Author: Wisconsin Examiner

Leaders of faith organizations and Historically Black Colleges and Universities told members of a U.S. House panel on February 17 how their institutions and places of worship have been roiled by bomb threats and extremism. They talked about the recent waves of bomb threats aimed at HBCUs, a terrifying hostage-taking at a Texas synagogue and a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. But Republicans on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security objected to the thrust of the hearing, saying Congress should instead focus on crime rates and threats made to law enforcement officers....

A bipartisan group of senators is exploring legislation to overhaul how Congress counts Electoral College votes, but backers of stalled voting rights legislation are lukewarm on the effort as a substitute. The Electoral Count Act is an obscure law that has come under recent scrutiny, a year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Trump tried to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election results in an attempt to overturn the election — leading to concern that the certification process needs to...

A new policy analysis report from the Badger Institute asserts that changes in civil rights law in Wisconsin would lead to better ways of reviewing officer-involved-shootings. The report, Rethinking the Evaluation of Police Shootings: A Proposal to Enhance Public Credibility, was authored by Steven Biskupic, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin who served under Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey, suggests reviewing shootings through a civil rights lens instead of the current system that only weighs whether to file misconduct or homicide charges. The report highlights the predictable pattern for police shooting...

“Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America, at American democracy.” – President Joe Biden President Joe Biden warned on January 6 of the dangers of a collapse of American democracy, standing in a historic chamber in the U.S. Capitol that was besieged by an angry mob of pro-Trump supporters who attempted to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election. “We are in the battle for the soul of America,” Biden said during a somber and strongly worded...

A new report maps deep disparities in health by race and ethnicity nationwide, and Wisconsin fairs poorly compared with other states. The gap in the U.S. between the average health and well-being of white people and people who are Black, Latinx/Hispanic, or American Indian/Alaskan Native (AIAN) is longstanding, according to the report, “Achieving Racial and Ethnic Equity in U.S. Health Care.” The report, constructed as a scorecard of state performance based on extensive health data, was released November 18 by the Commonwealth Fund. Health systems in every state “are failing people of color,” the Commonwealth Fund stated in announcing the...