Free Republic

At least 10 doctors not previously disciplined by the state signed sick notes for Madison School District employees that the district considered fraudulent, according to a State Journal analysis of the notes submitted amid Capitol protests earlier this year. The newspaper also found that about 570 district employees submitted sick notes for at least one of the four days in February when teacher absences forced a school shutdown. The number presents, for the first time, a clearer picture of how many Madison employees sought an excused absence. The documents - obtained by the newspaper Friday as part of a settlement...

Snip- "City officials temporarily denied Occupy Madison a new street use permit Wednesday after protesters violated public health and safety conditions and failed to follow the correct processes to renew or amend a permit..." "A neighboring hotel's staff alleged voiced concerns about having to recently escort hotel employees to and from bus stops late at night due to inappropriate behavior, such as public masturbation, from street protesters."

Federal health officials don't know yet whether a bat that made its way onto a jet earlier this month had rabies, but new reports of dead bats at the Wisconsin airport where the flight originated have added another level of caution. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the dead bats at the Madison airport raise concerns because bats usually don't die in open areas unless they are sick or injured. Baggage handlers reported the bats to investigators after hearing that the Aug. 5 Delta Flight 5121 had reported a live bat on the plane. There was a concern...

Somehow, liberal Mayor Paul Soglin of Madison, Wisconsin is still too conservative for some. The Capital Times reports there will be a protest (or a "memorial service for fallen fowl") tomorrow to denounce the city's unannounced Canada goose roundup. Leftist animal advocates said democracy died with the geese: "This is a chance for us to get together and mourn the loss to the community not only of the geese, but of the democratic process. We want to know the mayor and the Parks Commission know that we're not going to go away," says Kathie Free of Madison, an organizer of...

A paper published by several college professors, entitled Organizing the Curriculum for Labor Consciousness, calls for more weaving of Big Labor history and tactics into every day curriculum. Take the case of Kate Lyman, a teacher in the Madison, Wisconsin school district. According to an article she penned for the leftist Rethinking Schools magazine, she was swept into the protests by her daughter and Facebook, because “that’s how they did it in Egypt.” When teacher staged a “sick out,” Lyman described it as “four exhilarating days, four confusing days, four stressful and exhausting days.” For the record, she’s speaking of...

A Dane County judge ruled against naked bike riders Friday, declining to issue a temporary injunction to keep them from possibly being cited for disorderly conduct at a Downtown Madison event Saturday. Judge Maryann Sumi said participants in the World Naked Bike Ride do not have a constitutional right to be naked in public and that police should have the full range of laws at their disposal. Afterward, one of the ride's organizers said the event will go on.

Really ugly.

With lawmakers gearing up for a vote on the state budget, a “Walkerville” camp similar to the one that sprang up during the protests at the state Capitol earlier this year may be returning this weekend — this time to the terraces of Mifflin and Carroll streets. We Are Wisconsin, an alliance of community groups, labor unions and others, has asked the city for a permit to set up the camp across from the Capitol to provide information about Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposals and efforts to recall Republican legislators who voted to eliminate bargaining rights for most public employees.

More than 100 pages of public records released Thursday reveal again how high emotion, bad judgment and anti-social media combined in February to generate a nationwide investigation of threats against Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers on both sides of his budget-repair bill. Emails, Twitter streams, Facebook and Craigslist postings, phone calls and even a few notes sent by U.S. mail ranged from overt threats of violence to promises of political retaliation to benign-sounding requests for investigations of lawmakers' actions. A surprising number of even the most vile messages came from readily-identifiable senders. The vast majority of about 90 matters referred...

This is actually a course at UW Madison for sociology graduate students. One of the topics calls for a violent overthrow of the capitalist system. The head of the UW Havens center is part of the Wisconsin Wave, a left wing organization behind the union protests.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin headlines a "Tax Day" rally outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. Palin was quick to criticize President Barack Obama while emphasizing the importance of the 2012 election period. State authorities estimate 6,500 people were at the rally. Recorded Saturday, April 16, 2011.

Listen to this podcast. It details how the MTI (Madison teachers union) used a phone tree to initiate a sickout strike in Madison. Wildcat strikes are illegal in Wisconsin as a public employee.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin is asking for a federal investigation into the surprise discovery of 14,000 votes in Waukesha County for the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. The Wisconsin Democrat sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Friday night asking him to assign the Justice Department Public Integrity Section. It oversees the federal prosecution of election crimes.

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They were images that were odd, and to some shocking. In the halls of the Wisconsin Capitol on Saturday, young people banged drums, danced around, and blew horns as socialists and Marxist signs looked on. It was a scene described to The Blaze by a disgusted observer as a drug and alcohol-infested rave that Capitol police ignored. And while the Capitol Police deny those charges, it seems one prominent protester noticed something interesting, too.

The documentary filmmaker was in Wisconsin yesterday, slamming Republicans for cutting union benefits. Michael Moore has a message for Wisconsinites: Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe -- so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had -- America is not broke. The claim came at the beginning of a speech delivered by the documentary filmmaker and liberal firebrand at the Wisconsin State Captiol yesterday. Over the course of 30 minutes, Moore railed against Republicans, who he accused of misleading the American public when they claim that...

Milroy says guv's rhetoric caused rising tensions Rep. Nick Milroy says he's got no bruises or scrapes from being tackled last night by an officer trying to keep him from entering the Capitol. While physically he's fine, Milroy told reporters this morning he's "disgusted" by the policies this week that he says led to the incident. "My biggest frustration has been the lack of leadership from the governor," the Dem from South Range said. Milroy said Walker has continued to escalate the tensions at the Capitol by refusing to sit down and negotiate a compromise to his plan to end...

Madison - State officials said Thursday that damage to the marble inside and out the State Capitol would cost an estimated $7.5 million...

During the Governor's Budget Address an individual, later identified as William M. Gruber of California, breached the closed plaza perimeter multiple times. Each time he was asked to leave and was escorted out. After his third breach he once again laid down on the plaza as he had done before. Upon his third breach when asked again to leave, he instead ran toward the Capitol building and was apprehended. He was subsequently transported to the Dane County Public Safety Building. He has been charged with State Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Arrest.

Aaron Kennedy, the founder of Noodles, grew up on a farm with few to no connections to money. Like my friend Rob, Kennedy also studied at the University of Wisconsin. At 29, while eating at a Chinese restaurant, Kennedy had an idea, and scribbled his business plan on a napkin. Scraping some money together from his friends and family and maxing out eight credit cards, Kennedy opened the first Noodles in his basement, and then put together a team with whom he’d build and operate 100 Noodles branches all on their own. It is now a $75 million franchise with...