Free Republic

MADISON, Wis. — Standing in the marble-lined rotunda of the state capitol this month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s incoming justice raised her right hand, swore to carry out her job “faithfully and impartially” and launched a new, liberal era on a powerful court long dominated by conservatives. Within days, the new majority stripped duties from the court’s conservative chief justice and fired its administrative director, a conservative former judge who once ran for the court. The abrupt changes prompted the chief justice to accuse her liberal colleagues of engaging in “nothing short of a coup.” Before long, Republican lawmakers threatened...

WEST OLIVE, Mich. — The eight new members of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners had run for office promising to “thwart tyranny” in their lakeside Michigan community of 300,000 people. In this case the oppressive force they aimed to thwart was the county government they now ran. It was early January, their first day in charge. An American flag held down a spot at the front of the board’s windowless meeting room. Sea-foam green carpet covered the floor. The new commissioners, all Republicans, swore their oaths of office on family Bibles. And then the firings began. Gone was the...

We are each of us ultimately responsible only for ourselves and our own actions, yet the degree to which we may be held accountable for the misdeeds of others apparently varies by political party affiliation. On Wednesday, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published on its website what can only be described as a hit piece on Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson in which reporters Molly Beck and Patrick Marley highlighted the fact that Johnson is “taking fire from a liberal group for accepting more than $13,000 from a Washington state business owner who refused to hire Muslims and replied to emailed jokes...

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Watchdog Dear Patrick: You know what I hate – in addition to Hitler, I mean? I hate working until 1:30 in the morning to publish a great story only to find my counterpart at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (this’d be you) ripping me off – and then missing the story. My story, “Explosive email exposes GAB attorney’s partisan motives in John Doe probe,” cited an email that I had exclusively. I actually worked for that email. You found it the way all of my readers did. Wisconsin Watchdog linked to that document. You linked to...

MADISON, Wis. – The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Patrick Marley confirms he was the mysterious reporter Cindy Archer spotted as armed police swarmed her home during a dramatic September 2011 police raid, one of several in the Milwaukee district attorney’s secret war on conservatives. “I was the one who was there. I arrived an hour or two after the raid began,” Marley told Wisconsin Watchdog on Wednesday. Who tipped him off? “I don’t reveal sources, and I typically don’t help those trying to figure out my sources by telling them who my sources aren’t,” Marley said. Marley’s appearance at what was...

Madison — A federal judge kept alive a lawsuit Tuesday attempting to throw out a long-running secret investigation of fundraising and spending by conservative groups during Wisconsin's recent recall elections. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and others have been looking into whether the Wisconsin Club for Growth or others illegally coordinated with any candidates during the recalls. In the most prominent race, Gov. Scott Walker in June 2012 became the first governor in the country's history to survive a recall election. The Club for Growth and one of its directors, Eric O'Keefe, in February sued prosecutors, investigators and the...