Wisconsin Right Now

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Deanne Criswell, told lawmakers that she personally approved the firing of an employee who directed FEMA workers to not knock on the doors of those affected by Hurricane Helene if they had Trump signs in their yards. Helene hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane and wreaked havoc from Florida up the Eastern United States, killing more than 100 people in North Carolina alone and causing billions of dollars of damage across several states. In less than two weeks, Hurricane Milton did its own damage in many of the same areas, leaving thousands of Americans needing help. FEMA, however, has taken fire for its handling of the storms as well as its ongoing funding to help illegal immigrants. In particular, The Daily Wire first broke news showing screenshots of text messages from a FEMA employee telling about a dozen workers under her supervision to avoid visiting houses with Trump signs. The text message instructed workers that i...

  Newly released federal inflation data shows that prices rose faster than expected last month, putting more pressure on Americans’ budgets. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday released its Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation, which showed that CPI rose 0.2% in September. While inflation rose more than expected last month, the year-over-year inflation of 2.4% in this latest data is much lower than the major spike in inflation in recent years. The data comes after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced an interest rate cut last month, a sign that the Fed believes inflation is under control enough to lower rates, and thereby boost the economy. “Disinflation continues, but anyone who thought the Fed was going to lower rates by another .50 basis points in November is dead wrong,” Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Richmond, said in a statement. “When interest rates aren’t high enough to lower growth, they aren’t high enough to stifle in...

A federal judge on Monday temporarily paused a Biden administration program that would grant a path to citizenship for the spouses of American citizens. District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker paused the new Biden administration effort until a final ruling is made. The program in question allows illegal immigrants who have married an American citizen to avoid deportation and start the path to citizenship. The halt comes after a coalition of 16 states filed a lawsuit to challenge the program. Proponents of the policy say it helps repair the immigration system and helps the migrants in limbo in the U.S. Critics say it incentivizes illegal immigrants even more than they already are and that the policy violates the U.S. Constitution and breaks federal law. “Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the federal government is actively working to turn the United States into a nation without borders and a country without laws. I will not let this happen,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton...

Former President Donald Trump blasted the Biden administration, calling it a “massive scandal.” New federal economic data shows that previous data significantly overestimated the health of the U.S. economy. The Department of Labor released revised jobs data that showed they overestimated the number of jobs created in the U.S. economy by 818,000, a whopping revision that set off alarm bells Wednesday. Economic data is often revised in this way, but the size of this change is large enough to raise eyebrows. “Even this number is shocking, job growth is still positive,” Jamie Cox, Managing Partner for Harris Financial Group in Richmond, Va., said in a statement. “If you are in the rate cut in September camp, these data all but seal the deal on what Fed needed to cut rates.” The new job creation numbers are nearly a third lower than the previous figure. The numbers come amid scrutiny of the economic record of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential pick, whose...

  Federal prosecutors on Monday began laying out what they say is election fraud in 2016 by former President Donald Trump. Trump, 77, is the first former U.S. president to be charged with a felony. Prosecutors and defense attorneys presented their opening statements to the jury of five women and seven men. Prosecutors said Trump corrupted the 2016 election, The Hill reported on Monday. "This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up," Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. "The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election, then covered it up." Trump will spend four days a week in court in New York for the next six to eight weeks on state charges that he disguised hush money payments to two women as legal expenses during the 2016 election. Judge Juan Merchan has not scheduled trial days on Wednesdays. On Monday, his defense attorneys said he had done nothing wrong. "President Trump is innoce...

  As the conflict between the federal government and Texas escalates over the state's right to defend its border with Mexico, Gov. Greg Abbott is not backing down as a congressional Democrat called on President Joe Biden to federalize the Texas National Guard. If the Texas National Guard were federalized solely to usurp Abbott’s constitutional authority to secure the Texas border, Congress should consider whether doing so constitutes a high crime and misdemeanor – an impeachable offense – under the U.S. Constitution, a constitutional law expert told The Center Square. After Abbott invoked his constitutional authority to defend Texas’ border on Wednesday, saying, “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States,” reports surfaced that Biden could federalize the Texas National Guard. This would result in pulling them from the Texas border and breaking the chain of command under Abbott. Abbott called up several thousand guard members an...

  A federal judge on Friday denied former President Donald Trump's motion to delay his classified documents trial until after the 2024 presidential election. Trump, 77, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden, has pleaded not guilty to 40 felony counts that allege he kept sensitive military documents, shared them with people who didn't have security clearance and tried to thwart the government's attempts to get them back. Trump and his attorneys have argued that prosecutors have proposed an unrealistic schedule for what's expected to be a complex case, especially in light of Trump's pending criminal charges in Washington D.C., Georgia and New York. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon agreed Friday to push back some pre-trial deadlines but said it was "premature" to postpone the trial date. The trial is set to start in May 2024, right in the middle of the Republican presidential primary calendar. The j...

  The federal government coordinated with an array of entities to censor Americans’ speech online, a newly released report from the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government shows. In particular, the report shows that the Department of Homeland Security worked with Stanford and the Global Engagement Center, which works across agencies but sits under the State Department to create a streamlined process for identifying and censoring posts. These groups formed the Election Integrity Partnership, which the report shows worked to censor and limit certain posts going into the 2020 presidential election. The report argues the federal government was “heavy handed” with universities and social media companies and censored conservative viewpoints far more often than liberal points of view under the guise of combating disinformation. “Created in the summer of 2020 ‘at the request’ of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the EIP provid...

  Newly released federal inflation data shows consumer prices rose significantly in September, further undoing a trend of slowing inflation that had begun earlier this year. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday released its Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation that tracks the cost of a range of consumer goods and services. That index rose 0.4% in September alone, a notable increase that is higher than months earlier this year. "The index for shelter was the largest contributor to the monthly all items increase, accounting for over half of the increase," BLS said. "An increase in the gasoline index was also a major contributor to the all items monthly rise. While the major energy component indexes were mixed in September, the energy index rose 1.5 percent over the month." Food prices rose as well. "The food index increased 0.2 percent in September, as it did in the previous two months," BLS said. "The index for food a...

A closer look at the federal agency that sparked former President Donald Trump's first federal indictment shows that it has embraced far-left diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The little-known federal agency called the National Archives and Records Administration was thrust into the national spotlight after it tipped off the U.S. Department of Justice over Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents. On its website, the agency calls itself a "nonpartisan, independent" group. A deep dive by The Center Square into its records show it has embraced ideology around gender and race and has reportedly been unwilling to hand over some records of President Joe Biden to investigators. In its 2022 budget request, the federal agency asked Congress for more than $28 million and nearly 150 news staff to “advance racial equity and support underserved communities.” “A program increase of $20,052 thousand and 144 FTE to advance racial equity and support unde...

The Policy Forum report notes that Milwaukee is facing a fiscal cliff due to stagnant revenues and a ballooning pension payment. If it weren’t for federal dollars, Milwaukee’s bad 2023 budget would be much worse. A new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum makes the case that Milwaukee is simply postponing an inevitable fiscal crisis for another year or so with Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s latest spending proposal. The mayor is pushing a $1.7 billion spending plan that would raise taxes as well as make cuts to city services and Milwaukee’s head count. The Policy Forum’s report states that Milwaukee’s left-over American Rescue Plan money is giving the city a “reprieve” from making deep cuts. “Johnson’s 2023 budget proposal would tap $81.1 million of the city’s total $394.2 million allotment of ARPA funds. Nearly all would go toward operational costs within the Milwaukee Fire Department, supporting 470 sworn fire department positions,” the report explained. “Once the federal fund...

Dow, S&P jump during Powell press conference following the central bank’s biggest rate increase since 1994 The Federal Reserve announced a 0.75 percentage point rate hike Wednesday to help combat soaring inflation, the largest rate increase in 28 years. The Fed said it raised the rates "to 1‑1/2 to 1-3/4 percent and anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate." "The committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2% over the longer run," the Federal Reserve said in a statement. "In addition, the committee will continue reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities, as described in the Plans for Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet that was issued in May. The committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2% objective." The decision is expected to curb inflation, but that comes at a cost to the eco...

A federal judge on Monday struck down the Biden administration's controversial mask mandate for planes, airports and trains. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle called the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) mandate “unlawful” for overstepping its authority and not following normal rulemaking procedures. "But the mandate exceeded the CDC's statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions," she wrote in the ruling. Last month, a bipartisan group of senators passed a resolution 57-40 that would repeal the federal mask mandate on airplanes and federally regulated public transit. Critics of the mandate praised the judge’s ruling. They had argued it was not necessary and conflicted with the Biden administration’s decision to lift Title 42, a Trump-era immigration rule that allowed border agents to immediately expel illegal immigrants to slow the spread of CO...

The Clinton campaign agreed to pay an $8,000 fine while the DNC agreed to pay $105,000, and both promised not to violate the requirements in the future. The Federal Election Commission has fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee for disguising payments through a law firm for the infamous Steele dossier that gave rise to the now-discredited Russia collusion allegations, according to a letter made public Wednesday. The commission found the campaign and DNC made total payments of slightly more than $1 million to the opposition research firm Fusion GPS through its law firm, labeling it as "legal and compliance consulting" when in fact it was for research related to the Steele dossier, according to the letter made public by the Coolide and Reagan Foundation that filed the original complaint. Investigators "found probable cause to believe" the improper labeling of the expenditure violated federal election law and reached a c...

  Newly uncovered federal grant documents show that the U.S. Department of Education has awarded roughly $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars to a Florida-based education program that trains education future teachers in, among other things, critical race theory . The funding came through two grants, one in 2017 and another in 2021 . Both grants went to faculty at Florida State University, which has partnered with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Grant documents from the federal Institute for Education Sciences database show that the DOE awarded $1,020,800 in the first grant and $1,498,620 in the second grant. The program offers participants 1-year fellowships. PURPOSE The program in question is called Partners United for Research Pathways Oriented to Social Justice in Education (PURPOSE). “The PURPOSE training program's P–20 theme focuses on researching social justice issues within educational contexts,” the grant says. “Throughout the year fellows will parti...

Federal grant records show the U.S. Department of Education has awarded millions of taxpayer dollars to fund critical race theory training for future educators at several colleges across the country. In 2016 under the Obama administration, the federal government awarded its first five-year grant of $1,116,895 to North Carolina Central University (NCCU) for “training” college students in critical race theory. The program is called, “The Research Institute for Scholars of Equity," or RISE . RISE promises to produce “a cadre of scholars who value and advance equity.” As part of the program, these students receive a $5,000 stipend, money for food and housing, and a travel allowance. According to promotional materials and grant documents, RISE students are trained to use critical race theory as a means of evaluating teacher quality, among other things. NCCU partnered with the University of North Carolina, Wilmington on the project, which provided one-year fellowships to abou...

The Fifth Circuit last Saturday issued a temporary stay on the private sector vaccine mandate, citing "grave" constitutional concerns. A federal appeals court late Friday ordered the Biden administration to stop implementation of its private sector vaccine mandate until multiple legal challenges work their way through the court system. The ruling , from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, comes in response specifically to a case from a Louisiana businessman, but dozens of lawsuits been filed by coalitions of states, business groups and individuals challenging President Joe Biden's orders requiring American workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, agree to regular testing or lose their jobs. "The Fifth Circuit's decision to put a stop to the Biden Administration's illegal vaccine mandate is a huge win for liberty and cements the reality that this mandate is an overreach by the federal government that would cause irreversible damag...