So We Need To Start Doing This Again?

 

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.

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.

Ron Johnson's Very Bad And Utterly Bizarre Day

In 2018, US Senator Ron Johnson (R - Russia, NRA) proved that he was a Russian asset when he spent the Fourth of July in Mother Russia, kissing Putin's butt while pretending to be patriotic. Immediately upon returning from his little junket, he offhandedly dismissed any and all concerns about Russia hacking our elections.

And we already knew that RoJo was a puppet for the NRA, receiving the fourth highest amount of money from the fascist organization during the 2016 elections.

Now, RoJo is the subject of a complaint filed with the FEC that his campaign was illegal coordinating with the NRA, possibly using Russian money:

The nonprofit and nonpartisan organization Campaign Legal Center has filed an FEC complaint alleging the NRA’s coordination with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in the 2016 campaign through a shell corporation called Starboard, which illegally funneled potentially millions from the NRA in in-kind contributions. "There is substantial evidence that the NRA funneled millions through a shell corporation to unlawfully coordinate with candidates it was backing," Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the CLC, said. "The NRA using inside information about a candidate's strategy to create 'independent' ads supporting him creates an unfair advantage and it violates the law."

The NRA's lobbying organization as well as its PAC had a contract with Starboard to create ads not just in Johnson's 2016 campaign, but also to help Republicans Tom Cotton, Cory Gardner, and Thom Tillis in 2014. Which means that those three, now running for reelection in 2020, also had illegal help from the NRA in their elections. That's not much of a problem for Cotton looking ahead because it's Arkansas. But Colorado and North Carolina are a different ball of wax.

How much of the millions the NRA was laundering through Starboard was actually Russian money laundered through the NRA? It spent a record $55 million on the 2016 elections; $30 million went to Trump, $25 million to other Republicans. That's the money that it actually had to report, though most of it came from the PAC arm, which doesn't have to disclose the identities of its donors.

Ah, but there's more. There's always more.

On Monday, RoJo showed some very erratic behavior, which might one wonder about his mental acuity.

First, he tried to distance himself, ever so slightly, from the Orange Shitgibbon:

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Monday that he thinks President Trump has changed the presidency, but signaled it isn't necessarily in the right direction.

"I think so, not necessarily toward the positive either," Johnson said during an interview in Wisconsin with WTMJ.

RoJo immediately regretted his statement and tried to going back to kissing Trump's ass by blaming Bill Clinton for also damaging the office.

Just to make sure Trump knew that RoJo was still the faithful and loyal lackey, he kept piling on by accusing the DNC of working with Ukraine to get dirt on Trump. He also tried to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, for good measure. One can't be too careful or too stingy when kissing Cheetolini's ass.

GOP Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa sent a letter to Attorney General William P. Barr asking for more information about whether Ukrainian officials sought to undermine Mr. Trump’s campaign. They also want to know more about 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s interactions with Ukrainian officials.

“Ukrainian efforts abetted by a U.S. political party to interfere in the 2016 election should not be ignored,” the senators wrote. “Such allegations of corruption deserve due scrutiny, and the American people have a right to know when foreign forces attempted to undermine our Democrat processes.”

Yes, the gentle reader read that correctly - Ukraine. You know, the same country that Trump tried to coerce into helping him, leading to a probable impeachment:

I could almost, key word is almost, feel bad for RoJo. One can't have that much exposure to Trump's enormous butt without eventually it having some detrimental effects on them.

Charlie Sykes - Still Enabling Hatred! (Updated)

By Jeff Simpson



One of the things that most amazes me, is after years and years of dog whistles, leading the debate and using his platform on the biggest stick in the state to push far right wing candidates and ideologues is the media fawning all over themselves to help Charlie Sykes rewrite his history.

Sykes is pretending he had nothing to do with the rise of the Donald and the empowerment of white nationalists in Wisconsin and in the country!  Charlie, occasionally will admit to, maybe having a hand in it, but not really being sure:

“When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not,” Sykes says. “When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this—‘Oh shit, did I not see that?’
 “I kind of had that reaction this morning, with that woman: Did we ignore this? There’s got to be some serious introspection, because of the things that we either didn’t see, or that we ignored, or that we enabled.”

Let's take a look at what Charlie Sykes continues to enable.   In case you did not know it, Sykes still runs the website - Right Wisconsin

About
Wisconsin's New Conservative Community -RightWisconsin.com Powered by Charlie Sykes.

For those of you who have not checked out Mr. Turn over a new leaf's website(and really why would you), if you wasted your time checking it out you would see prominently displayed a (liberal) loser of the day.  Charlie Sykes, new leaf has only been turned over so far.

Recently, they named my friend Kelly Gallaher their (liberal) loser of the day.     It seems that there is a business in her hometown that has been operating illegally for many years.  Thanks to connections in local city hall, they are able to run an unsafe business, not pay their fines or live under the rules that everyone else in the village has too.   Ms. Gallaher thinks it is time they lived by the rules everyone else has to in our society and called them out.  

That upset the crew over at Charlie Sykes powered website and made her the loser of the day.   When Mr. Sykes wonders what he has enabled let me show you.

Ms. Gallaher posted the story of her being named (liberal) loser of the day and was promptly greeted with a message from one of Sykes solid supporters calling her the C word amongst many other things.  

Here is the NSFW screen shot:

Despite the calls by her friends to block the unhinged righty, Ms. Gallaher calmly explained the facts of the issue and something that I have never seen before.  He realized that he was massively led astray by Charlie Sykes and the Right Wisconsin crew and apologized.

Is there anything more telling of Right Wisconsin than one of their loyal followers apologizing and saying the magic words - "Wish I would have done more research".  

Even the local Village President attacked her(via Right Wisconsin):



Did Sykes enable people to be racist, hateful and violent towards Democrats and people they disagree with ideologically?   The correct answer is no in the past tense, because he continues to do so despite the fake persona he portrays on TV.

Another example of how Charlie has not changed a thing in actuality - Bruce Murphy of Urban Milwaukee wrote a column recently pointing out that Sykes is largely responsible for the joke of a sheriff that runs Milwaukee County and tried to ask Sykes some questions regarding it:

I sent Sykes some questions about the website and he responded per usual, “just make it up as you usually do.”
To which I responded, “hey, I thought you’d changed your views. How about a different response for me?”
To which he responded: “Not about you.”
Okay, so Sykes won’t be recanting his view of me.

Of course he hasn't changed his view on anyone he has smeared, unless they can help his career of course.

My suggestion is to never, ever, ever watch a show that has Sykes on and when you are, turn it off and tweet the host what you just did!

Wisconsin Watchdog just cleaned house with their dead weight,. now its time everyone does the same to Charlie!