Wisconsin Right Now

There are new questions about the 2020 election after the latest numbers from the 2022 election. Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, on Tuesday said this year’s military voting numbers show something happened between the two elections. “We have learned that the number of active military members voting in the 2022 election dropped by over 83% since the 2020 election!” Brandtjen said in a statement. Brandtjen is at the center of the story about military ballots in Wisconsin. She received three fake military ballots ahead of Election Day. Those ballots, it turned out, came from a Milwaukee election manager. “When Milwaukee deputy election clerk Kim Zapata created three military members out of thin air and sent requests for legitimate ballots to my home address, the vulnerability of the military ballot process was exposed,” Brandtken added. Military voters in Wisconsin don’t have to actually register, and never have to show voter ID in order to get an absentee ballot in th...

There are new questions about who is running public schools in Wisconsin following the release of emails between Gov. Tony Evers and the state’s largest teachers’ union. Empower Wisconsin on Wednesday broke a story showing the Wisconsin Education Association Council, or WEAC, was in regular contact with Gov. Evers’ office about the plan to reopen schools back in the summer of 2020. “We at WEAC are getting pressure from the Senate Democrats to take a position on these bills from the School Administrators Alliance. We have been told the Senate Dems are working with the Governor’s office on a strategy relating to opening of schools,” wrote WEAC lobbyist Jack O’Meara in an August 21, 2020 email to Evers’ office. The report doesn’t include Evers’ response, but the governor eventually told local schools to make their own decisions about reopening. WEAC encouraged local schools to stay closed in the fall of 2020. Republican candidate for governor Rebecca Kleefisch on Wednesday ri...

Asking questions is not bullying, and pointing out the law does not constitute creating chaos. And no one supported the threats made against Kiel Schools. Rick Esenberg with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty responded to claims that his group bullied Kiel school leaders over its misgendering investigation into three middle school boys and unleashed a national campaign of chaos that led to a wave of threats against the school district. “Putting aside the unresolved question of whether Title IX even covers gender identity or whether the First Amendment even permits such a charge to be based on the refusal to say what the government wants you to say, the mere use of disfavored pronouns does not create an environment ‘so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to education, which is a precondition to a charge of harassment under Title IX,” Esenberg wrote in a weekend op-ed at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Esenberg r...

‘I can tell you for sure [CRT] is not the most radical thing to come out. Wait until you hear what we really think, what we really believe in' - Charlene Carruthers There are new questions for Wisconsin’s state superintendent of schools about critical race theory, politics, and a webinar for teachers in the state. On Monday, Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, released an open letter to State Superintendent Jill Underly that asks her a series of questions about a February webinar featuring activist and author Charlene Carruthers. “Ms. Carruthers defines herself on her website first and foremost as a political strategist, which makes it concerning and questionable about how the political writings of someone who would be considered a radical activist by a large portion of my constituents is relevant for training our teachers, or in executing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mission to help children with disabilities to excel in school and thrive in society,” Kapen...