#Wisconsin State Patrol

[wausaupilot]

JUST IN: 1 dead, 1 seriously injured in Hwy. 13 crash

Hwy. 13 was shut down for more than 8 hours as crews cleared the scene. What we know so far:

Wausau Pilot & Review A 56-year-old man died Saturday and a woman was injured in a two-vehicle crash on Hwy. 13 near Park Falls, according to the Wisconsin State Patrol. The crash was reported at about 6 a.m. Oct. 19 near Lakeshore Drive in Price County in the town of Lake. Initial reports say a 71-year-old man was headed south on Hwy. 13 driving a 2020 Ford F-150 when a man driving a 2003…

[mariacallous]

Dar Leaf and Richard Mack don’t seem like they would pose a threat to US democracy.

Leaf, a sheriff from Barry County, Michigan, always has at least two pens clipped neatly to his shirt pocket and speaks softly with a Midwestern accent. When we meet at an April event in Las Vegas, Nevada, Leaf is immaculately dressed in a sheriff’s uniform, replete with the polished gold star.

Mack also wears a gold star—even though he’s no longer a sheriff. But in the Ahern Hotel ballroom in Vegas, Mack played the part. In a ten-gallon hat, Mack was genial; shaking hands with guests, joking with vendors, and taking selfies with supporters.

This wasn’t an average get-together. Leaf and Mack were at a conference for the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, or CSPOA, a group described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-government organization with links to many other extremist groups. Constitutional sheriffs are actual elected sheriffs who also believe they are the ultimate legal power in their county, and that no federal or state authority can usurp their authority. They also believe that a sheriff’s power stems directly from the constitution, and that they can disregard any laws they deem unconstitutional—a belief that is not grounded in reality.

Leaf is on the board of the group; Mack is the founder. And there are hundreds of members around the country.

In Las Vegas, Mack referred supporters and journalists to Leaf, who was, he said, “doing more than anyone to uncover election interference” in his role as sheriff.

A staunch Trump supporter, Leaf has spent the last four years investigating voter fraud in the 2020 federal election in Barry County—even though Donald Trump won decisively there. He has attempted to seize voting machines, pushed wild conspiracies, and ultimately became the focus of state investigations himself. In at least one case, Leaf appears to have inspired an election official to refuse to verify a vote—an ominous warning ahead of the 2024 US election.

The conspiracies have also taken a physical turn: According to emails shared exclusively with WIRED by the nonprofit group American Oversight, Leaf has run a militia training course advising “potential jurors, homeschoolers, ladies and gentlemen” to “get a standard AR-15 type military grade weapon” and “500 rounds of ammo.” The emails also show that, ahead of the most consequential election in a generation, Leaf is in regular contact with a wide variety of election conspiracists.

Leaf and a number of his colleagues in the Constitutional Sheriff movement say that they have “posses” to patrol polling stations, monitor for “illegal” immigrant voters, and help sheriffs respond to reports of fraud—or anything else—on election day.

Mack, meanwhile, has been the driving force behind the modern day Constitutional Sheriffs movement. In the last six months, Mack’s group has mobilized across the US, building relationships with powerful figures close to Trump, training armed militias, and laying out plans for when Democrats inevitably, in their view, try to steal the election. They’re laying the groundwork to challenge the outcome of next month’s vote—and recruiting sheriffs to help them assert control if Trump loses.

“In a swing state like Michigan or Wisconsin, where the difference in the state's outcome is 50,000 to 70,000 votes, if a sheriff becomes an obstacle, then that could undermine that state's credibility, says Will Pelfrey, a professor of criminal justice and homeland security at Virginia Commonwealth University. “In a swing state, that could undermine the entire national election.”

A WIRED investigation reviewed hundreds of documents and conducted dozens of interviews over the course of the last six months. We found that the Constitutional Sheriff movement believes it is the last line of defense to protect American elections. At conferences in Las Vegas and Florida, as well as online in group chats and Zoom meetings, their discussions often turn to how sheriffs can utilize their unique power in order to, they say, safeguard democracy.

For years, sheriffs like Leaf who believe they have unlimited power to interpret and enforce the laws of the land have operated on the fringes. But as the election approaches, they have been increasingly empowered by those close to Trump and are more committed than ever to ensuring a Republican victory up and down the ballot. At all costs.

Today, one in four sworn law enforcement officers in the US report to a sheriff. In addition to running county jails, sheriffs and their deputies make approximately 20 percent of all arrests in the nation, according to one estimate, translating to around 2 million arrests every year. In nearly one in three US counties, sheriff departments are the largest law enforcement agency, meaning sheriff’s offices are the primary law enforcement agency for 56 million people.

“Sheriffs are really beholden to nobody,” says Pelfrey. “Once elected, a sheriff has tremendous power, and there have been sheriffs who have been convicted and still hold office. It's a bizarre thing. It shouldn't exist, but sheriffs are not beholden to a governor or to a president, and the only way to enforce state or federal laws for a recalcitrant sheriff is the National Guard. And that's not a viable system.”

At the April event in Las Vegas, Mack worked the room incessantly. Together with Leaf, he built links with the leaders of the election denial movement, discussing and preparing for the recruitment of like-minded citizens to patrol polling stations and stop “illegal” immigrants from voting in the election. The event was a veritable who’s who of the right-wing election denial movement, including former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, pillow salesman Mike Lindell, and the de facto leader of the movement, disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

On stage, Flynn told the sheriffs they have “a huge role and responsibility in this country” and that only their local-level work will halt voter fraud. During his speech, Byrne said that constitutional sheriffs would need to play a vital role in fighting the influx of “15 million military-age men.” He also claimed that a “well-regulated militia is not a dirty phrase” and urged sheriffs in attendance to build “surge capacity” by partnering with local militias.

“The constitutional sheriffs, or any sheriff in this county, have mega power at the county level,” Lindell told WIRED in Las Vegas. He suggested that sheriffs could arrest voters for illegally voting in the wrong county, adding that they could “put a moratorium” on the voting machines if they suspect fraud is taking place. And he cited Leaf, who spoke at the event, as an example that all sheriffs should follow.

“Our job is basically to make sure that my guys are educated on the election laws, start looking for the violations, trying to get the election clerks to start paying attention if somebody drives in and they've got a whole van full of people that look like they're not from around our area, and they can say no and then make them take it through the courts,” Leaf told WIRED that week, referencing the conspiracy that “illegal immigrants” were being relocated over the border by Democrats to sway the election in favor of Kamala Harris.

To make sure his deputies follow his lead, Leaf said he is working with others to produce a guide on how to properly police elections—something he said he was going to share with all sheriffs across the country in time for the US elections.

“The role of the sheriff has always been to maintain the peace, and he's your chief law enforcement officer and chief conservator of the peace of your county,” Leaf said. “And when you get people cheating on elections, that's disturbing the peace. You violated somebody's peace.”

None of these claims of constitutional power and control are true.

“There is no constitutional basis for their claims to power, zero, it's just not in the constitution,” says representative Jamie Raskin, the congressman from Maryland who spent decades working as a constitutional law professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. “County sheriffs have no more sovereign-state political power than municipal police chiefs or mayors or county commissioners. The whole claim is completely fictional. It's a pure fabrication.”

Still, anyone paying attention is nervous: Leaf has publicly defended members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia who plotted to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. “It’s just a charge, and they say a 'plot to kidnap' and you got to remember that,” he told a local news outlet. “Are they trying to kidnap? Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you can still in Michigan, if it’s a felony, you can make a felony arrest.” And he has run an eight-week militia training course, called Awaken Our Constitution’s Sleeping Militia Clauses, that he openly advertised on his Facebook page as recently as January.

The contents of the course, according to emails reviewed by WIRED, are based on a 2010 booklet from Brent Allen Winters, a sovereign-citizen believer, titled “Militia of the Several States,” which outlines a belief that armed militias are granted their power not from the constitution but from God, harking back to a time during the American Revolution when men in some areas were fined for not bringing their guns to church. The booklet even cites the Old Testament as justification for organizing an armed militia.

As Winters and Leaf see it, a member of a militia has two duties: “Armed defense of the land from enemies foreign and defense of the law of the land from enemies domestic.”

In one slide, titled “Do Your Duty,” which was shown to attendees of Leaf’s training course, Winters wrote: “Get started. Get a standard AR-15 type military grade weapon. Get 500 rounds of ammo.”

“There should be militias connected with every sheriff,” Leaf told The Guardian in July.

Experts like Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights and someone who has closely chronicled the Constitutional Sheriffs movement for years, are also tracking how the organization is now interacting with other extremist, “paramilitary” groups.

”The Vegas CSPOA conference was about more than recruiting far-right sheriffs,” Burghart claims. “It was about plotting a road map for coordinated election interference and insurrection 2.0.”

In the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his advisers were scrambling to challenge the election results when a relatively unknown former Army Reserve lieutenant colonel named Ivan Raiklin started tweeting. Raiklin told Trump that he should play the “Pence card” and force then vice president Mike Pence to refuse to certify the results of the election.

While Raiklin cited a real provision of the US legal code, his plan had no basis in law. Trump retweeted and endorsed Raiklin’s plan, and while it ultimately went nowhere, the “Pence card” was a precursor to the Trump internal legal team’s coup memo that laid out a plan for Pence to overturn the election result on January 6, 2021.

Four years later, Raiklin is now a superstar in the world of election denial. Ahead of the 2024 election, he has a new scheme to guarantee Trump’s win. It involves the constitutional sheriffs.

Raiklin has compiled a “Deep State target list” of more than 350 names, reviewed by WIRED, that includes elected Democratic and Republican lawmakers, FBI officials, journalists, members of the House January 6 committee, US Capitol police officers, and witnesses from Trump’s two impeachment trials. His plan is to get constitutional sheriffs to round up those people in livestreamed swatting raids so they can be punished for treason. Raiklin, who is closely connected to Flynn’s organization, also wants sheriffs to “deputize” people into armed militias or “posses” to help facilitate the arrests.

“We have hundreds of thousands that want to participate in retribution,” Raiklin said in a June video interview with Cliven Bundy, a Nevada cattle rancher who became a far-right icon after a dispute in 2014 over grazing fees led to an armed standoff with federal authorities. “Some people call it accountability.”

Raiklin met with Mack at the Las Vegas conference and tried to recruit sheriffs to his cause. In June, Raiklin and Mack met again and had “a good discussion,” according to Mack, who would not expand on what exactly the pair discussed. Raiklin refused to speak to WIRED in Vegas and didn’t answer questions sent afterward.

While Trump has not endorsed the Constitutional Sheriffs movement directly, he has spent recent years courting sheriffs around the country. In September 2018, Trump stood in the White House surrounded by almost four dozen sheriffs. Front and center was Thomas Hodgson, then sheriff of Bristol County in Massachusetts.

Hodgson was there to present Trump with a plaque, and praised him for his “strength of purpose” and “commitment to [his] convictions.” The inscription read in part: “There’s a new sheriff in town.” A supporter of the Constitutional Sheriff movement, Hodgson was tapped by Trump in late 2019 to become an honorary chairman of Trump’s Massachusetts reelection effort.

Trump held around a dozen meetings with sheriffs at the White House during his four years in office, more than any other president—and that’s not counting the regular appearances of sheriffs at Trump rallies and campaign stops. Mark Lamb, a constitutional sheriff from Pinal County, Arizona, spoke at Trump rallies in his home state and in Illinois. Trump also emboldened sheriffs by removing Department of Justice oversight that the Obama administration had put in place and restarting a program to allow sheriffs departments to buy military-grade weapons at discounted prices.

“Trump’s tough-guy, xenophobic, and conspiracy-minded persona gave sheriffs a new model in the White House,” writes Jessica Pishko, author of The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy. “Under Trump, constitutional sheriffs had a friend and protector at the highest level of government.”

While Mack’s group is at the forefront of the Constitutional Sheriffs movement, there are many other sheriffs across the US who hold similar beliefs about the power of sheriffs. The movement has also found purchase with other prominent right-wing groups. In 2021, the Sheriff’s Fellowship was launched by the Claremont Institute, an influential far-right think tank involved in the drafting of Project 2025, whose stated goal is to see the US revert to a Christian-centric nation based on principles espoused by the founding fathers. The fellowship, which was funded by Trump’s former secretary of education Betsy DeVos, is a five-day training course in “American political thought and institutions” and has featured multiple self-identified constitutional sheriffs, including Leaf.

The closer constitutional sheriffs get to the mainstream GOP, the more cause for alarm.

“The danger of authoritarian attack on the democratic process is at its peak when you get an alliance between extremist vigilante groups like [the Constitutional Sheriffs] with elements of the actual political system, like a political party,” says Representative Raskin. “That's a dangerous combination if Donald Trump is going to be leading the Republican Party into election denialism and a determination to prevail over the rule of law, and you have violent paramilitary groups backing them up.”

Richard Mack’s law enforcement career began with rejection. “My father had just retired from the Bureau a few years earlier and I wanted to follow in his footsteps,” Mack wrote in his 2009 book titled The County Sheriff. “But, this dream never happened as I had some problems with one of the Bureau's entrance tests.” He instead decided to join the Provo (Utah) Police Department in 1979, where he says he immediately became a “by-the-numbers jerk” whose primary goal was writing as many tickets as possible.

In 1982, Mack went undercover on the narcotics beat. “I had to live in the bars, drink, smoke, and act like the biggest partying druggie there ever was (something totally foreign to my conservative Mormon upbringing),” Mack wrote.

The assignment opened Mack’s eyes to what he saw as the injustice of the drug war and how it was targeting US citizens rather than organized crime groups. Disillusioned with the police force, in 1988 Mack moved home to Safford, Arizona, and successfully ran for Graham County sheriff. This was where the Constitutional Sheriff movement began.

Constitutional sheriffs claim their power comes directly from the founding fathers, even though there is no mention of sheriffs in the constitution. Many sheriffs—including Leaf—cite a quote from a Thomas Jefferson letter as their justification for the importance of the position: “The office of Sheriff [is] the most important of all the Executive offices of the county.” The line was indeed written by Jefferson, but the letter focuses on Jefferson's complaints about lifetime appointments of local judges and how they abuse their office, Pishko writes in her book.

The roots of the modern day Constitutional Sheriffs movement originate in the far-right Posse Comitatus group, which was formed in the early 1970s by William Potter Gale, a minister of a militant antisemitic, white-nationalist quasi-religion known as Christian Identity. Gale lionized the idea of the county sheriff as a protector of the ordinary citizen who had the power to call up posses or militias to root out communism, fight the desegregation of schools, and remove—or even execute—federal officials.

Over the years, the ideas popularized by Gale would inspire a variety of far-right groups, individuals, and movements, including Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Incidents like the sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the early 1990s, the latter of which resulted in dozens of deaths, would be used as further evidence by figures like Mack who already believed the federal government was overstepping.

At the same time, Mack coordinated with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the Brady Bill, signed into law by then president Bill Clinton in 1993. The law mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers—carried out by sheriffs. For sheriffs like Mack, who almost uniformly view Second Amendment gun rights as sacred, this was too far.

In 1997, the Supreme Court sided with Mack and the NRA, finding that the provisions in the bill that forced sheriffs to perform the background checks were unconstitutional. Mack was no longer a sheriff, but he catapulted to fame on the far-right for standing up to the government. He became a regular on the militia and pro-gun speaking circuits and even did PR work for Gun Owners of America, a more hard-line version of the NRA.

Over the next decade, Mack continued to mix in far-right circles. In the early 2010s, he became a board member of the Oath Keepers, an anti-government militia led by former Army paratrooper Stewart Rhodes, who is currently serving an 18-year sentence for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot. (Mack said he left the Oath Keepers around a decade ago when it became too militant, but CSPOA continued to support the group on its podcasts and newsletters in the years since the attack on the Capitol, helping raise money for Rhodes’ legal fund.)

In 2011, Mack founded the CSPOA to “take America back, Sheriff by Sheriff, County by County, State by State.” In 2014, Mack, together with members of the CSPOA and the Oath Keepers, was part of the now infamous armed standoff between the federal government and the Bundy family in Nevada.

The popularity of the CSPOA has waxed and waned over the course of its 13-year-old history, but the Covid-19 pandemic and protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 brought sheriffs back to the fold.

Mack reportedly encouraged sheriffs to ignore restrictions by federal and state officials meant to curb the spread of Covid; he also helped facilitate the spread of anti-vaccine disinformation as a board member of the conspiracy group America’s Frontline Doctors, a role for which he was, at one time, paid $20,000 a month. Mack, who to this day still refers to himself as “Sheriff Mack,” has not been a sheriff for almost 30 years. He unsuccessfully ran for other sheriff positions, and even governor of Utah and US senator in Arizona.

In interviews, Mack comes across as reasonable, repeatedly pointing out that the CSPOA is a nonviolent movement. But in the private members-only webinars he broadcasts weekly to his subscribers, he portrays a much darker side. In an August webinar, he said that his group was “obsessed” with monitoring next month’s vote and the “probability” that the election will be stolen as a result of the millions of illegal aliens being shipped into the country. In another webinar earlier this summer, Mack pushed an even darker conspiracy, that Democrats will allow Trump to win to instigate a civil war:

“The only way I see Trump winning is if they decide they want Trump to be in, that those who cheated last time are actually going to make sure he gets in,” Mack said. “Why do they want Trump in? Because they want the civil war to begin, and the violence that will be happening across this country will be horrendous.”

In September, Leaf appeared in Orlando, Florida, to discuss what extremism experts say is a “far-right blueprint for the next insurrection.” He was speaking at a conference organized by the Florida Foundation for Freedom, a group run by the CSPOA. Leaf was there to show other sheriffs how to take action.

The conference’s speaker list included a variety of election conspiracists with links to Trump—including far-right figure Mark Finchem, who is currently running for a seat in Arizona’s statehouse—and Christian nationalists, including Bill Cook, the founder of America’s Black Robe Regiment. Also speaking at the conference was Mary Flynn O’Neill, a director at America’s Future, the nonprofit run by her brother, Michael Flynn.

The event was organized by Bill Mitchell, the head of CSPOA’s Florida chapter, to promote a blueprint he created for constitutional sheriffs in other states to connect with like-minded election officials. The details of the plan were outlined in a seven-page document published on the foundation’s website, on CSPOA-headed paper.

“Take back the states, one constitutional sheriff at a time,” Mitchell said during a summer presentation about the plan.

When WIRED spoke to Mitchell, he denied that his plan was focused on disrupting the election. But the document clearly calls for citizen-led, local posses aligned with the CSPOA to recruit like-minded sheriffs, county commissioners, and supervisors of elections. Should those officials refuse to take action as directed, the plan states, allied sheriffs or posse-led grand juries will relieve them of their duties.

“Instead of a January 6–style centralized mass insurrection, these Florida activists developed a blueprint for a county-by-county-style revolt,” says Burghart, who analyzed the plan on IREHR’s website.

It’s not just Florida. In Las Vegas, Bob Songer, the sheriff in Klickitat County in Washington state, shared a 32-page guide with other sheriffs on how to recruit a posse, revealing that his own has 150 members. Leaf outlined how, when his Michigan election fraud investigation was going nowhere, he created his own “election investigation posse” consisting of two cybersecurity experts and a “clerk” to gather evidence.

Mack has also espoused his view that every sheriff should have his own posse. In a recent members-only webinar, viewed by WIRED, Mack and Sam Bushman, CEO of the CSPOA, wondered about the possibility of veterans temporarily moving to Leaf’s county in Michigan and being deputized to help his investigations into election fraud.

Mack’s views on the power of posses is deep-seated: “People get all upset when they hear about militias, but what’s wrong with it?” Mack reportedly said in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing at the NRA's national membership meeting, in which Mack was honored as the organization's law enforcement Officer of the Year. “I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to call out my posse against the federal government if it gets out of hand.”

“There's no federal constitutional prohibition against a posse,” says Will Pelfrey, a professor of criminal justice and homeland security at Virginia Commonwealth University. “It's kind of terrifying, because you're empowering a lot of fringe people to do something that they probably shouldn't be doing.”

It’s not exactly clear how many constitutional sheriffs currently exist. Back in 2014, the group claimed it had 485 sheriffs signed up. In 2017, Mack told High Country News the group had 4,500 fee-paying members. By 2021, that number had risen to 10,000, Mack told VICE News, adding that his group had “trained 400 sheriffs.” Two years later, Mack told AZCIR that his groups had trained 1,000 sheriffs.

When WIRED asked Mack how many sheriffs were currently members of the CSPOA, he said 300 sheriffs could be described as “really solid.” He would not divulge how many paying members the group has.

While Mack and the CSPOA are the most prominent part of the Constitutional Sheriff movement, there are many other sheriffs who espouse the same beliefs. A 2022 survey conducted by the Marshall Project found that close to 50 percent of the sheriffs polled agreed with the constitutional sheriff mantra that “their own authority, within their counties, supersedes that of the state or federal government.”

Many sheriffs have also shied away from publicly aligning themselves with Mack, something the former sheriff readily admits. And yet Trumpworld, the election denial movement, and some of the most prominent far-right influencers are now seeking to team up with the sheriffs to influence the outcome of the US election.

In September, election denial group True the Vote told its followers that it was working with sheriffs to monitor drop boxes. While Mack told WIRED he hasn’t spoken to True the Vote about this specific plan, he has confirmed that the CSPOA is still actively working with True the Vote, though he declined to say in what capacity. Bushman also wouldn’t give details of their collaboration, but said: “It's more than just supporting what they're doing.”

In multiple conversations with Mack over the last six months, he repeatedly asserted that the CSPOA advocates only for nonviolent action in efforts to combat the alleged (and unproven) widespread voter fraud that is now the group’s driving force.

But Mack also maintains deep ties to Stewart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers and is publicly meeting with figures like Raiklin, who in August also posted an ominous threat on X referencing the recent assassination attempt against Trump: “In a duel, each side gets one shot. They missed 36 days ago. Now it's [our] turn.”

Earlier this month, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned that “election-related grievances” could motivate domestic extremists to engage in violence around the election.

In a recent phone conversation, Mack’s tone sounded more deflated than antagonistic; he admitted that he was “frustrated” that more sheriffs were not taking a more active role in policing elections, a practice that has led to voters feeling intimidated in the past.

“President Biden and his administration have just caused so much extra work for the sheriffs, it's really hard to get them to focus on elections,” says Mack. Every sheriff in this country should verify the security and integrity of the voting in their county. Every single one.”

Dar Leaf, for one, remains focused. As he prepares to police an election while continuing to investigate the last one, he is clear-eyed about where the threat is coming from: immigrants and Democrats. He claims that America has received “other countries’ garbage,” and as a result, he needs to act.

“Any police officer who thinks that machine is bad or something criminal is going on,” Leaf says, “we have a duty to seize it.”

[odinsblog]

• This is the 1st question of the debate: Was Joe Biden the legitimate winner of the 2020 election? (take a second sip if a candidate deflects the question)

• Someone says the word "woke" [only do this a maximum of 7 times].

• A candidate uses the words "two-tiered justice system."

• Someone uses Ron DeSantis's last name to create a punchline (i.e. "Ron DeSanctimonious" or "Ron DiSaster.")

• A candidate mentions a "three-letter enemy," including FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, CRT (Critical Race Theory), ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance), DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), CDC, EPA, DHS, ATF, CNN, NIH, DOE, or DOJ. [only once per three-letter word, and only counts if they say the acronym, not the whole thing]

• A candidate complains about boys wanting to become girls, or vise versa

• A candidate claims that there are 87,000 new armed IRS agents patrolling the country

• A candidate (likely to be Ron DeSantis) says he or she will eliminate these three agencies of government [it must be these three]: Commerce, Education, and Energy.

• Nikki Haley alludes to the idea that Joe Biden will die in his second term, and therefore, Republicans are really running against Kamala Harris. [only do this once]

• A candidate is asked whether they would sign a national abortion ban, and refuses to actually answer the question.

• A candidate is insulted for his/her poll numbers by someone talking about how far away they are from the center of the stage.

• A candidate says "Biden crime family."

• One candidate attacks another candidate (not counting DeSantis/Christie) because that candidate attacked Donald Trump [only do this once]

• A candidate openly supports the impeachment of Joe Biden [only do this once]

• Vivek Ramaswamy is directly or indirectly insulted for being a Hindu [only do this once]

• Ron DeSantis uses any of the 4 "MUST DOS" from the leaked SuperPAC memo

• The first candidate attacked by Ron DeSantis is Vivek Ramaswamy or Chris Christie

• A candidate says "Right here in Wisconsin"

• A candidate uses the words, "Hillary Clinton [or, "the Clintons"], "George Soros," "deep state," "cabal," or "groomers" in a sentence. BONUS: Chug half of your remaining drink if they manage to use two or more of those phrases in one sentence.

• A candidate gives a shout-out to Elon Musk. [only do this once]

[justbeingnamaste]

The Biden Administration has admitted to flying as many as 320,000 illegal immigrants on secret flights into the U.S., in an effort to decrease the number of illegal immigrant encounters at the Southern Border.

“It means that while record numbers of migrants were flowing over the southern border last year, the Biden White House was also directly transporting them into the country.

Use of a cell phone app has allowed for the near undetected arrival by air of 320,000 aliens with no legal rights to enter the United States.

It comes after a controversy over a 2022 transportation program in which the administration used taxpayers money to move migrants throughout the country on overnight flights.”

JOE BIDEN’S BORDER CRISIS BY THE NUMBERS:

Since Joe Biden took office:

There have been 8.7 million illegal crossings nationwide. 

There have been OVER 7.2  MILLION illegal crossings of our Southern Border.

The total number of illegal immigrants who have entered through our Southern Border is greater than the population of 36 states. Including;

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 

There have been 1.8 million known gotaways who evaded U.S. Border Patrol.  

Since the start of FY 2024 there have been OVER 1 million illegal immigrant encounters.

In January, there were 176,205 illegal immigrants encountered at the Southern Border. 

January was the 35th straight month, where monthly illegal immigrant encounters have been higher than even the highest month seen under President Trump. 

Under Biden, over 340 of these individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the Southern Border.

So far in FY24, there have been 58 individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watch list who have been stopped trying to enter the U.S. illegally between ports of entry. 

This total is more than the encounters in all FY17, FY18, FY19, FY20, FY21, and FY22 combined. 

Over 20,000 Communist Chinese nationals have illegally crossed the Southern Border since FY24 began in October. 

Communist Chinese nationals are exploiting Joe Biden’s failed Far Left open border policies at “record-breaking figures,” becoming “the fastest-growing demographic entering the country illegally.”

The surge in Communist Chinese nationals encountered at our Southern Border has raised serious concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is exploiting the Biden border crisis for nefarious reasons.

Biden’s Far Left open border policies are to blame for this historic crisis. 

There are OVER 60 instances of Joe Biden and his Administration taking actions that undermined our nation’s border security, including halting the construction of the border wall. 

In August 2022, Biden and his Administration decided to make the border crisis WORSE by formally ending former President Trump’s successful ‘Remain in Mexico’ program.”

The Biden Administration announced on May 10, 2023, that it would allow for the release of some migrants into the U.S. with no way to track them. 

Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has now admitted that 40 percent of catch-and-release migrants have disappeared. 

Despite this historic crisis Joe Biden has only visited the Southern Border ONCE, and it was widely panned as nothing more than a photo-op.

  https://www.gop.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=742   

[me-and-the-m00n]

I am a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where for the past four days, there has been an encampment set up at Library Mall in protest of the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza. I wasn’t one of the campers but I showed up to support for a few hours each day Monday-Wednesday. We are relatively late to the game compared to other American colleges, but we had hundreds of people show up the first few days to show their support for Palestine.

The protest has been peaceful, up until 7 a.m. Wednesday morning when state patrol and Madison police officers showed up while protesters were asleep and raided the encampment. They were called by Chancellor Mnookin. I wasn’t there, but they dismantled tents, destroyed food and supplies, and assaulted students, faculty, staff, and community members. Over 30 people were violently arrested, at least 2 of them being professors. The two professors that I know were arrested were people of color. The camp was re-established at 11 a.m. that morning thanks to the protesters. As of right now, organizers have met with Chancellor Mnookin and she agreed to have no further police action at the encampment until their next meeting, but has yet to say anything about the protesters’ demands.

I honestly don’t know if anyone will see this but I have been seeing so much misinformation being spread and I want to clarify some things. The pro-Palestinian protest at UW-Madison has not included any violent or anti-semitic actions towards Jewish people. There was an article being spread that stated that protesters were chanting “Heil Hitler” which is NOT TRUE. Furthermore, calling for a free Palestine does not mean we want to eradicate Jewish people. It means we condemn Israel’s actions, which include the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the genocide of Palestinian men, women, and children, among other things. Many people seem to conflate Zionism with Judaism and therefore take these protests as a personal attack. Our protest calls for UW-Madison to divest from companies that fund Israel’s genocide; we DO NOT want to harm our fellow Jewish students or any Jewish people, for that matter.

Being pro-Palestine does not make you anti-Jew. I, personally, condemn anti-semitism and simultaneously believe Palestinian people deserve to be free. This fight is not about Jewish people, it’s about Palestinian lives. There are many Jewish people on our campus that recognize this and show up to fight for Palestine. There have been instances at other universities of people being anti-semitic, but the majority of protesters have been largely focused on divestment and calling for a free Palestine.

I’m sure many of you have seen the violent police response at universities like Columbia, UT Austin, and UCLA. I just want to say that if you think that the violence inflicted upon students, staff, faculty, and community members of universities by police is justified, you are sick in the head. I don’t give a fuck what those students were doing, they do NOT deserve to to be treated that way by state sanctioned police officers. And if you’re one of the people whining about protests not being peaceful, you’re part of the problem. For the most part, they have been peaceful UNTIL police and/or counter protesters showed up and escalated things. We had Israel-supporters show up at our protest and yell at the protesters standing around and protecting the people praying, and try to incite violence. Protesters knew not to engage.

Another point I wanted to make was how insane the police presence was on UW-Madison’s campus yesterday. When there were literal neo-Nazis marching down State Street in November not a single thing was done about it. My roommate called the non-emergency help line and the lady on the phone said that hate speech isn’t illegal so they can’t do anything about it, which is fucking ridiculous. Also, there was an active shooter at a middle school west of Madison yesterday but Chancellor Mnookin thought it was best that the police spend their time assaulting students that are protesting genocide.

I made the mistake of looking at Twitter threads and saw people wishing us dead. Or wishing for our arrests or expulsions and calling us terrorists simply because we want a say in where our tuition dollars go to. We have a right to protest. And we will not stop until our demands are answered.

I just wanted to come on here to say how insanely proud I am of my generation for standing up and fighting against this genocide. Keep protesting. Do not back down. Within our lifetime, we will see a free Palestine.

DISCLOSE! DIVEST! WE WILL NOT STOP, WE WILL NOT REST!

[thebiscuiteternal]

A staunch Trump supporter, Leaf has spent the last four years investigating voter fraud in the 2020 federal election in Barry County—even though Donald Trump won decisively there. He has attempted to seize voting machines, pushed wild conspiracies, and ultimately became the focus of state investigations himself. In at least one case, Leaf appears to have inspired an election official to refuse to verify a vote—an ominous warning ahead of the 2024 US election. The conspiracies have also taken a physical turn: According to emails shared exclusively with WIRED by the nonprofit group American Oversight, Leaf has run a militia training course advising “potential jurors, homeschoolers, ladies and gentlemen” to “get a standard AR-15 type military grade weapon” and “500 rounds of ammo.” The emails also show that, ahead of the most consequential election in a generation, Leaf is in regular contact with a wide variety of election conspiracists. Leaf and a number of his colleagues in the Constitutional Sheriff movement say that they have “posses” to patrol polling stations, monitor for “illegal” immigrant voters, and help sheriffs respond to reports of fraud—or anything else—on election day. Mack, meanwhile, has been the driving force behind the modern day Constitutional Sheriffs movement. In the last six months, Mack’s group has mobilized across the US, building relationships with powerful figures close to Trump, training armed militias, and laying out plans for when Democrats inevitably, in their view, try to steal the election. They’re laying the groundwork to challenge the outcome of next month’s vote—and recruiting sheriffs to help them assert control if Trump loses. “In a swing state like Michigan or Wisconsin, where the difference in the state's outcome is 50,000 to 70,000 votes, if a sheriff becomes an obstacle, then that could undermine that state's credibility, says Will Pelfrey, a professor of criminal justice and homeland security at Virginia Commonwealth University. “In a swing state, that could undermine the entire national election.” A WIRED investigation reviewed hundreds of documents and conducted dozens of interviews over the course of the last six months. We found that the Constitutional Sheriff movement believes it is the last line of defense to protect American elections. At conferences in Las Vegas and Florida, as well as online in group chats and Zoom meetings, their discussions often turn to how sheriffs can utilize their unique power in order to, they say, safeguard democracy. For years, sheriffs like Leaf who believe they have unlimited power to interpret and enforce the laws of the land have operated on the fringes. But as the election approaches, they have been increasingly empowered by those close to Trump and are more committed than ever to ensuring a Republican victory up and down the ballot. At all costs.

[floridaboiler]

An important Christmas announcement from Santa

The following is an important announcement from Santa. .  .

I regret to inform you that, effective immediately, I will no longer be  able to serve the Southern United States on Christmas Eve. Due to the  overwhelming current population of the earth, my contract was re-negotiated by  North American Fairies and Elves Local 209. I now serve only certain areas of  Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan.  As part of the new and better  contract I also get longer breaks for milk and cookies so keep that in mind.

However, I'm certain that your children will be in good hands with your  local replacement who happens to be my third cousin, Bubba Claus. His side of  the family is from the South Pole. He shares my goal of delivering toys to all  the good boys and girls; however, there are a few differences between us.

Differences such as:

 1.  There is no danger of a Grinch stealing  your presents from Bubba Claus.  He has a gun rack on his sleigh and a bumper  sticker that reads:  "These toys insured by Smith and Wesson."

 2.  Instead  of milk and cookies, Bubba Claus prefers that children leave an RC cola and pork  rinds [or a moon pie] on the fireplace. And Bubba doesn't smoke a pipe. He dips  a little snuff though, so please have an empty spit can handy.

 3.  Bubba  Claus' sleigh is pulled by floppy eared, flyin' coon dogs instead of reindeer. I  made the mistake of loaning him a couple of my reindeer one time, and Blitzen's  head now overlooks Bubba's   fireplace.

 4.  You won't hear "On Comet, on  Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen... " when Bubba Claus arrives. Instead, you'll  hear, "On Earnhardt, on Wallace, on Martin and Labonte. On Rudd, on Jarrett,on  Elliott, and Petty."

 5. "Ho, ho, ho!" has been replaced by "Yee Haw!" And  you also are likely to hear Bubba's elves respond, "I heer'd dat!"

 6.  As  required by Southern highway laws, Bubba Claus' sleigh does have a Yosemite Sam  safety triangle on the back with the words "Back off". The last I heard it also  had other decorations on the sleigh back as well.  One is Ford or Chevy logo  with lights that race through the letters and the other is a caricature of me  (Santa Claus) going wee wee on the Tooth Fairy.

 7.  The usual Christmas  movie classics such as "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life" will  not be shown in

      your negotiated viewing area.  Instead, you'll see  "Boss Hogg Saves Christmas" and "Smokey and the Bandit IV" featuring Burt  Reynolds as Bubba Claus and dozens of state patrol cars crashing into each  other.

 8.  Finally(and most importantly), Bubba Claus doesn't wear a belt.  If I were you, I'd make sure you, the wife, and the kids turn the other way when  he bends over to put presents under the tree.

Sincerely Yours,

Santa Claus  

(member of North American Fairies and Elves Local 209).

[beardedmrbean]

Two siblings were thrown from a horse-pulled Amish buggy Monday morning when a tractor-trailer truck crashed into them as they rode through rural Wisconsin, killing one of the occupants as well as the horse.

The buggy itself was demolished in the crash, which occurred after 3 a.m. on Wisconsin Highway 81 in Darlington, according to a media release from the Lafayette County Sheriff's Office.

Lafayette County sheriff's deputies were among the first-responders dispatched to the scene of the crash just east of Burke Road. The Darlington Police Department, Lafayette County medics and the Darlington Fire Department were also all dispatched, according to the release.

Investigators determined that both the buggy and the tractor-trailer truck were headed east on the state highway when the truck's driver, identified by the sheriff's office as Pavel Ivanovich Gritskan, 39, of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, crashed into the buggy from behind.

The occupants of the buggy — identified as siblings Samuel King, 30, and Fannie S. King, 19, both of rural Darlington — were ejected, according to the sheriff's office.

Fannie King was pronounced dead at the scene. Samuel King was taken first to Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County before being flown to University Hospital in Madison, according to the sheriff's office.

The horse pulling the buggy was also killed.

Gritskan was uninjured.

The sheriff's office and the Wisconsin State Patrol's technical reconstruction unit are investigating the crash.

[wausaupilot]

Police: No students injured in multi-vehicle school bus crash

What we know about a school bus crash involving students from the Wittenberg district:

Wausau Pilot & Review No students were injured Wednesday in a crash involving a school bus and two vehicles on Hwy. 49 near Elderon, according to the Wisconsin State Patrol. The chain reaction crash was reported at about 7:30 a.m. near Elm Road. A school bus from the Wittenberg district was stopped to pick up students with a car behind when a second vehicle slammed into the first. That pushed…

[babyheroeclipseweasel]

Conversations With The Flesh.

Thinking of a conversation with friends and cultural associates, Watson and Pepe Valle at Watson's place. I met Greta Isadora, Pepe's sister, Watson, Juan, Emiliano Tamayo and many other friends at the Philosophy and Letters School, UNAM in México. Years later Emiliano Tamayo and I visited each other in Wisconsin. I had moved to the US, in Madison and he lived part of the year in Milwaukee. In his later years, he was studying Film and Video at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He died before graduating due to his muscular dystrophy disease. He made some great home movies before even thinking of becoming a filmmaker. Some of us friends had the privilege of sitting in one his chairs, made out of stolen market karts. His ideas were intelligent, aggressive, transgressive, calm, beautiful ends and means. We had to execute his wishes to break the law. Even the straight arrows. He loved adrenaline and Saturday Night Live. His van running an avenue without traffic, speeding. Opening back door and released the grocery Karts on the road while filming. You could see his excitement mixed with the rigor of his life in his beautiful pale blue eyes. He was a proud Puma and was at UNAM's Stadium México 68 across the street every other week, when Pumas played home. His father (who he called El Chapulín in secret) was an economist next door in the UNAM's Economy School. Coyoacán was his home. Near the Alberca Olímpica. His dog was an Akita called Akira. In 2018 and 2019 I wrote a few words and started performances in the streets of Chicago. ¨Dude, where is my Kart?¨ At the end of the day, sometimes I would run the kart against police patrols, cars, or go in the opposite direction of traffic. Waking up in the hospital in the morning. Getting dress and starting my day all over.  Later it became ¨Dude, where is my wheelchair? ¨. Going back to Emiliano, eventually his movement was reduced to a few fingers of his right hand in his final days and the oxygen tank made the communications have a different paste. Our communications became slower. We made more physical stops to get electricity to recharge things like his oxygen machine or his heavy wheelchair (not often.) Sometimes we did that a at a Chicago's VIP gentlemen's club or wherever was necessary. One time he came with friends from México. He traveled with them from Milwaukee to Chicago where I had moved. Cuahutli y David Arcadia (Robocop we called him) entre ellos. We went to Giordano's in Chicago, he really wanted to try their pizza and liked it. At the end of the dinner, the family sitting next door explained they had stayed all day at a cheerleader conference at the Bulls Stadium, leading to the Bulls game that night and gave us their tickers for the event. They explain to us that they were just too tired to make it to game and their cheerleader kids were also tired. I don't remember the game, or the score. I have always been curious if Emiliano knew who won that night or against who we played. Greta and Watson introduced me to Pepe. Pepe, Watson and I were avid readers of literature and philosophy, and I believed we were very vocal atheists at the time. Pepe and I were writers and years later we both became movie directors/visual artists. I haven't seeing Watson for some time. His dream was to marry a person from Argentina. He worked for me briefly in the United States. My father spoke with him in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. The last time we know of him. He had married an Argentinian woman and had a son with her. His plans for Europe were the same. One-time Pepe was arguing with Watson who was convinced that things like fashion magazines and the cheap softcovers-like books were not worthy of study to understand culture. I sided with Pepe for a number of reasons (Vanidades, Reader's Digest, Playboy, El Esto, María, Video Risa, etc…). Fruitful conversation over the years. Pepe and I shared the love for Marquis de Sade, Cioran, Nietzsche, Borges, Cortázar, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Roque Dalton, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Thomas De Quincey, and a little Marx, without thinking of a long list. The film references we share might be similar but few. We are bathed in migrant issues along with war stories even though our interests are widely varied. 30 years ago Pepe told me and Watson the story of a Robert De Niro movie just like if it was a professional pitch. I have the images of that movie I have not seeing in my head. Pepe has always been a great story teller. He spoiled it for me, but as my great friend Alexander Radosavljevic, PhD says, you better tell me what's about. What if I never get the chance to see it? Here's a link to ¨El Milagro del Papa¨ del mexicano, Pepe Valle. https://mubi.com/films/the-popes-miracle #love #culture #like #fashion #school #writers #communications #university #video #film #share #economy #electricity #references Luis Sánchez Ramírez. © 2023.

[whitepolaris]

Unexpected Space Junk

Reports of fiery flying saucers were called in from across northern Wisconsin on the night of September 4, 1962, predominantly from Eagle River, Tomahawk, and Merrill. The next morning, at five forty-five, two police officers on patrol in Manitowoc found a chunk of metal on North Eighth Street. The officers initially ignored it, thinking it was a piece of crumpled cardboard. But an hour later, the object was still there, and at that point they realized it was metal. Since it was too hot to touch, they kicked it to the side of the road and waited for it to cool down.

The object turned out to be a twenty-pound piece of Russia's Sputnik IV spacecraft, which had broken up over northern Wisconsin. During the next few days, treasure hunters and homeowners found pieces of the craft in Mishicot, Two Rivers, Wittenberg, West Bend, and various places around Manitowoc, including Lake Michigan shoreline and the roof of a Lutheran church.

In October, the city of Manitowoc got into a tug-of-war with the U.S. State Department, the Smithsonian Institution, the Soviet authorities, and, most inexplicably Mayor Henry Maier of Milwaukee for ownership rights to this metal space junk. But in a peculiar twist of fate, a minor contretemps that later came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis intervened, and the fracas dissipated. The Sputnik junk was eventually returned to the Soviets, but today, you can view a realistic replica of it at the Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc. Also, for the price of admission, it can be viewed at the Tommy Barlett Exploratory display. Times do change!

[miwisconsin]

Atentos! Este miércoles la policía te puede dar un ticket en todo Wisconsin

Alrededor de 100 departamentos de policía en Wisconsin, incluyendo la policía del Estado (Wisconsin State Patrol) se unirán este miércoles 31 de Julio para hacer cumplir la ley en el Dia de la Concientización de la Velocidad.  La campaña que durará 24 horas es una iniciativa que involucra leyes estatales, del condado y locales. La Policía del Estado usará a todos los oficiales disponibles para detener a conductores que pongan en peligro la seguridad en las carreteras. El objetivo del Día de Concientización sobre la Velocidad es educar a la comunidad sobre los peligros del exceso de velocidad y salvar vidas. En el 2023, una persona resultó herida o murió en un accidente relacionado con la velocidad cada 1,3 horas. Hubo 16.401 accidentes relacionados con la velocidad que resultaron en 176 muertes y más de 6.500 personas resultaron heridas. El exceso de velocidad es un problema constante en todo el país y en Wisconsin. La cantidad de multas por exceso de velocidad emitidas por la Patrulla Estatal aumentó drásticamente durante la pandemia de 583 multas en 2019 a 1403 en 2020. Estas cifras se han mantenido altas durante los últimos cuatro años, con 1266 multas en 2023. MIWISCONSIN solicitó al DOT información adicional sobre datos relacionados con la comunidad hispana/latina para difundir y crear programas.  Read the full article

[killerchickadee]

That was supposed to be the plan all along. They're saying bike cops didn't count???? That they were somehow exempt from being accompanied by MPD officers?

I don't know if things would have gone differently if it was Milwaukee police that were on the scene. I guess we'll never know.

[internationalinsight]

Knife-wielding homeless man shot dead by cops near Republican convention

Five Ohio police officers in Wisconsin for the Republican National Convention shot and killed a man who was wielding two knives near the site of the event on Tuesday (local time), Milwaukee’s police chief said.

The incident took place about a mile (1.6 km) from the convention in a residential neighbourhood that includes a large homeless encampment, NBC News reported. Shortly after 1 PM, a confrontation erupted between two men, one with a knife in each hand, the other unarmed, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said at a news conference.

Columbus officers patrolling on bicycles happened to be in the vicinity and rushed to intervene. Police released body camera footage that showed officers on bikes talking before one of them says, “He’s got a knife.”

Several officers then yell “Drop the knife!” as they run toward two men standing in a street. When the armed man moves toward the unarmed man, the cops fire their weapons.

The knife-wielding man was identified as 43-year-old Samuel Sharpe. Authorities said there was nothing to suggest the shooting was related to the convention itself.

The shooting stoked anger among residents who questioned why out-of-state officers were in their neighbourhood, located about a mile from the convention site.

The Milwaukee police chief argued that the shooting did not only appear to be justified, but it may have saved the life of the other party in the dispute.

“Someone’s life was in danger,” Norman said. “These officers, who were not from this area, took it upon themselves to act and save someone’s life today.”

Thousands of officers from multiple jurisdictions are in Milwaukee providing additional security for the convention that began on Monday and concludes on Thursday.

Milwaukee residents and the deceased man’s family held a vigil at night. They expressed outrage over the incident involving police from “outside”.

“They came into our community and shot down our family right here at a public park,” said Linda Sharpe, a cousin of the man who was killed. “What are you doing in our city, shooting people down?”

Sharpe said her cousin lived in a tent encampment across the street from King Park, where the shooting occurred. Some said Milwaukee police officers are familiar with many of those living in the tents and might have been able to de-escalate the situation.