"State legislators cannot withhold the names and email addresses of constituents who contact them..."

"... the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decided Wednesday."

Currently, some public officials, including [Gov. Scott] Walker, leave names on correspondence requested under the open-records law while others have blacked them out. Dreps said the ruling creates a “bright-line rule” for all officials to follow.

Brett Healy, president of the MacIver Institute, called the ruling “a win for transparency in government and the taxpayers of Wisconsin.”...

“I think people don’t realize how far-reaching this is,” [Sen. Jon] Erpenbach said...

Big crowds attend the "White Privilege Conference" here in Madison.

The Capital Times reports.

“The courage of people speaking out inspires me. The demonstrated and suggested ways of advocacy in the face of ubiquitous white-dominated structures inspires me. The incredible articulation of wisdom encapsulated in these rooms inspires me,” said [Sue Robinson, an associate professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication]....

"It’s good to focus on how systemic racism exists and how we function with it," [said Isadore Knox, director of the Dane County Office of Equal Opportunity, who attended the all-day "Black Male Think Tank"]....

For example, rough talk and movement by African-American boys playing basketball may be viewed as threatening by some, but more likely is just posturing and a way of relating, he said. “I would parallel that to school situations where teachers who are not culturally competent see behaviors they see as antisocial, but might be just how those boys react," he said.

Meanwhile, at Breitbart, there's some reporting about how Wisconsin Reporter's Adam Tobias tried  to attend but was stymied by the difficulty of registering as a member of the media. He was told "This is a private conference," but he has some questions "as a taxpayer" about how the conference gets some money from the city's hotel tax. Obviously, these conferences bring visitors into the city, and some of them stay at hotels, but should that mean conferences can't be closed to the media? I haven't thought deeply about this, but it seems to me that these sessions were a bit like psychotherapy groups, and I can see why privacy is desirable in a context where participants are encouraged to become introspective and confessional about their vestigial racism.

ADDED: Nick Novak of the MacIver Institute managed to get into the conference and to attend various "breakout" sessions. Novak quotes a session leader:

"Teaching is a political act, and you can't choose to be neutral. You are either a pawn used to perpetuate a system of oppression or you are fighting against it," [said Kim Radersma, a former high school English teacher]. "And if you think you are neutral, you are a pawn.... Being a white person who does anti-racist work is like being an alcoholic. I will never be recovered by my alcoholism, to use the metaphor... I have to everyday wake up and acknowledge that I am so deeply imbedded with racist thoughts and notions and actions in my body that I have to choose everyday to do anti-racist work and think in an anti-racist way."

We're all sinners. To me this is bland. Pablum. But maybe you find it enraging and insulting.  It's a very old controversy. Do you want to reserve terms like racist (or sinner) for the most extreme manifestations of the tendency or do you want to use the term broadly to call attention to our shared human nature?

"We've been raised to be good. 'I'm a good white person,' and yet to realize I carry within me these dark, horrible thoughts and perceptions is hard to admit. And yet like the alcoholic, what's the first step? Admitting you have a problem," she told the session attendees.

See? It's a therapy group. And no one's making anybody attend. It reminds me of religion — and that 12-steps business is religion — where the proselytizer tries to get you to see that you're not as good as you like to think you are and you need to repent and go forth and sin no more.

About that recall recount in Racine.

The majority in the Wisconsin senate hangs on the result. Can we trust it?

The recount process has uncovered a series of stunning revelations regarding ballot security.

That's MacIver, which might tend to exaggerate.