Category Archives: Wisconsin

‘Downright dangerous to our democracy’: Wisconsin’s supreme court restricts use of absentee ballot boxes

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Drop boxes may be placed only in election offices and voters must return ballot in person, in blow to Democrats in battleground state

Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled supreme court ruled on Friday that absentee ballot drop boxes may be placed only in election offices and that no one other than the voter can return a ballot in person, dealing a critical defeat to Democrats in the battleground state.

The court did not address the question of whether anyone other than the voter can return his or her own ballot by mail. Election officials and others had argued that drop boxes are a secure and convenient way for voters to return ballots.

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Panel makes case that Trump campaign knew alternate electors scheme was fraudulent

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Text appears to indicate campaign sought to use certificates it knew were not state-certified to obstruct Biden’s victory

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack made the case at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that the Trump 2020 campaign tried to obstruct Joe Biden’s election win through a potentially illegal scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.

The panel presented a text message sent on 4 January 2021 that appeared to indicate the Trump campaign was seeking to use fraudulent election certificates they would have known were not state-certified to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s win.

Note: This post was updated to clarify the former US attorneys’ titles.

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Texas A&M University refutes claim Rittenhouse will be attending school

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Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty after fatally shooting two and injuring one in Kenosha unrest, made claim on Friday

Kyle Rittenhouse – who was acquitted last year on charges related to a triple shooting resulting in two deaths during racial justice protests in Wisconsin – will not attend Texas A&M University as he has claimed, school officials said.

In an appearance on Friday on a conservative radio show, Rittenhouse said he would attend Texas A&M University and it would be “awesome”.

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Suspected shooter who killed retired Wisconsin judge in ‘targeted’ attack identified

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John Roemer, who sat on the Juneau county circuit court bench for 14 years, was found dead in his home by police

A retired Wisconsin judge was gunned down and killed in his home on Friday, and his suspected killer – a former defendant in his courtroom – shot himself in the basement, a government official familiar with the investigation said Saturday.

The official confirmed John Roemer, 68, who sat on the Juneau county circuit court bench for 14 years beginning in 2004, was found shot dead in his home in the community of New Lisbon about 6.30am Friday. His alleged killer, identified Saturday as 56-year-old Douglas Uhde, was then discovered in the basement with a self-inflicted bullet wound, and was brought to a hospital.

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Wisconsin man killed in what officials say was a ‘targeted act’ to those in the judicial system

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Officers found a 68-year-old man fatally shot in his home and a suspect in the basement with an apparent self-inflicted wound


A man was fatally shot at his home in Wisconsin on Friday and a suspect was discovered in the basement with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in what may have been a plan to target people connected to the judicial system, Wisconsin’s attorney general said.

Josh Kaul, the attorney general Josh Kaul refused to name the victim or the suspect, but said the shooting appeared to be a “targeted act” and that the gunman had selected targets who were “part of the judicial system”.

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Couple say they killed bear who charged through window and attacked them

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Wisconsin couple say they stabbed bear with a kitchen knife and then killed animal with a firearm after it attacked them at home

A Wisconsin couple say they killed a bear who attacked them inside their home after they spotted it eating from their bird feeder.

The Taylor county sheriff’s office said the attack happened at about 11pm Friday at a home near Medford in north-central Wisconsin. The couple told authorities that the bear charged through a window after they yelled at it to go away.

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Wisconsin electors and voter file lawsuit against fraudulent 2020 Trump electors

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Suit seeks fines and damages from those casting fake ballots and prohibition from serving the future

Two of Wisconsin’s presidential electors and a voter in the state filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to punish a group of Republicans who tried to cast fake electoral votes for Donald Trump in 2020, asking a state court to order them to pay up to $2.4m collectively in damages and bar them from ever serving as legitimate electors in a presidential election.

Wisconsin was one of seven states Trump lost in 2020 where allies cast an alternative set of electoral votes as part of his effort to overturn the election. The suit, filed by Law Forward and the Georgetown Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (Icap) on behalf of the legitimate electors, is the first of its kind seeking civil punishments against the electors. Federal prosecutors and the January 6 commission are reportedly also reviewing the fake slates.

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Pro-choice group claims arson attack on Wisconsin anti-abortion office

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Madison police investigate attack on Wisconsin Family Action after claim by group calling itself Jane’s revenge

Federal agents and detectives from the Madison police department are investigating a claim by a pro-choice group that it was behind a weekend arson attack on an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin.

The headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action in Madison was attacked in the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown through a window, starting a small fire, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. Nobody was hurt.

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The US supreme court’s assault on voting rights hits a new low

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Ruling throws out Wisconsin’s redrawn electoral map, which included a new district to account for Black population growth

Even for experts who closely follow the US supreme court, there was something stunning about an emergency decision from the justices on Wednesday.

In an unexpected move, the court decided to throw out new districts for the state legislature in Wisconsin that had been picked by the state supreme court. But what was even more surprising was that the court’s conservative majority seemed to go out of its way to attack the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important civil rights laws designed to prevent discrimination in US elections. “Extra headspinning,” was how Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, described it. “Bizarre,” observed Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine. David Wasserman, a redistricting expert at the non-partisan Cook Political Report, tweeted that the supreme court had entered “uncharted territory”.

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US supreme court blocks new Wisconsin voting maps in boost for Republicans

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Court took issue with decision to add an additional Black-majority state assembly district in the Milwaukee area

The US supreme court threw out Wisconsin’s new state legislative maps on Wednesday, in a ruling that boosts Republicans and takes aim again at one of the last remaining provisions to protect voting discrimination.

The ruling is the latest of many in recent years in which the US supreme court has been hostile to voting rights. In an unsigned ruling, the court took issue with the decision to add an additional Black-majority state assembly district in the Milwaukee area, raising the total in the map to seven. The Wisconsin supreme court picked the plan, drawn by Tony Evers, the state’s Democratic governor, earlier this month.

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Kenosha off-duty police officer shown putting knee on 12-year-old girl’s neck

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Officer resigns from school security guard job after officials release footage of fight and girl’s father calls for criminal charges

School officials in Kenosha, Wisconsin released surveillance footage that showed an off-duty police officer putting his knee on a 12-year-old girl’s neck to restrain her amid a lunchtime fight.

The Kenosha Unified School District released redacted footage of the 4 March fight on Friday.

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Widely criticized Wisconsin report repeats falsehoods in argument to ‘decertify’ 2020 election

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Document offers clear example of how Republicans are embracing efforts to overturn results of validly executed elections

A long anticipated and widely criticized review of Wisconsin’s 2020 election has embraced fringe conspiracy theories and argued there were grounds for the legislature to “decertify” the results of the 2020 election, something legal experts have said is impossible.

A report released on Tuesday was the result of months of work by Michael Gableman, a former state supreme court justice hired by the state assembly to review the election. Gableman’s efforts, backed by $676,000 in public funds, have been widely criticized as partisan, sloppy and unnecessary.

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Childcare spending not your responsibility, senator? What fine Republican hypocrisy | Poppy Noor

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Ron Johnson doesn’t believe the state should give help to parents – but he’s very keen to stop a woman’s right to choose

Ron Johnson, the US senator for hot takes, famed for such hits as “[the Capitol riot] seemed like a peaceful protest to me” and “mouthwash has been proven to kill the coronavirus”, is at it again. On Wednesday, Johnson, the senior Republican senator from Wisconsin, told local news station WKBT: “People decide to have families and become parents. That’s something they need to consider when they make that choice.”

He continued: “I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”

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A child injured in the Waukesha parade has died, bringing the toll to six

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Driver has been charged with five counts of intentional homicide and more charges are pending

Prosecutors in Wisconsin on Tuesday charged a man with intentional homicide in the deaths of five people who were killed when an SUV was driven into a Christmas parade earlier this week that also left 62 people injured, including many children.

Prosecutors say a sixth person, a child, has died and more charges are pending. Several of those injured remain in critical condition.

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Waukesha Christmas parade: man charged with homicide after five killed

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Darrell E Brooks, 39, in custody as police chief says suspect was involved in a domestic disturbance before the incident

Authorities in Wisconsin on Monday identified a 39-year-old man as the person who ploughed his vehicle into a Christmas parade on Sunday night, killing five people and injuring another 48, including two children who remained in a critical condition.

Darrell E Brooks was in custody, charged with five counts of intentional first-degree homicide, Daniel Thompson, police chief of Waukesha, a city 20 miles west of Milwaukee, said at an afternoon press conference.

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Social media footage shows SUV speeding through Wisconsin Christmas parade – video

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Social media footage shows a SUV speeding through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, narrowly missing a small child. The red vehicle continued down the road and hit more than 20 people, including children. Waukesha police chief Dan Thompson said a person of interest was in custody and the suspect vehicle had been recovered. 

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Waukesha Christmas parade: deaths after car speeds into crowd in Wisconsin

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Person of interest held after ‘horrifying’ incident in which SUV ploughed through street full of marchers

A number of people have been killed after a vehicle ploughed into crowds at a Christmas parade in a town in Wisconsin.

A red sport SUV drove at speed into marchers in Waukesha about 20 miles west of Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon, causing “some fatalities” and injuring more than 20 people, the town’s police chief, Dan Thompson, told a media conference on Sunday night.

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US Covid infections rising again as upper midwest sees biggest jump

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Increase comes ahead of Thanksgiving as families gather in homes, and as winter approaches, forcing people indoors

America’s Covid-19 infections are climbing again, and could soon hit a weekly average of 100,000 cases a day as daily case reports increase more than 20% across the upper midwest.

The fresh worsening of the coronavirus pandemic in the US comes as temperatures cool during the approach of winter, forcing people indoors where the virus is believed to spread more readily and may presage another wave.

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Protests erupt across US over Kyle Rittenhouse verdict – video

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WARNING: This video contains strong language

Demonstrators take to the streets after a jury cleared Kyle Rittenhouse on charges related to his shooting dead two people at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. Shouting matches flared on the courthouse steps in the town, and protest marches were held in Portland, Chicago and New York

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As Kyle Rittenhouse walks free, Kenosha is left to pick up the pieces

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Reactions to the verdict show a city as divided and beset by inequality as on the night of the killings in August 2020

Kyle Rittenhouse is now a free man after fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during anti-racism protests last year, but his trial has left behind a divided America – and done little to ease tensions in the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the killings took place.

Rittenhouse, 18, who faced charges of homicide, was acquitted in full on the grounds of self-defence. But the jury’s decision did not calm the people outside the Kenosha county courthouse in the hours after news of the verdict rippled across the city, and the rest of the United States.

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