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Tag: Wisconsin

  • Johnson, Barnes polished in 1st Wisconsin Senate debate

    Johnson, Barnes polished in 1st Wisconsin Senate debate

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    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and his Democratic challenger Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes stuck to their scripts — and their time limits — as they met for a debate Friday evening in a hotly contested race that could determine party control of the U.S. Senate.

    In battleground Wisconsin, it was a welcome chance for both candidates to clarify their positions on a variety of issues, and though they disagreed on most subjects, their comments were similar to those they’ve made on the campaign trail. Here are the key takeaways:

    THE ECONOMY

    Inflation is one of the issues most felt by voters this midterm, with noticeable increases in the prices of everyday expenses like groceries, rent and utilities. It’s also among the top issues Wisconsin voters are concerned about, recent polling has shown.

    Johnson was hesitant to commit to supporting increases in the minimum wage, saying he would “possibly consider it.” The incumbent also blamed Democrats for inflation, saying jobs and the economy were better under former President Donald Trump.

    Barnes reiterated his support for a $15 minimum wage as well as an approach to job creation that includes technical and trade education. Johnson questioned several references Barnes made to his working-class background, saying he was unaware of what experience the lieutenant governor has in the private sector other than his parents’ jobs as a schoolteacher and a factory worker.

    ABORTION

    Barnes, who has made support for abortion rights central to his campaign, said he would “absolutely vote to codify Roe v. Wade” into federal law as a senator.

    Johnson again voiced support for a statewide referendum on abortion — an option that seems unlikely after the state Legislature quickly ended a special session called by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers earlier this week to consider allowing ballot measures. Barnes accused Johnson of running from his record of supporting anti-abortion legislation, saying the senator knows a referendum won’t happen.

    A 173-year-old law bans abortions in Wisconsin except to save the life of the mother. Doctors stopped providing abortions after the Supreme Court handed down its decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June. Polling has shown that a majority of people in Wisconsin support abortion rights.

    CRIME

    A flurry of attack ads have from Johnson and other Republicans have branded Barnes as “dangerous” and displayed the lieutenant governor against footage of violent crime. Such ads are a likely reason the lead Barnes held over Johnson in midsummer has since eroded. Barnes supports ending cash bail, but he was clear Friday night that his plan would not allow dangerous offenders out of jail.

    “Senator Johnson may not have encountered a problem he can’t buy his way out of, but that’s not the case for the majority of people in Wisconsin,” said Barnes, sneaking a jab in at the incumbent, who is also a multimillionaire and former businessman.

    Johnson hit back by highlighting Barnes’ statements on police funding and accusing him of inciting riots during protests against racism in 2020. “He says it pains him to see fully funded police budgets,” said Johnson. Barnes doesn’t support defunding the police, but he has expressed support for redirecting police funding towards alternative community safety programs.

    The candidates also addressed gun control. “If gun control were the solution, it would’ve already been solved,” said Johnson, who pinned the blame for gun violence on a lack of social and religious values. Barnes, a Milwaukee native, took the opportunity to decry gun violence and talk about his personal connections to victims.

    CLIMATE CHANGE

    “The climate has always changed, always will change,” said Johnson, denying that climate change is an issue. The senator also said the federal government should worry less about carbon emissions and more about “real pollution” like the state’s ongoing issues with a group of chemicals known as PFAS.

    Barnes accused Johnson of protecting special interests in the fossil fuel industry and referenced his conversations with local farmers. Rural voters are a key group in Wisconsin that Barnes has been struggling to gain the support of.

    When speaking about renewable energy, Johnson said wind and solar energy “make our grid very unreliable” and instead suggested, “If you’re concerned about climate change, you should be supporting nuclear power.”

    JAN. 6 ATTACK

    The incumbent senator has downplayed the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, saying it “didn’t seem like an insurrection to me.” On Friday, Johnson also downplayed his role in attempting to deliver a slate of false electors to former Vice President Mike Pence after the 2020 election.

    “From my standpoint, this is a non-issue,” Johnson said, claiming he had no knowledge of an alternate slate of electors. Both candidates said they believed Pence did the right thing while certifying the results of the 2020 election.

    ____

    Harm Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Venhuizen on Twitter.

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  • First on CNN: Barnes raises more than $20 million in third quarter of closely watched Wisconsin Senate race | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Barnes raises more than $20 million in third quarter of closely watched Wisconsin Senate race | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes raised more than $20 million in the third quarter of 2022, according to details from the Wisconsin lieutenant governor’s campaign, dwarfing what he raised throughout his entire bid for Senate.

    Barnes is aiming to unseat Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent who is seeking a third term, in what has become one of the most closely watched Senate campaigns of the midterms. With an evenly divided Senate, every race this November could tilt the balance of power in the legislative body, but Barnes’ race against Johnson represents one of the best chances for Democrats to flip a Senate seat this cycle.

    The race has been tight for months. A Marquette University Law School Poll, released in mid-September, found 49% of likely voters in Wisconsin supported Johnson, compared to 48% who backed Barnes – a statistical dead heat. But the poll was an improvement for Johnson: The same poll had found Barnes at 52% in August with the incumbent at 45%.

    Barnes’ fundraising haul should help Democrats level the advertising playing field in the race after being outspent in September.

    According to AdImpact, Republicans spent nearly $22.5 million on ads in September, compared to $16.5 million for Democrats. The biggest spenders in the race over that time was Senate Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC with close ties to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The group spent nearly $8 million in September. Senate Majority PAC, the predominant Democratic super PAC focused on Senate races, spent just over $6 million.

    While Republicans spend money hammering him on crime, Barnes has attempted to focus his campaign on the major issue motivating Democratic voters in 2022 in the wake of June’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade: Abortion.

    “I’m proud of the grassroots coalition we’ve built across Wisconsin,” Barnes said in a statement to CNN. “Over this final stretch we’ll keep going everywhere and holding Ron Johnson accountable for his record of supporting a dangerous abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the woman. He’s out of touch with Wisconsin values and we’re going to send him packing.”

    The Democrat recently launched a statewide tour the campaign has dubbed “Ron Against Roe,” an effort it hopes will take advantage of opposition to the June Supreme Court ruling. Marquette’s polling found more than 60% of Wisconsin voters opposed that decision. Barnes also rolled out a new ad that attacks Johnson for supporting a 2011 bill that was introduced by Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker that would have enshrined “the right to life” upon conception.

    “It’s Johnson’s views that are alarming. Johnson supported a ban on abortion, he cosponsored a bill that makes no exceptions for rape or incest or the life of the woman. And Johnson said if women don’t like it, they can move,” a narrator says in a new Barnes ad.

    Johnson has since tried to push back against the abortion attacks by saying he believes the issue should be left to Wisconsin voters, including by updating an 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions to include exceptions for rape, incest or if the life of the mother is at stake. But Johnson backed the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and has numerous times put his name on a bill that would make it illegal to perform an abortion 20 weeks after conception.

    While Barnes focuses on abortion, Johnson’s campaign has been laser focused on attacking the Democrat over crime, including touting endorsements from law enforcement organizations and running ads tying Barnes to efforts to “defund the police.”

    “Mandela Barnes: Dangerously liberal on crime,” a narrator says in a recent ad before showing Johnson standing next to a police officer.

    Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for Johnson, responded to Barnes’ fundraising haul by saying, “All the out of state liberal money in the world can’t change the fact Mandela Barnes supports the Defund the Police and Abolish ICE movements, wants to cut the prison population in half and backs the same Biden economic policies that have led to 40-year high inflation and record gas prices.”

    Barnes has responded by refuting the defund accusations, including with an ad that shows a retired sergeant for the Racine Police Department testifying that Barnes “does not want to defund the police.”

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  • FACT FOCUS: Wisconsin mobile voting truck claims scrutinized

    FACT FOCUS: Wisconsin mobile voting truck claims scrutinized

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    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Two years ago, the city of Racine became the first — and only — municipality in Wisconsin to purchase a mobile voting truck.

    City Clerk Tara McMenamin said she pushed for the truck because it was too difficult to set up equipment at remote sites for early in-person voting. The city used the truck for the first time for municipal elections this past spring. No one seemed to pay any attention.

    But with a slate of hot races on the battleground state’s Aug. 9 fall primary ballot, including GOP primaries for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, conservatives online have in recent days raised questions about the truck, asking how such an operation can be legal and accusing Democrats of using the truck to cheat.

    Here’s a closer look at some of their claims:

    CLAIM: Racine has been using multiple mobile voting vans since June 2021.

    THE FACTS: There’s only one truck, and it wasn’t used until this year. The Common Council approved funding for one truck to serve as a movable early voting site in June 2020. The city used it for the first time in the state’s spring primary this past February, McMenamin said.

    ___

    CLAIM: The city bought the truck using “Zuckerbucks” from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life.

    THE FACTS: It’s correct that the truck was purchased using money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, according to Racine Mayor Cory Mason’s chief of staff, Shannon Powell. The nonprofit seeks to help election officials update technology and to increase civic participation and got a $350 million donation in 2020 from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.

    Wisconsin’s five largest cities all received CTCL grants in 2020. Racine was one of them, accepting almost $950,000.

    Some conservatives have derided the CTCL grants as “Zuckerbucks” and called them election bribery, saying they tilted the 2020 presidential election toward Democrat Joe Biden. But judges have rejected legal challenges to the grants.

    ___

    CLAIM: The truck has been functioning as an absentee ballot drop box in defiance of a state Supreme Court ruling in July outlawing them.

    THE FACTS: No, it hasn’t. McMenamin said the truck is used only to facilitate early in-person voting during the two weeks prior to an election as per state law. She wanted the truck because it was becoming too cumbersome for her staff to set up their equipment in remote polling sites.

    The city posts notices at City Hall, online and in the Racine Journal Times newspaper of the truck’s planned stops, meeting a requirement in state law that municipalities give public notice of the times and locations of early in-person voting sites, McMenamin said. Often the truck parks outside of buildings that have traditionally been used as early voting sites such as community centers, she said. Using the truck allows voting at the site without interrupting functions within the building, she said.

    People can walk up to the truck, register to vote if they haven’t done so, vote in one of the truck’s five built-in booths and hand their ballot to a city staff member manning the vehicle, she said. The ballots are then secured in a locked container. People can turn in absentee ballots at the truck, just as they’re allowed to do at brick-and-mortar early voting sites, but the truck doesn’t have a slit for a drop box and isn’t available 24 hours a day like a drop box, McMenamin said.

    ___

    CLAIM: The city doesn’t allow Republican observers in the truck, enabling Democrats to cheat.

    THE FACTS: False. McMenamin said state law allows observers to watch in-person early voting, so observers are allowed in the truck. She said GOP observers have been in the truck since the fall primary early in-person voting window opened July 26th.

    “It would be exactly the same as if it was in the brick and mortar (early voting site),” she said. “(I would tell) people who are more skeptical of the process, this follows state law.”

    If election observers feel they’ve been unjustly barred or thrown out of an early voting site, they can file a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

    Some online blogs claimed Democrats were staffing the truck and would cast “phony ballots” from it. But the truck is staffed by city election officials and has the same rules as any other early voting site.

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • Defendant to represent himself in Wisconsin parade trial

    Defendant to represent himself in Wisconsin parade trial

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    Darrell Brooks’ trial was never going to be easy for the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha. Now it could hurt even more.

    Brooks plowed through the city’s Christmas parade in his Ford Escape last year, killing six people and injuring dozens more, prosecutors allege. His trial opens Monday with jury selection and is expected to last at least a month.

    Prosecutors have lined up hundreds of videos of the incident and dozens of eyewitnesses to testify, promising a case that legal experts have called overwhelming. But Brooks changed the playing field last week when Judge Jennifer Dorow ruled he could represent himself.

    Brooks, who has no legal training, has already shown himself to be disruptive and combative. What looked like a straightforward proceeding could quickly devolve into a painful slog for still-grieving witnesses, legal observers said.

    “It’s really going to be a challenging trial for the witnesses,” said Tom Grieve, a criminal defense attorney based in Madison. “You have a defendant who feels like he has nothing to lose. He’s going to try to make as big a mess as possible and force a fumble by the prosecutors or judge and try to force a mistrial or build an appeal.”

    According to a criminal complaint, Brooks, 40, got into an argument with his ex-girlfriend on Nov. 21, then sped off and drove onto the parade route despite police shouting at him to stop and shooting at him. Police officers described the SUV as moving side to side and running over people.

    The dead included 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, who was marching in the parade with his baseball team, and four members of a group calling itself the Dancing Grannies, a group of grandmothers who dance in parades. Police captured Brooks after he abandoned the SUV and tried to get into a nearby house, the complaint said.

    Brooks faces 77 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 61 counts of felony reckless endangerment. Each homicide count carries a mandatory life sentence. Prosecutors attached a using-a-dangerous-weapon penalty modifier to each endangerment count, bringing the total maximum sentence on each of those charges to 17 1/2 years.

    District Attorney Susan Opper has compiled more than 300 videos of the parade. Her witness list is 32 pages long; it includes Sparks’ parents, as well as dozens of police officers and FBI agents.

    “There’s going to be no question in this jury’s mind what happened, who was driving, how these people were injured or killed,” Opper told the judge in court last week.

    The process won’t assuage any of the grief that David Durand is suffering over the loss of his wife, Tamara, one of the Dancing Grannies who was killed.

    “The trial isn’t going to bring her back,” he said in a telephone interview.

    Paul Bucher, a former Waukesha County district attorney, said that Brooks’ failure to stop even as bodies were bouncing off his SUV will help Opper prove that Brooks intended to kill people, the key element in a first-degree intentional homicide count.

    Brooks initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease, which could have resulted in him being sentenced to a mental institution rather than prison. He withdrew that plea in September without explanation. Dorow said in court last week that psychologists found Brooks has a personality disorder but is mentally competent.

    Brooks moved last week to fire his public defenders and asked Dorow to let him represent himself. Dorow warned that without legal training he faces long odds against Opper and her assistants. But without a finding of mental incompetence, she said, she was legally bound to allow him to proceed.

    Brooks can be volatile in court. During a hearing in August, he fell asleep at the defense table, woke up, went on a tirade and scuffled with a bailiff. At last week’s hearing, he repeatedly interrupted Dorow as she spoke. Dorow became so frustrated she adjourned until the next day.

    Phil Turner, a Chicago-based defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, said that he expects Opper will call as many witnesses as she can to build an airtight case against Brooks.

    If Brooks gets so unruly that cross-examinations break down, Dorow could simply end the questioning, Turner said. That would give Brooks grounds for an appeal, he said, “but there’s going to be an appeal, no matter what.”

    Bucher, the former prosecutor, said he thinks Brooks knows he’s probably going to prison for the rest of his life and just wants to waste everyone’s time in court. He warned that the trial will become painful for victims and other witnesses who will have to interact with Brooks during cross-examination.

    “He’s playing games, and I think he enjoys it,” Bucher said. “It’s going to be terrible for the victims and the witnesses.”

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  • A one-woman police department: Meet the Coleman Police Chief

    A one-woman police department: Meet the Coleman Police Chief

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    COLEMAN (NBC 26) — In Marinette County, in the village of Coleman, one woman is running the entire police operation on her own.

    Valerie Juarez

    “I have a hard time saying no when people need help,” said Coleman Police Department Chief Ida Soletske.

    A one-woman police department: Meet the Coleman Police Chief

    Valerie Juarez

    The woman works tirelessly to keep the small community safe. To many, it’s a blink of an eye as they’re driving on HWY 141, but it’s home to Chief Soletske.

    “You have to be a well-rounded person to be in this type of work,” said Soletske.

    She’s been the Coleman Chief of Police since 1997. As a one-woman department, she runs all of the town’s police operations on her own.

    A one-woman police department: Meet the Coleman Police Chief

    Valerie Juarez

    “Just like any community we have our drug issues, we have our sex crimes. Any crime that you have anywhere else but on a smaller scale,” Soletske said.

    In order to stop these crimes, that means early mornings and long nights.

    A one-woman police department: Meet the Coleman Police Chief

    Valerie Juarez

    “I mix my week up. I work days and nights and I work every other weekend. So when I’m not working, Marinette County Sheriff’s Office covers it and if there’s anything important or significant that happens they will call me and they know I’m available 24/7,” Soletske said.

    Neighbors in the area said they’re grateful to have someone they can trust to keep their community safe.

    A one-woman police department: Meet the Coleman Police Chief

    Valerie Juarez

    “Ida is always there. She knows everyone in town. She knows everyone’s families, she knows their kids, their grandkids and she’s always a phone call away if we need her for something,” said Mike Kudick, Coleman.

    “The best thing is her integrity, honesty and she’s always there 24/7,” said Jeff Gosh, Coleman.

    “They’re not afraid to call me when I’m not working that I’ve had people stop at my house even, just because I’m checked off duty doesn’t mean I’m done working,” Soletske said.

    And her work doesn’t just stop there.

    “Not only do this for a job. I also work volunteer for the Coleman Rescue Squad too. So between both jobs, I average about 100 hours a week. Plus I have a little farmlet with a couple of horses and a dog and a cat of course,” Soletske said.

    A one-woman police department: Meet the Coleman Police Chief

    Valerie Juarez

    She also said it is very important for her to not only be interacting with the community but to also make positive connections with students.

    “Sometimes I’m over at the elementary greeting all the kids before they go into school. And it’s nice for them to see me in a positive factor so they’re not afraid of me because I want the kids running to me not away from me,” Soletske said.

    For the Chief of Police, she says there’s not a day she doesn’t wear her badge proudly ready to protect and serve her community.

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  • Tammy Baldwin Calls Out Ron Johnson And GOP For ‘Taking Women Back To 1849’

    Tammy Baldwin Calls Out Ron Johnson And GOP For ‘Taking Women Back To 1849’

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    Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) took off the gloves to deliver a stinging blow to her home-state Republican colleague Sen. Ron Johnson just weeks before the midterms, accusing him of trying to take women “back to 1849” and gut Social Security and Medicare.

    Typically, lawmakers from the same state observe ceasefires, particularly so close to an election, so they can work together in the legislature. But Baldwin took the opportunity to attack Johnson after he voted against a continuing resolution to keep the government operating while legislators work out a long-term spending package. (The interim funding bill passed, and President Joe Biden signed it into law Friday with just 11 hours to spare, meaning funding is now secure until mid-December.)

    “My Senate colleague from Wisconsin last night voted against moving forward to fund the government, keep the government open and avoid a needless government shutdown,” Baldwin said at a Senate Democratic leadership press conference Wednesday as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stood nearby.

    “Senate Republicans like my counterpart from Wisconsin have proposed sunsetting, cutting and putting Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block with every budget every year,” she said.

    Baldwin also ripped into Johnson for working to obliterate women’s reproductive rights, saying that he and other Republicans have “enabled and continue to support taking women back to 1849 … and keeping them there without the right and freedom to make their own personal choices about their body, their health and their family.”

    After the U.S. Supreme Court jettisoned Roe v. Wade and its half-century legacy of guaranteeing the right to abortion in June, Wisconsin reverted to an 1849 statute that outlaws abortions even in cases of rape or incest.

    Baldwin concluded: “Let me just close by saying whether it’s Medicare, Social Security, health care, prescription drugs, reproductive health care, we are making it clear to the American people who is on their side and who isn’t.”

    Johnson said Thursday he wasn’t surprised Baldwin attacked him.

    He is widely considered the most vulnerable Republican senator in the midterms. A life-size sculpture of Johnson made of cow manure is currently touring Milwaukee as part of a protest against his claim that climate change is “bullshit.”

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  • Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin to Unveil UNESCO World Heritage Plaque

    Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin to Unveil UNESCO World Heritage Plaque

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    Unveiling Ceremony Will be Celebrated both virtually and in person on September 15

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Sep 1, 2021


    SPRING GREEN, Wis., September 1, 2021 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Taliesin Preservation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation are unveiling a new plaque at the architect’s 800-acre estate in the rural Driftless Hills near Spring Green, WI, celebrating the site’s inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The in-person media event and virtual public streaming watch party will feature special guests, including Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) recognizes landmarks or sites for cultural, historical, or scientific relevance.

    Media Partners are invited to attend the plaque unveiling in-person at Taliesin on September 15, 2021, at 9 a.m. Please RSVP to Aron Meudt-Thering at athering@taliespreservation.org. The public is invited to be a part of this wonderful event at noon CST on Facebook, YouTube, and at taliesinpreservation.org.

    “This is an incredible moment for Taliesin Preservation, our sister organization The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and our incredible community of friends, partners and donors. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site we are now officially recognized worldwide for bringing outstanding cultural and natural heritage to humanity—and we pledge to continue this as a laboratory for living in the 21st century.”- Carrie Rodamaker, Executive Director, Taliesin Preservation

    “This designation is a great source of national pride, and while eight buildings are included in the inscription, it recognizes the importance of Wright’s work, embodied in every one of his buildings and designs. These sites are not simply World Heritage monuments because they are beautiful. It’s so much more than that. These are places of profound influence, inspiration and connection.” – Stuart Graff, President & CEO, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

    Taliesin Preservation produces innovative cultural and educational programming at Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 800-acre estate in the rural Driftless hills of Wisconsin. Taliesin has served as a living laboratory for over one-hundred years, exploring and advancing organic principles in everyday life, where home, community, farm, the arts, education and the environment are deeply connected and work as an integrated whole.

    The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, based in Chicago, IL, spearheaded the serial nomination of eight major works by Wright. The inscription includes Unity Temple, the Frederick C. Robie House, Hollyhock House, Fallingwater, the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs House, Taliesin, Taliesin West and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

    The inscription for Wright’s works was announced in 2019, during the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee. Wright’s buildings are the first US Modern Architecture to be included on the United Nations’ list of the world’s most significant cultural and natural sites, representing American design for the first time on a global stage. Taliesin was chosen to be a part of this honor as a great example of an organic connection to the surrounding landscape of the driftless region. The inscription is an honorary distinction that provides additional protection of the properties.

    Contact:
    Aron Meudt-Thering
    608-588-7900 ext. 221
    athering@taliesinpreservation.org

    Source: Taliesin Preservation

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  • Start the New Year Off With a Bang at iCOMBAT in Waukesha, Wisconsin

    Start the New Year Off With a Bang at iCOMBAT in Waukesha, Wisconsin

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    Press Release
    –


    updated: Dec 28, 2018


    MILWAUKEE, December 28, 2018 (Newswire.com)
    –
    ​Start New Year celebrations at iCOMBAT in Waukesha, Wisconsin, with special tactical laser tag “rave” sessions featuring an ultra-realistic first-person shooter experience on a Hollywood movie-style set using the same equipment and software deployed by SWAT teams and Special Operations teams around the world.

    “Don’t just sit around all day watching the games – get in the game,” said Rick Jensen, CEO and president of iCOMBAT. “Start the New Year off with a bang by playing real-life ‘Call of Duty.’”

    On New Year’s Eve, iCOMBAT will feature four special rave sessions where the adrenalin-powered competition is taken up a notch by the pounding rhythms of the players’ preferred tunes. These New Year’s Eve pre-party sessions will be at 4 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. The cost is $30.

    iCOMBAT’s patented technology is so realistic that it is used for training by SWAT teams and Special Forces units around the world. The 15,000-square-foot iCOMBAT Waukesha facility features a movie set from a middle-eastern city with a city square with a fountain and a road with vehicles. There are two VIP areas for observers to watch the intense fun. Scores and live footage of the missions will also be shown in the lobby on large television screens.

    iCOMBAT is located at 1023 Spring City Drive just off Sunset Drive and next to the Shoppes at Fox River Mall. More information about iCOMBAT can be found on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/iCombatWaukesha or on their website at https://www.icombat.com/waukesha.

    Source: iCOMBAT Tactical Laser Tag

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  • Start the New Year Off With a Bang at iCOMBAT in Fitchburg, Wisconsin

    Start the New Year Off With a Bang at iCOMBAT in Fitchburg, Wisconsin

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    Press Release
    –


    updated: Dec 27, 2018


    MADISON, Wisc., December 27, 2018 (Newswire.com)
    –
     Start the New Year celebrations at iCOMBAT in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, with special tactical laser tag “rave” sessions featuring an ultra-realistic first-person shooter experience on a Hollywood movie-style set using the same equipment and software deployed by SWAT teams and Special Operations teams around the world.

    “Don’t just sit around all day watching the games – get in the game,” said Rick Jensen, CEO and president of iCOMBAT. “Start the New Year off with a bang by playing real-life ‘Call of Duty.’”

    On New Year’s Eve, iCOMBAT will feature five special rave sessions where the adrenalin-powered competition is taken up a notch by the pounding rhythms of the players’ preferred tunes. These New Year’s Eve pre-party sessions will be at 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. The cost is $30.

    iCOMBAT’s patented technology is so realistic that it is used for training by SWAT teams and Special Forces units around the world. The 16,000-square-foot iCOMBAT Madison facility is modeled after Camp Leatherneck, the U. S. military base in Helmand, Afghanistan. It features guard towers, a sniper’s nest, real military vehicles, multiple exploding props and one- and two-story buildings on a fully immersive field with a 27, 000-watt sound system. Participants will hear helicopters hovering overhead and jets screaming by during an action-packed session with multiple missions. There is a lounge serving beer for observers to watch the competition. Scores and live footage of the missions will also be shown in the lobby on large television screens.

    iCOMBAT Madison is located at 2919 Marketplace Drive in Fitchburg near the intersection of County Road PD (McKee Road) and Seminole Highway close to Breakaway Sports Center. More information about iCOMBAT can be found on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ICombatMadison or on their website at https://www.icombat.com/madison.

    Source: iCOMBAT Tactical Laser Tag

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  • Start the New Year Off With a Bang at iCOMBAT Chicago in Illinois

    Start the New Year Off With a Bang at iCOMBAT Chicago in Illinois

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    Press Release
    –


    updated: Dec 27, 2018


    CHICAGO, December 27, 2018 (Newswire.com)
    –
     Start New Year celebrations at iCOMBAT Chicago in Illinois with special tactical laser tag “rave” sessions featuring an ultra-realistic first-person shooter experience on a Hollywood movie-style set using the same equipment and software deployed by SWAT teams and Special Operations teams around the world.

    “Don’t just sit around all day watching the games – get in the game,” said Rick Jensen, CEO and president of iCOMBAT. “Start the New Year off with a bang by playing real-life ‘Call of Duty.’”

    On New Year’s Eve, iCOMBAT will feature four special rave sessions where the adrenalin-powered competition is taken up a notch by the pounding rhythms of the players’ preferred tunes. These New Year’s Eve pre-party sessions will be at 4 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. The cost is $30.

    iCOMBAT’s patented technology is so realistic that it is used for training by SWAT teams and Special Forces units around the world. The 16,000-square-foot iCOMBAT Chicago facility contains a playing field modeled after an abandoned prison. It features guard towers, prison cells and a broken down prison bus in a two-story facility with a 27,000-watt sound system. Participants will hear helicopters hovering overhead during an action-packed session with multiple missions. Scores and live footage of the missions will also be shown in the lobby on large television screens.

    iCOMBAT Chicago is located at 5050 N. River Road, Schiller Park, IL 60176 near the Rosemont Convention Center. More information about iCOMBAT can be found on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ICombatChicagoWest or on their website at https://www.icombat.com/chicago.

    Source: iCOMBAT Tactical Laser Tag

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