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I am 37 years old, and I don't remember my mom. In fact, I know very little about her. I don't know her birthday. I don't know what made her laugh. I don't know what made her cry. What I do know is that on Sept. 8, 1979, she committed suicide with a gun that her father — my grandfather — had given her despite the fact that she suffered from depression and had previously attempted suicide with pills as a teenager. She died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, alone in her car on the side of...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday said he opposes the U.S. opening its borders to take in more refugees from Syria. “No, we shouldn’t be taking on any more Syrian refugees right now,” he said at the Governor’s Small Business Summit in Eau Claire, Wis., according to Wisconsin Public Radio. “In the last year, America has received almost 70,000 refugees, of which nearly 2,000 are from Syria,” the 2016 GOP presidential candidate said. “We’ve spent something like $4 billion in humanitarian relief in terms of helping the situation in Syria.” “So, we’re doing more than any country in the world...

(CNSNews.com) – Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger opposed the Catholic Church for decades because of its moral teachings and its theology in general, to the point that in 1960, when John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for president, Sanger said if he were elected, she would “find another place to live.”Sanger (1879-1966), in her many writings and speeches, frequently attacked the Catholic Church, describing it as among the “arch-enemies to hinder the progress of enlightenment” and determined to destroy America’s “liberties” and establish its own “rules & dominion.”  In early July 1960, when then-Senator John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was about...

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign will make its first stop in the Badger State on Sept. 10, 2015. The visit, with a private fundraiser and a public event at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, comes one month to the day after Clinton proposed a 10-year, $350 billion college affordability plan. That plan aims to reduce the cost of four-year public schools, make two-year community colleges tuition-free and cut student loan interest rates. Speaking about the plan the next day, Aug. 11, 2015, the Democratic frontrunner took a swipe at the Republican White House contenders and singled out Gov. Scott Walker. "I...

Republican Donald Trump isn’t going away anytime soon, I now believe. That assessment doesn’t mean I think Trump is the favorite for the Iowa caucuses or the GOP nomination, but it does reflect a fundamental shift in my thinking. I can no longer say that with any certainty, though it remains the single most likely outcome. Trump’s favorable rating jumped from 27 percent in the May Selzer & Company’s Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics to 61 percent in the August 23-25 Selzer survey. At the same time, his unfavorable rating dropped from 63 percent to...

Boston (CNN) --- President Barack Obama lambasted Republican presidential candidates Monday, charging the GOP is treating American workers like a hostile force while looking out only for the rich. Obama delivered a Labor Day speech in Boston, where he traveled to unveil a new executive order he signed forcing companies who contract with the federal government to provide paid sick leave to their employees. Obama, saying he was relieved to not be on the ballot next November, hit at Republicans who he claimed were espousing policies that would erode the middle class. "We're starting to hear a lot about middle-class...

Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and author of “Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective,” Thomas Sowell said that he likes Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal the most out of all the candidates in the GOP field on Tuesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel. When asked if there were any Republican presidential candidates that “grabs your attention the most, that you like the most?” Sowell answered, “I guess there are two. Governor Scott Walker, and Governor Bobby Jindal. And my main reason is that they have — they are people who have done things, and have...

As you watch your children board the school bus for the first day back to classes, consider this: That school bus driver is likely forced to pay fees to a union as a condition of driving that bus. Why? Because he or she works in one of the 25 forced-unionism states in America — states where it is lawfully permissible to force a worker to pay fees to a union as a condition of employment. You're not alone if this sounds absurd. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly 80 percent of your fellow Americans agree: No worker should be...

~~~Sparring with ObamaOn Monday, Obama criticized Walker for his actions without naming the governor."He is bragging about how he destroyed collective bargaining rights in his state," Obama said in a Labor Day speech in Boston. "And (he) says that busting unions prepares him to fight (the terrorist group) ISIL. I didn't make that up. That's what he said."..The governor hit back Monday, saying Act 10 had saved billions of dollars through lowering the compensation packages of public workers."What we did in Wisconsin was taking the power away from the big government union bosses and put it back in the hands...

The rise of Donald Trump might represent some massive sea change in American politics—but it’s far more likely he will fade long before the primary season does. Thanks to Trump, August was a blockbuster month for the political press, but most of what is happening now won’t decide who is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017 -snip- #7. Trump is still unlikely to be the nominee. We’re not disputing that Donald Trump is the clear polling frontrunner on the GOP side, or that he has struck a chord with millions of voters unimpressed with politicians that “talk rather than do.”...

".....The reform-minded Trump of decades past is a far more attractive figure than his current incarnation, at least in the eyes of the pro-legalization advocates of today. “Well, I certainly think he had it right in 1990, and what he said then actually seemed to understand the situation,” David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Daily Beast. “My sense is that looking for consistent philosophy or even policies in Donald Trump’s statements is a pretty fruitless exercise.” Boaz also pointed out that Trump recently voiced his support for medical marijuana, and that when asked about...

MADISON, Wis. (CN) - Wisconsin's former chief justice is taking her fight to regain her position to a federal appeals court. Justice Shirley Abrahamson lost her position as chief justice of the state's Supreme Court in April, after voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that changed how the court's top judge is selected. Previously, the justice with the most seniority held the position of chief justice; the amendment, however, empowered the judges on the court to choose their own chief justice. On April 29, the four of the court's seven justices voted by email to elect Patience Roggensack...

If you live in Wisconsin or any state that supports "local control" of schools, here is some exciting news. School districts that replace Common Core Standards with a different set of standards are entitled to receive state and federal funding. The process is simple. It is time to stop complaining and take some action. Become a voice for the children. [....] Those states that are not local control states have the right to reject Common Core Standards and replace them with a preferable set of standards according to Article 10 in the U.S. Constitution and to three federal statutes: The...

One of the more effective ways for government officials to shut out the public from policy issues and debate is to simply ignore the issues. Don't bring up matters of public concern; look the other way if someone else does. I'd guess that more bills have been buried in some state legislative committee by Democrats and Republicans than there are tombstones in Forest Home Cemetery. A couple of examples were offered Thursday when a delegation from the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort met with the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board. One bill would require background checks on all gun sales. Another would prohibit...

In the most recent Iowa GOP Poll, Jeb Bush polled at 6%. But the poll's margin of error is plus or minus 5.5%. That means Bush may be as high as 11.5%, or as low as .5%, which could be rounded off to zero. Isn't that incredible for the "inevitable" $120 million dollar man, who now may be at zero percent in Iowa, and not doing much better (only 8%) in New Hampshire? Do you think it would help if Bush ran some Spanish language ads calling himself a Conservative? The secondary story in all this is that Scott Walker...

Meanwhile, in the Republican presidential race, Donald Trump now holds a seven-point lead in Iowa and a 16-point one in New Hampshire. In the Hawkeye State, Trump gets the support from 29 percent of potential GOP caucus-goers, while Ben Carson receives 22 percent. There's a steep drop off after that: Jeb Bush gets 6 percent; Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul and Scott Walker get 5 percent; and Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal are at 4 percent. In July, Walker was ahead of the Iowa Republican field at 19 percent, Trump was second at 17 percent and Bush was third...

With his poll numbers plummeting in crucial early states, Walker has floundered as Trump has surged...

BERLIN, N.H. -- The Republican primary's scramble to the right has led to pointed criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, and of the Obama administration's approach to police reform. After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) criticized the president for "vilifying" law enforcement, other candidates found reasons to blame Democrats for an atmosphere where protesters could chant threats to police. "In the last six years under President Obama, we've seen a rise in anti-police rhetoric," wrote Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) in an op-ed this week. "Instead of hope and change, we've seen racial tensions worsen and a tendency to use law...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal hit Donald Trump on the front-running presidential candidate's response to the ongoing debate about the jailing of the Kentucky clerk who refused marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Trump had discussed the punishment Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis faced for disobeying the law on MSNBC. "I hate to see her put in jail," Trump told MSNBC. "[But] the Supreme Court has ruled. That's the law of the land." Sensing an opportunity on the campaign trail, Jindal rebuked The Donald in a series of tweets, exclaiming, "You can't make America great again by throwing Christians in jail.""I understand...

MILWAUKEE (CN) - Dollar General fired a man convicted of possessing graphic child pornography, only to have Wisconsin officials upbraid it for discrimination, the store claims in court. The Vonnegutian tale appears in a petition filed Thursday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court by Dolgen, the parent company of a Dollar General on South 27th Street that hired Michael Ionetz as its manager in May 2010. One month on the job, Ionetz was charged with 22 counts of child pornography, Dolgen says. The company's complaint gives a sickening account of the data that the state claimed to have found on Ionetz's...