Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Rebecca Bradley - Through Others Eyes

By Jeff Simpson

Here at CogDis, both Capper and I have written plenty about how unqualified Ms. Bradley is to serve on the Supreme Court of WI, so its time to share what others are also saying about her.


*  Madison Super Attorney Lester Pines has four questions for Ms. Bradley(here is one):

4. Also, in 1992 you said this about those who voted for Bill Clinton in the 1992 election:
“We’ve just had an election which proves that the majority of voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil.”
Did you have the same reaction when a majority of Wisconsin’s voters chose Bill Clinton again in 1996, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012?
*  Attorney Mike Plaisted also wrote for his college paper:



Except that she wasn't that young and not drunk at all.  She meant what she said and she said it.  I've read a bunch of my old stuff in the past week and I don't have to apologize for any of it.  I'd write all of it again -- perhaps with a lot less use of the phrase "of course" -- I used that a lot.  What I wrote was part of what I was and still part of what I am.  I think college writers are all proud of what they wrote and they still have the same world view -- they just go after their goals in different ways. I know I do.
Bradley certainly has.  She has never swerved off the nut-right political path, serving as president of the radical-right bunch of lawyers called the Federalist Society and all manner of other right-wing groups and causes.  As late as 2006, Bradley was writing about how pharmacists shouldn't be "forced" to be "a party to murder" by doing their job and filling birth control prescriptions. It is written in the same kind of deliriously clueless writing from her Marquette days, without the name-calling.  The student apple didn't fall far from the adult tree. 

*  Emily Mills in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel believes Ms. Bradley is not ready for Prime Time:

Bradley is simply not a good fit, and she has demonstrated this in ways many and varied. It's not just about the (heinous) opinions spouted in college newspaper columns. Add in the money taken from right-wing political organizations, and her seeming disinterest in the judicial process (leaving oral arguments early to speak at a conservative fundraiser, casting the deciding vote in a crucial case essentially negating the Fourth Amendment even though she wasn't present for arguments), and it becomes crystal clear that this is a person unfit for the job.
This should serve as a stark lesson in the pitfalls of promoting people beyond their qualifications simply because they've been loyal to you or your cause. That's called cronyism and reliance upon it only leads to corruption. Not only that, but it tends to also lead to the destruction of systems people rely on to seek real justice and to live decently.
If Bradley were half the jurist she claims to be, she would own up to having been promoted beyond her capacity and drop out of the race. Something tells me that won't happen, especially given the combination of silence and deferral she's done since these most recent revelations.
It's up to Wisconsin voters to make it clear that we will not accept cronies and ideological puritans on the highest court in the state and that we value checks and balances. That means electing judges who demonstrate clear judicial impartiality, hard work and real curiosity and critical thinking.

* Alan Talaga from the Isthmus does not believe Ms. Bradley's apology:

"I wrote opinion pieces 24 years ago on a variety of issues, and they are opinions that some people may agree with, some people might disagree with," said Bradley in an interview with The Capital Times.“To those offended by comments I made as a young college student, I apologize, and assure you that those comments are not reflective of my worldview,” said Bradley in a press statement.
I cannot judge what is in Rebecca Bradley’s heart, but these read to me like the apologies of someone who feels bad their past caught up with them, not the apologies of someone truly regretful. ‘To those offended’ makes it sound like she feels bad for offending potential voters, not for having written the column in the first place.


*  Over at Democrumudgeon, John points out that Rebecca Bradley is sitting back and letting the right wing echo chamber speak for her.

   Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like every right wing flack and corporate lobbyist is getting media time defending Rebecca Bradley's unforgivable commentary that can't be reversed; can you still be a conservative and take back saying a majority of Clinton voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil? They're saying that now for gods sake. Or how about "degenerate queers," words no one else uses. And that's her public face.

H/T Democurmudgeon for this clip of Ms. Bradley unhinged:





*  Last and certainly not least, One Wisconsin Now points out how Ms. Bradley falsified records for their open records request:

MADISON, Wis. — Based on her comments in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Rebecca Bradley, appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by Gov. Scott Walker in September, violated the state’s open record laws by providing falsified calendars to One Wisconsin Now in response to a request for her work calendar. One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross said the organization is consulting with legal counsel about potential action against Walker’s thrice-appointed judge.
“After repeated delays, Rebecca Bradley wrote us that she had fulfilled our simple open records request for her taxpayer-financed calendar,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “Now it turns out the years of blank pages she gave and charged us at an exorbitant rate to retrieve were a complete fraud and fabrication.”

* By the way Do not tread on Rebecca Bradley!!


* To no ones surprise, Jimmy Wiggy thinks we should forgive and forget, because any kid not related to him is an idiot and besides she didnt write anything wrong:

It’s worth considering the context of the times when The Marquette Tribune ran Bradley’s op-ed and letters to the editor. AIDS was the big scary disease that at any moment was going to spread to the heterosexual community at epidemic levels, or so we were told. There was a real debate at how much and what kind of “AIDS education” was appropriate, and certainly this was true on Marquette, which was once a Catholic university.
Homosexuality did not have the acceptance it has now. This was before former President Bill Clinton ordered “don’t ask, don’t tell,” for the military. It was certainly before Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which was a federal effort to try to stop the courts from imposing gay marriage on the states. It was before President Barack Obama said he was opposed to gay marriage, and before his “growth” on the issue in 2012 and his sudden support for gay marriage.
It was at that time that a college kid tried to attract a little attention by throwing around language that today would have caused a near riot on campus. It was all but forgotten until it was dug up by an organization led by a political hatchet man who recently referred to a female
reporter former governor* as a “racist anus.”
 Edit note:  Wiggy is once again wrong, a little research shows that by 1992 we had a pretty good understanding of AIDS, and how it was not just a gay disease.  Magic Johnson had announced he had contracted AIDs in 1991 and truly made it a national discussion.







2 comments:

  1. "Did you have the same reaction when a majority of Wisconsin’s voters chose" Scott Walker, who destroyed Wisconsin jobs and clean government?

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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