Mar 15, 2025, 10:20 AM CST
OSHKOSH, WI- (WISS) – Two separate but connected protests occurred Friday afternoon in Oshkosh, joining the myriad of protests popping up all across NEWisco. One was close to a banquet hall where Republican leaders held a Lincoln Day Dinner. The other was a few miles away near a busy shopping center.
The first, organized by Cathy Toll of Indivisible Winnebago, set up closer to the venue where the Winnebago County GOP held a dinner featuring Congressman Glenn Grothman, Winnebago County Executive Jon Doemel, candidate for Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Brittany Kinser, a surrogate from the Brad Chimel Campaign, a representative from Moms for Liberty and other Republican leaders.
Toll said the protest took place up the frontage road from LaSure’s Banquet Hall where the Republican event took place because they wanted to be respectful of private property and needed a location that would be safe for the protesters to stand. About 4 dozen protesters came out to line the street in a vacant area near a public “Park and Ride” lot.
“ I’m a retired special education teacher, and so the cuts to the Department of Education are absolutely going to affect our children with disabilities. The fact that Linda McMahon did not even know what IDEA stood for, which is the Individual Disability Act, is absolutely disgusting to me,” said Michelle Miller,one of the protesters. “I’m out here for so many reasons though. I mean, I’m out here because my husband gets Social Security, and I I have friends who are on and need disability, and I stand with Ukraine.”
The smaller group was organized by The Peaceful Patriots. The nonpartisan group, organized the Winnebago GOP, Listen to Us! protest at the corner of W. 20th and South Park in Oshkosh. Protest organizer Danny Schierl described the group as a grass-roots and action-based.
“ We’re out here displaying our disdain for what is happening right now in the White House. What’s happening with Elon Musk, who’s not an elected official!,” said Schierl. “And we’re just saying, ‘Hey! We’re out here and people care.’”
Both protests featured people passionately and legally expressing their dissatisfaction with changes made in the first months of Donald Trump’s Administration.
“I served in the United States Marine Corps for eight years. And I defended this country and I’m going to continue to defend this country,” said protester Joe Saccardi. “I am always going to resist the people that think they can take away the unalienable rights under the constitution.”
Peaceful Patriots is also the group that protests regularly at the Opera House Square in Oshkosh every Saturday.
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