On Wednesday the American Democracy Legal Fund filed a formal complaint against U.S. Senator Ron Johnson over Johnson’s use of his U.S. Senate website – specifically the blog on that site – to attack Russ Feingold, his opponent in Wisconsin’s 2016 U.S. Senate race.

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On June 19, 2015, Senator Johnson’s official Senate website posted an article, which was in fact a partisan political attack and response to Senator Russ Feingold. After quoting Senator Feingold as saying that Senator Johnson is “opposed to all government-assisted student loans” the bulk of the article is aimed at rebutting Senator Feingold.

Senator Johnson blatantly used his official Senate website to attack a political opponent in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 1301(a) and the Senate Internet Policy. An article which quotes a political opponent, mentions that opponent by name multiple times, and which accuses that political opponent of having “a hard time being honest about what words mean” cannot reasonably be construed as anything but a partisan political attack and is no way related to Senator Johnson’s official duties or the official duties of the Senate.

For television viewers, Wednesday night on NBC was “America’s Got Talent.”

Thursday night the debate on Fox was the rebuttal.

With big cat sightings swirling through the Wisconsin summer like the tempting, taunting smell of steak and sweet corn on a neighbor's grill, finally something of substance: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday confirmed two cougar sightings in Langlade County.

The animal or animals were captured on trail cameras July 9 about six miles and 20 hours apart in the northern Wisconsin county. Landowners separately turned in the images to the DNR on July 27 and Aug. 3. Based on a review of the information and visits to the properties by agency personnel, the DNR verified the sightings.

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The DNR has verified three or more cougar sightings a year in Wisconsin since 2008, MacFarland said. However, many of the sightings are likely of the same animal. Based on genetic evidence, the agency has confirmed at least six individual cougars in the state in the last seven years. The cougar, also known as mountain lion, catamount and puma, once roamed throughout Wisconsin but was extirpated in the early 1900s, according to state wildlife officials.

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Male cougars can travel long distances in search of mates and new territories. Female cougars have much smaller "dispersal tendencies," MacFarland said. In one well-documented and highly publicized case, a male mountain lion traveled from the Black Hills, passed through northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and ended up in Connecticut, where it was struck and killed by a vehicle in 2011. Wildlife experts estimate the journey covered more than 1,500 miles and spanned three years.

Cindy Archer, a longtime aide to Gov. Scott Walker, has described a 2011 police raid on her home in which officers screamed at her, threw a search warrant at her without reading it, barred her from stepping outside to smoke and failed to inform her of her constitutional rights. Newly unsealed audio of the three-hour incident tells a different story.

That recording details tense but mannerly exchanges between Archer and Aaron Weiss, an investigator with the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office, as he led a team of officers during an early morning raid on Archer's home as part of a now infamous John Doe probe.

"I'm sort of doing you a courtesy by letting you get a coffee and smoke a cigarette just because I imagine being woken up at six in the morning by a bunch of people in black suits is not the way you want to wake up in the day," Weiss said at one point. "Thank you," Archer responds.

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In the recording, Weiss acknowledged to Archer just how expansive the probe had become since it launched in May 2010. It eventually led to the convictions of six individuals, including three former Walker aides, an associate and one major campaign giver. Archer was never charged. "This investigation has been going a long time," Weiss said. "I heard you say outside that's why they forced you out. We touched a lot of people in this. It's a pretty broad net."

They show it was Gov. Scott Walker and staff who added language exempting "deliberative process" documents from public records. This would have allowed elected representatives — and bureaucrats — to bury records revealing lobbying, opinions, analyses, recommendations, negotiations, suggestions and other notes that precede a decision.

They show it was Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and staff who sought language that would have granted lawmakers broad new privileges to hide most legislative documents, even when sued, and to ban their staffs from discussing issues even after leaving their jobs. No other state provides such an expansive legal privilege.

These restrictions not only would have applied to the governor and Legislature, but also to town, village, city and county boards; to state and local agencies and department heads; to anyone in government worried there just might be something in the files that could bring a bit of embarrassment, an objection, a call for improvement.

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The records released last week reveal that a lawyer in the Legislative Reference Bureau was researching legislative privilege language last September. Vos had the drafts written on special legislative privilege sometime before June 15. By that time, Walker had approved language to hide records on all unresolved matters under review.