🇺🇸BRIAN FRALEY🧀

The combination of AI and the anonymity and reach provided by social media allows for unprecedented psy ops and disinformation campaigns by nation states and rogue factions. No one is prepared for what the next five years will bring. No one.

Whole lot of problems with @X today.

USDA Invests $140 Million in Timber Expansion; Wisconsin Sawmills to Benefit dairylandsentinel.com/usda-invests-1…

Dominance.

UW Women’s Hockey. Champions, again!!! #badgers

🗣️ LET’S GO BADGERS #WFrozenFour x @BadgerWHockey

Heaven.

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Chuck Norris 1,456,800 - Death 1 Undefeated no more. Death just had its first near-Chuck Norris experience. In all seriousness, I liked the guy and appreciated his work. We only know what public figures let us see (unless the law gets involved), but Chuck’s image was always that of a faith-filled, hard-working everyman. No Hollywood flash, just a guy who pushed his body and spirit to the limit, forgave his own stumbles, kept family first, hunted for good in folks, skipped the gossip, stayed loyal to God, country, and close ones. I know a lot of people disliked his politics, but meh. Discipline and self-reliance weren’t just words; he lived them. In a world full of posers, he projected real toughness: character over show. And the jokes and the memes, which he reportedly took in stride, were pretty funny. -Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until they give him the information he wants. -Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups…he pushes the Earth down. -Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door. So many more, I’m sure others come to mind right away. #RIPChuckNorris

There still could be a special session to spend down the surplus and campaigns are about to heat up. Will there be a Sen GOP leadership election yet this year? Stay tuned. 👀 Speaker Vos not running either but has vowed to continue to negotiate on surplus & w/ campaign effort.

Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader will not seek re-election.

These mailers are lame, but will help establish name ID. I expect them to get more persuasive and show hard contrast as election nears. @WaukeshaGOP #wiright

March Madness is here today. The Badgers tip off a little bit before 1 p.m. Spring Election madness is also here. Setting aside the Supreme Court election for a moment (yes, there is one, although it’s understandable if you weren’t aware), local elections dominate the spring ballot. A few years ago, the media was all up in arms when Republicans in Waukesha County began to focus on motivating their voters to go to the polls for these nonpartisan elections. My company did some work for the WisRed initiative back then and it’s since proven to be quite successful. But to the media, the effort was somehow controversial. The Democrats in Wisconsin have been cleaning the GOP’s clock the last few years when it comes to national fundraising. This spring, they’re going to spend some of that bounty on local elections. But we’ve yet to see the same panicky press coverage of their organized efforts. I live in Brookfield, in crucial Waukesha County. In the last 24 hours, I’ve been inundated with online ads promoting the Democrat alderman who is running for mayor. And yesterday, we received the first two of what I imagine will be a dozen cookie-cutter name ID boosting mailers from the same organization. There’s a lot of talk locally of stopping our city from becoming the next Wauwatosa. (My old hometown has swung decidedly left and as budgets and taxes have soared, so have concerns about public safety, affordability, and the quality of local schools. ) And so, this battleground mayor’s race is going to be expensive. Local elections matter. While conservatives and moderates may feel a malaise at the moment, folks need to wake up. The results of local elections can have an immediate impact on their daily lives. I’m sure the election fatigue is not isolated to my part of Wisconsin. Whether you lean left or right, I’m assuming you see it too. Yes? No?

Wisconsin families and taxpayers deserve answers. Kyle Maichle is calling for a federal investigation in how DPI advises districts on the use special education funds. When IDEA grant $ is spent at waterpark resort happy hours, it’s worth looking into. Full column below.

We have a neat feature on the sport and its ties to Milwaukee… dairylandsentinel.com/milwaukee-bowl…

So, did you bowl when you were younger? Do you still? When I was a kid, a trip to the bowling alley with Dad was a real treat. Very sporadic. Probably when the budget would allow. We’d go a handful of times a year. In high school friends would hang out and bowl a couple of times a month. Now? We take the kids maybe once or twice a year. We always have fun when we go. Not sure why we don’t go more often. Pretty wholesome and safe environment. Budget friendly. Bowling remains a significant part of Wisconsin’s, especially the Milwaukee area’s, legacy…

This is an extremely sincere and heartfelt statement. dairylandsentinel.com/wisconsin-stat…

Today is the last day the Wisconsin State Senate is scheduled to be on the floor for the session. There will be a few tearful goodbyes. I am sure some expected, some hinted at and possibly a surprise or two.

@DanODonnellShow x.com/dailytakes/sta…

BREAKING: Republican Wisconsin Sen. Van Wanggaard has told colleagues he is retiring and will not seek re-election in November.

Our annual public service announcement.☘️

The latest: dairylandsentinel.com/wi-lawmakers-s…

One has to wonder why the state DPI continues to stonewall the release of a contract they signed with a vendor years ago. What are they hiding?   A few years ago, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction pursued a significant overhaul of the Wisconsin Forward Exam’s performance standards, benchmarks and terminology, igniting a debate among educators, politicians, and parents across the state. DPI, under the leadership of State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly, revised the standards for English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics on the Forward Exam. These changes were purportedly to align the exam with updated academic standards and to provide a more accurate reflection of student performance. The new standards have stirred controversy primarily because they disrupt the continuity of performance data over time. Critics argue that these alterations make it impossible to compare this year’s results with previous years, potentially masking declines in educational outcomes. The terminology shift from ‘Proficient,’ ‘Basic,’ and ‘Below Basic’ to ‘Advanced,’ ‘Meeting,’ ‘Approaching,’ and ‘Developing’ has also been contentious, with some viewing it as an attempt to soften the perception of student performance. In January of LAST YEAR, on behalf of Dairyland Sentinel, I filed an Open Records Request with the State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction seeking information regarding the process. Superintendent Underly said she relied on a panel of experts to do this work. I asked for details. Who were these experts? How were they selected? Turn over the work product and itemized receipts to determine what was done, how much direction they were given, and how much all this cost? DPI has yet to provide all the public documents I requested 14 months ago. I enlisted the help of the Institute for Reforming Government. It shouldn’t take threats of legal action to get government agencies to release public data, but here we are. Eventually, DPI did release SOME of the information we requested a year ago, and that led to our reporting of the $368,885 waterpark workshop. We are still awaiting more public documents, including the contract DPI signed with Data Recognition Corporation, the vendor who facilitated the standards-reset process. Now, IRG is calling for state lawmakers to establish a “Special Committee on Oversight of the Department of Public Instruction” because the reliance on waterpark workshops (Yes, there have been more than the one that was convened to reset the standards) raise troubling questions of how taxpayer dollars are being spent by the Department. There are many layers to this scandal. Dairyland Sentinel, and the public, deserve access to all public records, including the Department’s contract with Data Recognition Corporation. Taxpayers deserve a full accounting. Wisconsin citizens deserve the truth.