and allowing off-duty or retired police officers to carry concealed weapons at public schools. This action will come one week after a suspected gunman shot and killed nine people in an African American church in South Carolina, yet again prompting a national discussion about gun laws in the U.S.

Walker plans to sign the two pieces of legislation — Senate bills 35 and 70 — at a ceremony at the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday afternoon, according to a Tuesday evening press release from the governor's office. Laurel Patrick, a spokeswoman for the governor, said this bill-signing was scheduled and announced about two weeks ago, several days before the shooting occurred in South Carolina.

Wisconsin Abortion Ban Would Allow Father To Sue For Emotional Distress

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said this week that he would sign a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy that does not contain exceptions for rape and incest victims, if the bill reaches his desk. The measure also contains a less-discussed provision that would allow the father to sue the doctor for "emotional and psychological distress" if he disagrees with the abortion, regardless of his relationship with the woman having the procedure.

Wisconsin Assembly Bill 237 would ban abortions after 20 weeks "postfertilization," which doctors would measure as 22 weeks of pregnancy since pregnancies are usually measured from the woman's last menstrual period. If the bill becomes law, doctors who perform an abortion after this time could be charged with a felony and fined up to $10,000, or face up to three and a half years in prison.