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Tag: Wisconsin

  • 10-year-old accused of killing mom makes court appearance

    10-year-old accused of killing mom makes court appearance

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    MILWAUKEE — A judge has refused to lower the $50,000 bail imposed on a 10-year-old Milwaukee boy accused of intentionally killing his mother because she would not buy him a virtual reality headset.

    The boy’s attorney argued during his initial court appearance Wednesday that the bail should be lowered from $50,000 to $100 because he has no source of income, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Thursday. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jane Carroll refused to lower the bail amount and also imposed travel restrictions on the boy, should bail be posted.

    The boy initially told police that the Nov. 21 shooting was an accident, according to the criminal complaint. But later he said he intentionally aimed at his 44-year-old mom before shooting her because he was upset that she woke him early and did not buy him something he wanted, according to the complaint.

    The boy was charged as an adult last month with alternate counts of first-degree intentional homicide or first-degree reckless homicide.

    Wisconsin law requires children as young as 10 to be charged as adults for certain serious crimes, though the boy’s attorneys can seek to move the case to juvenile court. The boy, who family members said has mental health issues, is being held in juvenile detention.

    The prosecutor in the case, Paul Dedinsky, asked the judge to require the boy to be released into the custody of a family member should he post bail. The judge did not impose that restriction.

    The boy’s attorney, Angela Cunningham, argued that it would be “unheard of” to require a defendant in adult court to stay in the custody of a family member on pretrial release.

    Carroll appeared to side with Cunningham on Wednesday, saying that if he is released, he should be placed on GPS monitoring.

    The boy mostly kept his head down during the hearing. Carroll ordered that he not be placed in shackles or any other kind of restraints and forbade the media from publishing any personal information about him, including his image and address.

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  • Bald eagle found shot in Wisconsin dies during surgery

    Bald eagle found shot in Wisconsin dies during surgery

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    MILWAUKEE — A bald eagle shot in Wisconsin has died during surgery to treat its injuries, the Wisconsin Humane Society said Tuesday.

    Authorities were seeking tips on who may have shot the adult male bird that was found injured Dec. 7 on private property about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Milwaukee. The eagle survived its initial surgery on Thursday, but went into cardiac arrest on Monday night during what the Humane Society Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Milwaukee called “a complex and specialized surgery to stabilize his fracture and further treat his injuries.”

    The eagle was found with a broken beak, fractured humerus bone and a substantial wound to muscle and other soft tissues in its wing.

    “Despite lifesaving efforts, including CPR, he was unable to be resuscitated,” the Humane Society said in announcing its death. “We are mourning the loss of this eagle alongside our community.”

    Eagles and their nests are federally protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on Monday called on the public to help provide tips of who may have shot the eagle.

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  • Patti LaBelle is rushed off the stage during a concert in Milwaukee due to a bomb threat | CNN

    Patti LaBelle is rushed off the stage during a concert in Milwaukee due to a bomb threat | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Patti LaBelle concert at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee was abruptly halted Saturday night when the star was rushed off the stage due to a bomb threat, organizers said.

    Social media video showed LaBelle exclaiming, “Wait!” as three individuals pushed her mic stand away and escorted her off-stage without explanation. Band members rush behind her as audience members are heard in the video asking, “What happened?”

    “Tonight’s Patti LaBelle show at the Riverside Theater has been postponed following a bomb threat investigated by the Milwaukee Police Department,” concert organizer Pabst Theater Group said in a statement.

    “We are thankful for the efforts of the Milwaukee Police Department and our customers and staff for their safe and orderly exit. We are working with the artist to reschedule the show,” the statement said.

    Police say concert attendees were safely evacuated and the investigation is ongoing, according to CNN affiliate WTMJ.

    CNN has reached out to Milwaukee police for further details.

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  • How senators ‘defied political gravity’ on same-sex marriage

    How senators ‘defied political gravity’ on same-sex marriage

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin was on the Senate floor, but her mind was on the other side of the Capitol.

    The House was voting that July afternoon on Democratic legislation to protect same-sex and interracial marriages in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to an abortion. And it was suddenly winning more Republican votes than Baldwin — or anyone else — had expected.

    Baldwin, who became the first openly gay senator when she was elected a decade ago, said she was “overjoyed” as she saw the votes coming in. She excitedly walked over to Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who was also on the Senate floor and had been one of the first Republican senators to come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

    “Did you see this?” Baldwin asked, showing Portman a list of Republicans who had voted for the House bill — almost four dozen.

    Portman, who had worked with her on the issue in the past, was immediately on board. “Count me in,” he told her.

    Along with Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who eventually led the bipartisan effort with Baldwin, the senators teamed up with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., to try to find the additional Republican votes necessary to pass the Senate.

    It was a monthslong effort, building on a decadeslong push, in which they implored their colleagues senator to senator, tweaked the bill to make it more appealing — without changing what it would do — and enlisted key outside allies to help. They convinced skeptical Republicans that it was a personal, not political, effort for the Democrats and that “the sky is not going to fall,” Baldwin said.

    Collins, who has a long record of working on gay rights issues, said the GOP support in the House was a turning point. “It both surprised and heartened me,” she said, “because it suggested we could get the bill through both the House and the Senate and signed before the end of the year.”

    In the end, they “defied political gravity,” as Baldwin puts it, and passed the Respect for Marriage Act through the Senate. When the final vote was called, they had 12 Republican supporters — two more than they needed to break the filibuster in the 50-50 Senate and pass the bill. The House gave it final passage on Thursday and sent the bill to President Joe Biden for his signature.

    Along the way, the five senators — Democrats Baldwin and Sinema and Republicans Collins, Portman and Tillis — found that attitudes have changed in the decade since most Republicans were openly campaigning against gay marriage. Not only because of the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, but because increasing numbers of people — daughters, sons, friends, staffers — were openly gay and in relationships and marriages.

    “If you look at the arc of visibility around the LGBTQ community, there’s more and more people who are married to a same-sex partner and maybe raising a family with their same-sex partner,” said Baldwin, who has been working on gay rights issues since she entered politics almost 40 years ago. “And in some ways, you don’t want to do harm, right? And recognize how important the certainty is for these families. And I think that made a huge difference in our ability to get to a super-majority in the Senate.”

    Still, most Republicans weren’t inclined to vote for the bill. Supporters had to find at least seven more Republicans to get to yes.

    In the first weeks after the House vote, the five senators went to work to find those votes. Baldwin, who had advised House lawmakers to keep the bill simple and straightforward, says “the ink wasn’t even dry on the ledger yet” when she took the list of House supporters and started to talk to members from those same states, noting that their home-state colleagues across the Capitol had supported the bill and could give them “political cover,” she says.

    But in talking to Republicans, they quickly found that the biggest concern was religious liberty, and whether the bill would penalize private institutions or groups that did not want to perform same-sex marriages or provide services to same-sex couples. So they started crafting an amendment to address it.

    “As we talked to senators we found a real openness to the bill, but concerns about religious liberty and consciousness protections,” Collins said. She said they started reaching out to some religious groups, asking what they would like to see in the bill if they were going to support it.

    A main concern was that a church or organization could have its tax-exempt status revoked if it didn’t perform a same-sex marriage. “That was a huge issue,” Collins said.

    The bill, which requires states to legally recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, would not have done that. But Collins said the senators “wanted to make sure it was crystal clear” in the amendment that churches would not be in any way penalized or required to perform marriages. So they added language affirming the rights of religious institutions and groups while keeping the original language in the bill intact.

    By November, dozens of religious groups supported the bill, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

    Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a member of the Latter-day Saints church and one of the 12 senators who eventually supported the legislation, was involved in those early talks.

    “I would not have been able to support the bill were it not for the religious liberty provisions that were added, and I pointed that out to them as they were looking to collect 11 or 12 votes,” Romney said after the Senate vote.

    According to Portman, Romney also pushed for a series of findings at the beginning of the bill that stated that “beliefs about the role of gender in marriage are held by reasonable and sincere people based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises.”

    Tim Schultz, the president of the advocacy group 1st Amendment Partnership, directed a coalition of religious groups supporting the bill. He says that it was clear after the first House vote that the senators and progressive advocacy groups were serious about addressing the concerns and getting the bill done, and not using it as a political wedge issue. “They didn’t want a show vote in the Senate,” Schultz says.

    As the senators organized inside, groups of influential Republicans who were supportive organized on the outside. Key to that effort were Ken Mehlman, a former Republican National Committee chairman and campaign manager for former President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, and a group that he is funding, Centerline.

    Focusing on senators in nine states, the group conducted state polls, drove local press coverage, organized telephone campaigns and put together more than 70 meetings with senators and staff. The group circulated a list of 430 prominent Republicans and conservatives who supported the legislation, including former senators and Cabinet officials.

    Mehlman says the campaign was based on data and polling showing an increasing support for gay marriage. More than two-thirds of the public now supports the unions.

    “Center-right voters are supportive of the freedom to marry, and those numbers have increased in recent years,” Mehlman says. “Voters are supportive and often ahead of politicians on these questions.”

    But even as the supporters mobilized, it wasn’t clear if the senators had the votes. Baldwin says that many Republicans she was talking to were skeptical of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s motivations so close to the midterm elections.

    So Baldwin and the other senators met with Schumer in mid-September and told him they needed to delay a vote until after the election. It was “disappointing,” she says, and she knew she and Schumer would get pushback from groups that wanted them to force the question on the floor. But she argued it was the right thing to do, and Schumer agreed. “I’m trusting your counts,” she says he told her.

    When the Senate returned after the election, with Senate Democrats having won a majority, Schumer announced they would hold an immediate vote on the marriage bill. By then, Baldwin and the others felt more sure of a win — and on Nov. 16, twelve Republicans voted yes in a key procedural vote to move forward.

    In addition to Collins, Romney, Portman and Tillis, Republicans supporting the legislation were Richard Burr of North Carolina, Todd Young of Indiana, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.

    After that vote, as the Senate left town for Thanksgiving, some conservative groups mobilized against the bill. On Nov. 23, the Heritage Foundation announced a new $1.3 million ad campaign.

    “Liberals are hurrying to cram in their far left agenda, and a few Republican senators are helping them,” the ad said.

    But supporters held firm despite the pressure, and the bill passed the Senate on Nov. 30. As the roll was called, Baldwin teared up, hugging Schumer and others.

    “The thing that gets me so choked up is all the times somebody comes up and says this matters to me,” Baldwin said afterward, through tears.

    Looking back on her four decades of advocacy — she was elected to local office in the mid-1980s, after she had already come out as gay — she says she always thought she would live to see marriage equality.

    “I’m not surprised that we won that in the courts,” she says. “But protecting it in the legislative body is a big deal.”

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  • Dancing Grannies make a triumphant return after Wisconsin parade tragedy

    Dancing Grannies make a triumphant return after Wisconsin parade tragedy

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    Betty Streng of Greenfield, Wisconsin, is getting ready for the anniversary of a terrible day she can neither forget nor remember. 

    “I don’t remember anything from that day,” the 64-year-old said. 

    On Nov. 21, 2021, a red SUV tore through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six and injuring more than 60 others, including Streng, who suffered a traumatic brain injury. 

    Streng was part of a dance team called the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, which lost three members that day. But they gained something too. 

    “When I got home from the hospital, I know I emailed the grannies to say I was home, and they were so supportive,” Streng said. 

    CBS News gathered together a few of the dancers and discovered a bond among them, almost like family. 

    “I knew they were all there for me,” Dancing Grannies member Janis Kramer said. “And that’s what kept me sane.”

    Fellow member Sharon Millard said she didn’t think they “could have done it without each other. I really don’t.” 

    By March of this year, the grannies were practicing again. This week, they returned to walk the same street in the same parade. 

    For some members, like Streng, who at one point couldn’t imagine leaving the house, this coming out was an absolute triumph. But for all members, the parade was also a chance to send a message — a message to anyone along the route who might be marching down a comeback trail of their own.

    “I plan to dance with the grannies forever,” Millard said. 

    Another dancer, Jan Kwiatkowski, said it’s a group of “feisty women.” 

    They are feisty role models of resilience, who turned out to be much tougher than their pompoms would imply. 

    To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, email us: OnTheRoad@cbsnews.com.   

    Steve Hartman


    Steve Hartman

    Steve Hartman has been a CBS News correspondent since 1998, having served as a part-time correspondent for the previous two years.

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  • “Fuck Biden,” “Don’t Tread on Me,” and a Wisconsin Death Trip for Our Times

    “Fuck Biden,” “Don’t Tread on Me,” and a Wisconsin Death Trip for Our Times

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    “The thing to worry about is meanings, not appearances.” —Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip, 1973

    Cecil, Wisconsin

    I went back twice to find out what the coffin meant, but though cars came and went in the driveway, nobody ever answered the door. Halloween in June, or a sign? Kitsch, or a warning? I’d been driving for a week, since the first night of the January 6 hearings, listening to them on the radio as I counted the flags. Not the American ones but the Trump ones. Trump 2024, two years ahead of time; and the red, white, and blue of the Confederacy, the yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden. There are so many now. There’s new folk art too: handpainted “Fuck Biden” placards, homemade “Let’s Go Brandon” billboards, and DIY “Never Forget Benghazi” banners. The cities and towns still ripple with rainbow pride, their numbers are greater, but on many country roads the ugly emblems tick by like mile markers. 

    What was the coffin though? I was visiting friends in Cecil, Wisconsin, when we drove past it. They let me out to make a picture. “Careful,” they said, and, “We’ll come back for you,” because they didn’t want to linger. They sped away, leaving me in the green light. I made my picture. I waited. I read on my phone, on Twitter, that Wisconsin Republicans had blocked an effort to repeal a dormant 1849 law making any abortion—including for rape or incest—a felony. My friends returned, we fled. The next morning, the ruling came down: Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and Wisconsin became the only “blue” state in which abortion is now effectively illegal.   

    In 1973—the same year the US Supreme Court decided 7–2 that Norma McCorvey, “Jane Roe,” had a constitutional “right to privacy” that included reproductive freedom—tennis champion Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the televised “Battle of the Sexes.” Richard Nixon declared, “I am not a crook.” Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize. Also in 1973, a book appeared called Wisconsin Death Trip. It began as a staple-bound pamphlet and as a book became an unlikely mirror of its moment, even as it depicted the last 15 years of the previous century. History’s like that, sometimes, our faith in the forward motion of chronology suddenly evaporating. Death Trip was, on the surface, a benign album of seemingly ordinary photographs—portraits, patriotic displays, happy youth—from one small town in Wisconsin, Black River Falls, during the last decade of the 19th century. Interspersed are excerpts from the town newspaper, the Black River Falls Badger State Banner, and whispers from a “town gossip.” In 1973, a year of crises as varied and vast as those of this year, most white Americans still imagined the previous century as an idyll, apart from a brief interruption for civil war, fought for reasons they thought “romantic.” Virtuous country life, bustling urban industry. American greatness. The Banner spoke other truths. Epidemic disease, whole families consumed; diphtheria, the formation in the throat of a “false membrane”; “astonishing bank failure”; “incendiaries,” arsonists who loved to watch things burn; “vigilance committees”; “the private made public”; a woman, once a “model wife and mother,” who roamed the state smashing windows; soul after soul, remanded to the asylum; so many suicides; a woman who died “from a criminal operation performed upon herself” after she failed to find a doctor with the courage to help her. There was beauty in the book too, even in its carefully arranged photographs of dead infants. That’s what you did then, when your baby died. If you had the money, you hired the town photographer to make the infant’s picture, tucked into a little coffin with flowers, eyes tenderly brushed closed.

    By Jeff Sharlet.

    Thirty years ago, the book’s author, Michael Lesy, was my teacher. The book, his first, has followed me ever since. “You can get as philosophical as you want,” Michael said when I told him I was headed to Black River Falls. He mimicked cheap gravitas. “‘From the deep ground grows the tree of life… ’” Then comes the end, yours or worse, that of those you love—“and nobody likes it when it happens to them.” A death trip is a memento mori, is a reminder that everybody dies. If that seems obvious, consider the desperate denial embedded in the phrase “Make America Great Again”; the light-eating vanity of Trump; the delusion of a golden brand that will shine eternally. Consider this gloating post-Roe meme: “A thousand-year White Boy Summer starts today.” But nothing lasts forever, not even white boys. A death trip, meanwhile, summons us to the precarious real. Not the myth of greatness. The pulse of uncertainty. The living, such as we are. 

    I got the news through a Wisconsin man I’d stopped to speak with that morning, who got it by phone from his wife, who heard it from her doctor, to whom she had gone not to end a pregnancy but to prepare for one. “Mary,” who told me her story on the newly necessary condition of anonymity, had been in the stirrups when the ruling came down. She wanted a baby, and this was the next step in the reproductive technology she and her husband had chosen—until suddenly it wasn’t. Following a course of fertility drugs, Mary now possessed three mature eggs. The nurse stepped out to consult the doctor. But when the doctor entered the examination room, she said, “I’m holding back tears.” 

    “I can’t recommend you continue,” the doctor said. Three eggs meant a risk of multiples. Twins Mary could handle. Triplets she could not. Not her finances and not her body. If she went forward, there was a miniscule chance all three eggs could be fertilized. One embryo might have to be removed. And that, as of  9:11 a.m. central time, June 24, in Wisconsin, could be a felony.

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    Jeff Sharlet

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  • Hunters surpass 200,000 deer during gun hunt

    Hunters surpass 200,000 deer during gun hunt

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    Hunters surpass 200,000 deer during gun hunt

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  • Milwaukee neighborhood covered in demolition dust

    Milwaukee neighborhood covered in demolition dust

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    >> EACH CRASH OF THE WRECKING BALL SENDS ANOTHER CHUNK OF THE HISTORIC FROEDTERT MALT SILOS TUMBLING DOWN BUT IT ALSO SENDS A CLOUD OF DUST OVER THE ADJOINING NEIGHBORHOOD. >> I GOT THE STUFF RIGHT IN MY EYES. MY EYES WERE ALL FULL OF THIS GRIT. >> JUDY RADONSKI HAS LIVED IN THE SHADOW OF THE MASSIVE SILOS FOR 50 YEARS. >> YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT THIS. >> I AM WORRIED ABOUT IT. I’M WORRIED ABOUT MYSELF. I’M WORRIED ABOUT THE KIDS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. >> YOU CAN SEE THE DUST AND GRIME JUST COVERING THIS TRUCK, AND REALLY THIS WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD. NEIGHBORS SAY THAT’S WHAT THEY’VE BEEN BREATHING IN AS THE RESULT OF THIS WORK. >> THIS IS ALL THE GRIT THAT’S COMING FROM OVER THERE, AND INTO OUR LUNGS. >> EDGAR DALECCIO WHO SEES THE WRECKING BALL FROM HIS FRONT PORCH, HAS TRIED TO GET HELP IN LIMITING THE DUST. >> DO YOU FEEL AS THOUGH YOUR CONCERNS ARE BEING DISMISSED? >> VERY MUCH. VERY MUCH. >> THE CHALLENGE, HE SAYS, IS THAT THE DEMOLITION IS HAPPENING IN THE VILLAGE OF WEST MILWAUKEE BUT THE DUST IS SETTLING ACROSS THE STREET IN THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE. THE RESIDENTS HAVE MADE WEST MILWAUKEE OFFICIALS AWARE OF THEIR CONCERNS. MILWAUKEE CITY LEADERS, HEALTH OFFICIALS AND THE WISCONSIN DNR HAVE ALSO BEEN CONTACTED. THE DEMOLITION COMPANY DID NOT IMMEDIATELY RESPOND TO 12 NEWS REQUEST FOR COMMENT MONDAY, BUT OUR CAMERAS DID SPOT CREWS BRIEFLY HOSING DOWN THE SITE SEVERAL TIMES TO LIMIT THE DUST. NEIGHBORS, THOUGH, WORRY THAT WON’T BE ENOUGH TO EASE THEIR CONCERNS. >> I’M WORRIED ABOUT WHAT WE’RE BREATHING IN, MY FAMILY, OUR NEIGHBORS, YOUR FRIENDS AND STUFF EVEN OUR ANIMALS, OUR DOGS, YOU KNOW

    Milwaukee neighborhood covered in demolition dust

    Residents worried about what they are breathing in

    Demolition is ongoing at the iconic former Froedtert malt silos in West Milwaukee, but nearby residents say the work of the wrecking ball is leaving them under a cloud of dust.”I got the stuff right in my eyes. My eyes were all full of this grit,” said Judy Radonski, who has lived across the street from the massive silos for 50 years.”I am worried about it. I’m worried about myself. I’m worried about the kids in the neighborhood,” Radonski told WISN 12 News.Neighbor Edgar Daleccio pointed to several dust-covered homes and cars on his block, telling WISN 12 News, “This is all the grit that’s coming from over there, and into our lungs.”Daleccio says he has been in contact with West Milwaukee Village officials, Milwaukee city leaders and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in trying to get help to limit the dust. The challenge, he says, is one of jurisdiction. The demolition is happening in the Village of West Milwaukee, but the dust is settling on homes across the street in the city of Milwaukee.The company handling the demolition did not immediately respond to WISN 12 News request for comment Monday, but work crews were seen briefly hosing down the demolition site several times Monday, apparently to limit the dust. Neighbors, though, worry that won’t be enough to ease their concerns.”I’m worried about what we’re breathing in,” Daleccio said. “My family, our neighbors, friends, even our animals, our dogs, you know?”Officials in both the Milwaukee and West Allis/West Milwaukee Health Departments tell WISN 12 News they have not been contacted directly by the residents, but are aware of the neighbors’ concerns about the demolition dust.

    MILWAUKEE —

    Demolition is ongoing at the iconic former Froedtert malt silos in West Milwaukee, but nearby residents say the work of the wrecking ball is leaving them under a cloud of dust.

    “I got the stuff right in my eyes. My eyes were all full of this grit,” said Judy Radonski, who has lived across the street from the massive silos for 50 years.

    “I am worried about it. I’m worried about myself. I’m worried about the kids in the neighborhood,” Radonski told WISN 12 News.

    Neighbor Edgar Daleccio pointed to several dust-covered homes and cars on his block, telling WISN 12 News, “This is all the grit that’s coming from over there, and into our lungs.”

    Daleccio says he has been in contact with West Milwaukee Village officials, Milwaukee city leaders and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in trying to get help to limit the dust. The challenge, he says, is one of jurisdiction. The demolition is happening in the Village of West Milwaukee, but the dust is settling on homes across the street in the city of Milwaukee.

    The company handling the demolition did not immediately respond to WISN 12 News request for comment Monday, but work crews were seen briefly hosing down the demolition site several times Monday, apparently to limit the dust. Neighbors, though, worry that won’t be enough to ease their concerns.

    “I’m worried about what we’re breathing in,” Daleccio said. “My family, our neighbors, friends, even our animals, our dogs, you know?”

    Officials in both the Milwaukee and West Allis/West Milwaukee Health Departments tell WISN 12 News they have not been contacted directly by the residents, but are aware of the neighbors’ concerns about the demolition dust.

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  • State says DNA sample was obtained legally in 1976 Marinette Co. campground murders case

    State says DNA sample was obtained legally in 1976 Marinette Co. campground murders case

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    Court rules DNA ruse legal in cold case murder

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  • Hunters bag more than 100,000 deer over opening weekend

    Hunters bag more than 100,000 deer over opening weekend

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    Hunters bag more than 100,000 deer

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  • Man who killed 6 in Christmas parade gets life, no release

    Man who killed 6 in Christmas parade gets life, no release

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    A judge sentenced a man who killed six people and injured many others when he drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee to life in prison with no chance of release Wednesday, rejecting arguments from him and his family that mental illness drove him to do it.

    Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow sentenced 40-year-old Darrell Brooks Jr. on 76 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 61 counts of reckless endangerment.

    Each homicide count carried a mandatory life sentence, and the only uncertainty Wednesday was whether Dorow would allow Brooks to serve any portion of those sentences on extended supervision in the community, the state’s current version of parole. She did not. Wisconsin doesn’t have the death penalty.

    The gallery applauded as Dorow announced the life sentences. Moments later she sentenced him to 762 years in prison on the endangerment counts.

    “Frankly, Mr. Brooks, no one is safe from you,” Dorow said. “This community can only be safe if you are behind bars for the rest of your life. … You left a path of destruction, chaos, death, injury and panic as you drove seven or so blocks through the Christmas parade.”

    Dorow had bailiffs move Brooks to another courtroom where he could participate via video after he became disruptive during her pre-sentencing remarks. He stood motionless in his jail garb and handcuffs as the judge announced the sentences.

    Brooks’ victims demanded during a hearing Tuesday that Dorow give him the toughest sentence possible. Chris Owens, whose mother was among those killed, told Brooks: “All I ask is you rot, and you rot slow.”

    Brooks drove his red Ford Escape through the parade in downtown Waukesha on Nov. 21, 2021, after getting into a fight with his ex-girlfriend. Six people were killed, including 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, who was marching with his baseball team, and three members of a group known as the Dancing Grannies. Scores of others were injured.

    On Wednesday, before the judge handed down her sentence, Brooks told the court that he suffered from mental illness since he was young and didn’t plan to drive into the parade route. He also offered his first apology to the dozens of people who were hurt or lost loved ones during the incident.

    Brooks, who represented himself at trial, told Dorow in remarks that rambled past two hours that he grew up fatherless, poor and hungry in apartment buildings infested with rats and bugs. Brooks said he has dealt with mental health issues for as long as he can remember and that he was physically abused, though he didn’t say by whom specifically. At times he took medication and did short stints in mental health facilities and life was better then, he said.

    “People are going to, like I said, believe what they want, and that’s OK. This needs to be said: What happened on Nov. 21, 2021, was not, not, not an attack. It was not planned, plotted,” Brooks said, adding later: “This was not an intentional act. No matter how many times you say it over and over, it was not.”

    Brooks also offered his first apology to the victims and their families.

    “I want you to know that not only am I sorry for what happened, I’m sorry that you could not see what’s truly in my heart,” he said. “That you cannot see the remorse that I have.”

    But Brooks didn’t explain his motive or offer any other insights into what he was thinking as he turned the SUV into the parade. When Dorow asked him what sentence he thought he should get, he didn’t answer directly but said: “I just want to be helped.”

    Brooks’ mother and grandmother tried to persuade Dorow to place Brooks in a mental institution rather than prison. His grandmother, Mary Edwards, said Brooks has been bipolar since he was 12 and that disorder caused him to drive into the parade. His mother, Dawn Woods, pushed Dorow to ensure that Brooks receives treatment in prison.

    “If they have to stay for the rest of their lives away from society at least they’re getting the help they need to become mentally well,” Woods said.

    Brooks appeared to weep as his mother spoke.

    Dorow said before she handed down the sentences that she doesn’t believe Brooks is mentally ill, pointing out that four psychologists who evaluated him earlier this year found that he suffers from an anti-social personality disorder but not a mental illness.

    “It is my opinion that mental health issues did not cause him to do what he did on Nov. 21, 2021, and frankly didn’t play a role,” the judge said Wednesday. “It is very clear to me that he understands the difference between right and wrong and he simply chooses to ignore his conscience. He is fueled by anger and rage.”

    Dorow spent most of Tuesday listening to dozens of victims demand Brooks get the maximum possible sentence. One by one they described frantically searching for their children in the immediate aftermath, the pain their children have endured as they still struggle to recover from their injuries and the emptiness they feel as they cope with the loss of their dead loved ones.

    District Attorney Susan Opper asked Dorow on Tuesday to make the sentences consecutive so they stack up “just as he stacked victims up as he drove down the road,” with no chance of release on extended supervision.

    Brooks chose to represent himself during his monthlong trial, which was punctuated by his erratic outbursts. He refused to answer to his own name, frequently interrupted Dorow and often refused to stop talking. Multiple times the judge had bailiffs move Brooks to another courtroom where he could participate via video but she could mute his microphone when he became disruptive, just as she did Wednesday.

    ———

    Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin.

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  • Organization surprises Kaukauna Gold Star family with mortgage payoff

    Organization surprises Kaukauna Gold Star family with mortgage payoff

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    Gold Star family has mortgage paid off

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  • Victims ready to speak at Christmas parade crash sentencing

    Victims ready to speak at Christmas parade crash sentencing

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    MADISON, Wis. — Dozens of people who were hurt or saw their loved ones injured when a man drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee plan to address him for the first time Tuesday during what promises to be a raw, tearful two-day sentencing hearing.

    Darrell Brooks Jr. drove his red Ford Escape through the parade in downtown Waukesha on Nov. 21, 2021. Six people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy. Scores of others were injured. A jury convicted Brooks last month of 76 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 61 counts of reckless endangerment.

    Judge Jennifer Dorow set aside Tuesday for victim impact statements and Wednesday for sentencing.

    Brooks, 40, almost certainly will spend the rest of his life in prison. Each homicide count carries a mandatory life sentence, and each endangerment count carries a maximum sentence of 17 1/2 years. Legal experts said they expect Dorow to make the life sentences consecutive, with no chance of parole, because to do otherwise would likely mean an intense backlash from the community.

    “This guy’s never getting out,” said Tom Grieve, a Madison-based defense attorney. “He’s never going to see the light of day.”

    The crash left deep scars across southeastern Wisconsin that still haven’t healed. Several witnesses wept on the stand during Brooks’ trial as they described how the SUV barreled through the crowd, sending bodies flying through the air. Someone in the gallery yelled, “Burn in hell,” as Dorow read the guilty verdicts last month.

    Prosecutors have said at least 45 people have asked to speak in court, including nine children.

    Brooks chose to represent himself during his trial despite overwhelming evidence against him. His interactions with victim witnesses were tense, but he generally treated them respectfully, and they kept their answers short. Tuesday will be the victims’ first chance to confront Brooks while he is forced to sit and listen.

    State law doesn’t place any restrictions on what can be said during victim impact statements other than that the remarks must be relevant to the sentence. The law doesn’t define relevance; as long as people don’t lapse into screaming or profanity, they will be free to say what they want.

    Brooks told the judge this month that nine people will speak on his behalf, including his mother. Brooks had said she would testify at the trial, but he never called her to the stand.

    The monthlong trial was punctuated by erratic outbursts from Brooks, who refused to answer to his own name, frequently interrupted Dorow and often refused to stop talking. The judge often had bailiffs move him to another courtroom where he could participate via video but she could mute his microphone.

    After he was removed from the main courtroom during jury selection, he removed his shirt, sat on the defense table bare-chested and stuck down his pants a sign he’d been given to signal objections. Later in the trial, he built a small fort out of his boxes of legal documents and hid behind it so the camera couldn’t pick up his face. At other times, he hid his face behind a Bible.

    Dorow said in a memo to Brooks and prosecutors this month that she has received emails, letters, cards and gifts, including candy and other food, in connection with the case.

    Any perception of judicial bias against Brooks could provide him with grounds for an appeal.

    Dorow wrote that the gifts will not influence her sentencing decision, saying that she has taken “every step possible” to not read the correspondence and that she has distributed the candy among the clerk of court’s staff.

    The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that much of the correspondence came from livestream viewers who praised the judge’s handling of a difficult case.

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  • CBS Weekend News, November 12, 2022

    CBS Weekend News, November 12, 2022

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    CBS Weekend News, November 12, 2022 – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Mark Kelly clinches Senate seat as vote counting continues in tight races; Wisconsin surgeon eyes new career as welder after devastating injury

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  • Unusual venues make nonconference games more memorable

    Unusual venues make nonconference games more memorable

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    MILWAUKEE — Two of the more notable games on Friday’s college basketball schedule are taking place on an aircraft carrier and in a baseball stadium.

    No. 2 Gonzaga will face Michigan State on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the San Diego harbo r to celebrate Veterans Day. Wisconsin is playing Stanford at American Family Field, the retractable-roof park that is home to the Milwaukee Brewers.

    Staging neutral-site games in non-traditional venues isn’t new. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has scheduled games at many different sites over the past two decades.

    “We’ve been ‘Outside the Box U’ for 20 years and other people are catching up,” Izzo said. “That’s good, and that’s why I didn’t want to pass up this game.”

    Izzo’s penchant for this began in 2003, when Michigan State lost to Kentucky in front of 78,129 fans at Ford Field, the home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions. Soon enough, plenty of late-round NCAA Tournament games started taking place in football stadiums.

    This won’t be the first time Izzo has coached a game on an aircraft carrier.

    Michigan State lost to top-ranked North Carolina in November 2011 on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson as President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama watched from courtside.

    Stanford coach Jerod Haase was a North Carolina assistant coach for that 2011 game. Now, he’s preparing his team to play the first basketball game at a baseball-only stadium since San Diego faced San Diego State in 2015 at Petco Park, home of the Padres.

    “It’s an experience for our guys to talk about when they’re old like me, about how they played in a baseball stadium,” Haase said.

    The offbeat settings come with potential obstacles, particularly when they’re outdoors. The roof will be closed for the American Family Field doubleheader that includes a women’s game between Wisconsin and Kansas State.

    The 2011 North Carolina-Michigan State game on a carrier finished less than an hour before rain fell.

    A year later, condensation on the respective courts wiped out an Ohio State-Marquette game aboard the decommissioned USS Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina, and a Georgetown-Florida game aboard the USS Bataan at Naval Station Mayport around Jacksonville, Florida. Florida and Georgetown did play the first half before the game was scrapped.

    During that 2012-13 season, a Syracuse-San Diego State game aboard the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum was delayed two days due to rain. And, windy conditions affected 3-point shooting when it was played.

    The teams involved believe the opportunity is worth the potential drawbacks.

    Gonzaga coach Mark Few jumped at the chance when the idea of playing on a carrier was proposed.

    “Tom Izzo told me it was the coolest thing he’s ever done,” Few said. “I said, ‘OK, I’m in.’”

    Wisconsin coach Greg Gard says his hopes of having the Badgers play a game at American Family Field started about 15 years ago, when he was an assistant coach and the stadium was known as Miller Park.

    Various plans were discussed over the years.

    “We were going to do a doubleheader basketball-hockey and set up ice in the outfield,” Gard said. “Everything was on the table at one point in time.”

    Gard is about to realize that dream — minus an ice rink.

    Wisconsin and Stanford practiced Thursday on a court that encompasses much of the ballpark’s infield, with baskets in the vicinity of first base and third base.

    The pitcher’s mound was removed, and fans will sit in temporary stands courtside, as well as in some of the stadium’s permanent seats.

    “Listening to our players as we walked up out of the dugout, what their reactions were, I think it turned out really, really good,” Gard said.

    Wisconsin forward Tyler Wahl, who has attended just one Brewers home game, tried to envision just what to expect on Friday.

    “I’m excited to see what it looks like with basketball, bringing a whole different crew of fans,” Wahl said. “Hopefully it will be cool.”

    It might not be a one-time deal.

    Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger said he was hopeful that the contest was the first of many chances to host hoop games at the ballpark.

    Gard says he’d love to see an NCAA regional at American Family Field, though it could be tough to host that kind of event in late March while still having the ballpark’s grass surface ready in time for baseball season.

    For now, Wisconsin and Stanford are looking forward to a unique experience in an atypical early season game. Michigan State and Gonzaga feel the same.

    “I’m a little bit old school and I believe the college education is much more than just what you learn on the classroom and the games themselves,” Haase said. “It’s all the experiences around them. I think this provides that.”

    ———

    AP Writer Nicholas K. Geranios and AP Sports Writers Larry Lage and Bernie Wilson contributed to this report.

    ———

    AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/AP—Top25

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  • Democrats see successes in battles for state legislatures

    Democrats see successes in battles for state legislatures

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    Democrats saw successes in legislative chambers across several battleground states in the midterm elections Tuesday, flipping a few of them to Democratic control while stopping Republicans from winning supermajorities in others.

    In Wisconsin, Republicans needed to net five seats in the Assembly and just one in the Senate to reach a two-thirds supermajority — a major development that would have expanded the power of Republicans in the Legislature to override vetoes by Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who was reelected Tuesday. While Republicans flipped the seat they needed for a supermajority in the state Senate, Democrats held on in the Assembly and prevented a supermajority there. Republicans need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to be able to override Evers’ vetoes.

    Evers, a lifelong educator who upset Republican Governor Scott Walker in 2018, often refers to himself as the “goalie” against the Republican-controlled Legislature. He has vetoed a record 126 bills, stopping the Legislature from expanding gun rights, limiting abortions, blocking schools from anti-racism instruction and banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates. 

    He has also blocked more than a dozen voting laws from Wisconsin Republicans: one measure  would have made it more difficult to obtain mail ballots; another would have prohibited election officials from correcting information on absentee ballots; and one would have reduced the power of the state’s bipartisan elections commission. 

    “Key Democratic victories today in Wisconsin may have prevented the MAGA GOP from completely overriding the state’s election system,” said Jessica Post, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Democratic state legislative candidates. 

    “Wisconsin’s GOP has not been coy with their intentions, and despite every advantage, Republicans were unable to muster the numbers to completely unleash their regressive agenda on Wisconsin,” she added.

    In Michigan, where Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was reelected Tuesday, Democrats flipped both the state House and Senate giving the party a “trifecta” for the first time since 1984. The state was a huge target for the DLCC, who spent $2 million in the state to help down ballot Democrats. In total, $24.8 million was spent on advertisements for Democratic state legislative candidates in Michigan, according to AdImpact. 

    “These results show that millions of Michiganders trust Democrats to protect abortion, build an economy that works for everyone, and reject GOP hate,” said Post.

    This is the first decade Michigan’s independent redistricting commission has been used, and Democrats in the state have credited it as one reason they’ve been able to make gains in these chambers. 

    Prior to that, Republican majorities were drawing the lines going back as far as 2000.

    In Pennsylvania, with four races still left to call as of Thursday morning, Democrats were just two seats away from flipping the state House. If they do so, it would be the first time Democrats would control the state House since 2010. State Rep. Joanna McClinton would become the first Black woman to serve as speaker in the state.

    Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party also gained full control of the Legislature by maintaining the state House and flipping the state Senate. The Republican State Leadership Committee, which oversees legislative races as well as state Supreme Court and secretary of state races, had Michigan and Minnesota on its target list, but also expanded its map earlier this year to force Democrats to play in Oregon and Wasington. 

    By Wednesday morning, the GOP had not flipped any state legislatures. But Republicans did win state Supreme Court races in Ohio, holding their 4-3 majority and replacing a retiring swing vote conservative judge with a more reliable one. Republicans also flipped two state Supreme Court seats in North Carolina and now hold a 5-2 majority in the state.

    Their wins there could have implications for redistricting this decade.

    Republicans also secured a supermajority in North Carolina’s state Senate, though they fell short of a supermajority in the state House. 

    In a statement, RSLC communications director Andrew Romeo pointed to the $130 million dollars of Democratic spending on ads in these legislative battlegrounds, and Republican victories in North Carolina, Iowa and South Carolina. 

    “With minimal gains at the federal level, the Republican power we held and gained last night in the states will be all the more important for stopping Joe Biden’s disastrous agenda. We know that last night was just the beginning of the radical left’s full-throated assault that they will mount against our GOP-majorities in the coming decade, and the fight to stop socialism in the states continues,” he added. 

    Aaron Navarro

    Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting.

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  • Tony Evers Wins Wisconsin Governor’s Race, Holding Off Right-Wing Rule

    Tony Evers Wins Wisconsin Governor’s Race, Holding Off Right-Wing Rule

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    Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is projected to win reelection in Wisconsin, blocking Republicans from taking total control of the swing state.

    Evers defeated Republican construction company CEO Tim Michels, who conceded early Wednesday morning.

    Michels won his primary with the backing of former President Donald Trump and largely embraced his backer’s lies about the 2020 election. He then proceeded to relentlessly attack Evers on the economy, crime and education.

    Evers fought back with his own focus on education, arguing that he successfully guided the state’s schools through the coronavirus pandemic.

    A mild-mannered executive, Evers has battled GOP efforts to strip away his power since his narrow 2018 victory over incumbent Republican Gov. Scott Walker. His vetoes have prevented the GOP from enacting a slew of different conservative policy goals.

    Evers could still lose his veto powers, as a fresh gerrymander of the state’s legislative districts has given Republicans a shot at veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

    The governor’s race was long considered a toss-up, with polls showing the two men within the margin of error.

    A Michels win, along with continued GOP control of Wisconsin’s heavily gerrymandered state legislature, would have meant that Republicans would have had total control of one of the nation’s most crucial swing states. President Barack Obama won the state twice, though Trump won it in 2016 and Biden narrowly took it back in 2020.

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  • Record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot fans ticket sales

    Record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot fans ticket sales

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    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Powerball jackpot has reached a record estimated high of $1.6 billion, leading longtime players and first-timers alike to flock to buy tickets ahead of Saturday night’s drawing.

    At Woodman’s Markets in Madison, Wisconsin, sisters Christy Bemis and Cherrie Spencer were among the dozens of weekend shoppers who paid for their groceries and loaded up carts before joining the line at the lottery counter to purchase their shot at the prize.

    They said they almost never buy lottery tickets, but they were lured in by the size of the jackpot.

    “My $2 has just as good a chance of winning as anyone else’s $2,” said Spencer.

    The counter was one of the busiest areas of the supermarket — so busy that employees set up stanchions to guide the queue. Like most of the players in line, Jim Olson, 78, was buying Quick Picks, randomly generated Powerball numbers, but he doesn’t always.

    Olson said he has typically bought a Powerball ticket once every drawing “virtually since they started.” When he picks his own numbers, there’s no rhyme or reason to how he does it: “They just come to you. I can’t explain it.”

    Olson’s biggest win to date? $300 about 20 years ago, he said.

    It speaks to the extremely long odds of winning the jackpot — about 1 in 292.2 million.

    Still, the chance of pocketing $782.4 million (the value of the cash option before taxes) has been enough to bring people flooding across state lines for a chance to play. Winners of massive jackpots almost always opt for cash, but some financial experts say the annuity option, which is paid out over a 30-year term, might be a safer bet.

    Many players do whatever they can to try to tip the odds in their favor. Unlike the weekend shoppers in Madison, not everyone buys their tickets at the most convenient location.

    In Los Angeles, a liquor store known for producing several winning tickets over the years gives superstitious players hope that they could be the next to strike it rich.

    Hector Solis, 35, has been coming to Bluebird Liquor to buy lottery tickets ever since he was a kid tagging along with his parents. ““Bluebird’s, you know, pretty much a hotspot that we know of,” he said.

    On Saturday, Solis purchased $140 worth of tickets on behalf of a group of 27 coworkers. He said he uses specific numbers, like the birthdays of family members he considers to have particularly good luck.

    Al Adams was also at the liquor store to buy his tickets. An experienced drug and alcohol counselor, Adams said he believes in giving back. If he were to win, he said he would give some of the money to his favorite charity for homeless and incarcerated people. “I’d use the rest to disappear somewhere,” Adams said. He also cautioned players to “play responsibly.”

    Kianah Bowman had a different message for lottery players. The 24-year-old organizer used Bluebird Liquor’s long lines as a platform for petitioning against high oil and gas prices — an issue she hopes to see on a ballot referendum in California. She was outside the liquor store for several days, gathering signatures from hundreds of players.

    Bowman also said she plans to buy a few tickets for herself.

    Back in Madison, Djuan Davis was manning the lottery counter at Pick ’n Save on Saturday morning, taking cash and handing out tickets to more weekend shoppers. “Typically there’s a lot of sales on Saturdays,” he said.

    With a record-breaking jackpot, business has picked up. Davis said he’s also seen a recent increase in players purchasing tickets online.

    As customers arrived at the counter, Davis would ask how he could help them. Almost every one answered the same: Powerball tickets.

    “Every time, it’s always that one,” Davis said.

    It was Arpad Jakab’s first time buying Powerball tickets. As Davis sold him four Quick Pick tickets, Jakab, a retired utility worker, said he probably wouldn’t buy them again unless there was another record jackpot.

    “It was just really high,” said Jakab. “Might as well join the insanity.”

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  • Over half of Republicans running for federal, statewide office have raised unfounded doubts about 2020 election

    Over half of Republicans running for federal, statewide office have raised unfounded doubts about 2020 election

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    Over half of all Republican midterm candidates running for federal and statewide office have raised unfounded doubts about the validity or integrity of the 2020 election results, and according to CBS News’ analysis, all of the states but two — Rhode Island and North Dakota — have a candidate on the the ballot who is an “election denier,” that is, who denies the results of the 2020 election were valid.

    Among the 597 GOP candidates running for state or federal office this November, 308 have raised unfounded doubts about the results of the 2020 election. 

    Here’s the candidate breakdown:

    • 20 out of 37 Republicans running for governor (2 Republicans are running for Alaska’s gubernatorial seat under the state’s ranked choice voting)
    • 9 out of 31 Republicans running for lieutenant governor
    • 9 out of 30 Republicans running for attorney general
    • 12 out of 27 Republicans running for secretary of state 
    • 20 out of 36 Republicans running for the U.S. Senate (2 Senate races in Oklahoma)
    • 238 out of 436 Republicans running for U.S. House (2 Republicans are running for the Alaska at large seat under the state’s ranked choice voting)

    Many GOP candidates have voiced support for continued “Stop the Steal” efforts, falsely claiming that President Biden is in the White House illegitimately and must be removed. Others acknowledge he’s the president but won’t say whether he was legitimately elected, and they incorrectly suggest there was wide-ranging fraud in the 2020 election. Some objected to the 2020 Electoral College certification or signed an amicus brief in a Texas lawsuit arguing electoral votes in battleground states Mr. Biden won should be tossed. 

    Other candidates backtracked after their primary races, hoping to appear less extreme to a wider electorate. CBS News still considers these candidates to have questioned the integrity of the election, even if they have since changed course.

    Should GOP election deniers who are running for governor or secretary of state in the 2020 battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin win on Nov. 8, it’s possible that state-level certifications of the 2024 presidential election will be in the hands of officials who continue to propagate the idea that Joe Biden did not win in 2020.

    In Arizona, where there are election deniers running for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem could have the final say in certifying the state’s 2024 election results. Lake has already said that she would not have accepted the state’s results in 2020 had she been Arizona’s governor, and Mark Finchem has suggested that he wouldn’t either. 

    The same is true in Michigan, where Tudor Dixon and Kristina Karamo, running for governor and secretary of state, have also said they wouldn’t have certified Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory. 

    Other races to watch include the governor’s races in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the far-right Republican nominees Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Tim Michels of Wisconsin are on the ballot.

    Below are profiles of some of the candidates who meet one or more of the following criteria:

    • Said they believe the 2020 election was stolen;
    • Repeated disproven claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020;
    • Supported a type of post 2020-audit, sometimes following recounts or canvassing;
    • Signed onto the Texas lawsuit looking to overturn the 2020 election results in several battleground states;
    • Objected to certify the 2020 electoral college results in Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, 2021; or
    • Have at least once, if not more, been unclear when asked if they believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected.

    U.S. Senate candidates: 20 of 36 GOP candidates

    Adam Laxalt (Nevada): Former Nevada Attorney General and Trump Nevada campaign co-chair Adam Laxalt said in a radio interview in August 2021, “There’s no question that they rigged the election.” He also worked with the 2020 Trump campaign in filing a lawsuit in November 2020 with Ric Grenell, the Trump-appointed former director of national intelligence to try to convince a judge to “stop the counting of improper votes.” Laxalt also spread a false claim about thousands of illegal votes in an op-ed after Mr. Biden had been certified as the winner. 

    Laxalt has since acknowledged Mr. Biden is the president, but has not explicitly said he was legitimately elected. “I know you want to make this entire election about this. We have major issues going on in our country right now,” he said, avoiding the question in October 2021. 

    JD Vance (Ohio): “I believe the election was stolen too, but why are we talking about the past,” JD Vance said during a campaign event in January. When asked by Spectrum News Ohio that same month if he felt the election had been stolen, Vance affirmed that he does. “The fundamental problem is we had a massive effort to shift the election by very powerful people in this country. I don’t care whether you say it’s rigged, whether you say it’s stolen, like I’ll say what I’m going to say about it,” he said. 

    Herschel Walker (Georgia): While he was aggressive in saying the election was stolen in 2020, Herschel Walker has since softened his tone. Days after the election, on Nov. 6, 2020, Walker was suggesting several battleground states should vote again. On Dec. 27, 2020 he said on Fox News that he was certain “Biden didn’t get 50 million people voting for him, yet people think he won this election.”

    Walker expressed doubt that the Jan. 6 rioters were Trump supporters, calling them “Trojan horses” and tweeting that Trump has the power “right now to see who they really are and to get the bottom of who stole this election!” In May, Walker claimed he’d never heard Trump say the election was stolen. 

    Don Bolduc (New Hampshire): In August, Don Bolduc said, “I signed a letter … saying that Trump won the election, and, damn it, I stand by my letter.” He added: “I’m not switching horses, baby. This is it.” After winning his primary, Bolduc reversed course “I’ve come to the conclusion, and I want to be definitive on this: The election was not stolen,” he said, adding that while he still believes there was fraud, “elections have consequences and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country.”

    Rep. Ted Budd (North Carolina): As a congressman, Budd voted to object to the Electoral College results in Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, 2021. He also voiced support for the Texas lawsuit that tried to contest Mr. Biden’s victories in several battleground states in the Supreme Court. “Millions of Americans do not have faith in the November election. One of the best ways to air out the legitimate concerns over voter fraud, machine irregularities, and mail-in ballots is at the Supreme Court,” he tweeted in December 2020.

    But more recently, Budd has said that he does believe Biden is “the legitimate president.” He told Fox 46 in April, “He is the president, but I have tremendous constitutional concerns about how the election of 2020 happened.” 

    Mehmet Oz (Pennsylvania): While he said during a debate in April that “we cannot move on” from the 2020 election, he also said on conservative network “Real America’s Voice” that he wants “to be careful” about how he talks about the 2020 election. “I know for sure we’ve got to deal with 2020, but this is about knowing what exactly the diagnosis is so we can give it the right treatment,” he said. During the general election campaign, however, Oz said that he would have voted to certify Mr. Biden’s election. In September, Oz said that he would have certified the 2020 election for Joe Biden. “I would not have objected to it,” Oz said. “By the time the delegates and those reports are sent to the U.S. Senate, our job was to approve it. That’s what I would have done.”

    Blake Masters (Arizona): Before his primary, Blake Masters said in a campaign ad, “I think Trump won in 2020,” and he called the 2020 election “really messed up.” He also claimed, “If we had had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.” But after winning the GOP primary, he shifted his stance to say that Joe Biden had won — with help from and interference by the FBI and the media.

    Gubernatorial candidates: 20 of 36 GOP candidates

    Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania): In addition to being near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and spending thousands of dollars from his campaign account to arrange buses from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., that day, Doug Mastriano, a state senator, held a hearing weeks after the 2020 election and called Trump campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani to testify “on election issues.” Mastriano and other Pennsylvania Republicans challenged the state’s new mail ballot law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — which upheld the legality of the rules. On Nov. 27, 2020, he introduced a bill asking Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar “to withdraw and vacate the certification of the presidential election.”

    In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state and in April, Mastriano said he already has someone in mind, though he hasn’t released a name. He’s also contemplating forcing all voters to re-register in Pennsylvania. He said on “The John Fredericks Show” that he has the power to decertify or certify “any machines or anything else involved with elections… with the stroke of a pen, I can decertify every single machine in the state.”

    Kari Lake (Arizona): Kari Lake has never backed away from remarks she’s made denying the 2020 election’s legitimacy. She has said, “If you think that election was fair, put down Hunter’s crack pipe.” She has also said she would not have certified Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Arizona if she had been governor. She called late-night ballot counting that favored Mr. Biden over Trump “magic.” On “Face the Nation” in October, Lake refused to say whether Mr. Biden is the legitimate president, and she has also appeared on QAnon-affiliated talk shows.

    Gov. Greg Abbott (Texas): In December 2020, Gov. Greg Abbott supported the Texas lawsuit led by Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to toss the election results of four battleground states that Mr. Biden won (Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin). Abbott said of the case, which was appealed to  the U.S. Supreme Court, that Paxton was trying to “accelerate the process, providing certainty and clarity about the entire election process.”

    In Sept. 2021, the Texas secretary of state’s office announced an audit of the 2020 election. Abbott defended the audit in an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” saying, “Why do we audit everything in this world, but people raise their hands in concern when we audit elections?” Abbott approved $4 million in funding for the audit in Nov. 2021, which found very few issues with the 2020 election, according to the Texas Tribune. 

    Tudor Dixon (Michigan): In a primary debate, Tudor Dixon raised her hand along with the rest of the Republican gubernatorial field when they were asked if there was enough fraud to impact the 2020 election results. In another debate, she was asked if she believed Trump had legitimately won Michigan. She replied, “Yes,” even though Mr. Biden had won the state by about 154,000 votes. After his victory,  Dixon, in a since-deleted tweet, wrote the election had been stolen and claimed Democrats had committed “sloppy and obvious” voter fraud, according to MLive, but she offered no evidence to support her accusation. 

    Dan Cox (Maryland): In December 2020, Dan Cox suggested on Facebook that Trump should seize voting machines as a way to prove fraud had occurred. Cox also sponsored buses to take people to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. That afternoon, Cox tweeted: “Mike Pence is a traitor.” Cox later deleted the tweet. In a July 2021 Facebook post, Cox wrote: “I was in Philadelphia with President Trump’s team for three weeks during the 2020 election and witnessed PA election fraud.” Cox also posted tweets containing QAnon rhetoric ahead of the 2020 election.

    Secretary of state: 12 of 27 GOP candidates

    Kristina Karamo (Michigan): In December, Kristina Karamo tweeted that “corrupt politicians with the help of the lying media were trying to steal the election, ain’t going to happen.” Karamo gained a following after the 2020 election, when she claimed to have witnessed fraudulent activity where Detroit was counting absentee ballots. She made several cable news appearances to spread unfounded claims of widespread fraud and filed to intervene in Texas’ lawsuit to overturn the election. One of Karamo’s central fraud claims was about a ballot that had straight-ticket voting bubbles filled out for both Democrats and Republicans. She claimed a worker had wanted to count the ballot for Democrats and a supervisor told the worker to “push it through.” Chris Thomas, the longtime elections director in Michigan who was at the absentee counting facility in Detroit, told CBS News that “push it through” meant that the ballot would be registered as an overvote and would not count for either party. 

    During New Jersey’s gubernatorial election last November, Karamo claimed that ballots for Democrat incumbent Governor Phil Murphy were “magically” appearing. “Can’t make this stuff up, but again you’re ‘insurrectionist’ and a ‘big lie proponent’ for pointing out the obvious,” she tweeted. Ahead of her election this November, Karamo has claimed that election machines in Detroit are illegal.

    Mark Finchem (Arizona): “The 2020 General Election is irredeemably compromised, and it is impossible to name a clear winner of the contest,” Mark Finchem, a state House member, wrote in a resolution he introduced in the Arizona Legislature to decertify the 2020 election results in Maricopa, Pima and Yuma counties. Finchem attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally and was in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. He also supported the Maricopa County GOP-led state Senate-mandated audit that ultimately found President Biden had won the county by about 45,000 votes, a handful more than the original count. He has also attended conferences and fundraisers hosted by QAnon influencers.

    Jim Marchant (Nevada): Jim Marchant, who was the Republican nominee for Nevada’s 4th District in 2020, falsely claimed that the election had been “stolen” from him and from Trump and filed a lawsuit over his own 33,000 vote loss in 2020. The challenge was dismissed. He lost to Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford in 2020. Now, as the GOP nominee to be secretary of state, Marchant has told The Guardian that he would be open to sending an alternate slate of electors to Congress in 2024. Marchant and former Clark County District Court Judge Richard Scotti, another Nevada Secretary of State Republican candidate in the race, have said they would push to decertify Dominion voting machines, which are used by nearly all of Nevada’s counties. Like Mastriano, Marchant also said he supported a proposal to “re-register” voters, which was used by segregationists to restrict the votes of Black Americans during Reconstruction and through the 1960s. Marchant has also attended QAnon-affiliated conferences and spoke on panels about election fraud- and has falsely claimed that Nevada has not “elected anybody since 2006,” but politicians in the state have been “installed by the deep state cabal.”

    Audrey Trujillo (New Mexico): In June, Trujillo called for county commissioners to remove all Dominion machines and all drop boxes, and said the state’s primary results couldn’t be certified until counties did a hand recount, forensic audit and a cast vote record has been provided. In a Facebook interview in March, she said the 2020 election “was a huge, huge, I would say coup to really unseat a president who had the best interests of Americans.”

    House candidates: 238 of 436* GOP candidates

    *2 Republicans are running for the Alaska at large seat under the state’s ranked choice voting

    Sarah Palin (Alaska): When broadcaster Piers Morgan asked her if she accepted that Biden won the election “fair and square,” she said, “Evidently he did because he is sworn in as our president, but no one will convince me, nor anyone else with common sense and a sense of justice — no one will convince us that there was not shenanigans.”

    Kevin McCarthy (California): The House minority leader and potential future House speaker voted to object to the Electoral College certification and said on Fox News right after the election that “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes.” At a press conference June, McCarthy said that Joe Biden was president, but did not say if he was legitimately elected.

    Lauren Boebert (Colorado): Before the 2020 election, Boebert wrote in a tweet that “the only way Democrats can win [in 2020] is through election fraud.” Ahead of Jan. 6, she tweeted about “video footage, voice recordings, data analysis, statistical improbabilities,” and more disproven allegations of mass election fraud. She also objected to the Electoral College certification the morning of Jan. 6. Rep. Boebert, now the incumbent in 2024,  was at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse and tweeted that morning, “Today is 1776.” 

    Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia): Marjorie Taylor Greene was also one of the 10 Republican members of Congress who attended a Trump White House meeting that focused on efforts to overturn the 2020 election. She voted to object to the Electoral College Certification on Jan. 6 and continues to incorrectly insist that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

    John Gibbs (Michigan): During a debate with his primary opponent, incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer, in late June, John Gibbs made the unfounded claim that there were “anomalies” in the 2020 election results “that are simply mathematically impossible.” On his campaign website, Gibbs calls for a “full forensic audit” of the 2020 election and writes that there should be an ID required to vote and an elimination of the early voting period. He also says the “mass mailing of ballots to every voter… would be considered corrupt if used in any developing country.”

    JR Majewski (Ohio): JR Majewski was in Washington, D.C.,on Jan. 6 and in since-deleted tweets first reported by CNN, Majewski tweeted ahead of the Capitol Hill riot that “it’s going down” on Jan. 6. He also has shared QAnon memes and language on his Parler social media account that was later deleted.

    Mayra Flores (Texas): Mayra Flores has suggested that the Capitol riot was caused by Antifa and “infiltrators.”  A CNN review of – tweets leading up to January 2021 that have since been deleted, noted that Flores had shown admiration for  Trump attorney Sidney Powell, calling her an “American hero.” Powell filed a number of baseless lawsuits that alleged massive fraud in the 2020 election. Powell is being sued for defamation over some of her claims and has been sanctioned by a federal judge for a failure to do her due diligence before submitting one of her lawsuits.  Flores wrote that “this election is not over” in late November 2020.

    Harriet Hageman (Wyoming): Harriet Hageman, who defeated incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney in the GOP primary, said the 2022 election was “rigged” and told  a primary debate audience that “we have serious questions” about the 2020 election.

    Contributions by Sierra Sanders, Grace Kazarian, Fritz Farrow, Scott MacFarlane and Major Garrett

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  • Meet the 82-year-old Princeton priest hand cycling to his 86th marathon

    Meet the 82-year-old Princeton priest hand cycling to his 86th marathon

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    PRINCETON, Wis. (WMTV) – At 82-years-young Father Dale Grubba of Princeton, is readying to handcycle the New York City Marathon.

    In training mode, you can find Father Grubba seven days a week hand cycling down the stretch of Canal Street in Princeton. “Even though I don’t live on this street, I’m a resident of this street in many ways,” laughed Grubba.

    Grubba is an athlete in every sense of the word, dating back 42 years when he signed up to run his first marathon on a whim.

    “And after about six or seven weeks you forget the pain of it so you think oh I could do another one, and that led to another one…” Grubba said. “It just got in my blood and you associate with all sorts of people and that becomes the thing I think that attracts me back time and again.”

    With a firm grip on competitive racing, Father Grubba is now closing in on 86 marathons, 22 of which have been completed from the driving seat of a handcycle.

    It’s a shift in competitive racing Grubba made after a knee replacement and back injury. “I wore the bottom half of my body out and now I’m wearing the top half out and when I do that then it’s time to go back to God,” Grubba said.

    From conducting Mass on Sundays to cycling 26.2 miles time and time again Father Grubba attributes his success to always saying ‘yes.’

    “That’s a lesson that I often tell young people too,” Grubba started. “Never turn down a challenge because it can lead to some of the most fruitful things you’ll ever do in life.”

    Sunday, Nov. 6 Father Grubba is taking his sermon to the streets of New York City, wheeling to his way to yet another photo finish.

    “Some people might consider what I do extreme but at the same time I celebrated my 82nd birthday and I’m in good shape, and I just think back, yes I’ve done these marathons and I’ve run shorter races and long races but at the same time I’ve been able to maintain my health too,” Grubba said. “And that’s a real good feeling, real good.”

    Father Grubba says he’s taking life in stride, one cycle a a time. “I have always looked at the positive, focused on the positive and as a result I’ve just lived my dream.”

    Grubba has run the New York City Marathon 18 times, the Boston Marathon 11 times and the list of accolades continues. Follow Father Grubba’s story at Father Dale Grubba and Friends Facebook Page.

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