(The Center Square) – Food will cost more this Fourth of July holiday, according to a new survey from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.
The group showed the cost of 12 food items to hold a summer cookout for 10 people would cost $75.50, the highest cost since the Marketbasket survey began in 2013 and 7.5% more than last summer. Nationally, that same cost estimate from the American Farm Bureau is $73.82, up 4% from last year.
The largest cost increase was from ground beef, which cost $7.30 per pound, is a 23.3% increase from 2025, which the group attributed to cattle supply and demand for beef.
“Wisconsinites can expect to see a higher total when shopping for their Fourth of July barbeque,” WFBF Senior Director of Public Relations Cassie Sonnentag said in a statement. “From availability to inflation, we are seeing increases across many of the food items on the shopping list.”
U.S. consumers have high demand for beef with one-third ranking it as their top protein choice and 75% eating beef weekly, according to Beef Checkout.
Each year, there are $422 million worth of ground beef sales during Fourth of July week and $337 million for Memorial Day.
“While consumers are seeing higher prices due to limited cattle supplies and strong demand, ground beef continues to be a versatile, nutritious protein that can stretch across multiple meals,” Wisconsin Beef Council Executive Director Tammy Vaassen said in a statement. “Looking for sales, stocking up when prices are lower and freezing extra product are great ways to save.”
Items such as fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream saw 25% increases over the year as well.

(The Center Square) – Microsoft says that it has 550 full-time employees on site at the recently completed Fairview data center in Mount Pleasant.
The company also says that the number of employees will “grow over time” to an expected 800 when a second data center comes online in 2028.
The employers were defined as “on site” employees of both Microsoft and its contractors.
The project is the first of the $20.6 billion in data centers that the company has planned in the state.
Microsoft says that it spent $4.7 billion between 2024 and 2028 on the construction of hyper scale data centers in the state.
Microsoft is building an adjacent second data center that is scheduled to open in 2028. The company said that 10,000 construction workers were involved in the Fairview project.
“With our Fairwater data center now fully operational, Wisconsin is now home to the world’s most powerful supercomputer,” Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a statement. “This campus will help power the next generation of AI innovation globally and provide long-term economic opportunity locally through hundreds of highly skilled jobs and continued investment in the region.”
Data centers have been unpopular in polling both with Wisconsin voters and nationally.
A recent Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll showed that voters believe data centers on not worth the strain on local electricity, water and infrastructure and that the negatives outweigh the importance for national security and competing with China.
The poll also found that voters believe local governments should be cautious about new data centers and those concerns outweigh the jobs, tax revenue and support for America’s digital economy that they bring.
Microsoft is expected to be the largest beneficiary of a wide-ranging Wisconsin sales tax exemption on everything from construction materials to electricity that is estimated to lose the state $1.5 billion in initial foregone state sales tax from four data center projects, according to a new Legislative Audit Bureau report.
In addition, the state will lose $369 million annually once construction on the projects are complete.
Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue originally estimated the value of the incentives would be $8.5 million for the full multi-year construction of a facility and $735,000 recurring afterward.
But hyper-scale data centers have changed that math with Microsoft alone announcing more than $20.6 billion in data centers in the state.
The state is expected to have $36.9 billion in data centers from just four companies with the state forgoing an estimated $40 million in sales tax for every $1 billion in company investment.
OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers have announced more than $15 billion in data center investments in Port Washington. Epic Hosting is expected to spend $347 million in Verona. Meta has announced a $1 billion project in Beaver Dam.

(The Center Square) – The latest ads in Wisconsin’s race for governor are zeroing in on what is expected to be the biggest issue in November’s election.
Three candidates released new ads this week.
Democrat Joel Brennan released a statewide televisoon ad that both introduces himself and frames him as the experienced candidate in the Democrat race.
“I’m Joel Brennan and I’ve got real plans to move Wisconsin forward,” Brennan said during the ad where he’s playing basketball with his son. “Shooting to expand BadgerCare to make healthcare more affordable. Guarding against Trump’s chaos and defending our democracy. Blocking corporations from buying-up our homes. And changing how our schools are funded.”
The ad is Brennan’s second campaign commercial.
Brennan is polling at the bottom of the now six person race for the Democrat nomination. Former WEDC boss Missy Hughes quit the race on Monday.
Hughes, who like Brennan polled in the single digits, said she didn’t see a path to victory.
The second ad came from Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. His commercial features him inside a screen on a gas pump and reiterates his push to end Wisconsin’s minimum-markup law.
“It’s called the Unfair Sales Act, but all it does is unfairly raise prices on us,” Crowley explained. “As governor, I’ll stop it. That’s something we can all get pumped about.”
Crowley has already said he wants to end minimum-markup and save drivers in the state nearly 40 cents per gallon. But critics have been quick to say Crowley could not end the law on his own and point out that he never introduced legislation to end minimum-markup while he was a state lawmaker.
The final ad came from Republican Tom Tiffany.
It is a 60 second radio ad that focuses his message on schools, healthcare price transparency and affordability.
“It’s time we stop pointing fingers, and start fixing problems,” the ad begins. “I’ve watched Madison continue to fail working folks who see money vanish from their paychecks. Wasted on reckless spending and fraud.”
The ad is more serious and focused than Tiffany’s earlier campaign commercials, including his last two that both featured cows.
Tiffany is the only Republican candidate running for governor this year.
Frontrunner Francesca Hong has not yet released a statewide commercial for her campaign, but rising third place candidate Sara Rodriguez has.

(The Center Square) – School choice supporters are questioning why one of Wisconsin’s members of Congress is pushing so hard to kill the new federal Education Freedom Tax Credit.
Milwaukee Democrat Gwen Moore last week introduced a piece of legislation to end the tax scholarship program and redirect the money earmarked for scholarships toward direct aid to public schools.
“Instead of vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires, we could be investing more in Title I funding to serve low-income students,” Moore said. “We could put these monies into Head Start and special education. We could be securing universal school meals for our babies and not just gutting SNAP and expanding vouchers.”
Brian Jodice. the National Press Secretary for the American Federation for Children, said that is misleading at best and wrong at worst.
“One of the most consistent findings in the research on increases in education spending is that what matters most is not simply how much money you pump into the system but whether those dollars are being directed toward productive uses. That is exactly where legacy federal programs like Title 1 or Head Start run into trouble,” he said. “Alongside some of the positive long run outcomes due to these programs is a substantial amount of ineffective and wasteful spending. That is a big part of why the overall research evidence for these programs is so mixed. We should be surprised if pushing even more funding through these aging bureaucratic channels continues to produce less than stellar results and little innovation.”
The Education Freedom Tax Credit looks to target education money toward things like tutoring, new computers and other extra help for students, both in private school and public school.
Jodice said much of the opposition from Moore and other Democrats comes because of their absolute support for the country’s teachers’ unions.
“The teachers unions will stop at nothing to protect their stranglehold on education in America. They have politicians at every level singing from the same sheet of music, despite the truth that the Education Freedom Tax Credit will be funded through donations and available for students across educational settings. The reality is that big schooling unions benefit when dollars flow through the system, and students benefit when scholarship dollars flow directly to them and their parents,” Jodice explained. “Teachers, schools, and students all stand to benefit under the EFTC, but not the unions, and that is a very good thing.”
Wisconsin is not a part of the Education Freedom Tax Credit program. Gov. Tony Evers has refused to opt the state.

(The Center Square) – Milwaukee’s mayor is again questioning and criticizing the federal investigation into Wisconsin’s 2020 election.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson was on UpFront over the weekend and framed the FBI’s questioning of Milwaukee County election officials and Milwaukee police officers as an attempt to undo the 2020 presidential vote.
“We’ve got a president who, for whatever reason, just refuses to abide by the will of the voters – unless he wins,” Johnson said. “He’s not challenging election results in states or cities where he won. He’s only challenging those results in places where he did not win.”
The Justice Department is investigating Wisconsin’s 2020 election. Investigators have spoken with the Wisconsin Elections Commission and managers at Milwaukee County’s election office.
This month, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that federal investigators spoke with at least two police officers who were at Milwaukee’s election headquarters on Election Day in 2020.
Johnson said he did not know what those officers were asked or what they said.
Johnson was not asked and did not say anything about the outside law firms that have volunteered to represent Milwaukee in a lawsuit aimed at stopping the investigation into the 2020 election.
Johnson did say that he worries the investigation will continue to breathe life into election conspiracies that have lingered about Wisconsin since the 2020 election.
“I do have another issue, and issue with other people that sign on to some of this nonsense that undermines faith in elections,” the mayor explained. “We are celebrating the 250th anniversary of our country, of American democracy, and it’s a shame to me that we’ve got people at the highest level of our federal government who are trying to undermine those elections.”

(The Center Square) – The price of a gallon of unleaded gas in Wisconsin was $3.77 on Friday morning, down 72 cents from a month ago.
Wisconsin ranked sixth with a 16% decline in price over the month, behind Colorado (94 cents), Florida (87 cents), Ohio (87 cents), Illinois (83 cents) and Michigan (76 cents) over the month, according to GasBuddy.
The U.S. average is now down to $3.94, 61 cents below its cost a month ago.
“If everything goes well and no major hurricane disruptions, we could see the national average fall below $3/gal again late this year with diesel falling back below $4/gal,” GasBuddy Petroleum Analyst Patrick DeHaan wrote.
Wisconsin was one of several Midwest states that were impacted late this spring by both the conflict in the Middle East and issues at a BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana.
Those caused Wisconsin prices to rice to $4.37 per gallon in May while diesel prices in the state hit a record high with an average price of $5.62 per gallon, topping the previous record set in 2022.

(The Center Square) – Homes in Wisconsin continue to get more expensive, even as last month saw a bit of a slowdown in sales.
The latest Wisconsin Realtors Report shows a nearly 3% dip in sales compared to May of last year.
“Existing home sales fell 2.8% year over year in May,” the report noted. “Year-to-date sales increased by 2.6% compared to the first five months of 2025.”
The dip in sales, however, did not translate to a dip in prices. In fact, prices went up last month.
“The statewide median home price rose 6.8% to $352,500,” the report added.
One of the reasons why prices continue to grow, real estate agents say there simply aren’t enough homes for sale.
“Inventory remains constrained at 4.1 months statewide, unchanged from last year. [And] new listings increased 0.8%, and total listings increased 2.5% year over year,” according to the report.
“Millennials represent our largest population cohort, and the current inventory weakness has a big impact on that demographic group,” Realtors CEO Tom Larson said. “Although the homes listed at the top of the price distribution show plenty of inventory, very few first-time buyers are buying homes at or above $500,000. It’s the homes listed under $350,000 that are primary targets for new buyers, and these homes are unfortunately in very short supply.”
There are some parts of Wisconsin where buyers can find homes less than $500,000, but not many.
The report said the median home price in central Wisconsin is $289,900. But the median price in the Madison-area remains the highest in the state at $415,000. In the Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin area, the median price last month inched-up to $365,000.
Unsurprisingly, most of the homes sold last month were in the Madison and Milwaukee areas.
In all, the report said 6,553 sales closed in May. Those homes spent an average of 69 days on the market.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin state senator is pledging to make changes after a Thursday Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that a minority scholarship aid program was unconstitutional.
Wisconsin Sen. Dora Drake, D-Milwaukee, said that she intends to introduce a bill that will restart the grant program for students based on income and zip code instead of the qualifications in the program since it began in 1985, including those who are “Black American,” “American Indian,” “Hispanic” or a former citizen of Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia who entered the country in 1976 or later.
Drake received the scholarship while she attended Marquette. The program awarded between $250 and $2,500 per year to students. The scholarships went to private college and technical college students.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the program violated the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. The case was filed by filed by six taxpayers against the Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board and Executive Secretary Connie Hutchinson, who was in charge of administering the grants.
The ruling was based on precedent from a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
“That federal case was based on admissions while this program is about a student retention enacted by the state legislature and funded since 1985,” Drake, Chair of the Wisconsin Legislative Black Caucus, said in a statement. “They are setting a dangerous precedent by applying this federal ruling to distinctly different programs.”
Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Gillett, applauded the ruling and said that it showed that a bill he sponsored, Assembly Bill 669, was the right move because it would have ended race-based scholarships in the state. That bill was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers.
“Giving benefits based solely on race presumes someone has individual personal characteristics simply because they belong to a race category,” Wimberger said in a statement. “That is stereotyping and racism at their plainest and simplest.
“The Higher Education Aids Board could not identify to the Court any objectives or benefits it hoped to achieve through the policy. The Court is right today to call race-based government policies for what they are: odious.”
Wimberger vowed to continue to work to end other state programs that are solely based upon race because he wants to “pursue equality under the law.”
Drake said that the decision “emboldens an extreme conservative agenda” that hopes to end all protections and programs “to remove all disparities in America and secure a fair democracy for all.”
“We can’t continue to make the same mistakes like our nation did post reconstruction and Jim Crow if we do we will never achieve true equity in our democracy.” Drake said.
Drake called a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 3 statewide ballot “misleading.” The billt would prohibit Wisconsin governmental entities from giving preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. She said the programs are meant to eliminate disparities between those groups.
“Legislators like State Sen. Dora Drake benefitted from these programs, and now countless Black and Brown Wisconsinites won’t have the same opportunities because of the Supreme Court’s decision,” WisDems spokesperson Philip Shulman said in a statement. “Even worse is this decision will undoubtedly set the stage for more rulings that undercut similar programs and further disenfranchise Wisconsinites.
“This fight is not over, and I am confident we will see Democrats fight this ruling and continue to give every Wisconsinite the best chance possible to make a better life for themselves.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.4% in May, down from 3.5% in April.
The state also saw 5,800 more people employed year over year while the labor force participation rate remained at 64.4% in what Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Office of Economic Advisors Section Chief Scott Hodek called “a bit of a mixed bag.”
Hodek said it “speaks to the strength of the U.S. economy that we’re still seeing growth” despite the war in Iraq and U.S. tariff implications.
Hodek said the data was similar to prior seasonal patterns and the economy has “cooled a bit overall” while “this month’s data relatively positive.”
The state has 9,000 more construction jobs than the year with 8,900 more in private education and health services and 7,100 more in leisure and hospitality.
Wisconsin was down 11,600 jobs in trade and 3,700 in manufacturing over the year.

(The Center Square) – The future of property taxes in Wisconsin remains one of the largest topics along with affordability heading into this fall’s elections.
This week, congressman and candidate-for-governor Tom Tiffany pointed to a ranking that showed Wisconsin is 43rd in terms of property tax rates, just higher than Iowa (42nd) and trailing only last place Illinois in the Midwest.
“We have to fix this,” Tiffany wrote while sharing the property tax map. “There is no reason Wisconsin should rank alongside New York, New Jersey, and Illinois for some of the highest property taxes in America.
“Wisconsin Democrats stuck you with a 400-year property tax hike and told you to ‘deal with it.’ That ends on day one.”
Wisconsin voters will have the opportunity to block a future governor from repeating the partial veto from Gov. Tony Evers that led to the 400-year K-12 school funding increase with a constitutional referendum on the November ballot that would end a governor’s ability to “create or increase or authorize the creation or increase of any tax or fee.”
Evers used the current veto power to erase numbers and a hyphen to change the year “2024-25” to “2425” in a school appropriation in the budget bill.
That meant a $325 per student per year funding increase for the next 400 years was allowed and later upheld in a 4-3 ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
A Marquette Law School poll earlier this year showed that 58% of registered voters polled were more concerned about property taxes than funding for K-12 public schools while 41% said the opposite.
Republicans have pointed to Evers’ partial veto as a reason property taxes have and will continue to increase in the state while Democrats have said that those increases have been necessary because the state needs to fund more of the cost of K-12 schools.
The K-12 education portion of Wisconsin property tax bills rose 7.8% this year, the largest rise in more than three decades, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report released in December.
All Wisconsin Senate Democrats voted against a $1.8 billion surplus bill that 80% of voters in a Marquette Law School poll believe should have been passed. The bill was a bipartisan agreement between Evers, outgoing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu.
The bill included $300 or $600 income tax refund checks, $600 million for schools and an end to taxes on tips and overtime. It passed the Assembly and was voted down 18-15 in the Senate.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin college grant program that sent financial aid to students based on specific race, national origin and ancestry cannot legally operate because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The ruling came after a Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruling that attaining diversity in higher education is no longer a compelling interest that allowed for an exception to the Equal Protection Clause. The case was filed by filed by six taxpayers against the Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board and Executive Secretary Connie Hutchinson, who was in charge of administering the grants.
The grans program began in 1985 for students attending private and technical colleges in the state who were a minority undergraduate who was a “Black American,” “American Indian,” “Hispanic” or a former citizen of Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia who entered the country in 1976 or later.
Justice Jill Karofsky concurred with the opinion of the court but wrote separately in her opinion, joined by Susan Crawford, on the benefits of the scholarship program.
“Despite this documented success, the grant program’s explicit reliance on race is fatal to its constitutionality for the reasons explained in Justice Dallet’s concurring opinion,” Karofsky wrote. “A suggested alternative means of maintaining a grant program to improve retention would be to target individuals who are economically disadvantaged, since there is also a statistical correlation between economic disadvantage and low retention rates.
“While this alternative aligns with the Supreme Court’s ruling in SFFA, it falls short because it does not acknowledge the racial inequality underlying the problem.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction framed its new Portrait of a Graduate initiative from a steering committee that included employers and those in Wisconsin’s industries that would help frame what graduates need to know.
But the steering committee actually included just one member of private industry in Wisconsin, Sargento’s Anne Troka, along with 26 public employees from the state, according to the response to a records request from The Dairyland Sentinel.
The committee is filled with high school teachers and members of the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America along with members of state agencies such as the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.
DPI presented the initiative as an effort to define the “knowledge, skills and experience” that graduates need to be prepared for “college, careers, community leadership and civic life.”
Rather than providing the list of 27 members of the steering committee, DPI made Dairyland Sentinel’s question a public records request.
“Shifting a routine press question into the statutory open records track is a classic government delay tactic,” Dairyland Sentinel wrote. “It allowed DPI to avoid answering immediate questions during the launch week, effectively killing the immediate news cycle and buying the department weeks of silence while they promoted their unvetted narrative through friendly channels.”
The department also said that there were no documents showing the selection process or criteria to be invited to join the committee.
Critics questioned the initiative when it was announced because it didn’t mention basics such as improving reading, writing or math scores.
Questions surrounding the new initiative follow Dairyland Sentinel’s questions related to a 2024 Forward Exam standards-setting conference in the Wisconsin Dells that has led to a lawsuit over a potential Open Meetings Act violation involving the conference as well as a multiple year battle over public records related to DPI’s efforts to keep details of the $369,000 conference hidden from the public.
IRG’s General Counsel and Director of its Center for Investigative Oversight Jake Curtis told The Center Square in February that he believed the 88-member standards-setting group filled with school employees and leaders fits the exact definition of an Ad Hoc Committee and that meetings of that committee should be public and not subject to the non-disclosure agreements signed by conference attendees.
Dairyland Sentinel has asked Wisconsin’s Department of Justice to intervene on a public records request related to the conference that the outlet believes is still incomplete.
Dairyland Sentinel Publisher Brian Fraley previously told The Center Square that he believes there are minutes and recordings from the conference that should be public records that DPI has not released related to its workshop and that he plans to continue to fight for those records.

(The Center Square) – Many of Wisconsin’s representatives in Congress spent Wednesday talking about something other than Iran.
Most of the state’s eight members of Congress were silent about President Trump’s deal with Iran.
Green Bay-area Republican Tony Wied was the only member of the House to talk about the deal on social media.
“President Trump has made it clear that he does not want endless wars in the Middle East. I completely agree,” he wrote. “Yet as soon as a peace deal emerges, the swamp attacks it. They either want to see America fail or want to see endless wars continue. I want to see this war come to an end, and I am grateful to have a president who is pursuing peace through strength to protect our country and the American people.”
Wisconsin’s two U.S. senators also addressed the deal. They were, as expected, split on the agreement.
“And now he’s claiming victory without a permanent solution in hand,” Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin said on Capitol Hill Wednesday. “We are in a worse position than when President Trump started this war. That is why Donald Trump’s ‘wink and nod’ promise is simply not enough.”
Baldwin said she, and her constituents, want a guarantee that the war in Iran is over once and for all.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on Wednesday said the president’s deal with Iran is “bowing to reality.”
“President Trump recognizes the reality that the Iranian people were not able to overthrow the regime and that Americans would not support a ground war to defeat it. So [the president] made a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz to limit economic damage and carefully monitor the regime’s behavior moving forward,” Johnson wrote on X.
Johnson added that if Iran walks away from the 60-day memorandum of understanding, or doesn’t deliver on its end, the United States can and will act.
“You can always go back in there,” Johnson said.

(The Center Square) – The top seven Democrats running for Wisconsin governor and the candidates to replace Congressman Tom Tiffany in the 7th Congressional District both have televised debates scheduled before the state’s Aug. 11 primary.
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, current Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, businessman Joel Brennan and former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes are all scheduled to take part in a July 28 debate on WISN moderated by WISN 12 News’ journalists Gerron Jordan and Matt Smith.
Hong led a Marquette Law School poll with 14% support, followed by Barnes (11%), Crowley (3%), Rodriguez (3%), Brennan (2%), Roys (1%) and Hughes (1%).
Tiffany is the Republican primary favorite.
The debate between Democrat candidates for the office will be hosted at Weasler Auditorium on the Marquette University campus and will be broadcast on the WISN website along with WISN and partner stations in Green Bay (WBAY), Madison (WKOW), Wausau (WAOW), Eau Claire (WQOW) and La Crosse (WXOW).
“A majority of Wisconsin voters are currently undecided in this primary election, making the debate especially important before people head to the polls,” President and General Manager of WISN 12 Shawn Oswald said in a statement. “Wisconsin voters deserve clear answers about where each candidate stands on the important issues.”
WJFW Newswatch 12 will hold two live debates in July with candidates for the 7th Congressional District.
The Republican debate will be from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on July 7 with Michael Alfonso, Jessi Ebben, and Niina Baum. The station said that Kevin Hermening has not committed to attending.
The Democratic debate will be from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on July 14 with Chris Armstrong, Ginger Murray and Fred Clark attending.
The debates will be broadcast live on WJFW and will include a 10-minute intermission and streamed on the station’s website and Facebook page.
WJFW anchor Dan Hagen will be moderator for both events.
“The last time Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District held an openseat election — with no incumbent on the ballot — was the Special Election in 2020,” WJFW News Director Geoff Weller said in a statement. “District 7 voters deserve clear answers on where each candidate stands on important issues. Two live, 90-minute debates will add clarity to this race.”

(The Center Square) – Kirk Bangstad is moving ahead with his case against the state of Wisconsin over his seized beer.
Bangstad, the one-time Democrat candidate for governor, filed a lawsuit in Dane County court against the state’s Department of Revenue.
His suit accuses the state of treating his beer “differently than substantially identical beer produced within the state of Wisconsin.”
Bangstad is asking the judge for an injunction and to return the nearly $25,000 in beer that DOR agents seized last week.
The Department of Revenue is not commenting on the lawsuit and has not said much about the bust at Bangstad’s taprooms in both Madison and Minocqua.
Bangstad said the state seized the beer because he failed to pay $500 in state excise taxes on his beer that is brewed in Illinois.
Bangstad has claimed that he tried to pay the tax but was not given the opportunity.
Over the weekend, Bangstad wrote on Facebook that he is being targeted by Gov. Tony Evers because he has criticized the governor. Bangstad also claimed that he is being targeted by the Tavern League because of his dislike of Wisconsin’s liquor regulations.
Bangstad doubled-down on those claims in his latest Substack post.
“I’m putting out a call to all breweries, distilleries, and wineries in Wisconsin who have been similarly discriminated against by the Tavern-League-backed Wisconsin Department of Revenue. If we pool our resources, we can better afford this lawsuit that will hopefully even the playing field between Wisconsin’s small producers and the distribution monopolies that keep us down,” Bangstad wrote. “There’s a target on my company’s back for a reason, and that reason is because we’re slowly helping move Wisconsin FORWARD—a direction in which Republicans haven’t allowed us to move for over 20 years.”
Bangstad announced a campaign for governor last month, but that fizzled after the Wisconsin Elections Commission said he did not gather enough valid signatures to make the primary ballot.

(The Center Square) – A federal judge denied former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan’s request to be acquitted or receive a new trial Tuesday.
District Judge Lynn Adelman denied the appeal, rejecting the three claims from Dugan’s lawyers that would allow for the case to be reheard.
“Defendant argues that ICE was acting as a law enforcement agency here,” Adelman wrote. “But this ignores the fact that, unlike, say, the FBI, ICE can issue its own warrants and adjudicate and effectuate a removal, as it did with Flores-Ruiz, without the involvement of a court.”
Dugan was found guilty of a felony charge of obstruction by a jury in December after she was accused of obstructing the arrest of a defendant in her court by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers outside of her courtroom.
The jury found Dugan not guilty of a misdemeanor charge of concealing related to defendant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was later arrested on the street outside the courthouse and has since been deported.
Dugan resigned from her judge role after her conviction.