Free Republic

In results that were stunning for several reasons, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was the runaway winner in a "straw poll" of Republican presidential favorites at Pennsylvania’s largest-ever gathering of conservatives, the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, on Friday and Saturday.With the "straw ballots" counted and released on Saturday, Walker was an easy winner with 91 votes, followed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with 58 votes. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was third with 56 votes.Since the first PLC back in 1989, the group has become the most-attended and most-watched conclave of conservatives in the Keystone State. Fueled by the recent campaigns of...

A couple of months ago, the New York Times reported on the religious-right movement’s restlessness ahead of the 2016 presidential campaign. Christian right leaders realize much of the Republican establishment is rallying behind Jeb Bush, but they believe “values voters” will still have a key role in the nominating process and the movement wants a standard bearer of their own. None of this came as a surprise. Indeed, we’ve seen social conservatives try these organizational efforts before, usually to little effect. What was surprising, however, was the religious right’s shortlist: “In secret straw polls and exclusive meetings from Iowa to...

Senator Ron Johnson (WI) released the following statement regarding his vote on S. 744, the Immigration Reform Bill: "America is a compassionate society, and no one wants to separate families by deporting moms and dads or husbands and wives. As a result, I support immigration reform and a path to legal status for people whose only crime was to enter the country illegally when they came here to work. I also recognize that our current immigration laws are not working – not for American workers, not for employers, and not for immigrants who want to come to America and play...

Back in 2011, a dust-up between several Wisconsin Supreme Court justices led to a series of headlines revealing a long history of Wisconsin’s highest court not playing nice together. In response to this disclosure, the State Legislature offered a constitutional amendment changing the way the Supreme Court chooses its chief justice, by electing one instead of giving the title to the longest serving member. This spring voters approved this constitutional amendment by a 53-47 margin. This new constitutional provision allows the seven justices to vote for a chief justice they believe will be best to lead the court. Less than...

Russ Feingold, the only US senator who voted against the 2001 Patriot Act, has announced he will launch a campaign to regain his seat in 2016. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, lost a re-election bid in 2010 to Ron Johnson, a Tea Party Republican. Feingold had served three terms. In a video released on Thursday and first obtained by the Huffington Post, Feingold says that “billionaires and big corporations are calling the shots” and “we need to get started fixing all this”. “Let’s fight together for change,” Feingold says. “That means helping to bring back to the US Senate strong independence,...

MADISON, Wis. — Russ Feingold announced Thursday he will run to reclaim the U.S. Senate seat he lost five years ago to Republican Ron Johnson, fulfilling the hopes of Democrats who have been pushing for the liberal to return to the political arena. Feingold said in a 90-second video to supporters that he will run for the seat in 2016.

An effort to investigate Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's political fundraising during his 2012 recall election cost Badger State voters $1.1 million, recently released court documents show. The investigation was halted last year after a judge determined that the activities alleged in the probe were not in fact illegal. The figures may grow higher. At least seven lawsuits relating to the "John Doe" probe, a secret investigative procedure available to state prosecutors, have been filed and litigation remains ongoing, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Patrick Marley. The Wisconsin Club for Growth, one of the targets of the probe, has appealed...

Hundreds of people protested Wednesday in Wisconsin's capital and more than two dozen were arrested for blocking a road a day after a prosecutor ruled that a Madison police officer's fatal shooting of an unarmed biracial teenager was justified. Brandi Grayson, co-founder of the Young Gifted and Black Coalition that organized the protest, said the group wanted community control over the hiring and firing of officers and a U.N. probe into racial disparities in Dane County and Wisconsin. "We don't have time-set goals. We understand the struggle for black liberation will be generational," Grayson said. Lakaya Horton, 13, of Madison,...

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) were essentially tied in Hot Air’s recurrent survey last month — although the latter had a slight edge. Roughly three weeks later, however, that same dynamic still holds true. Both Republican hopefuls are garnering roughly one-third of the vote each (with Ted Cruz faring a little bit better): As Patrick Ishmael notes, the sample size has almost doubled since April. Simply put, 2946 Hot Air readers participated in Hot Air’s primary survey this week, up from 1782 last month. Despite the larger sample size, however, the poll finds Cruz and Walker...

MADISON, Wis. -- A white Wisconsin police officer won't be charged for fatally shooting an unarmed 19-year-old biracial man, a prosecutor announced Tuesday, prompting peaceful demonstrations but none of the immediate violence that has hit some other U.S. cities in similar cases. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said he wouldn't file charges against Madison Officer Matt Kenny in the March 6 death of Tony Robinson, saying the officer used lawful deadly force after he was staggered by a punch to the head and feared for his life. Ozanne, mopping his brow repeatedly but speaking forcefully for some 25 minutes,...

It took Republicans three tries to win control of the US Senate and consolidate Congress under their leadership. In the end, the landscape left by the 2008 Democratic triumph left them uniquely vulnerable in the sixth-year midterm of an unpopular presidency. The tables will turn in 2016, warns National Journal’s Charlie Cook, as the gains of 2010 will make Republicans highly vulnerable to losing control of the Senate once again: Today, The Cook Political Report puts two Republican-held seats in the “Toss Up” category—the open seat in Florida and Kirk in Illinois. That toss-up column will certainly grow as...

Wisconsin is poised to shift to a new and unproven model of self-sufficiency for the state's sprawling state parks system. The changes could include more alliances with the private sector and naming rights at some park venues. A key legislative committee on Thursday called for the Department of Natural Resources to rely on traditional sources of cash, such as state park stickers, trail passes and fees paid for campsites, for future funding. It also called for the DNR to conduct a study to explore new revenue streams — but no longer rely on tax dollars. Nationally, state parks haven't been...

So apparently Scott Walker took a quiet trip to Israel this week and we are only finding out about it via his Twitter account: Great 1st day in Israel yesterday @ Western Wall, Mount of Olives, Church of the Holy Sepulchure & Via Dolorosa .....[SNIP]..... Thanks @netanyahu for the meeting. Our democracies share common values & work to confront shared threats -skw .....[SNIP].... Enjoy your trip Governor. Tell Netanyahu to forgive us for Obama and that he has our support.

May 11, 2015 By Staff Writer A five year old girl who had done nothing wrong was wantonly murdered as she sat on the lap of her grandfather. You haven’t heard about it? That’s not surprising; while the Al Sharptons and the Jesse Jacksons of the world posture and bloviate about violence and a lack of respect for human life that permeates communities, they routinely keep quiet about attacks that happen every single day in America unless the victim was a person of color and there are television cameras pointed at them. You see, the left isn’t interested in telling...

BREAKING:Charges will not be filed against MPD Officer Matt Kenny in the shooting death of Tony Robinson Updated: Tue 3:17 PM, May 12, 2015 MADISON, Wis.---BREAKING: DA Ozanne: Charges will not be filed against MPD Officer Matt Kenny in the shooting death of Tony Robinson. UPDATED: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 ---3:17 p.m. MADISON, Wis.---BREAKING: DA Ozanne: Charges will not be filed against MPD Officer Matt Kenny in the shooting death of Tony Robinson. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wisconsin voters last month approved a constitutional amendment giving justices the power to select the chief justice. Conservative-leaning justices then elected Justice Patience Roggensack as chief justice. But Abrahamson contends she remains chief justice and is suing in federal court.

Jim Geraghty has a piece on the home page today about how Jeff Sessions got Scott Walker’s ear on immigration. Here is a further statement from Sessions on the debate: >>>>Any political party that wants to win needs to demonstrate that it is willing to go to bat for working Americans. Perhaps no issue more divides a small handful of elites in Washington, D.C. from the American people than the issue of immigration. The idea that immigration should be increased beyond any level ever recorded — without any discussion of its social or economic impact — is not mainstream, but...

Authorities have arrested four people in the shooting deaths of two Mississippi police officers over the weekend, but the sheriff of Milwaukee County — more than 900 miles away, in Wisconsin — says there’s a fifth culprit on the loose. Suspect description: African American, slender build, salt-and pepper-hair, last seen wearing a blue power tie and sounding professorial. His alias: President Barack Obama. Less than 24 hours after Officers Benjamin J. Deen, 34, and Liquori Tate, 24, of the Hattiesburg Police Department were gunned down during a traffic stop, Milwakuee County Sheriff David A. Clarke linked the deaths to events...

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the all-but-declared Republican presidential candidate currently leading the polls in Iowa, sounds more like Alabama senator Jeff Sessions when he discusses immigration issues these days. “The next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal-immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages,” Walker told Glenn Beck on April 20. “It is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today, is what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that to...

Twenty-seven senators want President Obama to block federal agencies and contractors from asking job applicants about prior criminal convictions. The senators, including 26 Democrats and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), want Obama to take executive action to "ban the box," referring to a question on job applications that asks if an applicant has any convictions. "We ask you to require federal contractors and agencies to refrain from asking job applicants about prior convictions until later in the hiring process," they said in a letter to Obama on Monday. "This policy would eliminate unnecessary barriers to employment for all job...