Pick up any newspaper. Tune into any news channel. Check out any major news outlet website. Even the most casual consumer of news can’t help but notice, it’s a different reporter but it is always the same story. With so much redundancy, it’s not surprising that there are plenty of important stories that never get enough exposure or the coverage they deserve.
The MacIver News Service strives to bring you the stories that the mainstream media ignore or miss. We ask the tough questions that politicians hate to answer, and we refuse to accept the press-release propaganda that so many outlets regurgitate as news or journalism.
Here are the ten biggest stories of 2021 you might have missed if you relied on the mainstream media for your news.
#10. Gov. Evers’ Big Plan to Raise Taxes
Average tax increase would be $9,300
Pass-through small businesses would be hit
“Enhanced Tax Collections” would raise $78 million using new auditors
There’s a good reason why the Republican-led legislature scraped Gov. Evers’ budget immediately after he presented it. Evers wanted to hike up income taxes by over $1 billion. His plans also involved expanding his auditor army at the Department of Revenue to squeeze an additional $78 million through “enhanced tax collections.”
The Governor also proposed that local governments in Wisconsin should be able to raise taxes so that our taxation level was more comparable to neighboring states.
“[Wisconsin] has the lowest sales tax among its Midwestern neighbors,” according to Evers. “Among the 36 states allowing local general sales taxes, Wisconsin has the 6th lowest reliance as a percent of personal income.”
Rather than lower taxes so Wisconsin stands out, Governor Evers believes we need to raise taxes so we blend in with our neighbors. Says a lot about Evers’ governing philosophy. Evers is unfortunately obsessed with the idea that the government needs more of your hard-earned tax dollars and doesn’t seem to care as much about how hard-working taxpayers are going to make ends meet.
When making this tax comparison amongst states argument, the Governor fails to mention how our major taxes – individual income, corporate, and property taxes – compare to other states. Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce pointed out in response to Evers’ sales tax plan, Wisconsin has the 11th highest income taxes, the sixth-highest property taxes, and the 17th highest corporate income taxes in the country.
The potential 6.5% sales tax introduced by Gov. Evers would be higher than Illinois (6.25%), Iowa (6%), and Michigan (6%).
Lawmakers were horrified by the plan – and that was months before Wisconsin residents got slammed with Biden’s inflationary policies. It’s a good thing Evers’ tax plan was shot down. Too bad the mainstream media will conveniently forget to hold Evers accountable for his massive tax increase.
Read more here: Evers Wants to Increase Income Taxes by Over $1 Billion | MacIver Institute
#9. Election Officials’ Lawless Behavior
While the hunt for counterfeit ballots continues, nobody seems to be batting an eye over Wisconsin election officials brazenly breaking state election laws.
Early in the year, we learned Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich kicked the city clerk off to the side and handed the city’s election operation over to a privately funded political operative – and Brown County’s Republican DA David Lasee has yet to lift a finger over it.
WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe later got caught lying to the Assembly about her role in introducing that operative to local officials around the state. *Yawn*
The Racine County Sheriff’s Department presented video evidence of WEC conspiring to break the law and then doing it – when they advised nursing homes to ignore the state’s special voting deputy law.
The Legislative Audit Bureau reported several other ways WEC broke the law. This included:
- WEC violated state law by not issuing rules on how to train special voting deputies or election inspections.
- WEC told clerks they could go home on Election night and return the next day to finish counting, even though that is illegal.
- WEC told clerks they could relocate polling places within 30 days of the election, even though that is illegal.
- WEC failed to include current state law in its administrative rules on how to train municipal election workers. The rules have not been updated since 2016.
- WEC violated state law by not reporting the error rates for electronic voting equipment used in the Nov. 2020 election.
Milwaukee “rejected” voter registrations applications that did not include proof of address with a letter – advising them to reapply and use that very letter as proof of residence.
These concrete examples and the lackluster response beg the question – why even have election laws at all if we’re going to allow every election to be a free-for-all?
#8. Republicans Include Historic Education Funding Increase in State Budget
Republican and Democrat politicians have at least one thing in common – they are forever trying to prove their devotion to public education. That might come as a surprise since Democrats have been so successful in convincing the public that Republicans hate schools. They get away with that, in part, because the media ignores major stories like Republicans increasing school funding by $3.3 billion in the state budget.
#7. Wisconsin Could Still Be Locked Down Today Under Evers’ “Badger Bounce Back” Plan
In 2020, Governor Tony Evers fought relentlessly to keep Wisconsin closed, its economy shuttered, and its residents imprisoned in their homes. Had it not been for the Supreme Court intervening that May, his Badger Bounce Back plan – and with it, his Safer At Home dictate – might very well still be in effect. He demonstrated repeatedly his intention to keep the government lockdowns in place. In October, he tried to reimpose capacity restrictions, and the Court had to step in again. He turned to mask mandates and was yet again told to back off this past spring.
Gating Requirement 1 – Not Met
The first requirement was a “Downward trajectory of influenza-like illnesses reported within a 14-day period.” Although flu cases have been at historic lows over the past year, Wisconsin does not technically satisfy this first requirement. According to DHS, the trajectory of Flu-like illnesses in Wisconsin has been “normal” for the past several months. Needless to say, a “normal” trajectory is certainly not a “downward” trajectory. Also, there was a brief spike earlier this month when the percentage of ER visits for the flu ticked up from 0.3% to 0.5%. Would that send the state back to square one?
Gating Requirement 2 – Not Met
The second requirement was a “Downward trajectory of COVID-19-like syndromic cases reported in a 14-day period.” Well, on June 16th, the number of cases jumped from 43 to 113. Start over.
Even if we were to use seven-day averages, things don’t look hopeful. On June 7th, 2021, the seven-day average jumped from 133 to 152. There’s a several-day lag in DHS’ reporting, so even using the seven-day average, we’re still not at 14 days of downward trajectory.
Don’t forget, DHS still considers Wisconsin to have a “medium” level of overall COVID-19 activity. The activity level was still rated as “high” less than a month ago.
#6. Get Woke Or Get Laid Off
It’s no longer good enough for teachers in the Madison Metropolitan School District to stand idly by while cultural Marxists run amok. They must now demonstrate their commitment to that cause – or risk getting laid off. That is now a measurable factor in the district’s layoff formula. As School Board Member Ananda Mirilli said, “If you’re a teacher and you cannot distinguish systems and beliefs that lead to inequitable outcomes for students, you should not be in MMSD.”
#5. Wisconsin Hospitals Fire Hundreds During Labor Crisis
After hospitals demanded their employees get the Covid vaccine, hundreds were fired and hundreds more are believed to have fled the profession. For an industry facing a critical capacity shortage, it seemed like a questionable move at best. The MacIver Institute was able to document at least 800 mandate-related firings across the state. If only the mainstream media had been motivated to join the effort, we would all have a much better idea of how many were affected.
#4. Biden’s Border Crisis
Hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of undocumented entries into the country during a pandemic in an era of international terrorism seems like a big problem. However, it seems like allowing this to happen is official Biden Administration policy. Moreover, although this was an ongoing story throughout the entire year, it rarely made headlines. The MacIver Institute highlighted the connection between illegal immigration and Covid-19. It also interviewed Rep. Tom Tiffany about his investigations into humanitarian issues with the crisis.
#3. Biden-flation
Gas prices are at a seven-year high. The Consumer Price Index reach 6.8% in November. That doesn’t include food prices, which could jump as much as 20% next year. Could all this be tied to President Biden’s disastrous fiscal policies? Maybe you should just learn to “lower your expectations.”
#2. No Correlation Between Vaccination Rates and Covid-19 Activity Levels in Wisconsin
The MacIver Institute set out to answer a simple question. Does COVID-19 activity decrease as vaccination rates increase? One would assume the more people who are vaccinated in a county, the fewer cases of Covid-19 there would be. However, using basic statistical methods, it discovered there is no correlation between the two at all. It seems like a bombshell finding considering the fanatical efforts to increase vaccination rates. Too bad the mainstream media’s not interested in that kind of science.
#1. The Forgettable Waukesha Parade Tragedy
On Nov. 21st, a man drove his SUV through the crowd at the Waukesha Christmas Parade killing 6 and injuring over 40. Ordinarily, this would be characterized as a terrorist attack – but this one did not fit the narrative of dangerous white supremacists lurking behind every corner intent on preserving their privilege. No, the suspect, in this case, was a black man from Milwaukee out on bail for running over his girlfriend just months before, and apparently had an ax to grind against white people. The Waukesha Christmas Parade apparently seemed like a promising location to find lots of them.
The media tried to claim the police chased him into the crowds; it was an accident. They refused to explore the possibility it was a terrorist attack. They questioned why officials didn’t provide better security along the parade route. CNN even tried to play it off as just another local tragedy comparable to the tornadoes that recently struck Kentucky.
For the most part, the story simply disappeared. CNN’s last serious story about the incident was on Dec. 2 (just a week and a half after the attack.) For MSNBC, it was Nov. 24th.
The Associated Press recently stated in a recap that “Six people were killed and more than 60 hurt as the SUV swerved through the parade in downtown Waukesha on Nov. 21. Prosecutors say Darrell Brooks was behind the wheel.” Using passive tense is a great way to downplay an event, and news editors never would have allowed copywriting like that in the past.
Darrell Brooks did not get a pass from the MacIver News Service. Nor did we let the politicians off the hook who believe that criminals should not be held accountable for the crimes they commit because they are afraid to stand up to the social justice radicals.
Brooks was out on a $1,000 bail thanks to DA John Chisholm and under the supervision of a social justice organization called Justice Point.
This was one of the stories that appeared early, and apparently warranted no follow up:
Grasso wasn’t overworked or underprepared when she set low bail for Darrell Brooks, Jr. She was simply upholding this commitment to ending incarceration in Milwaukee County. Chisholm himself understood that this day was coming, predicting after he was first elected to office in 2007 that his soft-on-crime approach would invariably lead to the loss of innocent lives.
“Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into a treatment program, who is going to go out and kill somebody?” You bet,” he said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.”
Darrell Brooks did, in fact, invalidate this approach. And so did the countless other sacrifices at the altar of wokeness made by Chisholm, Tirggiano, Grasso, Cornwall, and every other policymaker in the Milwaukee County criminal justice system who has freed a killer, a rapist, an arsonist, car thief, or armed robber out of a perverse dedication to “social justice.”
All of them need to be held accountable and the MacIver Institute will continue to point it out even if the mainstream media wants to bury the story.