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Republican Senator Dan Knodl (Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via AP)

By Steve Schuster[emailprotected]

Newly sworn-in Republican Sen. Dan Knodl was tapped Tuesday to lead the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection.

As previously reported, just moments before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Knodl joined dozens of lawmakers across the country, including more than a dozen in Wisconsin in executing a letter to then-Vice President Mike Pence demanding the vice president not certify 2020 presidential results that Biden won.

Knodls appointment to chair the committee has received sharp criticism from Democrats, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

The Journal Sentinel reported Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, a Democrat from Madison, said Knodl was unfit to oversee such legislation given his participation in the letter.

On Tuesday May 9, 2023, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) announced the appointment of Knodl to the following Senate Committees:

Chair- Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection

Member- Senate Committee on Economic Development & Technical Colleges

Member- Senate Committee on Judiciary & Public Safety

Member- Senate Committee on Licensing, Constitution & Federalism

Senator Knodl will bring added experience and expertise to the Senate, said Leader LeMahieu. His appointment will further strengthen the excellent work being done in these Committees, he added in a May 9, 2023 press release.

Knodl won the hotly contested race for Wisconsins 8th Senate District swing seat in a special election against Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin on April 4.

The winner of that seat has now determined that Republicans control the Wisconsin Senate. During Knodls campaign, he said if he wins the election he believes the Wisconsin Constitution would give Republicans the power to use the Senate as a trial court to convict and impeach Democrats throughout the state.

Knodl said if elected he would consider removal of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz through impeachment proceedings. The Republican controlled Legislature unsuccessfully previously attempted to remove Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm from office.

Wisconsin Constitution Article 7 to complete an impeachment it starts in the House in this case the Assembly with a simple majority so that would be the moving body initially to bring forward impeachment proceedings and the Senate would act as the trial court but needs a 2/3 majority to convict or to actually impeach, so this seat I would be that 22nd republican senator to have the 2/3 majority so that is authority that comes to us only with those numbers in place, Knodl said.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported April 6 that Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard said she found Knodls comments concerning, despite assurances by some Republicans Wednesday that impeachment would not be a top priority.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder told the Wisconsin Law Journal during an interview in April that Wisconsins 8th Senate District is extremely gerrymandered by then-Gov. Scott Walker back in 2011. Holder said, its a tough district, to win for Democrats because of the gerrymandering. The result? Twelve years after Walkers redrawing of political districts, Wisconsin Republicans now control 23 of the Senates 33 seats.

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Knodl, who attempted to delay certification of 2020 presidental ... - Wisconsin Law Journal

Michael Cohen was another speaker with an idea for preserving American democracy: make sure his former boss never sees the inside of the White House again. A former lawyer for Donald Trump, Cohen went to prison for the work he did for the former president.

Cohen acknowledges that he encouraged Trump to run the first time, but I never thought he would become the worst version of himself imaginable. I thought he would elevate himself to the job of president, not debase it.

Since getting out of prison, Cohen says he has offered his marketing expertise to the Democratic party and the Lincoln Project, but no one has accepted his offers. He hopes the multiple criminal cases against Trump will help prevent him from returning to the White House.

Six keynote sessions including interviews with Ibram X. Kendi, Eric Holder and Andrew Yang will be broadcast on KCTS 9 every night at 7 p.m., starting Wednesday, May 10. Go to kcts9.org for more details.

I want to see him held accountable and responsible. Not because it makes me feel better. Because any one of us would suffer the consequences, Cohen said. It would show the American people that no one is above the law.

Cohen said he thinks a Trump second term would be like The Handmaids Tale brought to life, from taking away our First Amendment rights to a military attack on our government or a paramilitary attack like what happened on Jan. 6.

The 2024 presidential election also came up in the session titled Artificial Intelligence Is About to Change Everything.

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'We can do this': Big ideas from the Crosscut Ideas Festival - Crosscut

The Supreme Court ruled on June 23, 2022 that citizens have the right to receive a license to carry a firearm. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to promote peace, prosperity, and liberty, both by protecting ones life and property from invaders and lawfully resisting a tyrannical government.

In every case where gun confiscation took place, citizens lost rights to a tyrannical government. Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and Mao confiscated guns and the result was millions of people being killed.

Many Americans may not know that our own government supplied guns to the Mexican drug cartels during the Obama administration known as Fast and Furious. As a result, Border Agent Brian Terry was murdered by our own weapons supplied to the cartels. Why were American firearms provided to the Mexican drug cartels? When congress subpoenaed Attorney General Eric Holder to testify, he refused and was held in Contempt of Congress. Was there an orchestrated plan to have firearms used by the Mexican drug cartels to ignite a plan within those in Washington to persuade public opinion to remove firearms from the American people and thereby dismantling the 2nd Amendment?

All Americans should be concerned about a tyrannical government using emotion to remove law abiding citizens from possessing a firearm. There are millions of citizens who are responsible and follow gun laws. In the same way, there are millions of citizens who are responsible and follow the laws of the road. Just because there are a few irresponsible people out there driving, we dont punish the responsible people by taking away their driving privileges. This definitely applies to law-abiding citizens who have a firearm. Just because some irresponsible person used a firearm, the millions of responsible people should not be penalized by gun laws that would take away that right. I would even go further that the United States Constitution provides more of a legal right to carry a firearm than it does for driving since the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that Right to Bear Arms. There are politicians who want to slowly erode that right by limiting which types of firearms citizens should be allowed to carry, such as assault weapons. The responsible citizens should never be limited. Law-abiding citizens should continue to enjoy their Right to Bear Arms. Expanding and securing Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, including assault weapons, is the best proposal to prevent or limit potential effects of mass shootings in America.

Democrat solutions to limit or ban firearms are arbitrary, ineffective, and violate the constitution right to bear arms. There has been the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the Public Safety and Recreational Use Protection Act. All these laws have been feel good laws. However, they only affected the law-abiding citizen where the citizen must abide. One must realize when you limit law-abiding citizens of those rights, then those who dont abide by the laws, such as criminals or others, will have those weapons with the potential to do more damage, mayhem, and death.

Another feel good law by Democrats are Gun Free Zones, particularly near schools. In the article, The Deadly Failure of Gun Free Zones by Alex Kincaid on July 18, 2015, congress established the Gun Free Zone law in 1990 as a feel good law. However, the Gun Free Zone only created a new venue for killers to set their targets. Since the law, there have been more deadly killings in Gun Free Zones than prior to the law. Nine of the ten most deadly school shootings occurred after the law while there were only two such killings in the previous 20 years prior to the law.

The same Democrats barking to ban guns are the same Democrats who are letting criminals out of jail. Aaron Bandler for Dailywire.com pointed out after the Washington DC gun ban of 1976, there was an increase in annual homicides. Zachary Faria of the Washington Times revealed there was a 2,000 percent surge in murders in Portland, Oregon after the city limited funding to the police department. When the police are unable to do their job to protect the people, then the people must have the necessary resources provided by our constitutional right to defend themselves.

In the mind of a liberal, more guns will lead to more shooting; but have you ever heard of a shooting at a gun show or an NRA event? When responsible people have firearms, they are able to protect themselves from those who would consider doing harm.

We need to expand gun rights to law-abiding citizens and train more citizens how to properly handle a firearm in order to prevent or limit the potential event of a mass shooting in America. The more responsible Americans with firearms, the more we will be safe as a society.

Frank Aquila

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Letter | The 2nd Amendment is for the protection of law-abiding ... - Kdminer

With new judges at the top of the judiciary in both New York and Wisconsin, Democrats are hoping to file lawsuits so that legislative district maps can be redrawn ahead of the 2024 election boosting their odds of retaking the House and making Representative Hakeem Jeffries the next speaker.

In the Empire State, the New York Court of Appeals struck down the legislatures district maps for 2022, saying that the process by which they were drawn violated the state constitution. The case, Harkenrider v. Hochul, created a host of competitive districts that would eventually swing to the Republicans last November.

A former congressman who was deeply involved in the Harkenrider case, John Faso, told the Sun that suing to redraw the maps is clearly an attempt by the Democrats to get a do-over because they lost last year.

A new case pending in the lower courts, Hoffman v. Independent Redistricting Commission, argues that the Harkenrider case only applied to the 2022 elections and the maps should be withdrawn before next year. Mr. Faso said that is a very dubious theory and patently absurd.

We believe our case is strong and that the Harkenrider case is very explicit, Mr. Faso said about their ongoing defense of the district maps.

On April 7, Governor Hochul and New Yorks attorney general, Letitia James, filed an amicus brief in the Hoffman case, saying that New Yorkers deserved to have their district maps drawn by elected representatives, not the courts.

Our states Constitution makes it clear that an independent body, with participation from the general public, is charged with drawing maps for Congressional districts, Ms. James said in a statement. Relying on a process with no accountability and with limited time for public input is not how we engage the public.

One of the lead plaintiff attorneys in the Harkenrider case, George Winner, told the Sun that Democrats are making the cynical move to reinstate their outrageous gerrymander.

Ms. Hochul recently announced the nomination of an appellate court associate judge, Rowan Wilson, to become chief judge. Ms. Hochul also nominated a former state solicitor general, Caitlin Halligan, to succeed Judge Wilson as an associate on the bench. The nomination of these two liberals following the defeat of the more conservative Judge Hector LaSalle to be chief judge has some hoping that redistricting can be returned to the legislature, where Democrats can unilaterally control the process.

Mr. Winner said it is a real possibility that the current maps are struck down and Harkenrider is overturned. The nominations raise the prospect that the case could reach the court of appeals and result in turning the 2024 congressional races district maps over to the Independent Redistricting Commission, the body that recommends maps to the state legislature. Those maps, though, are not binding. It would be a rather egregious result, Mr. Winner said.

Judge LaSalle was rejected by the state senate in February because of his more conservative positions on abortion rights and labor unions. Mr. Winner said a lack of clarity on how Judge LaSalle would rule on overturning the maps likely led many Democratic state senators to vote against his confirmation.

Activists in Wisconsin are also looking to redraw what they see as unfair maps. On April 4, a liberal Milwaukee judge, Janet Protasiewicz, flipped a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court to make the body a 43 liberal majority.

Justice-elect Protasiewicz said explicitly during her campaign that Republicans had gerrymandered the state so aggressively that they have made themselves a permanent majority in both the state legislature and in the U.S. House elections. So thats when I say, yes, those maps are rigged, Judge Protasiezwicz said during a debate.

The conservative majority on the Wisconsin supreme court twice declined to redraw the Republican gerrymander. In both 2021 and 2022, in 43 decisions, the justices handed the GOP major wins something Judge Protasiezwicz said was a mistake.

According to the Capital Times, a progressive legal advocacy group based in Milwaukee, Law Forward, plans to file a lawsuit challenging the maps on the day Judge Protasiewicz is sworn in as an associate justice.

Wisconsin is the most gerrymandered state in the country, a former U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, said at a rally with Judge Protasiewicz before the election. When you get compared to Texas when it comes to electoral things, thats not a good thing, Mr. Holder said.

Mr. Faso said the more competitive maps that New York adopted create a more vibrant democratic culture in the state, forcing representatives to listen to their constituents more intently than if they were in highly partisan districts. In the original Democratic gerrymander, New York would have 22 Democratic-favoring seats and just four Republican-leaning seats.

With just a four-seat majority in the U.S. House, Speaker McCarthys job is very much on the line as these cases come before New Yorks and Wisconsins top judges.

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Democrats Charting a New Path Back to the Speaker's Gavel ... - The New York Sun

It seems Nancy Pelosi never knew or just forgot that in this country Trump is innocent till proven guilty,and not as she said this trial will give Trump a chance to prove he is innocent . When she says no one is above the law she means except Democrats. They use this phrase when talking about Trump, but not when talking about Bill Clinton when he committed perjury under oath. Democrats said it was the puritanical conservatives over a trumped up charge of sex. Nothing happened. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW. Hillary Clinton used an illegal private server and destroyed 33,000 emails. Nothing happened. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW. Jim Clapper lied to congress about spying on the American people. Nothing happened.

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW. John Brenan then lied about domestic spying. Nothing happened. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW. Unlike Trumps, advisor Peter Navarro, Obamas Attorney General Eric Holder was never arrested for ignoring a congressional subpoena. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW. This is just a tip of the iceberg. If AG Bragg has 34 counts against Trump then why are we waiting until early December. Maybe to influence the upcoming election? Dont think thats what the

founders meant when they included speedy trial. (Jan 6 defendants know about that. ) By the way, what ever happened to the man who attacked Pelosis husband?

In the past few months we have had several train derailments. Some of them had hazardous materials. Am I the only one who thinks this could well be the work of extreme activists? It doesnt take a genius (which none of them are) to weaken a section of track.

Randy Mavencamp

Maple Lake

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Letter to the Editor - Maple Lake Messenger