Free Republic

18 states allow for recall votes on US Senators. The 18 states allowing for recall are as follows: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. The Senate oath of office is: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well...

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has just signed a bill into law that forces schools to teach the glories of organized labor and collective bargaining. Doyle has received significant campaign contributions from labor unions over the years prior to forcing their special interest agenda into the classroom. Ever since unions have been involved in teaching, our system has spiraled into laughable mediocrity. It is what happens when you abandon actual education to turn children into racially-sensitive little environmentalists. Teachers' unions even tried to have the fact that 9/11 was committed by Muslim extremists scrubbed from the history books. Their effect on...

CHILTON, Wis. (AP) -- Two Wisconsin women accused of seeking revenge on a cheating lover by gluing his penis to his stomach have reached plea deals. Forty-eight-year-old Therese Ziemann, of Menasha, was accused of doing the actual gluing.

Upwards of 40 percent of all land in the United States is already under some form of government control or ownership -- 800 million to 900 million acres out of America's total 2.2 billion acres. The government now appears poised to wield greater control over private property on a number of fronts. The battle over private property rights has intensified since 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo v. City of New London case that the government could take property from one group of private landowners and give it to another. Outraged over that ruling and a series...

SHEBOYGAN √ — A Waldo man accused of urinating on a police officer during his fifth drunken-driving arrest has been sentenced to a year in jail. Court records released Wednesday show 36-year-old Daniel L. Shilts Jr. of Waldo was also fined about $3,600 and had his driver's license revoked for three years.

Back door gun registration is being proposed for Wisconsin by Senators Coggs, Taylor and Lassa; Representatives Richards, Staskunas, Turner, Young, Sinicki, Berceau, Colon, Grigsby, Fields, Pasch, Kessler, Zepnick and Toles. SB 367 is yet another attempt to infringe upon lawful gun owners in Wisconsin by making it a crime not to report a lost or stolen gun within 48 hours of discovering the loss or theft. I am not clear how anyone will know if a stolen gun that shows up at a crime scene just 5 hours after it was stolen is your gun or to whom it belongs....

Police in Wisconsin are trying to determine why a Minneapolis cab driver jumped from his cab before it crashed, and why his passenger ran from the scene. Baldwin police say a Blue and White cab crashed into a light pole and then hit a parked car in the Greenfield Elementary School parking lot around 6:40 p.m. Sunday. Responding officers found the driver, Abdi Mohamed Askar, 38, lying on the sidewalk. People who witnessed the crash followed the passenger when he ran away. Police caught up with him two blocks away and arrested him for leaving the scene of an accident....

Raleigh, N.C. – Democrats are having to work harder than expected to defend a lot of their Senate seats in 2010, but it doesn’t look like Wisconsin will be one of them. Russ Feingold leads former Governor Tommy Thompson 50-41 in a possible match up. He takes 88% of the Democratic vote to Thompson’s 82% of the Republican vote and also holds a 47-41 lead with independents. Thompson no longer has the popularity that propelled him to four terms as Governor. 45% of voters in the state have an unfavorable opinion of him to just 38% who view him positively....

Revenge of the Iraqi detainees: Brett Favre jokes Fri Nov 20,2009 By Rick Chandler You think you know how to torture, America? Waterboarding is for schoolchildren. Detainees locked in an internment camp in Iraq are mocking their captors -- members of the Wisconsin National Guard -- with Brett Favre jokes. Evil bastards! It all started when the National Guardsmen began decorating their trucks and other areas of Camp Cropper with Packers colors recently. The prisoners picked up on it, did some research (Wiraqipedia?), and began with the Favre barbs. What goes around comes around, I suppose. I blame Dick Cheney....

Wow! Just WOW! I was looking online for work when I came across an add, "Campaign Manager, Plover Wisconsin" - looked a little deeper and ended up at his site. You really got to check this out. Only thing I came away with is, "Can't do any worse than what we have now." GO GEORGE GO! Enjoy

Supervisor Toni Clark is subject of secret criminal investigation Milwaukee County Supervisor Toni Clark is the subject of a secret criminal investigation into possible campaign finance abuses, the Journal Sentinel has learned. Clark declined Tuesday to answer questions about the matter. Last month, she filed three amended campaign reports with the county Board of Election Commissioners. In those reports, Clark admitted she took in and spent money from her campaign fund in the past three years after she earlier swore that her campaign was inactive during those times, according to public records filed with the board. .... Trip not probed...

Federal Bench: Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution. Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also another in a series of activist judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is not...

This 640-pound concrete elk statue lies on its side in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye’s home in rural Viroqua. The dead buck lies about 20 feet away. A love-struck buck ran out of luck a week ago. The seven-point buck was killed when it rammed a 640-pound concrete statue of an elk in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye's home in rural Viroqua. Bucks often fight during the breeding season, commonly called the rut. Dominant bucks defend breeding territories and female deer by sparring with subordinate bucks. Antler battles sometimes result in the death of one or...

WEST ALLIS, Wisc. – Sarah Palin rallied thousands of abortion opponents Friday night with a a stark warning that the same philosophy that allows abortion rights could soon be invoked to allow the government to cut off health care for the elderly or children with special needs. Speaking to a fund-raising banquet of Wisconsin Right to Life, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee asserted that if policy-makers don’t believe a child in the womb is valuable, then “perhaps the same mind-set applies to other persons.” “What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn’t have...

Palin remains a potent force in national politics even after her abrupt resignation as Alaska's governor. Her future political plans - including the possibility of a presidential run in 2012 - remain unclear. She has kept in touch with tens of thousands of her admirers through online social networking tools. She used President Barack Obama's mantra of change to make her political points. "Let's talk about change we can believe in," Palin said. "Friends, a majority of Americans identify as pro life, and thank God for that." She called health care reform a "government takeover" and called on House Speaker...

First of all, let me start with how Governor Palin looked tonight. We all know that she is a beautiful woman, but that does not come close to describing how she looked. She was stunningly beautiful tonight. Maybe better than I have ever seen her look when I have seen her in person. She had on a 2 piece pink business suit on. Not really pink, but a fuchsia, close to a red color. Very tan and nowhere near as thin as she was immediately after her resignation. To me, that was a little too thin. The Governor wore her...

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel posted this photo essay showing the HUGE lines of people being forced to wait outside in the rain for flu shots.

This should be an exciting campaign season for the GOP. There is renewed energy in the Conservative movement and renewed interest in our founding documents and the first principles. I myself joined the local party after the recent election loss in 2008. I looked at the loss not as defeat but as opportunity to regain control of the Republican brand. However, I am finding it is a much more daunting task than I had imagined. It seems with all the cries of protest at Tea Parties and Town Halls, our voices are still not being heard. . . even by...

October 22, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://milwaukee.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/mw102209.htm Forty-One Defendants Federally Indicted in Racine Gang Case United States Attorney Michelle L. Jacobs announced today that two indictments were unsealed in federal court charging 41 defendants with various drug-trafficking offenses. The defendants, many of whom are alleged to be members of the Vice Lords and North Side Gangster Disciples street gangs, are charged with, among other things, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A) and 846. The defendants are identified as: Starsius T. Barnes, a.k.a. “Star” (32), Brian T....

Hundreds of armed people filled a Hudson park Saturday afternoon as part of an anti-tax and pro-second amendment rally.

HAYWARD, Wis. – Shoppers in a Wisconsin grocery store got an unexpected surprise when a 125-pound black bear wandered inside and headed straight for the beer cooler. The bear stopped Friday night at Marketplace Foods in Hayward,.. It calmly climbed up 12 feet onto a shelf in the beer cooler where it sat for about an hour while employees helped evacuate customers and summoned wildlife officials.

Continuing hard times at Harley-Davidson came to something of a head Thursday with the announcement that the company was killing its Buell line of sport bikes almost immediately and actively looking for a buyer for its MV Agusta brand. Harley, which is based in Milwaukee, also disclosed continuing losses at its finance unit and a decline in sales of its heavyweight Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Overall, Harley’s net income for the third quarter plunged by 84 percent from last year, which was also a down year for the company. The Buell brand, based in East Troy, Wis., will shut down later this...

State creates or retains 8,284 jobs with stimulus funds By Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Oct. 13, 2009 2:00 p.m. Madison — Wisconsin state government has used federal economic stimulus money to create or retain 8,284 jobs in Wisconsin, mostly by saving public-sector jobs. A brief report released Tuesday by Gov. Jim Doyle provided details on money spent by state government, but did not cover funds awarded directly to local governments and the University of Wisconsin System. Those numbers will be made public later. More than 6,100 jobs for police officers, teachers and other government workers were retained...

Freeze warning issued for southeast WisconsinBy Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Oct. 10, 2009 The National Weather Service has issued a freeze warning for all of southeastern Wisconsin from 10 p.m. Saturday to 9 a.m. Sunday. Temperatures will fall into the 20s and end the growing season for 2009, the weather service said, noting that any sensitive outdoor plants left uncovered will perish. West winds are ushering in a polar air mass and delivering unseasonably cold air. Michael Fish, meteorologist for WTMJ-TV, Channel 4, says that overnight lows will be the mid- to upper-twenties in most places. On...

Dairy farmers are pressing federal antitrust regulators to investigate why large food companies are making hefty profits while farmers are going broke. The average dairy farm in the state lost about $100 per cow per month this summer, according to the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. With more than 1.25 million cows in the state, it means the industry is losing roughly $4 million a day. ~~ Snip ~~ Feingold said he wants the Justice Department to reconsider the 2001 Dean Foods merger with Suiza Foods that helped make Dean the nation's largest milk processor and distributor. He also wants antitrust...

From: Date: Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:22 AM Subject: Sunday Oct 4th, 0% Tax Increase Rally, Serb Hall 2-4PM! To: You : You are one of many people in Southeastern Wisconsin who attended the Milwaukee Tea Party and had expressed an interest in holding down taxes and holding politicians accountable for their actions. As you may know there is another battle raging in Milwaukee County that has implications for all counties in the area. We are asking for your help by inviting you to join us for a Rally and a show of force that demands that government live...

On Tuesday, Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan immigrant who was a teenager in Queens during the Sept. 11 attacks, pleaded not guilty to federal terrorism conspiracy charges in New York. This is a scary story. Police stopped and searched Zazi's rented car on the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 10, as the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks loomed and President Obama was about to join world leaders at a U.N. confab. According to the U.S. attorney's office, Zazi flew to Pakistan in August 2008 to receive bombmaking instructions, returned to use the Internet and nine pages of handwritten bombmaking...

Nov. 29, 2006 – In the ongoing battle to eradicate lead poisoning, state and local governments have begun targeting the companies that sold toxic paint before it was banned for residential use in 1978. This week, grassroots activists are taking that fight to the streets. Toolbox Email to a Friend Print-friendly Version Add to My Morning Paper Even though lead-laced pigment was taken off the market almost three decades ago, about one in four homes in the US still contains deteriorating lead paint or dust, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. "The federal government has provided...

SAUK CITY -- At a recent Mass at St. Aloysius Catholic Church, the Rev. John Blewett urged parishioners to emulate their savior and stand firm on matters of church doctrine. ...Blewett and his fellow members of the Society of Jesus Christ the Priest, a religious group based in Spain. Beginning in 2006, Bishop Robert Morlino invited priests from the society to serve in the Madison Catholic Diocese, and in the ensuing years, they have thrilled some and dismayed others with their staunch Catholicism and tough-love approach.... The priests no longer let girls be altar servers, and they have dispensed with...

At least 12,000 Wisconsin felons may not have their DNA in a state databank because of failures in the system, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Wednesday. The statement says that DNA samples for "at least" 12,000 other people fall into the same category, meaning that their DNA should be in the system but is not. The Department of Justice has issued this memo on the investigation.......

But can law enforcement themselves be entrapped? That seems to be the extraordinary claim of the Racine, Wisconsin police department in the case of an open carrier who was arrested for obstructing justice after he apparently refused to identify himself when officers began questioning him for open carrying on the porch of his own home. The facts are still emerging, but reports seem to agree that officers were in the neighborhood where Frank Rock lives on Wednesday night investigating the shooting of one or more raccoons. While in the neighborhood, officers noticed that Rock, sitting peacefully on his front porch,...

MADISON, Wis. -- The older brother of comedian Chris Farley says he's contemplating a run for lieutenant governor in Wisconsin as a Republican.

MARSHFIELD, Wis. — When it comes to spitting a cricket for distance, the central Wisconsin talent seems concentrated in one Marshfield family. Brian Johnsrud spat a thawed cricket 22 feet, 8 inches at the Central Wisconsin State Fair on Saturday. Minutes later, his son Jared shot his cricket 10 feet, 5 inches to win the 9-to-11 age division.

BAE Systems has filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), asking the agency to review the decision by the U.S. Army to award a contract to a competitor for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) rebuy program. After a detailed analysis of the information provided by the Army, before and during the formal competition debrief, the Company believes that the Army did not properly evaluate the proposals, consistent with the Government's stated requirements, and the Army failed accurately to assess the various risks associated with the different proposals.

Fond du Lac — Union workers at Mercury Marine Inc. approved a hotly contested package of contract concessions aimed at keeping hundreds of jobs at the outboard-engine factory instead of sending the work to a nonunion plant in Oklahoma. The concessions were approved in a last-ditch vote Thursday and Friday after more than a week of union infighting over the company's refusal to budge from its demands. Among other things, the company sought a wage freeze and a 30% pay cut for new hires and workers called back from layoffs. Had the proposal been voted down, the company was threatening...

Does anybody know if there is any effort going on to reverse the open primary system that gave us John McCain? According to Wikipedia the following states have open primaries: * Alabama * Arkansas * Georgia * Idaho * Indiana * Michigan * Minnesota * Mississippi * Missouri * North Dakota * South Carolina * Tennessee * Texas * Vermont * Virginia * Wisconsin I've run a google news search and come up with blanks.

There is no such thing as ‘a right to a job’—there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him.” —Ayn Rand, “Man’s Rights,” 1963— If you want to understand the most common reason for unemployment in America—the real unemployment rate of which is now well into the double digits—you need only look as far as Washington, D.C., home of the federal government, for the answer: bureaucratic intervention in the economy in the form of minimum wage laws, “public works” projects, “stimulus” programs and the regulation...

A Jaguar convertible sits in the driveway of Latasha Jackson's million-dollar mansion in Menomonee Falls. Built on a hill with a sprawling back deck overlooking a pond, the 7,600-square-foot home features an indoor swimming pool and indoor basketball court. Jackson is not an Olympic swimmer, a professional basketball player or a celebrity of any sort. She is a day care provider in the city of Milwaukee. She built her fortune with taxpayer funding from the Wisconsin Shares program. And although documents show regulators had many reasons to believe the 32-year-old mother of three was billing the state for kids not...

Last week Senator Russ Feingold was heard to lament that there would be no Obamacare bill to vote on before Christmas. The liberal Feingold even said he wondered if there would ever be a bill at all because the divisions were so deep. Well, only six days later, Senator Feingold is playing a different tune. Suddenly he's quite upbeat and jubilant about the bill saying how he'll work hard to get Obamacare passed and that he's sure it's all just over the horizon. Gone is the gloomy guss of a week ago and in is the happy Russ for this...

Sen. Russ Feingold D-WI says bring'em home regarding the troops in Afghanistan, cites a lack of strategy and believes that increase in troops is not a wise idea. Today, in a meeting with the editorial board of The Post-Crescent in Appleton, Wis., Sen. Feingold called for a flexible timetable to bring our troops out of Afghanistan. Per an e-mail announcement, Feingold said: "After eight years, I am not convinced that simply pouring more and more troops into Afghanistan is a well thought out strategy. And I have raised this issue with the President, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs...

A state social worker who investigated a report of child abuse for the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare later had sex with the child's emotionally troubled mother and impregnated her. He then hid the woman's pregnancy and the birth of their daughter from the bureau, even as the mother sought to retain custody of two other children, the Journal Sentinel has learned. The 56-year-old social worker, Peter J. Nelsen, was allowed to resign from the bureau April 15, according to bureau records. Within months of his resignation, the bureau removed the 1-year-old girl from her mother and placed her in...

Feingold: No health care bill before Christmas Large Mercer crowd opposes reform plans Richard Moore Investigative Reporter Tuesday, August 25, 2009 U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold told a large crowd gathered for a listening session in Iron County last week there would likely be no health care bill before the end of the year - and perhaps not at all. It was an assessment Feingold said he didn't like, but the prospect of no health care legislation brought a burst of applause from a packed house of nearly 150 citizens at the Mercer Community Center. "Nobody is going to bring a...

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold told a large crowd gathered for a listening session in Iron County last week there would likely be no health care bill before the end of the year - and perhaps not at all. It was an assessment Feingold said he didn't like, but the prospect of no health care legislation brought a burst of applause from a packed house of nearly 150 citizens at the Mercer Community Center. "Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens," Feingold said. "The divisions are so deep. I never...

FOND DU LAC, Wis. – Union workers at Mercury Marine put their jobs at risk Sunday when they rejected a package of wage and benefit concessions the boat engine maker said it needed or it would move their work to a nonunion plant in Oklahoma. Union leaders did not immediately release Sunday's tally but said the vote was "overwhelming" to reject what the company called its final offer. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 1947, represents 850 workers at Mercury Marine, the largest employer in the eastern Wisconsin city of Fond du Lac and the world's largest...

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Government is too big and it spends too much. I know, I know. We’ve been hearing this same old refrain all of our lives. But since the Democrats seized control of the nation’s purse strings in 2007, and with Liberals now in control of both the Congress and the White House, the people we’ve chosen to govern our Republic have turned up the flames fueling this smoldering cauldron of debt even beyond maximum. And now, on Friday August 21, the Obama White House announced that over the next ten years America will spend...

The attack on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has not changed his views on guns. Good. He should continue to push for sensible restrictions. The attack on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has sparked a bit of chatter on guns - including how the attack makes the case for a state concealed-carry law. No. For the record, the attack hasn't caused the mayor to change his well-known preference for sensible gun legislation, his office says.

Please FReepo this local poll. Do You Support the "Public Option" a Government-Run Health Insurance Plan? http://www.wjfw.com

"It’s a little redneck, but we love it, we accept it, we admit and we enjoy it." Watch video: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=116368

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, whose approval ratings have plunged as he struggled with a weak economy and a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, will not seek a third term in 2010, a person informed of the decision told The Associated Press. The person, who was not authorized to announce the decision, told The AP on Saturday that Doyle, a Democrat, would make the announcement public in a Monday news conference. The person also said Doyle would serve the rest of his second four-year term. [Snip] Meanwhile, it's been a rough year for Doyle. Faced with a record high $6.6 billion budget shortfall,...

One of the greatest threats to the free exercise of civil rights is the promulgation of catch-all offenses such as "disorderly conduct." With no clear definition of what constitutes behavior that is disorderly, many in law enforcement use such laws as a way to control and punish citizens for otherwise legal and constitutionally protected behavior.