WISGOP To Launch Yet Another Attack on Democracy

 

So far, democracy, and the election results of 2020 are still standing, despite multiple prongs attacks from all sides.  Although to be honest, the would be assailants, aka Republicans, more resemble the Bungling Brother Circus clown act than a serious threat.

Trump filed lawsuits on both the state and federal levels.  However, his attorneys are incompetent and failed to file the lawsuits properly with each court.  The federal case was rejected outright.  I suppose it didn't help when the attorney, Sidney Powell, submitted blank forms with the petition and outright lied on the parts she did fill in.

The cases on the state level are still pending, but they have only until Monday to resolve them.

Two other cases filed on the state level were denied a hearing by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  

The best part of the three state level cases being rejected by the Supreme Court was that each was due to Brian Hagedorn siding with the liberals and the Constitution rather than doing whatever his right wing special interest funders to him to do.  This sent almost every Republican into conniptions and made several heads explode.

Currently, Kenny Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, has filed a federal lawsuit against Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia in an effort to force them to order their electors to vote for Trump despite the fact that Biden had won each of those states. The common belief is that the only reason Paxton filed this lawsuit in the first place is that he fishing for a preemptive pardon from Trump for all of the misconduct while in office that put him under a federal investigation.

But now the Wisconsin Republicans are throwing everything they can - including the kitchen sink - in an effort to enforce fascism and kill off democracy.

Robert Spindell, one of the Republicans on the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which is supposed to be administering and protecting the elections, attended a MAGA "Stop the Steal" rally on Monday.  Not only did he attend, he spoke to his fellow Trumpanzees, using the same twisted logic and nonsensical talking points that is so popular among Republicans these days:

While he did not give any specific examples of voter fraud in Wisconsin, Spindell implied, falsely, that it had happened.

“There’s no evidence vote fraud did not occur,” Spindell said, calling for election officials to prove a negative. 

Also, another member of the commission, Dean Knudson, has filed a complaint with his own commission against Governor Evers for certifying the election results as he is required to do per federal and state laws.

In the center ring of this circus of clowns is State Representative Ron Tusler, the chair of the Assembly's election committee, has scheduled a hearing about the elections for Friday.  Tusler has said that he is "unsure if Biden won the state."  To support his point, he spewed out all the same claims and conspiracy theories that have already been repeatedly debunked.  

To further cement his place in the museum of bad clowns, the hearing he is overseeing is making a mockery of itself.  The witnesses that have been called include a Bradford Foundation-sponsored radio squawker and hack writer; a former right wing Supreme Court justice who was voted out; the two tainted election commissioners mentioned above; and a cast of thousands of no-name right wing puppets.

Notably absent are any nonpartisan election officials and any Democrats.  

In other words, it's not exactly going to be a real hearing but more of a organized right wing echo chamber like Parler but in real time and in person instead of an anonymous antisocial social media platform.

This would be hilarious if it were not for the fact that they are going to try to use this parody of a hearing to change election laws for future elections and even try to change the 2020 results, if they can figure out a way to get it past Evers before Monday, when the Electoral College collects and counts their votes.

The question that I want answered by the likes of Tusler, Joe Sanfelippo and the others would be whether they consider their own election as fraudulent and resign from office because no one is sure they legitimately won their seats.

Trump's Legal Strategy: Winning By Losing

 A couple of days ago, I had reported that even before the partial recount was completed, the frivolous lawsuits were flying in fast and furious.

In the short time since then, Trump has managed to add to his losses.  On Thursday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court chose not to accept Trump's case on a 4-3 basis, because state law requires for his legal team to have filed the lawsuit in circuit court first.  Even before ink was dry, Trump had filed appeals in both Milwaukee and Dane Counties.

What was disconcerting about the decision was not just that three of the four conservative judges had chosen to disregard the law and the constitution, but their irrational reasoning behind their decision.  In her dissent, Justice Rebecca Bradley, a Federalist disguised as a Supreme Court Justice, wrote this:

In a separate, scorching dissent, Justice Rebecca Bradley maintained that leaving legal questions to the Elections Commission "deals a death blow to democracy."

"The majority's failure to act leaves an indelible stain on our most recent election," she wrote in a dissent that Roggensack and Ziegler joined.

Later on Thursday, the Supreme Court also declined to hear the lawsuit filed by Wisconsin Voters Alliance, citing the ridiculousness of trying to have the entire election declared null and void.  

On Friday, the Court also declined to hear the case filed by Dean Mueller because he did not like the absentee ballot drop boxes, was declined without explanation.

The latter two were decided by the same split of 4-3.

Also on Friday, it was learned that Trump's lawsuit filed in federal court faces a dubious future.  Federal Judge Brett Ludwig, who was appointed by Trump, expressed skepticism and questioned why this lawsuit had even been filed since they wanted the legislature to be given control of the 10 electors.  When Trump's attorney explained that they needed to find the election results to be flawed to that they could take it to the legislature, Ludwig turned up the heat on Trump's team:

Trump attorney William Bock said the president needed the court to determine the election that Biden won by about 21,000 votes was flawed so that the issue could be handed off to lawmakers. 

Ludwig remained dubious that such a question was one a federal court could decide. 

"I get the argument but I have a very, very hard time seeing how this is justiciable in the federal court," Ludwig said. 

He added that Trump's lawsuit was "really bizarre" because it asks to "remand" the case to the Legislature, noting that remanding a case typically means returning it to a lower court for reconsideration. 

"I think the term 'remand' might be inartful," Bock responded. 

Ludwig put Trump in a bigger bind by scheduling the next hearing on December 19th, only four days before the electoral college meets to finalize their count.

As stated before, even if Trump would manage to turn the vote over, it wouldn't matter. Biden would still have enough to be the official winner.

But before you laugh and call Trump a loser, you should be aware that he is actually winning.  In my last article about this, I pointed out that these lawsuits were just a vehicle for him to put the squeeze on his supporters because he's gonna need as much cash as possible to pay off all his campaign debts and to fund a legal defense against all the civil and criminal lawsuits he will be facing on January 21at.

And it is working out for him:

.President Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have raised more than $207.5 million in the weeks since Election Day, his campaign said Thursday, as their claims of voting fraud have generated a financial windfall that could be deployed in future political ventures.

Whoever said that crime doesn't pay hadn't met Trump.

The Recount Is Done, Now The Frivolous Lawsuits Fly

Trump's partial recount is done.  It only cost Trump $34,000 per vote for the 87 additional votes that Biden had gained over him. Governor Evers certified the final count on Monday.

Now the frivolous, and sometimes illegal, lawsuits are flying in fast and heavy.

Even before the final results were certified, MAGAts had already filed two lawsuits with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, each one looking for the results to be declared null and void and control of the state's 10 electors to be handed over to the Republican-controlled legislature:

: Besides the Trump campaign, Trump allies have also filed lawsuits challenging the election result.

One filed last Tuesday by the conservative Wisconsin Voters Alliance asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to toss out the results of the presidential election and replace the will of the voters with electors appointed by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

Another lawsuit filed by a Chippewa County resident called on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to stop certification of the presidential election based on an argument that ballot boxes used to collect absentee ballots are illegal.

It should be notes that the group that filed the first lawsuit had already filed a similar lawsuit in federal court even before the recount.  It was summarily dismissed as frivolous.

The second lawsuit isn't going to go anywhere either. Almost every county used the ballot boxes and there is no way to differentiate those dropped off in a ballot box to other votes cast.

Then Trump filed not one, but two lawsuits.  One was filed with the State Supreme Court and the other was filed in federal court.   If you thought the first ones were ridiculous, wait until you get a hold of these.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

In the state lawsuit, which should have been filed in circuit court instead of with the supreme court, Trump is asking for more than 220.000 voices to be silenced for various reasons. Each one is laughable, especially since he has only until December 8th to get his challenges resolved..

Suddenly, Trump doesn't like early voting and especially loathes absentee ballots, even though he's encouraged people to use both and voted absentee himself.  Trump also complains about the Wisconsin Election Commission, which the Republicans created over eight years ago.  It should be noted that Trump tried the same thing in other states and got absolutely nowhere with them.  I'd expect the same thing to happen in Wisconsin.

The federal lawsuit is so flawed and so ridiculous, it would be surprising if it's not rejected before it's even heard.  To give you the first clue where this is going, it was filed by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, whom Trump has distanced himself from with all haste.

The first error is that Wisconsin Secretary of State Bob Lafollette is listed as a defendant even though he has nothing to do with elections.  Adding to that, the lawsuit also lists Derrick Van Orden as a plaintiff, even though he never gave permission for his name to be used.

Other errors in the lawsuit include these:

According to a report from Riley Vetterkind of the Wisconsin State Journal, Powell made several mistakes in the lawsuit. She referred to the "Wisconsin Board of State Canvassers," which does not exist, and asked for security camera footage from a convention center in Detroit, Michigan.

And if the cases were somehow accepted by the courts, the defendants could always just call on Bill Barr as a witness. Barr has stated that no significant voter fraud had been found and certainly not enough to change any results.

But I don't think Trump is seriously trying to get the state's election results overturned.  Given his track record in other states and the very limited amount of time he has, he has to know that he doesn't stand a very good chance with these lawsuits either. And even if he did manage to get Wisconsin overturned, Biden would still win the election.

Furthermore, he does know that he faces a world of hurt after he is out of office and will be in a world of hurt, facing a ton of legal issues, both criminal and civil.  Also he is still fundraising like crazy.  That would indicate that he is trying to build up as big a treasure chest as he can as a sort of legal defense fund for when his world come crashing down on him and his family.

WISGOP In Complete Meltdown Mode Over Election Results

 Unless the gentle reader is living in a cave with no contact with the outside world, they are aware that Republicans are having a very difficult time accepting the reality that Trump lost the election a few weeks ago.  It is unfathomable to them that the majority of voters would reject Trump, who is their lord and savior.

And there are none worse than those in Wisconsin.  Even before the election, they followed suite of Trump by throwing around baseless conspiracy theories of voter fraud, election fraud and other easily debunked lies.

Then, at Trump's request, Wisconsin needed to do a recount.  But instead of doing the entire state, Trump singled out just two counties, Dane and Milwaukee.  This was not by accident.  Dane and Milwaukee Counties are not only the two biggest Democratic strongholds in the state, but they also are the home of the two largest minority populations.

Since the recall started, Republican observers have done their best to obstruct the process.  They complained about not being close enough to see the ballots and myriad of other details.  But despite supposedly not being able to see the ballots, they managed to find enough to challenged tens of thousands of these ballots. Even if they managed to win half of the challenges, it would be enough to change the outcome of the state's election.

The gentle reader should be made aware that this wasn't just an act of desperation on the Republican's part, but their actual stategy, as outlined by James Wigderson, a right wing blogger who said the quiet part out loud:

The plan is to challenge enough early absentee ballots and mail-in ballots to randomly draw down enough ballots in Milwaukee and Dane Counties to give President Donald Trump the lead in Wisconsin. 

To throw out the early absentee ballots, the state Republican Party is claiming that every person needed to fill out an application before. receiving a ballot to vote early in person. However, they are not challenging the early votes anywhere else but in Milwaukee and Dane Counties.

Because there is no way to connect the ballot with the early voter, a ballot would have to be drawn at random to be thrown out.

In addition, the Republicans want to throw out the ballots of the "indefinitely confined." Legislative Republicans included that provision in their voter ID law to avoid disenfranchising elderly voters. A lawsuit prevented Dane County from abusing that provision, but not before thousands followed the bad advice of County Clerk Scott McDonell. It's no irony that the GOP would now use the law to protect the elderly vote against elderly voters, it's the plan.

Meanwhile, a Republican State Representative, Joe Sanfelippo, actually had the gall to suggest that the whole election results be tossed and that the electors be put into the hands of the Republican-controlled legislature.

Now, a conservative group, Wisconsin Voters' Alliance, has taken Sanfelippo's bizarre train of thought even further by filing a lawsuit with the Wisconsin Supreme(ly Corrupt) Court, asking that the election results be declared null and void.  The difference this time is that their lawsuit is based on the supposed undue influence of Mark Zuckenberg donating money to certain areas to help get the election done despite of the COVID 19 pandemic:

The lawsuit, brought by the nonprofit Wisconsin Voters Alliance along with a number of individual voters, makes a number of unsubstantiated and far-fetched claims about Wisconsin's elections process, some of which are similar to those made by President Donald Trump's campaign in the ongoing recount in Dane and Milwaukee counties.

Central to the lawsuit is the allegation that several Wisconsin cities — Madison, Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee and Green Bay — unlawfully accepted $6 million from the Mark Zuckerberg-backed Center for Technology and Civic Life to help conduct the Nov. 3 election.

The group particularly objected to the cities' work to promote absentee voting, which it characterized as an effort to help President-elect Joe Biden's campaign. Biden won the state by more than 20,000 votes, according to county canvasses. The result is scheduled to be certified Dec. 1.

Wisconsin's political parties both chose a slate of electors in October. The political party whose presidential candidate is the certified winner in Wisconsin will get all the state's electoral votes.

I'm more than a little surprised they didn't include their favorite bogeyman, George Soros.

This same group had filed another lawsuit in October in federal court asking that the money be blocked, but the federal judge had rejected their request because "the plaintiffs failed to show a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of the case."

 The not so hidden irony in all of this is that there is little reason to believe that this group isn't funded by conservative special interests dark money themselves.

Trump Files For Partial Recount In Wisconsin Because Black People Voted

 

Trump has been threatening for weeks to call for a recount in Wisconsin, citing baseless conspiracy theories and ridiculous claims.  On Wednesday, Trump carried through on his threat. Sort of.  His campaign filed for a partial recount, targeting only two counties, citing the same silliness:

The recount petition, signed by Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Monday, alleges "mistakes and fraud" were committed all over Wisconsin but particularly in Madison and Milwaukee, cities with large numbers of voters for Biden. The petition does not provide specific examples of mistakes or fraud. 

Trump claims his campaign's observers at Milwaukee’s central counting facility were required to stay 30 to 35 feet away from tables where ballots were being counted and that once his observers are closer to the counting, mistakes and fraud will be found. 

Everyone knows that a recount is bound to fail because Biden leads by more than 20,000 votes.  Hell, even former governor Scott Walker said it's going to fail, and Walker could be the only person in a room and still not be the smartest one there. 

But Trump isn't really looking to win a recount.  He is doing this for three primary reasons:

• To raise as much money as he can to help pay off his campaign debt
• To bog down the election process and cast further doubt on its integrity
• Because a large number of people of color voted

The last point is self-evident that Trump decided to only target Milwaukee and Dane Counties, which are the two strongest Democratic bastions, have the largest population and the largest number of Black and Latino people.

It didn't take long for Democratic leaders to call out the Trump campaign on this fact, but was best said by the City of Milwaukee Common Council in their press release:

The Trump Campaign is seeking a recount of the votes cast in Milwaukee and Dane counties on November 3^rd, in what is a clear attempt to somehow cast doubt on the outcome of the election in Wisconsin by looking for evidence of non-existent voter fraud.

The recount, focused on Wisconsin’s most diverse counties where by far the state’s largest populations of Black and brown people reside, is not only without merit, it is RACIST and despicable!

We expect the recount to find no significant issues nor anything that will change the vote totals in any major way.

To seek to delegitimize and disenfranchise voters after a clear and sizable election result (where you lost fair and square, Mr. President) is, in our view, purely evil.

WISGOP: No Democracy For You!

It is no deep, dark secret that Republicans hate, hate, hate democracy.  But the actions taken - and not taken by them regarding the 2020 elections is absolutely appalling, even for them.

It was not surprising that the number of absentee ballots being cast in Wisconsin was staggering.  Everyone saw it coming.  Democrats and Republicans alike were urging people to be smart during the COVID 19 pandemic and vote absentee and to get their ballots in early.

But when the elections clerks asked for some help, not only did the Republicans do nothing, they actively fought against any common sense efforts to make the counting of the millions of ballots more efficient.

When the clerks asked for permission to start counting the day before the elections. The Republicans said no.

When the clerks asked to be able to run the ballots through the machines, the Republicans again said no.

Well, the all too predictable happened and Trump lost not only Wisconsin but also the presidency.  He immediately launched the mother of all temper tantrums and started to wildly spew baseless claims of voter fraud, election fraud and all sorts of shenanigans.  

Wisconsin Republicans were all to happy to repeat these asinine claims, citing problems that stemmed directly from their own unwillingness to improve the efficiency of this election.  Robin "It's perfectly safe" Vos went so far as to order the Republican controlled assembly elections committee to do an investigative audit of the elections to find the fraud that wasn't there.

If these accusations were accurate, you just have to admire the cleverness of the Democrats, who, based on these blatantly false accusations, were able to swing enough votes to seize the presidency while still losing ground in congress and not changing the state legislature enough to make a difference.

But State Representative Joe Sanfelippo, who sits on the committee, took it 50 steps further.  Sanfelippo made the absurd - and highly illegal - suggestion that the results of the election just be scrapped or that the electors change their votes to be in favor of Trump:

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has called for an Assembly committee with subpoena powers to oversee an investigation into potential fraud surrounding alleged “concerns surfacing about mail-in ballot dumps and voter fraud” in Wisconsin. And the vice chair of that committee, Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R-New Berlin) says the committee may need to overturn Wisconsin voters’ choice of Joe Biden and conduct a new election or order electors to vote instead to give the state’s 10 Electoral College votes to Donald Trump. Legal experts say either action would violate state and federal law and is beyond the power of the committee.

“If an investigation shows these actions affected the outcome of the election, we need to either declare this past election null and void and hold a new election or require our Electoral College Delegates to correct the injustice with their votes,” Sanfelippo said in a statement Monday. He claimed — without providing evidence —  that there was insufficient voter purging by the Wisconsin Elections Commission and that clerks in Dane and Milwaukee counties “colluded” to keep unverified names on voter lists and began voting too early. Those allegations were “just the beginning” Sanfelippo said.

Realizing how insane they sounded, Republicans started to back pedal away from this.

Robin Vos, who was dead sure that fraud had been committed, changed his tune and admitted that they weren't going to find enough problems to make a difference in the final results.

The assembly elections committee chair, Representative Ron Tusler, politely threw Sanfelippo under the bus before speeding off:

As chair, Tusler makes it clear the committee’s goals are different.

“Joe’s statements are not the statements of our committee,” he says. “They are of a single representative and his feelings and his concerns about this election.”

First, says Tusler, information needs to be gathered, which is where witnesses — some of whom may be subpoenaed although he said that power may not be utilized — come in. 

“I think that we, at this point, need to try to preserve the election that we have,” Tusler says. “I think we need to look into a lot of issues. And if there were some massive amount of fraud, it should be the case that we can remove that fraud from our results and our results just are different than they currently are. If there isn’t a vast amount of fraud, then there isn’t any reason to take that kind of drastic action.”

The worst part of all this is that we now have to wait another two years before we can try to correct the situation by voting out these democracy-hating, fascists.

Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg Attacked By Anti-Semites. But She's Not Jewish.

Meet Katie Rosenberg, the newly elected mayor to Wausau, Wisconsin. Rosenberg, a lifelong Democrat, beat the Republican incumbent, Robert Mielke by a solid 5%. She became an instant internet sensation with her simple two word tweet when the results were finalized:

HOLY BALLS

— Katie Rosenberg (@katierosenberg) April 13, 2020

But her friends and the people of Wausau know her better for her iconic peace sign she flashes as readily as she flashes her contagious smile. She also ran one of the cleanest, most positive campaigns that I have seen in Wisconsin in a long time, which is not surprising for someone like her.

I've been cyber friends with Rosenberg for a many years, even before she entered politics and became a Marathon County Supervisor, and always found her to be direct, honest and thoughtful. I have always enjoyed our chats and gained insights from her that I hadn't thought of before.

Unfortunately, not even the charming community of Wausau is immune to the hate and bigotry that has become all too prevalent in our society. Rosenberg has been the victim of uncounted misogynistic attacks. She has also been repeatedly been the target for anti-Semitic attacks as well:

Rosenberg had plenty of examples.

“The majority of it is online via Twitter or Facebook. It’s usually name-calling (I am sure you know all the anti-Semitic names) and I block or delete them,” she said in a Twitter direct message exchange. “Last summer I had some guy (obviously drunk) come up to me and tell me that I was trying to ‘Jew’ him.”

The experience was not new to her family.

“Growing up my dad was on our local city council and we received tons of mail addressed to ‘Jimmy RosenJew.’ I only received one letter like that,” she said, attaching a photo of a pile of hate and hoax mail her father got.

But there's a catch. Rosenberg isn't Jewish:

Despite her last name, Rosenberg isn’t Jewish — we asked her about it.

“Any Jewish heritage I might have was lost a looooong time ago, before my family left Europe,” she said in a private exchange with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Twitter. “I don’t know the story, unfortunately.”

But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t had some quintessentially Jewish experiences, which she explained in a manner that was consistent with the in-your-face attitude in her victory tweet.

“A lot of people assume I am Jewish and I don’t see any reason to correct them because a lot of it comes in the form of anti-Semitism,” she said.

Given that Rosenberg is only 36 years old, Wausau has a long, bright future ahead of it. And with the election of William Harris, the first African American to serve on the Marathon County Board, that entire region is a breath of fresh air in the general miasma of Wisconsin politics today.

Did Republican Sh*tshow Elections Cause Uptick In COVID-19 Cases?

Image courtesy of Crooks and Liars

As the gentle reader is aware, Wisconsin Republicans were hoping to suppress the vote in the spring elections by forcing it to be held last Tuesday, during a pandemic, in spite of the advice of health experts and common sense. They were hoping to keep as many people from voting as they could so that they could keep the Scott Walker appointed Dan Kelly on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

And what a shitshow it was!

In Milwaukee, instead of the customary 180+ polling stations, there were only five. There were so many demands for absentee/mail in ballots that many counties ran out. Hundreds of thousands of people never received them because county clerks were overwhelmed. To make matters worse, the post office managed to not deliver hundreds of ballots. The people denied their ballots ended up risking their health and lives as well as the health and lives of their family to exercise their right to vote. People stood in line for up to two and a half hours, sometimes in pouring rain or hail, for the opportunity to vote.

Pretty much, the sentimentality of the voters were the same:

Fuck you, Wisconsin GOP. #WisconsinPrimary #WisconsinPandemicVoting pic.twitter.com/Vlpq72Ez7b

— Gretchen (@mkeGingerGal) April 7, 2020

Despite the Republicans best efforts to suppress the vote, it was a massive turnout by Democrats - much higher than for the past few years. Their cherished Kelly lost to the challenger, Jill Karofsky. In a delicious irony, the Republicans immediately started mewling that the election had been rigged. No, really.

Unfortunately, we are now starting to see the other results of that poor decision to force the elections. While Wisconsin was starting to see a flattening of the curve and it looked like things were going to be better than expected, there is a new uptick in confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Here are the state numbers on April 14, one week after the election:

And here are the numbers from the very next day:

As the gentle reader can see, there was a jump of almost 170 confirmed cases. While that is low compared to hard hit areas like New York, it is significantly higher than the average daily increase in new cases in Wisconsin as the curve was starting to plateau.

I'll admit that one day does not mean a trend, but it apparently was enough to cause Governor Evers to extend the "safer at home" order for another month, until May 26. Of course, the Republicans are in such denial that they refuse to see the cause and effect of their piss poor decision making. They, like so many others around the country, are pushing to lift all the restrictions because of MONEY!! The Republicans still can't fathom that dead people don't work and don't help keep the economy going.

Robin And Michelle Vos: The Most Dysfunctional People In Wisconsin

By now, just about everyone and their uncle caught the video of Robin Vos, the Republican Speaker of the Assembly, who was a driving force Tuesday's shitshow of an election, making a fool of himself by telling people that it was perfectly safe to come out to vote in Tuesday's elections in Wisconsin while he is bedecked in full PPE, including gloves, facemask, goggles and a full length hospital gown. What a lot of people missed is that Vos was an "Election Inspector" in a drive-thru polling station in the small city of Burlington with a population of 10,000. This means that while other workers, who were not nearly as protected as Vos, would go up to the cars to get the person's Voter ID and signature and run them to Vos who entered them into the computer to verify them. Vos had absolutely zero contact with any members of the public.

Also missing was the whole clip, included in this tweet, which showed Vos explaining that if people applied for an absentee (mail in) ballot but hadn't received it, they could just email the clerk's office and have one emailed back to them:

This is Wisconsin’s @SpeakerVos, depressing the vote. He misinforms voters, who actually don’t have recourse if they didn’t request an absentee ballot by last Friday. Even the way he is dressed sends the clear message Republicans want to convey: stay home. pic.twitter.com/xNsB0Ctr2B

— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) April 7, 2020

However, this advise was completely false, as reported by PolitiFact when another person gave the same misinformation:

"He was wrong," Magney said.

And later in the day, so was state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who made a nearly identical claim to a reporter while working as an election inspector.

His staff later admitted the error. Spokeswoman Kit Beyer confirmed Vos was mistaken, saying the elections commission "had guidance recently on that fact, which staff hadn’t briefed him on."

Vos' third (or is fourth now?) wife, Robin Litgens Vos, did no better. She was also an election inspector in the small village of Rochester, Wisconsin, a population of 3,600 people. She posted on Facebook that is was perfectly safe to vote, but as Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pointed out, there were no voters there:

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos' wife -- former state Rep. Michelle Litjens Vos -- highlights that no one appears to be voting at her polling location in Rochester, Wis. Where could they be? pic.twitter.com/TofW6NfatW

— Daniel Bice (@DanielBice) April 7, 2020

But what can you expect from a woman who, while a state representative herself, abandoned her husband and children to have an adulterous affair with Vos?

Nor was this Litjens Vos' first foray into the realm of the super stupid. In March, she also shared her opinion that the reactions to COVID-19 were "way overblown:"

Michelle Litjens Vos, a conservative pundit and former state lawmaker, called the country's coronavirus prevention and mitigation efforts an overreaction in a series of posts on her personal Facebook page.

"I want to go on record and say we could be unnecessarily destroying our economy," she wrote.

"COVID IS NOT AIRBORNE (droplets yes, airborne no)," she wrote. "My GOD we're over reacting."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that respiratory droplets — "produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks" — can carry the disease from person to person.

A New England Journal of Medicine study found that the virus could remain suspended in air between a half-hour and up to three hours,

[...]

In another post, Vos wrote, "Yes people will die of this. It just isn't worth shutting down our whole economy - except grocery stores. In my opinion."

I wonder if these two asshats even realize they already have blood on their hands from all the people that will die from forcing the elections yesterday.

David Crowley Is Confused About His Endorsements

David Crowley, who is running against State Senator Chris Larson to be the next Milwaukee County Executive, is apparently more than a bit confused about who is endorsing him.

Crowley's campaign has been sending out text messages like this one, bragging about being the only candidate to receive endorsements from Republican legislators:

This would fit in with his Abele-esque talking point about being able to work across the aisle so well.

Why he would think that this is a good selling point, I don't understand, especially given the way that the Republicans have been treating Milwaukee for the past ten years.

However, there is a problem with Crowley's talking point.  If one checks his list of endorsements on his website, he doesn't list one Republican. Not one.

It is my understanding that Crowley has been endorsed by Deanna Alexander, who is definitely a Republican, but is not and never has been a state legislator.  She is a Milwaukee County Supervisor who is mercifully not running for reelection this year.

So what gives? If he has indeed been endorsed by Republican legislators, why are they not included on his website.  Or is he simply lying about it to appeal the right wing base that supported his dark money benefactor, Boss Abele?

ADDENDUM: It has come to my attention that the website and the text were not technically Crowley's but that of the practical campaign run by Abele's PAC.