Tuesday, November 28, 2023
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Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Milwaukee Press Club 'Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism' 2020 & 2021 Award Winners

Racine’s New Equity Director Wanted Charity’s Toy Dolls, Monkeys Removed

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Racine’s new equity director Damian Evans requested that a beloved “Toys for Tots” charity remove all toys and dolls depicting humans from a display case in a city building, as well as monkeys in a “jungle theme” case, because he received “concerns” about the dolls’ race, gender roles, and because he believes some people have an “insecurity surrounding monkeys.”

In the place of dolls, including those dressed in “African American and Native American garb,” Equity Director Damian Evans suggested that the displays highlight sports or NASCAR toys instead “that are not replicas of humans,” according to emails obtained by Wisconsin Right Now. He said concern was also raised, it was not clear by whom, about “gender roles in the display” because one doll was depicted in a kitchen.

Damian evans

Tex Reynolds Toys For Tots “is well known in Racine County for giving out refurbished toys during the holiday season to needy children,” according to the charity’s website. The charity has a workshop at Racine’s City Annex building. “Today, the workshop is located in the basement of the City Hall Annex, 800 Center St., where more than 35 volunteers work year-round to make old, donated toys new again and then distribute them to thousands of Racine County’s needy children in time for Christmas,” its website says. Its Facebook page shows diverse children making toys.

Damian evans

We contacted Toys for Tots, and the woman who answered the phone, Kelly Frank, said the toys were removed. “We took everything out that they found were inappropriate,” she said. “It came from the city. We rent the space. We can understand with the way things are in the country today that you’re faced with getting politically correct with everything.  It’s just a toy display. It’s been there for years.” She said the toys have been in the display case probably since the 1970s. She stressed that the charity doesn’t want any “strife” with the city.

To be clear, we did not get the emails or tip from Toys for Tots but rather from another source.

We sent emails to Evans and to multiple city officials copied on the emails, but we did not hear back. We also obtained an email, however, in which a city official, William T. Miller, DPW Facilities Manager, demanded that Toys for Toys remove the items from its display case by May 18, 2023, three days later.

Damian evans

We also received an email that Damian Evans sent on May 22, 2023, to various city officials as well as an official with Toys for Tots. The tipster also sent us photos of the items that caused concern in the displays. We ran those pictures past two people who have been frequently in the Annex building, and they confirmed that they had seen the toy displays there in the past. Both people said they never thought of the toys as racist or sexist but said they were a little “creepy,” especially at night.

In addition to his equity job, Evans is an associate vice president at Rockford University, according to his LinkedIn page.

He previously worked for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. He is Racine’s first equity officer.

Damian evans

Evans’ email’s subject line reads, “Annex display cases.”

It reads, “I have yet to return to the Annex to view the displays, however, I will go over to the Annex today and look at the displays further. However, I would like to share with you the concerns raised specifically about the one at the lower level. There were concerns made about Race (African American and Native American garb), and there were also concerns raised about the gender roles in the display. For example, the lady in the kitchen could be received as women are assigned to be in the kitchen, and it is not a choice.”

He added, “The second display with the Jungle theme is a little less direct but may be perceived by some as offensive, not due to the jungle theme but because of the current heightened racial tension in America. The historical references to African American people as monkeys could be off-putting as it has left many with a sense of insecurity surrounding monkeys.”

Damian evans

Evans continued, “Lastly, I would add displays are tough to manage because, like a photograph, they capture a time frame and do not speak to the context in which they are set up the way that they are or one’s spirit behind selecting specific items or simply what one person doesn’t know or isn’t offend by another might be. Therefore, I suggest updating the displays highlighting sports or NASCAR toys that are not replicas of Humans.”

The email went to Tex Reynolds’ Toys for Tots, Bill Miller, Ronald Pritzlaff (Assistant Commissioner of Public Works, Operations), and John Rooney (Commissioner of Public Works).

We also received an email from Miller to a woman at Toys for Tots thanking her for her “quick attention to this matter.” It is also dated in May 2023.

The second email, written by Miller to Toys for Tots, says, “Toys for Tots, Our Equity Officer Damian Evans, received a complaint(s) about a couple of the Toys for Tots display case items. Some of the items in the display cases are being looked at as not “modern” or “present.”

He attached images “of some examples for your review. Beyond the African and indigenous sections, the monkeys in the jungle type display were specifically mentioned. Please have these items removed by the end of day this Wednesday the 18th (May 18, 2023).”

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Washington County Homes with Pole Building

New Home Sales in October Drop More Than Expected

New home sales in the U.S. dropped last month as mortgage rates have soared.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, new home sales fell 5.6% in October, more than expected.

“The median sales price of new houses sold in October 2023 was $409,300,” the Bureau said in its announcement. “The average sales price was $487,000.”

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the U.S. in October rose to nearly 8% before dipping closer to 7% in November. About this time in 2021, the average rate was around 3%.

That interest rate spike has been fueled in large part by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which has hiked the federal funds rate about a dozen times since March of last year in an effort to combat elevated inflation.

Both inflation and those rates can eventually come down, but it would take time.

“With interest rates edging higher in October, it was expected that new home sales would disappoint, however, as mortgage rates inched lower following Treasury's November 1 announcement of lower than anticipated funding needs, coupled with the market's perception of a decidedly more dovish Fed, rates have edged lower fueling a climb in mortgage applications,” Quincy Krosby, Chief Global Strategist for LPL Financial, said in a statement.

Abortion Would Be Severely Limited in 23 States Roe v. Wade Overturned

Study: States with Restrictive Abortion Bans See 2.3% Hike in Births After Roe Overturned

Roughly 32,000 babies have been born in states that implemented abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, according to a new analysis.

In the first six months of 2023, “births rose by an average of 2.3 percent in states enforcing total abortion bans," leading to an estimated 32,000 births that might have otherwise been aborted, according to a new analysis published by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics initiated by the Deutsche Post Foundation.

“These effects may vary across demographic groups and tend to be larger for younger women and women of color; … vary substantially across ban states, with much larger effects observed in states that are bordered by other ban states and hence have long travel distances to reach facilities that remain open.”

Its November 2023 “Effects of the Dobbs Decision on Fertility” report states that the “U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization sparked the most profound transformation of the landscape of abortion access in 50 years. We provide the first estimates of the effects of this decision on fertility using a preregistered synthetic difference-in-differences design applied to newly released provisional natality data for the first half of 2023.”

The analysis is based on provisional data for the first six months of 2023. “If future research using finalized data and additional policy variation reveals continued substantial effects on birth, then we expect long-lasting and profound effects on the lives of affected pregnant people and their families, including effects on educational investment, employment, earnings, and financial security.”

As of Nov. 1, 2023, 14 states are enforcing bans on abortion in nearly all circumstances, the report notes. Because roughly 23% of American women seeking an abortion experienced an increase in driving distance to the nearest abortion facility (from 43 miles before Dobbs to 330 miles after Dobbs), the driving distance “represents the most profound transformation of the landscape of U.S. abortion access in 50 years.”

According to a different study by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, nearly as many babies are believed to have been born in Texas alone since its new heartbeat bill went into effect Sept. 1, 2021.

Within eight months of the new law going into effect, there were nearly 9,800 live births in Texas from April to December 2022, according to the Johns Hopkins study. If the rate were consistent through November 2023, of an additional 1,225 live births a month, the number of babies born in Texas that otherwise might have been aborted is closer to nearly 32,000 since Sept. 1, 2021.

Suzanne Bell, a lead author of Johns Hopkins study, said their “findings highlight how abortion bans have real implications for birthing people, thousands of whom may have had no choice but to continue an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy to term. Notably, the majority of people who seek abortions live below or close to the poverty line. So many of these birthing people and their families were likely struggling financially even before the recent birth.”

State Sen. Brian Hughes, R-Mineola, who authored Texas’ heartbeat bill, told The Center Square, “Each of these lives is a gift of God and reflects His image. And since passage of the Heartbeat Act, we have drastically increased funding for expectant and new mothers and their babies.

“In Texas, we are proving that we can save the life of the baby while we love, and respect, and support the mother.”

In addition to signing the state’s first heartbeat bill into law, Gov. Greg Abbott signed bills into law extending Medicaid health-care coverage to 12 months post-partum, appropriated more than $447 million for women’s health programs and invested over $140 million in the Thriving Texas Families program.

Prior to Roe being overturned, "In 2020, approximately 1 in 5 pregnancies ended in abortion," the IZA study states, noting that the majority of those seeking abortions, 75%, were low-income. Another 59% said they had previously given birth and 55% reported some kind of hardship including falling behind on rent or losing a job.

Hughes’ bill, SB 8, passed the Texas legislature with bipartisan support and was signed into law in May 2021. By October 2021, a federal judge halted it. By April 2022, the Fifth Circuit overturned that ruling and ended all challenges to the law. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, Texas’ law went into full effect in August 2022.

Texas’ law is considered to be among the strictest in the nation. It bans abortions from being performed in Texas as soon as a heartbeat of the preborn baby is detected, with limited exceptions. It created a second-degree felony offense for a person who knowingly performs, induces or attempts an abortion. The offense is enhanced to a first-degree felony if an unborn child dies from an abortion. Anyone who violates the law performing an abortion can also be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $100,000 for each violation, with exceptions.

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Language Justice

Denver Schools Adopt ‘Language Justice’ Policy With Goal to Support Native Languages

The Denver school district is among the first in the country to adopt a “language justice” policy as a "long term goal."

The district would encourage non-English speaking students to be able to use their native language to learn as opposed to being educated in English, which advocates say is oppressive and rooted in racism.

Denver schools had about 90,250 students in 2022 with 35,000 multilingual learners with home languages other than English. The district has 200 languages spoken across the district, with Spanish as the home language for the majority of those.

The district included a draft of an equity document that includes a policy statement on "language justice." It was included in the Nov. 16 school board agenda. The document includes this definition for "language justice": "The notion of respecting every individual's fundamental language rights – to be able to communicate, understand, and be understood in the language in which they prefer and feel most articulate and powerful."

The district didn't respond to an email seeking comment. It's not clear how much such a policy would cost and the district didn't provide details in the school board agenda packet of how to implement it.

The Colorado chapter of the education advocacy organization Stand For Children stated it worked with the Denver school district to get the language justice policy adopted.

"We will continue to work with school leaders and staff to help provide knowledge of these policies and strategies to accomplish language justice in every classroom and school," Colorado Stand For Children posted on its website.

The Community Language Cooperative, which has advocated for language justice, referred to a chart that explained what is involved in the program.

"The organization has allocated significant funds to language justice efforts. This is a yearly budget line item," the chart states.

It also states that meetings or public events "are facilitated in the represented languages. ... Interpretation is made available to all participants, not just the non-English speakers."

The organization would also hire bilingual staff members, put them in leadership positions and pay them "equitably" to "ensure that bilingualism is a valued skill for the organization."

"It's not just a matter of hiring more interpreters and translators but rather creating systems and building the infrastructure that best supports linguistically diverse families and supporting multilingual staff," Rosa Guzman-Snyder, co-founder of Community Language Cooperative, said in an email to The Center Square.

The Community Language Cooperative, which provides translation services, explained in a post on The Colorado Trust's website how language justice could be implemented.

"Here’s how it works: When somebody speaks in English, [interpreter Luis] Gomez simultaneously whispers the Spanish interpretation into his mic, which feeds the headsets of everyone in the room. There’s another person whispering the English interpretation when somebody speaks Spanish," the post read.

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Biden Impeachment Biden Mandates Artificial Intelligence Biden’s Funding Request 6 Billion to Iran impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden $39 billion biden red background Falling Food Prices

Biden Impeachment Inquiry Builds Evidence

The impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is gaining momentum as more evidence comes out to back allegations that the president himself financially benefited from the overseas business dealings of his son, Hunter.

While Republicans will find it very difficult to get the needed supermajority to impeach Biden, the mounting evidence and media coverage would be another obstacle for Biden to overcome as he campaigns for reelection.

The House Oversight Committee, led by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has filed a flurry of subpoenas in the investigation of Biden family members and associates this month, starting with Hunter Biden, the president’s son, James Biden, the president’s brother, and their business associate Bob Walker.

Comer then sent subpoenas for Hunter Biden’s business associates, Mervyn Yan and Eric Schwerin, as well as his gallerist, George Bergès, and art patron, Elizabeth Naftali.

As The Center Square previously reported, Hunter Biden’s art business has come under scrutiny as critics argue his expensive works were used to hide and funnel funds.

Comer has also sent a subpoena to former White House Counsel Dana Remus, raising concerns about Biden’s handling and retention of classified documents. Federal law enforcement found classified documents in Biden’s garage and his office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. from his time as Vice President.

Notably, former President Donald Trump faces criminal charges for the same offense. Biden has not yet been charged.

In the Remus subpoena, Comer is planning a deposition to find out more about Biden’s handling of classified documents and if there is any connection to those documents and the countries involved in his family’s overseas business dealings.

Notably, reporting has suggested some of the classified documents may have been related to Ukraine, a country that allegedly funneled millions of dollars to the Biden family.

“Facts continue to emerge showing that the White House’s narrative of President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents doesn’t add up,” Comer said in a statement. “It is imperative to learn whether President Biden retained sensitive documents related to any countries involving his family’s foreign business dealings that brought in millions for the Biden family. The Oversight Committee looks forward to hearing directly from Dana Remus and other central figures to further our investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and determine whether our national security has been compromised.”

The committee has released evidence that the Biden family and associates received more than $24 million from entities in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan. Comer says that money was shuffled between shell companies to hide its origin and destination.

Comer has also released copies of two checks for a total of $240,000 from family members made out to the president. The memo says “loan repayment,” but Comer argues these payments are evidence of kickbacks going to the president as Hunter and associates used the president’s political clout to secure deals worldwide.

President Biden has repeatedly dismissed the idea that he personally benefited from any overseas deals.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched the impeachment inquiry earlier this year, putting Comer, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Chair of the Judiciary Committee as well as Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., who leads the Ways and Means Committee, at the helm of the impeachment inquiry.

Comer, Jordan and Smith sent a letter last week to Hollywood lawyer and Democrat donor Kevin Morris requesting a transcribed interview. They pointed to media reports that Morris lent millions to Hunter Biden.

“Instead of investigating his loans as a potential campaign finance violation, the Justice Department, revealed in documents released by the Ways and Means Committee, said they had no interest in doing so, with one DOJ prosecutor saying they were not ‘personally interested’ in following the facts,” Smith said in a statement. “It’s time that Americans learn the truth about Kevin Morris’s monetary contributions to the Biden family business dealings.”

Comer, though, has largely spearheaded the investigation, releasing a series of documentation and evidence, including bank records and testimony from IRS whistleblowers who testified that the Biden administration interfered into their investigation into Hunter Biden.

Comer also requested transcribed interviews last week with four former White House employees: Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, Katharine Reilly, and Ashley Williams.

“The Oversight Committee has conducted transcribed interviews in connection with this matter, including with individuals who worked at Penn Biden Center, one of whom was present at Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022—the day that, according to the President’s personal attorney, classified materials were first “unexpectedly discovered,’” Comer said in a letter to Williams. “The Committees are now aware that, in addition to Ms. Kathy Chung (a Department of Defense employee), at least five White House employees accessed Penn Biden Center prior to the “discovery” of classified materials on November 2 and accessed boxes stored therein—including yourself on October 12, 2022, with President Biden’s personal attorney, Patrick Moore, and again, the next day, on October 13, 2022.”

Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge

Multiple Border Crossings Closed by Possible ‘Terror Attack’ at Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge

Multiple border crossings are closed and two are dead after a vehicle explosion Wednesday on the Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge connecting Canada and the United States.

Multiple reports say law enforcement sources are investigating as a possible terrorist attack. The explosion occurred at or near a toll checkpoint, the car was traveling at a high rate of speed, and both occupants in the vehicle were killed.

The afternoon before Thanksgiving Day, all four border crossings in western New York were closed.

No motive was immediately conveyed by federal or state authorities. There were no other reports of additional injuries on the bridge or surrounding area. It is unclear what precipitated the explosion.

The FBI confirmed the explosion and coordinated the investigation with state and local lawmen.

“The FBI Buffalo Field Office is investigating a vehicle explosion at the Rainbow Bridge, a border crossing between the U.S. and Canada in Niagara Falls,” the FBI said in a release. "The FBI is coordinating with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners in this investigation. As this situation is very fluid, that all we can say at this time."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, posting on social media, said state police and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force was working “to monitor all points of entry to New York.”

Hochul, in another social media post, wrote, “I have been briefed on the incident on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls and we are closely monitoring the situation. State agencies are on site and ready to assist.”

The explosion came at one of the nation's busiest travel times.

“Cars coming into the Buffalo Airport will undergo security checks and travelers can expect additional screenings,” said a statement from the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

President Joe Biden is vacationing in Nantucket, Mass. A White House statement said the administration was “closely monitoring” the situation.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau briefly commented on the incident in Parliament, saying, “This is obviously a very serious situation in Niagara Falls.” He excused himself from a Question Period in the House of Commons while being briefed on the attempted attack.

artificial intelligence

Concerns Raised Over the Effect Artificial Intelligence Could Have on 2024 Elections

A University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy professor is waving a red flag on the impact that artificial intelligence could have on next year’s elections.

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita has written a white paper which he said provides an overview of the potential impact of generative AI on the electoral process. The paper offers specific recommendations for voters, journalists, civil society, tech leaders and other stakeholders to help manage the risks and capitalize on the promise of AI for electoral democracy in the hope of fostering a more productive public discussion of these issues.

“The No. 1 issue that we need to be thinking about are the ways in which AI is going to matter for elections and the ways it poses risks of degrading the information environment for voters,” Bueno de Mesquita said.

The Federal Election Commission has been investigating the possibility of regulating AI-generated images known as "deepfakes" in political ads ahead of next year’s elections.

The Biden administration recently issued an executive order on AI that “will develop effective labeling and content provenance mechanisms, so that Americans are able to determine when content is generated using AI and when it is not.”

Bueno de Mesquita said that misinformation or a “deepfake” close to election day could be damaging “if such a thing gets released and gets released widely on social media or traditional media very close to the election when there is not enough time for responsible actors to figure out what's true and what's false and help voters sort through that information."

According to a survey by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, 58% of Americans believe AI will increase the spread of election misinformation, but only 14% plan to use AI to get information about the presidential election.

In the white paper, Bueno de Mesquita notes that during the campaign season, there is ample misleading content that is not AI-generated, and there will be plenty of perfectly accurate AI-generated content. Ultimately “there will be no substitute for your skepticism, common sense, and trusted sources,” he said.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Redistricting Hearing Wisconsin should soon have an answer about ballot drop boxes and just who can return absentee ballots. wisconsin supreme court

Wisconsin Supreme Court Redistricting Hearing: Lawmakers & Advocacy Groups React

(The Center Square) – There are no surprises among the reactions to the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s questions about drawing new political maps in the state.

A number of lawmakers and advocacy groups weighed in after the high court Tuesday heard arguments to redraw the state’s legislative maps.

The top Democrat in the Wisconsin Senate, Sen. Melissa Agard, D-Madison, said the redistricting case is “historic,” and “has the power to put voters back in control of our democracy.”

“For far too long, Republicans in power gerrymandered Wisconsin’s legislative maps to retain control rather than represent the will of the majority. It is shameful that for more than a decade, politicians in Wisconsin have chosen their voters, rather than voters choosing their representatives,” Agard said.

The top Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, issued a joint statement that echoed the line of questioning from conservative justices.

“The petitioners waited two years to file their meritless redistricting claims – and yet they waited only one day after Justice Protasiewicz’s investiture. Now they want to give the parties mere weeks to litigate Democrats’ demand for new maps statewide,” the two said in a statement. “Rushing to upend the 2024 elections and cancel the terms of the 17 duly elected senators will prove this case to be the campaign promise that Justice Protasiewicz professed it wasn’t.”

A number of advocates also gave opinions.

Law Forward, the group driving the redistricting challenge, also offered thoughts.

“Gerrymandered maps have distorted the political landscape, stifling the voice of the voters,” said Dan Lenz, staff counsel for Law Forward. “It challenges the very essence of fair representation and the erosion of confidence in our political system. The outcome will have far-reaching consequences for Wisconsin’s democracy.”

“We are appreciative of the new court majority’s willingness to listen to the people of Wisconsin in a case where our rights and freedoms are at stake,” Chris Walloch, executive director of A Better Wisconsin Together, said. “Wisconsin’s current maps reflect a long history of partisan map drawing that enables right-wing politicians to rig the rules for their own benefit, while the issues Wisconsin voters care about have gone unaddressed.”

The high court listened to two hours of arguments Tuesday. There is no word when the court will issue a ruling.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Redistricting Hearing Wisconsin should soon have an answer about ballot drop boxes and just who can return absentee ballots. wisconsin supreme court

Wisconsin Supreme Court Hears Redistricting Challenge

(The Center Square) – A lawyer for the groups seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s legislative maps didn’t finish his first sentence before one of the state’s conservative justices demanded to know why he was bringing the case now.

“Where were you? Where were your clients two years ago?” Justice Rebecca Bradley asked. “We've already been through this. Redistricting happens once every 10 years after the census. All of the issues that you're bringing actually could have been brought before this court two years ago.”

A number of liberal and progressive groups, with the support of Democrats in Wisconsin, are challenging Wisconsin’s the maps.

The groups say the maps are gerrymandered and favor Republicans. More specifically, they argue that because not every district is 100% connected, those maps are gerrymandered to the point where they are unconstitutional.

Attorney Mark Gaber told Bradley his clients didn’t go to court two years ago because they weren't yet sure what Wisconsin’s political maps would look like.

“I am unaware of any authority that would say if you don't raise a constitutional claim in 12 days that you're forever precluded from raising that claim in the future, when you have no idea that that claim is going to arise for the particular map that is going to be put into place,” Gaber answered.

Bradley didn’t buy that argument.

“Everybody knows that the reason we’re here is because there was a change in membership on the court,” Bradlley said. “You would not have brought this action had the newest justice had lost her election.”

The progressive groups who are challenging the maps announced their lawsuit less than 24 hours after newly elected liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn-in on the court.

Protasiewicz faced calls to recuse herself from Tuesday's case after she called Wisconsin’s political maps “rigged” in favor of Republicans, and “unfair” during her campaign in the spring.

Gaber and the groups want the court to draw new maps and toss out the 2022 election results because every state representative and more than a dozen state senators were elected under what the groups call “malapportioned” boundaries.

“It’s an absolutely extraordinary remedy,” Bradley added. “There are many intonations about democracy throughout the briefing. I can't imagine something less Democratic than unseating most of the legislature that was just elected last year.”

Taylor Meehan, the lawyer for the Wisconsin legislature, argued many of the same points as Bradley.

“This court invited petitioners to intervene in [the last redistricting case] two years, one month and 15 days ago. They waited. They waited exactly one day after this court's membership changed to file their unprecedented collateral attack. They have no answer for their delay,” Meehan said.

She said the argument from the progressive groups are “meritless” and a “wolf in sheep's clothing.”

“[The groups] cannot now cry foul, shortening Wisconsin senators constitutionally prescribed terms and rushing this case to judgment in only a few months time,” Meehan said.

If the court agrees with the argument from the progressive groups, the court will then have to decide how to draw new political.

The court is not saying when a decision in the case will come. The groups who want the new maps are asking to have the maps redrawn before 2024’s elections.

FBI Director Christopher Wray

FBI Director Says Threats to US From Islamic Terrorist Groups Rise to ‘Whole Other Level’

The biggest terrorism threat Americans face is from violent extremists inspired by Islamic terrorist organizations like ISIS, al-Queda, Hamas and Iranian-financed groups, FBI Director Christopher Wray told U.S. senators Tuesday.

Wray also said the FBI is actively looking for such extremists who are in the country, and arrested one last week in Houston, thwarting Iranian-financed assassination attempts made against dissidents and high-ranking U.S. officials on U.S. soil.

Wray testified before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday about “threats to the homeland” after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and after he told reporters that Hamas posed a threat to Americans on U.S. soil. He also did so after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents apprehended the greatest number of known, suspected terrorists in U.S. history this past fiscal year.

“The reality of the terrorism threat has been elevated since 2023 but the reality of the ongoing war in Middle East has raised a threat of [a terrorist] attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level,” Wray testified. Since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, “we assess the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes we have never seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago.

“In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the west. Al-Queda issued its most specific call to attack the United States in the last five years. ISIS urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe. Hezbollah has publicly expressed its support for Hamas and threatened to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East. And we’ve seen an increase on U.S. military bases overseas carried out by militia groups backed by Iran."

The most immediate cause for concern, Wray said, "is that violent extremists … will draw inspiration [from Hamas] to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives,” including targeting Jewish Americans.

The FBI arrested a man last week in Houston, Texas, “who’d been studying how to build bombs and posted online his support for killing Jews,” the BI director added.

Wray didn’t elaborate on more details.

The FBI-Houston office confirmed the individual arrested is Sohaib Abuayyah. The Houston Chronicle reported “a person with that name had been charged on suspicion of unlawful possession of a firearm by an immigrant who had been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa, according to records filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.” The redacted complaint alleges the man was a 20-year-old Jordanian accused of “contacting others with a radical mindset” and was charged with “conducting training with weapons and planning a possible attack.”

Wray said in addition to racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists operating in the U.S., “we cannot and will not discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit the current conflict and conduct attacks here on our own soil.”

He said the FBI is conducting multiple investigations into Hamas-related threats in the U.S.

“But it’s not just Hamas,” he said. “The world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, the Iranians, for instance, have directly, or by hiring criminals, mounted assassination attempts against dissidents and high-ranking current and former U.S. government officials, including right here on American soil.”

In his written testimony filed with the Senate committee, Wray said the number of FBI domestic terrorism investigations has more than doubled since the spring of 2020. As of September 2023, the FBI has been conducting roughly 2,700 domestic terrorism investigations and roughly 4,000 international terrorism investigations.

The written testimony also states that the FBI has “seen an increase in reported threats to Jewish and Muslim people, institutions, and houses of worship here in the United States and are moving quickly to mitigate them.”

It also expresses concern about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the stated intent of ISIS and al-Qaeda “to carry out or inspire large-scale attacks in the United States.”