Free Republic

Growing up in Manitowoc, WI, Sarah Kaufmann's favorite pastime was drawing. She didn't care what she was drawing, as long as she had a pencil or crayon and some paper. At the time, Kaufmann had no idea those countless hours spent filling sketchbooks would one day help her become a famous sculptor. Most sculptors use stone, metal or wood for their creations. Kaufmann, however, has chosen a medium much closer to the heart of Wisconsin. She's made quite a name for herself chipping away at cheese. Yes, Sarah "The Cheese Lady" Kaufmann is a cheese sculptor. Kaufmann was at Sam's...

Extreme weather has virtually wiped out Door County’s cherry crop for this year, which not only means slim pickings in orchards that attract thousands of tourists each summer, but also a loss of an estimated 350 to 400 seasonal jobs for workers who harvest and process the iconic scarlet fruit. At a time when epic rains and flooding have wiped out berries and vegetables in other parts of the state, Door County’s loss may seem surprising because it is attributed to an opposite extreme: a three-month drought last summer, followed by a January that brought rain and wild temperature fluctuations....

Order restored among crowd seeking food vouchers By GREG J. BOROWSKI and ANNYSA JOHNSONgborowski@journalsentinel.com Posted: June 23, 2008 Milwaukee police said they have restored order this morning but will remain outside of the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center after a crowd awaiting free food vouchers - which never were to be distributed - became unruly this morning.Police Department spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said Vliet St., between N. 12th and N. 13th streets, is blocked, and barricades have been installed so people are able to line up around the block of the building at 1220 W. Vliet St."That line is...

<p>When we think of Wisconsin, we think of it as the nation's Heartland -- a placid place where you can park your car anywhere and leave it unlocked, with the key in the ignition, knowing that no matter how long you're gone, when you return your car will be covered with cheese.</p>

As an avid supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Debra Bartoshevich is not alone in her frustration over Clinton's defeat. She’s not alone in refusing to support Barack Obama. And she’s not entirely alone in saying she’ll vote this fall for Republican John McCain instead. But what makes her unusual is that she holds these views as an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention

Clinton delegate to vote for McCain As an avid supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Debra Bartoshevich is not alone in her frustration over Clinton's defeat. She's not alone in refusing to support Barack Obama. And she's not entirely alone in saying she'll vote this fall for Republican John McCain instead. But what makes her unusual is that she holds these views as an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer. "I'm sure people are going to be upset with me. I don't want to lose my national delegate status," says Bartoshevich, a...

HERE WE GO AGAIN, with the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents demonstrating its arrogance and contempt for the taxpayers who foot the bills. The board approved whopping raises for top UW officials. The new UW-Madison chancellor, Biddy Martin, was hired with a salary of $437,000 a year, more than $100,000 higher than her predecessor John Wiley was paid. President Kevin Reilly was granted a raise of nearly $80,000, moving from $342,000 a year to $421,500 nnually by next June. SOME READERS may remember just a few years ago, in 2003, when the regents were ruled in violation of...

It was discovered that during the height of the recent flooding in Wisconsin Democratic Governor Doyle spent the whole day a personal campaign fund raiser golfing and banqueting with big money donors and not on the job. Apparently, someone directly involved in supporting the banquet thought it was shocking that Doyle would be spending the day on the golf course while Wisconsinites were fighting and struggling with the state's worst flooding in history. This golf course whistleblower contacted a few media outlets and the only one interested in covering this news was radio host Mark Belling on Milwaukee. Doyle's fund...

LAKE DELTON, WI - A 245-acre lake in this resort town overflowed Monday, virtually emptying the lake basin and washing away lakefront homes along with a chunk of the local tourism industry.Lake Delton, a key part of the Wisconsin Dells tourism area, overflowed about 10 a.m. on Monday morning after two days of rain and was dry by Monday afternoon, said Thomas Diehl, a Lake Delton village trustee. Water in the manmade lake rose until it was too much for a highway enbankment that was holding it back. The highway washed away as water drained into the nearby Wisconsin River....

Lake Delton, a 254-acre water playland for thousands of tourists each summer, has been drained after a portion of the lakeshore was breached. At least four houses fell into empty basin, and work crews were frantically trying to plug the breach with tons of stone and concrete. Meanwhile, a couple thousand of people in Columbia County about 30 miles north of Madison were urged to evacuate below the Wyocena and Pardeeville dams, said Pat Beghin, a spokesman for the county's emergency management. The Wyocena Dam's spillway had washed out, and workers were sandbagging to try to save it, Beghin said....

Cheeseheads don't need to be bleu: Experts say predictions that California will soon overtake Wisconsin as the nation's top cheese producer are unlikely to come true. The Golden State and its happy cows gained quickly on Wisconsin in the past decade, but plants in California are maxing out, while efforts to boost production in Wisconsin are paying off, said Dick Groves, longtime owner of the Madison-based trade publication, Cheese Reporter. Groves helped spark the friendly competition between the states 10 years ago with an editorial predicting California would overtake Wisconsin in cheese production by 2005. He later amended it to...

A man, woman and two teenage children apparently shared a house in Necedah Township, Wisconsin with a corpse for two months before authorities found the body. At least one of the adults in the house insisted the dead woman inside wasn't "fully dead," and that they could pray her back to life...

A University of Wisconsin Stevens Point student government leader is coming under fire for allegedly trashing a pro-life display on campus. Student senator Roderick King is said to have vandalized a display featuring crosses erected by the campus pro-life group to memorialize those babies killed in abortions. The UWSP pro-life group Pointers for Life put up the Cemetery of the Innocents display and spent the morning last Thursday repairing the damage someone caused in an apparent vandalizism. That's when they were trashed a second time. As students repaired the earlier damage, King led a group of angry students by walking...

Could there be a calculated, cross-country plot to kill young college men, including some in Minnesota? It seems a little hard to believe, but two New York detectives say, they can prove it.

SURVEY Do you agree with Edgerton High School's decision to allow the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish? Yes, I agree with the decision. No, the policy should be changed. I'm not sure. I don't care. Other.

Mounting mortgage misery, accumulated credit debt and higher consumer costs contributed to a 29.5% jump in bankruptcy filings in Wisconsin in the first quarter of this year, and attorneys and debt counselors say the situation is likely to get worse People who were living on the edge financially with monthly mortgage payments they barely could afford now are tipping into insolvency as fuel and food costs rise, they say. "I think we're just at the beginning of it," said Claire Ann Resop, a bankruptcy attorney in Madison. "I think it's going to be a couple of years." There were 4,570...

Wisconsin leads the U.S. in drunken driving rates — and Minnesota is not far behind. So says a federal government report released today. A CLOSER LOOK It's estimated more than a quarter of Wisconsin's adult drivers drove under the influence in the past year. Rounding out the worst five states — all from the Upper Midwest — were North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota. WHICH STATE WAS THE BEST?Utah had the lowest incidence of drunken driving. It was the only state where fewer than 10 percent of adult drivers reported driving drunk. Next came West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky and...

By the time Ald. Michael McGee's term ends Monday, city taxpayers will have paid him more than $67,000 while he has been sitting in jail, city records show. That includes a car allowance of more than $3,000 - even though McGee hasn't been able to drive in jail and couldn't legally drive before his arrest. And when he turns 60, McGee also will be eligible for a small city pension, based on his elected service and a previous job with the Milwaukee Public Schools. McGee, 38, was arrested last Memorial Day and has been charged with shaking down business owners...

The political action committee of the National Rifle Association spent more than $73,000 this week on mailings in support of Michael Gableman's campaign for Supreme Court. Gableman is challenging incumbent Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler in Tuesday's election. According to documents filed with the Government Accountability Board, the NRA Political Victory Fund spent more than $14,000 on postcards and more than $59,000 on postage on March 27. Because the expenditure was made on March 27, the cost was not recorded on the most recent campaign finance reports filed with the GAB; the cutoff for those filings was March 17. Gableman...

Challenger beats Butler in high court race; 1st such ouster since '67 Madison - Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a narrow margin Tuesday, bucking history and becoming the first challenger to knock off an incumbent state Supreme Court justice in more than 40 years. When Gableman takes the seat Aug. 1, it will be the first time in 110 years there hasn't been a justice from Milwaukee. Just before midnight, Gableman declared victory in the race against incumbent Louis Butler. "I recognize this is not a moment of individual victory...

MADISON, Wis. -- Michael Gableman had 51 percent of Tuesday's vote compared with 49 percent for Butler with 93 percent of precincts reporting. Butler is the first incumbent justice to lose a re-election bid since 1967. He joined the court in 2004 after being appointed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. He built his campaign around the charge that Butler was a judicial activist. Gableman claims to be a judicial conservative. While the race was officially nonpartisan, Democrats including Gov. Jim Doyle and liberal special interest groups campaigned heavily for Butler while Republicans and conservative outside groups worked for Gableman. The...

When Wisconsin voters go to the polls this April Fool's day, the state Supreme Court may realize the joke's on them. After four years of judicial activism, one of the court's most liberal members, Justice Louis Butler, is up for re-election -- and voters get to send a message about what they expect from their judges.

Spooner, WI -- A large explosion and fire at a chemical plant in Spooner, Wisconsin has injured at least 2 people. Witnesses say, several area fire departments are on the scene at the Cortec Corporation plant. The Spooner Health System tells KARE 11 the hospital is treating two people from the plant. Their conditions were not immediately made available. The Wisconsin State Patrol said it did not know the cause of the 8:43 a.m. explosion at the plant owned by St. Paul, Minnesota-based Cortec Corporation. Cortec vice president Anna Vignetti said the injuries are believed to be first- or second-degree...

PHOTO ID Double standard on proposed voter ID? Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) co-introduced Senate Bill 473, which includes this text: "A dealer may purchase nonferrous scrap, a metal article or a proprietary article from any person over age 18 if the dealer does all of the following: 1) obtains photographic identification from the seller or deliverer . . . " This is the same Plale who voted not to allow the voter photo ID amendment to come to the Senate floor. Notice this measure requires a photo ID. I'd like to know why Plale believes people must show a...

Losing Brett Favre is hard enough, but what if the Green Bay Packers lost their home field advantage? Global warming could remove those icy cold days and snowstorms that tend to benefit the Pack if they're playing against a team more accustomed to warm weather. An analysis by Environment America found that cold weather teams won more than 65 percent of their home games played from November through January against warm weather teams from 1998 through 2005. And though all cold weather stadiums saw average football season temperatures rise during the past seven years compared to the previous 30 years,...

Racine - A Racine County jury this afternoon found Ezequiel Lopez-Quintero guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and use of a dangerous weapon in the shooting death of Kenosha County sheriff's Deputy Frank Fabiano Jr. Lopez-Quintero, 45, an illegal immigrant living in Kenosha, faces a mandatory life sentence for the conviction of first-degree intentional homicide and up to an additional five years for use of a dangerous weapon. Fabiano, a former U.S. Marine and an 18-year veteran of the sheriff's department, was gunned down on the night of May 16, 2007, while attempting a routine traffic stop in the town of...

Agents from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have been stepping up the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants in Wisconsin recently. It’s a trend that’s beginning to worry some Wisconsin dairy farmers who employ immigrant milkers from Mexico. A new study of employment patterns on 600 farms in four Wisconsin counties found that 90 percent of the milkers on those farms were Mexican immigrants. It’s a trend that ballooned between 1998 and 2000, soon after the North American Free Trade Act went into affect. Study author Brent Valentine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Rural Sociology says...

Attracted by tax incentives that went into effect Jan. 1, Universal Pictures has committed to shooting portions of its upcoming Johnny Depp film "Public Enemies" in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday. The movie is likely to include scenes filmed at locations in Milwaukee, Baraboo, Oshkosh, Madison and Columbus, Wis., said Scott Robbe, executive director for Film Wisconsin and a leader behind the development of the tax incentive program. "Milwaukee will play prominently in the film," Robbe said, adding that Depp will come to the city for the shoot. The movie company reached agreement Tuesday with the Wisconsin Department of...

Bill and Hillary Clinton and the geniuses who are running their campaign have done all they possibly could to lose in Wisconsin and their efforts have been rewarded! They publicly speculated that they would override the will of the voters and line up super delegate/bosses to vote for them regardless of how their districts and states voted. They spoke about using delegate credentials challenges over seating the Florida and Michigan delegations to overturn the will of the primaries. Bill Clinton’s volatile temper was on full display pitting the former president in a shouting match against a heckler. There has never...

McCain declares victory, congratulates Huckabee, continues being McCain.

In the Republican stronghold of Brookfield, Barack Obama was picking up some support among voters who cast their votes against rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and the war in Iraq. Merry Risch, 47, said the ongoing conflict in the Middle East was swinging her typically Republican family to the other party. "I just don't think that we want to be over there, and they don't want us over there," said Risch, who voted for Obama, along with her 18-year-old daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. John Urban, a 40-year-old anesthesiologist, said he voted for Obama because the Republican race already seems decided...

I know it seems crazy, but since the Left always encourages there supporters to vote for less conservative Republicans when Democrats have no race. I think we should return the favor.

Whether it was wild or a captive mountain lion remains to be seen. The Department of Natural Resources confirmed Tuesday that DNA tests concluded that a large cat seen leaping from a hayloft on Jan. 18 in Rock County was a cougar. If it is determined to be wild, it would be the first evidence that cougars had returned to Wisconsin since the early 1900s. Additional testing from a U.S. Forest Service laboratory in Missoula, Mont., will determine the sex of the cat and the subspecies. If testing shows that the cougar was from South America, for example, it would...

Killing seen as unlikely issue in decision on headquarters The weekend murder of a Miller Brewing Co. executive in the Walker's Point area is not expected to play a major role in determining the eventual headquarters location for the combined operations of Miller and Coors Brewing Co.-snip--------------------------------------------- Denver, with a population of 568,465, reported 1,748 violent crimes, including 19 homicides, during the first six months of 2007, according to FBI data released this month. Milwaukee, with a population of 581,005, reported 3,984 violent crimes, including 50 homicides.

A Pardeeville man was issued a citation for disorderly conduct Wednesday after allegedly forcing his 7-year-old son to wear a Green Bay Packers jersey during the divisional playoff game last weekend. Matthew Kowald, 36, pleaded no contest Wednesday to disorderly conduct after he was released from the Columbia County Jail. He received a fine of $186. Columbia County District Attorney Jane Kohlwey said there was not enough evidence against Kowald to support felony charges. The Columbia County Sheriff's Department said the boy refused to wear a Packers jersey during the Green Bay game against Seattle, so Kowald restrained him with...

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN WI 417 PM CST MON JAN 7 2008 ...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 445 PM CST FOR KENOSHA AND RACINE COUNTIES... AT 413 PM CST...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR AND LAW ENFORCEMENT WERE TRACKING A LARGE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO. THIS TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR WHEATLAND AND NORTH OF NEW MUNSTER...MOVING EAST AT 45 MPH. THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR... UNION GROVE BY 425 PM CST... KENOSHA AIRPORT AND KENOSHA ARPT(KENW) BY 430 PM CST... ELMWOOD PARK AND STURTEVANT BY 435 PM CST... DOWNTOWN RACINE...NORTH BAY...RACINE BATTEN ARPT(KRAC) AND RACINE BATTEN...

Madison police said a man in a wheelchair was robbed by a woman who helped free him from a snowbank on Christmas Eve and then demanded payment for her good deed. The Madison man, who is in his 40s and has cerebral palsy, told officers he was on his way to the drugstore to get medication about 9:30 p.m. when his chair became stuck in the snow on East Washington Avenue near Johnson Street, police said. The man said the woman, "who at first appeared (to be) a good Samaritan, " got him out of the snow but then wanted...

In 2008, the first wave of a generation 78 million strong will hit the Social Security system Greg Witt was born in January 1946, raised on Elvis, served two years in the U.S. Army and retired after 38 years of working for Allen-Bradley in Milwaukee. Now, he is on the cusp of turning 62 and reaching another milestone - receiving Social Security. "It's kind of like another step in your life," he says. "It feels kind of good, all these years of working and contributing and I get something back." Witt is among the first of 78 million baby boomers...

MADISON, Wis.—Mention Wisconsin and the average person thinks of the Green Bay Packers, cheese and cold weather. Some state lawmakers and the Department of Tourism want to change that image. They're trying to come up with a new state brand to explain why Wisconsin is a good place to visit, live and do business. "We are the Green Bay Packers. We are a great agricultural state. We are America's Dairyland," said Rep. Steve Wieckert, R-Appleton. "But we are more than that." An Assembly committee is expected to vote Thursday on Wieckert's plan to require the Department of Administration to study...

Incident Occurred Two Weeks AgoJANESVILLE, Wis. -- A classroom incident at a Janesville high school two weeks ago is raising some concerns about freedom of speech and school safety. Some Janesville parents said that they're concerned that in this incident, in which a student allegedly tore pages from a Bible, the balance between the two was tipped toward the First Amendment, WISC-TV reported. As many Parker High School students get ready for Christmas break, junior Elle Jacobson is at home and will not be returning like her friends. "I have never felt threatened like that in a classroom before,"...

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have found that a pint of stout at meal times may work just as well in preventing heart attacks as taking low-dose aspirin every day. A study comparing the blood-thinning effects of beer found that Guinness is far superior in reducing blood clots than lager.

Capt. Scott Southworth knew he'd face violence, political strife and blistering heat when he was deployed to one of Baghdad's most dangerous areas. But he didn't expect Ala'a Eddeen. Ala'a was 9 years old, strong of will but weak of body -- he suffered from cerebral palsy and weighed just 55 pounds. He lived among about 20 kids with physical or mental disabilities at the Mother Teresa orphanage, under the care of nuns who preserved this small oasis in a dangerous place. -snip- Black haired and brown eyed, Ala'a spoke to the 31-year-old American in the limited English he had...

She was suffocated in robbery, police say Anne Gordon spent her last moments on the floor of her townhouse, praying to God for the man who was wrapping her face in duct tape during a robbery, according to a criminal complaint. The man, who officials say was 30-year-old Eric Henry, considered Gordon to be his grandmother. Henry was charged Tuesday with Gordon's death, the Milwaukee County district attorney's office said. Family members said Henry, of Brown Deer, is the stepson of Gordon's son Paul. Gordon, a 75-year-old pastor, died from asphyxiation because of the duct tape placed over her airways,...

Madison lawyer piles victories In the last four years, local Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles has stopped 58 coal-fired plants from being built in the United States. As a result of his work, energy companies have abandoned their plans, fearing going through the permitting process of getting a new coal plant built. Nilles, 39, director of the organization's National Coal Campaign, has stopped plants in Kansas, Illinois, Florida, Texas and Nevada. He also had a hand in last month's settlement where the state of Wisconsin agreed not only to clean up UW-Madison's coal-fired Charter Street power plant but also to...

Giuliani 44% (+2 from early October) Clinton 42% (-1) Clinton 46% (+1) Romney 40% (+5) Clinton 45% (not polled) Huckabee 39%

MADISON, Wis. -- The U.S. presidential election is one year away, and the Wisconsin primary is set for Feb. 19, but a new statewide poll indicates roughly 50 percent of Wisconsin voters will choose a Democrat, and 40 percent report that they want a Republican in office. Political experts said the poll might be indicative of where things stand right now in the minds of the state's voters, but is likely to change, WISC-TV reported. Experts said a different primary schedule nationwide and some fluid numbers tied to early primary states mean the latest poll is more of a suggestion,...

Another battle over separation of church and state may be on the horizon with a proposal scheduled to go in front of an Assembly committee Wednesday. The issue? What to call the tree that sits in the State Capitol during the holiday season. Currently the tree is referred to as a "holiday tree," but the resolution that will be brought to the Committee on State Affairs would rename it as the Wisconsin State Christmas Tree. Michael Schoenfield, legislative aide to Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, who is sponsoring the resolution, said the state should refer to the tree as a...

http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=11/25/2007&id=32225 Please say a prayer for those affected by this terrible accident. I saw it on the news and passed the site yesterday. The areas at the medians do dip, so it may sound strange that the car went under the barrier, but we could see it.