Wisconsin Loses Again

By Jeff Simpson 

A Wisconsin 2020 election preview just played out in the spring election season here and it is not a good thing for the people of Wisconsin. 

In almost a slam dunk race, the Democrats grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory in one of the most important (and winnable)  State Supreme Court Elections there has been.   Far right extremist, and Scott Walker crony,  barely defeated Judge Lisa Neubauer.   

Hagedorn, became famous for his 1820's anti gay views, so much so, that many traditional funders/bosses of the Republican party, distanced themselves from him.  The WISGOP however felt that his hatred of anyone gay was a feather in his hat and took over the funding and the campaign.   

As Steve Elbow from the CapTimes puts it:

Polling by a group backing Hagedorn showed him trailing badly as he headed into the final week of the campaign.
Yet on Election Day, he edged out Neubauer by nearly 6,000 votes, thanks, some say, to a $1.3 million effort by Republican operatives in the closing days of the campaign.
The initiative by the Republican State Leadership Committee targeted conservative voters who didn’t vote in the spring election last year when liberal candidate Rebecca Dallet won a spot on the Supreme Court. The group estimated that it mobilized 160,000 voters with a multi-media campaign that painted Neubauer as a radical liberal, linked attacks on Hagedorn with last fall’s contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing and tapped into support for President Donald Trump.

Yes Hagedorn was behind the last week, rightly so, and ended up winning.   Now we have a far right, Hyper partisan,  Supreme Court for a few more years at least. 

Where did we go wrong?   There are many reasons, let's check out a few.

We already pointed out, that Neubauer, paid almost a million dollars in consulting fees.

While we can blame the WISDEMS, and they definitely should shoulder their fair share of the blame but as always, they had help.    As s typical the candidates hired consulting groups:  Nation Consulting,Scott Spector Strategies(Moonlighting from Tammy Baldwin's office). G Strategies,  Spiros Consulting, AL Media and 50+1. 
This is all to the tune of $893,656.60 in the last filing period alone.  
Almost a million dollars in Consulting fees, to end up losing to a homophobic bigot that his own biggest donors would not touch.  

Then there is the case of her campaign manager being not ready for Prime time:

Asked if Neubauer intentionally placed a firewall between herself and the party, campaign manager Tyler Hendricks said: “Yes.”
“We ran a fair, impartial and independent campaign,” he said in a response through the Neubauer campaign’s Facebook page. “Over $100k changed hands between our opponent and the WisGOP in the final days of the campaign, raising serious questions as to his claims of impartiality.”

One of the dumbest statements you will ever read.   Of course Hagedorn is not impartial.  Anyone who paid even remote attention, knows that the candidates who the Republican party runs, are chosen because they are not the least bit impartial.   They know exactly how they will vote and rule n 99% of their cases which is why they were chosen.  To pretend otherwise is naive. 

Neubauer, wanted to distance herself from the Democratic Party.  Yet what voters want is authenticity.  Neubauers resume made it impossible to distance herself. 

There’s no question that Neubauer is a Democrat. She and her husband, Jeffrey, a former state Democratic Party chair, have shelled out more than $100,000 for liberal causes and candidates over the years. She was appointed by a Democratic governor. Her daughter, Greta, is a Democratic state legislator and her husband is a former one. She’s worked for Democrats and she’s campaigned for them.
Yet in her recent bid for the Supreme Court, she sought to brush those Democratic ties under the rug. And she urged liberal outside groups supporting her to stay out.

Of course the "Liberal" groups did not listen, they stayed in and helped tip the scales. 

Zepecki conceded it was a game well-played.
“They’ve got a story to tell because they took a flyer on this race and it worked,” Zepecki said. “They didn’t spend $1 million-plus knowing that they were going to be able to turn out 160,000 conservative voters. But they thought it was worth trying. Sometimes the narrow path to victory pans out. That’s what happened here.”
He said the multi-media approach kept the campaign under the radar. No one knows, he said, what lands in people’s mailboxes or what texts they get on their phones. When the television ad appeared, it was too late to do anything about it.
“We all sort of missed it,” he said. “Most folks were looking at the TV spend and the disproportionate levels of spending there going, ‘Oh this thing’s probably over in the other direction.’ And it turned out there was a whole other campaign happening.”

A million plus dollars on consultants paid for by the campaign, and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to consultants outside of the campaign and "We all sorta missed it".

Good work if you can get it.   Being paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to get your ass kicked and then come back the next election to charge as much and lose again. 

Lather, rinse, repeat. 

As long as  we continue our downward spiral in continually hiring the same consultants to do the same work, we will continue to be the state that used to be Progressive.   

If by some chance, we decide to cleanse our politics of political lifers, whose main goal is to cash a check, then we can get back to the people powered, grass roots efforts that made us a blue state for years.   

I, for one, am not optimistic. 

One last thing, the devil is always in the details.    Everyone knows that the DNC Convention will be coming to Milwaukee in 2020, but everyone might not know that the Registered agent of the Milwaukee 2020 committee is Thad Nation of Nation Consulting.   

Something to keep in mind when you decide if you want to volunteer to do the hard jobs there, while Nation Consulting fills their coffers.   

Rebecca Bradley's Slip Of The Tongue

By Jeff Simpson




The good folks at One Wisconsin Now did some reseach on Scott Walker's flunky Justice Rebecca Bradley and what they found was beyond ugly.  

It seems when Ms. Bradley was in college at Marquette in 1992, the Clinton/Gore election did not sit too well with her.





   

  

  
Here are her letters in full! 


While those statements are beyond hateful, there was something she said, in trying to cover for her pure homophobic hate speech, that unwittingly showed her true colors.

In a statement, Bradley apologized "to those offended by comments I made as a young college student," and said she assures "you that those comments are not reflective of my worldview. These comments have nothing to do with who I am as a person or a jurist, and they have nothing to do with the issues facing the voters of this state. 

 
They have nothing to do with the issues facing the voters of this state?  Maybe the white upper class GOP voters but not most of WI.   I would hate to be an LBBQT person hoping for a fair ruling from Ms. Bradley.  

But wait there's more .......

She said she wrote the columns "as a very young student, upset about the outcome of that presidential election and I am frankly embarrassed at the content and tone of what I wrote those many years ago."

She admits that she is so pure red, dyed in the wool Republican that when the Clinton/Gore ticket beat the George HW Bush/Quayle ticket she could not control her anger and lashed out at the people she hated/blamed.  The gays and the ignorant people of WI, who were not as smart as she is when she heads to the ballot box.    

I am certain now though that is is not a member in good tsanding of the extreme right and she will hear and rule on everything completely impartial.  At least the cases she decides to stay around and listen to, and not go campaign.



As a quick aside, NO judge in history(until now) has EVER left oral arguments to go campaign.  ever.

$147,403 dollars a year doesn't buy what it used too.   Her independence is as fake as her love of hunting!

Looks like Chris Martin and his shadow group - Wisconsin Alliance for Reform, will need to spend a heck of alot more than $700,000 to get this lazy bigot elected!




PS;  The one hilarious thing that came from this breaking story, was Charley Sykes little temper tantrum.

Sykes Tweet:

Charles Sykes‏@SykesCharlie

.@gneumann_wkow @JudgeBradleyWI Eagerly await breathless reports on student writings of Russ Feingold, Joanne Kloppenburg, Tammy Baldwin.

I know Charley is a little slow but let me help him out. 1. The so called "liberal" media had NOTHING to do with releasing these reports it was done with some good research by One Wisconsin Now. 2. If Only Charles had say a TV show, a radio show on the biggest tower in WI and a right wing propaganda website, then maybe he could actually dig up the student writings of stated Democrats. 3. What Sykes is doing here is working the refs....he is trying to guilt them into finding same stories on the Dems(so he does not have to do the work) or else making them hesitate in the future about reporting on such stories. 4. Pretty sure Chuck does not see any problem whatsoever in her writings.

It is essential in 2016 that we elect people who are not fresh out of central casting in 1950.  

Its imperative that we elect Judge Kloppenburg!!!

James Daley - Really Bitter Partisan

By Jeff Simpson

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley won and her opponent James Daley did not take it well:

In what could be the worst congratulatory note in history, Mr. Daley wrote:

In a statement, Daley congratulated Bradley but said that, "Tonight we witnessed first-hand the power of incumbency, as liberal special interests band together to protect their candidate."

Hey Jimmy:

 

Maybe one should not hang out with bitter hate filled partisans if you have a problem with partisanship.  

By the way Jim, if you think liberal groups banded together to win an election, you have not been paying attention the last 5 years to elections in WI.  

Looks like Wisconsin really dodged a bullet of stupidity here.  Michael Gableman is more than enough of an intellectual lightweight serving that we did not need to add to that caucus.  

Republicans Launch Two Prong Attack Against Chief Justice Abrahamson

Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans have launched a two prong attack against Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson in an effort to remove her authority and to remove her from the bench altogether.

In the latter prong, which the Republicans started at the end of last year, they plan on setting a mandatory retirement age which would force Abrahamson to retire almost immediately:

State Rep. Dean Knudson, R-Hudson, said he plans to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session setting the mandatory retirement age at 75.

If passed by the Republican-run Legislature next year, all judges — except reserve or temporary judges — who are over 75 years old would have to retire immediately or within a matter of months.

Among them are three state Supreme Court justices: Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, 81, Justice Pat Roggensack, 74, and Justice N. Patrick Crooks, 76.
If Rock County Circuit Judge James Daley, 67, were to win election to the high court in April, his 10-year term would be cut short by the requirement. If Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, 64, defeats Daley, her third term would be shortened by one day.

Justice David Prosser, who turned 72 this month, also would be unable to serve his full term. It ends in 2021; Prosser would be 79.

Such legislation would give Republican Gov. Scott Walker numerous opportunities to appoint judges to his liking to fill unexpired terms of judges and justices hitting the mandatory retirement age.

Ah, but taking over the Chief Justice position and loading the Supreme Court against the people isn't enough for Scott Walker and his Republican cohorts.

Because as with all things Walker, there's more. There's always more.

Walker and his corporate cohorts also want to politicize the Chief Justice position, as John Nichols explains:

The Assembly Judiciary Committee on Thursday held a rushed hearing on a proposed constitutional amendment that could create an avenue for ending Abrahamson's tenure as the chief justice. Historically, the chief justice has been the court's senior member. This has insulated the chief from disputes on the court and from outside political pressure. Under the plan advanced by conservative legislators and passed once by the Legislature, the selection of the chief justice would be politicized — with the seven justices choosing and replacing chief justices.

Backers of the measure hope to place it on the April 7 ballot. If it is passed, after a campaign that could well be influenced by significant spending from out-of-state interests seeking to undermine Wisconsin’s historic commitment to an independent judiciary, critics fear that Wisconsin could see an attempt to remove Abrahamson as chief justice before the completion of the court term to which she was elected.

Understand what this means: Currently, when an individual chosen by the voters becomes the longest-serving justice, he or she becomes the chief justice. That chief justice is not subject to the ideological whims and political twists and turns of the court; rather, he or she is accountable to the voters. If the voters do not like a chief justice, they can remove that justice at the next election. If the voters want to keep a chief justice on the job, they can re-elect that jurist.

Abrahamson respected the process. She sought re-election as the chief justice and the voters gave her a mandate to serve a new term on the court. Now, politicians are seeking to undo the process that Abrahamson and the voters respected.

I have been notified that the Republicans are holding a hearing on this bill on Thursday, January 15th, at 1:30 pm in 330 Southwest in the Capitol Building.

Given their interference with a woman's right to choose, pay equity and rape culture statements, the Republicans' misogyny is not a surprise.

Attacking Chief Justice Abrahamson and Lady Justice only takes their depravity to new depths.

John Doe's Newest Opponents

The Wisconsin Supreme Court.

They can't hear the John Doe Case, can they? With their record of collaboration?

Supreme Sophistry

The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued their decisions on three major cases on Thursday morning.  The cases were about the same sex registry, voter ID and Act 10.  The results weren't anything that we didn't expect, but it did show just how much of a joke that the Supreme Court has become with four of the "justices" being nothing more than sock puppets held up by the dark money special interests.

The small victory that humanity won was that the Supreme Court upheld the same sex registry.  While it was nice to see one decision go according to the Constitution, it's small potatoes considering that the same sex marriage ban was found to be unconstitutional, not only in Wisconsin but in state after state across the country.  I look forward to the day when people realize that bigotry in general isn't a constitutional right.

The Supreme Court also chose to uphold the Voter ID law, even though it has been found to be

unconstitutional in federal court.  The rationale they offered was that it would help prevent the voter fraud that doesn't exist.  Justice Pat Roggensack even rolled out the old rigmarole about needing a picture ID to go traveling, at the bank, etc.  What she failed to understand is that none of the activities she cited are constitutional rights like voting is.  As Justice Shirley Abrahamson correctly pointed out, this is the modern day version of Jim Crow.

Fortunately, because of the federal case, which is under appeal, there is a stay on the law for now.  That said, soon to be former Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has declared that he will use the Supreme Court ruling to try to get that stay lifted in time for November's election.  They must be really afraid that Mary Burke will bring a high turn out, which was supported in the most recent Marquette University poll numbers.

Last, but not least, the conservative faction of the Supreme Court followed their benefactors directions in supporting Act 10, even if they had to ignore entire sections of the case and the Constitution in order to do so.

As Justice Ann Walsh Bradley points out, Act 10 is a textbook case of unconstitutionality:

Bradley writes in the dissent that the majority ignores the plaintiffs’ claim that Act 10 infringes on the constitutional right to organize into a collective bargaining unit, and erroneously focuses on the right to bargain as a collective bargaining unit, and then determines no such right exists.

[...]

A constitutional right to organize as a collective bargaining unit is a well-established premise, the “sacredness” of which was stressed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court as early as 1902 and which the U.S. Supreme Court has declared a fundamental right, Bradley writes.

The First Amendment protects not just against prohibition of the right of association, but also from discouraging union membership or association, Bradley writes.

Act 10 discourages organizing by increasing its cost through the added expenses involved in preparing for annual elections and paying a certification fee, Bradley writes. In addition, revenues are reduced by the elimination of fair share agreements requiring members to pay a proportionate share of union costs, and by prohibiting municipalities from taking union dues out of workers’ pay checks, she adds.

“There is no doubt that these provisions act to discourage membership,” Bradley concludes.

Act 10 also creates unconstitutional conditions by barring workers organized under a collective bargaining agreement from negotiating anything other than an increase in base wages up to the amount of inflation, Bradley writes.

“This is the textbook definition of an unconstitutional condition,” she concludes. “By permitting such a statute to stand, the majority greatly dilutes the First Amendment on the right to freedom of association.”

The right wing has been making a big deal out of this, saying that taking billions of dollars out of the economy, losing thousands of experienced workers and a decrease in services is somehow a good thing.

They are also saying that this is the death knell for the unions, which is as fallacious as the the rationale for the Supreme Court's decision.  If I may remind the gentle reader, Wisconsin saw the seventh highest gain in union membership in the nation in 2013.

So while the rulings might be disappointing, they are not surprising.  Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work in fighting to restore our state to the greatness it once had and to return to the progressive standards that we have been known for.

Vote Justice

Here's a powerful video made by Brian Reid Bliss:



He's right, there is no Supreme Court right now, and that is a crying shame.

Poll: Wisconsin Supreme Court Is Too Political

This is interesting, to say the least:

Two-thirds of respondents to the latest Wisconsin Public Radio-St. Norbert College survey feel the state Supreme Court is too “political.”

Wendy Scattergood is a survey analyst. She says the poll asked if the court is, “too mixed up in politics.”

People were then asked to define what that phrase meant:

“The number one thing people think, 'too mixed up in politics' means is that they feel like the court is really partisan. Seventeen percent of respondents felt that the court is too partisan. Others: similar kinds of things, saying that they're not above the fray, they're not neutral.”

Six percent cited “interpersonal fighting” amongst justices.

Now remember what I said about this just before the primary:

It was revealed that not only was Patience Roggensack receiving tons of campaign donations from out of state special interest groups, she tried to cover up the fact by playing fast and loose with campaign finance laws.

On top of that, she is also complicit to David Prosser's attack on fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley when she turned a blind eye to the crime and recused herself before there was even a case before her.

With Ed Fallone on the Supreme Court, we might not win every case that we wish, but that's OK, because at least we'd know we were given a fair shake. With Roggensack, we know that there would be no chance at justice, since her decisions have already been bought and paid for.

If people do indeed think that the Supreme Court is too political, now would be the time to change it.

And to change the political nature of the Court means to change the political Justices, like Roggensack.

Vote Ed Fallone.

Ed Fallone's First Ad

Ed Fallone, candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has come out with his first ad, and man, is it powerful:



Best line: "People want to see a Justice who has the courage to follow the law and stand up for the working families of Wisconsin."

That is so true.

Importance Of Supreme Court Race Grows By A F-Act-or of 10

The importance of the April 2 election between Ed Fallone and Patience Roggensack for Wisconsin Supreme Court could not be emphasized enough before Thursday.  Now its importance as grown by a factor of 10 - Act 10 to be specific.

The reason for that jump in importance came in the form of a ruling by the Appellate Court, which also refused to put a stay on Judge Colas ruling that Act 10 was unconstitutional:

A Wisconsin Court of Appeals today refused to put on hold a judge's decision repealing major parts of Gov. Scott Walker's Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen had asked the 4th District Court of Appeals to place the September ruling of Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas on hold while Van Hollen appeals the decision.

The Appeals Court today upheld that decision, leaving the status of Act 10 in limbo. The Appeals Court said it saw "no basis to set aside the circuit court's decision that a stay was not warranted."

Today’s ruling likely sets the stage for Van Hollen to take the case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The conservative wing of the Supreme Court has a 5-to-4 majority.

The actual ruling is here, via WisPolitics.com.

To refresh the gentle reader's memory of what Judge Colas' ruling was about, the Wisconsin State Journal has a good, succinct version:

In his original ruling, Colas said the law violates school and local employees' constitutional rights to free speech, free association and equal representation because it caps union workers' raises but not those of their nonunion counterparts.

The decision allowed schools and local governments to bargain with their employees, and several, including those in Madison, acted quickly to take advantage of the window to reach new contacts.

Van Hollen argued in his request for a stay that not taking swift action would lead to chaos and further confusion, given that the law has been in effect for more than a year. Van Hollen also argued that there was confusion over whether the lower court's ruling was effective statewide.

Now that the court case is on its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the election on April 2nd should be on top of everyone's mind.

I don't know whether Justice Ed Fallone would vote to uphold Judge Colas' ruling or not.  But I do know that if he were to rule to overturn the lower court's finding, it would be based on the law and the Constitution.

I also know that Justice Roggensack would rule to overturn the lower court, regardless of the law and the Constitution.

How do I know that?  Simple. By her track record.

She has shown that she is in cahoots with the likes of David "Chokehold" Prosser by recusing herself from his ethics case long before the case was even brought before her, since it hasn't even been presented to this date.  Even worse, the law shows that she shouldn't be recusing herself in the first place.

And we know that not only is she being sponsored by out of state special interests, like the education profiteers and the Koch Brothers, but she is trying to hide the fact from the public.

Experience tells us that these big money donors are not giving her all this lucre because they think she's a fair judge.  They're doing it because they know that her vote can be bought.  We also know that Roggensack's sponsors are vehemently against workers and will do anything to keep Act 10 alive.

These big money donors are the same ones that brought us the likes of Prosser; Michael Gableman, who is also under investigation still; Annette Ziegler, who was reprimanded for her poor ethics; and Scott Walker, the only sitting governor to have a legal defense fund and who had to buy his way out of being charged (for now).

It is time and beyond time that we restore dignity and ethics to the Supreme Court and restore law to this state.  It is time that we elect Ed Fallone to be our next Supreme Court Justice.

Fallone Would Take Campaign Money Out Of Supreme Court Decisions

Ed Fallone, candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, said that he would reverse a decision that allows Supreme Court Justices to sit on cases involving parties that donated to their campaigns:

State Supreme Court candidate Ed Fallone said Thursday if elected he would reverse a court rule that says justices do not have to step aside in cases involving parties who gave them political donations.

The court passed the rule on a 4-3 vote in 2009, with Justice Patience Roggensack in the majority. Fallone is running against Roggensack in the April 2 election, so it appears if he were elected he would have the votes to overturn the rule.

He said changing the rule improve the reputation of the court because citizens would be less likely to think justices are beholden to special interests.

“Even if a justice is pure as the driven snow and not influenced by (donations), the public perceives it as a problem,” said Fallone, a Marquette University law professor.

Unsurprisingly, his opponent, Patience Roggensack and her campaign manager, Brandon Scholz, poo-pooed such a notion (emphasis mine):

Roggensack campaign adviser Brandon Scholz issued a statement dismissing Fallone's proposal as a political attack.

"It would appear that Professor Fallone’s campaign attack falls flat in that he failed to demonstrate how contributions and endorsements have impacted decisions made and rendered by the Supreme Court," Scholz's statement said.

The state's longstanding ethical code for judges says they must recuse themselves if their impartiality can reasonably be questioned. In 2009, the court amended the code with a provision written by the Wisconsin Realtors Association and business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce that said campaign spending and endorsements alone aren't enough to require them to step aside in cases.

At the time the new rule was adopted, Roggensack said it would clarify court policies at a time when justices were being bombarded by accusations of bias.

"It will send a message that making lawful contributions is not a dishonorable thing to do and it's not a dishonorable thing to receive," Roggensack said then.

There's a couple of things to note here.

One is that the Realtors Association and WMC both gave Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler a lot of money, directly and indirectly, to allow her to buy her seat. They did not do so because they thought she would rule accordingly with what the law reads.

The other thing is that this change was made just after Ziegler was reprimanded by the Supreme Court she sits on due to her willing failure to even notify the parties in at least eleven cases she presided over as a circuit court judge and which involved her husband's bank.  The year before that, Ziegler had to pay $5,000 and legal costs to the State Ethics Board for her failure to follow the law.

It was the first time that a sitting justice was reprimanded by the Supreme Court.

So it comes at no surprise that Roggensack, who unsuccessfully tried to conceal the fact that she received $20,000 from out of state special interests wanting to privatize the education system and who has received a lot of direct and indirect support from the Koch-funded Club for Growth, would be opposed to taking special interest campaign donations out of court decisions.

This is just another example in a long line of incidents that show that Roggensack has no integrity, no ethics and no sense of devotion to the people or the law of this state.

It is also more proof that we need Ed Fallone on the bench so that we can start restoring dignity to at least one branch of state government.

The Supreme Court Craziness

By Jeff Simpson

Our friends at wispolitics.com came out with story today about Justice Bradley's notice of recusal with David "Ike Turner" Prosser.  In her recusal decision, she let the truth all spill out! 

Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley today accused colleague David Prosser of a "history of abusive behavior" so severe that she and the chief justice lock themselves in their offices while working after hours out of fear for their safety.

Prosser said he had not read the filing and declined comment.

Bradley wrote she had not commented on what happened in the June 2011 incident out of respect for the process.

But she said some of her colleagues have commented in "national, state, and local press spinning the facts."

In particular, she took aim at Justice Pat Roggensack, who is up for re-election this spring. Bradley noted Roggensack's comments that the justices "are doing just fine" and are working well together, saying it "strains credulity that a justice on our court would be perpetuating the myth that our issues of workplace safety and work environment have somehow healed themselves."

Bradley's decision to recuse herself is unlikely to have a significant impact on the stalled discipline case filed against Prosser. Prosser has sought the recusal of all his colleagues on teh court and so far only Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justice Pat Crooks have agreed to sit on the case. That is short of the quorum needed for the court to issue a decision.

Patty Roggensack has not had a very good week, besides being mentioned repeatedly in this decision, also got stuck at a dinner that Senator Ron Johnson  went on a practically incoherent rant about democrats worthy of a slightly stoned 15 year old.   United Wisconsin has now called on far right extremist Judge Roggensack to denounce Johnson's crazy old man rant, and there has been nothing but silence.   Does she too think that only republicans are the "true Americans"? Is that why she blindly votes one sided and did not see her coworker choking another coworker right in front of her?  Or could it just be the crazy Club for Growth" and out of state money that sways her already far right judicial activism?

However they are throwing bad money after a blind justice as Roggensack, stuck her bought and paid for foot in her mouth, by pretending there were no problems behind the scenes of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.    Apparently choking a coworker is standard practice with our friends from the right!  If she can not see a co-worker choke another co-worker, how is she qualified to see the intricacies of the law? 

LUCKILY, Wisconsinites have a choice!!    Ed Fallone for Justice! 

Voter Suppression Injunction Upheld For Good Cause

It was recently reported that Dane County Circuit Court Judge David Flanagan upheld his injunction against the Republicans' voter suppression law. While right wingers ran around screaming about political activist judges and did their own version of McCarthyism, Flanagan made his decision based on the constitution.

Attorney Michael Maistelman, a leading expert on election laws, did an interview with WTMJ-TV and explained why the voter suppression law is unconstitutional:



For a case specific example, MAL Contends provides the story and this video:



Sadly, given how corrupt some members of the State Supreme Court - like David "Chokehold" Prosser, Michael "Loophole" Gableman and Annette "Show me the money" Ziegler - are, I'm not getting my hopes up that they'll actually follow the law and uphold Flanagan's ruling.

Prosser's Sacred Vow

The news came out last week that the special prosecutor assigned to investigate the case of David Prosser attacking Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley had decided not to pursue criminal charges against Prosser.

This is despite the fact that Prosser admitted to laying hands on Walsh's neck without her permission.  Added to this is the fact that he said he did it out of reflex, showing his innate disposition to aggressive behaviors.

And to think that this all stemmed from the fact that Walsh told him to leave her chamber after he started bad-mouthing Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wasn't allowing him to rubber stamp Scott Walker's union busting bill fast enough. After all, you can't expect someone like Prosser to be bothered with actually reviewing the facts of a case before making his decision.  He just has to do what the Fitzgeralds tell him to do.

But in an effort to make amends, I understand that Prosser has taken a solemn oath.  He has promised to put on some ill-fitting gloves and search high and low until the real choke-holder is found and brought to justice.

More Proof That Supreme Court Decision Was Political, Not Judicial

Ten days ago, when the Supreme Court of Wisconsin made their rush decision regarding the union busting bill, many people thought they did so in a most inappropriate fashion. As I wrote at the time:

Now word as come out that the "Supreme Court" of Wisconsin has, without apparent deliberation or research of the law, has ruled the open meetings laws to be invalid and that our elected officials (or at least the Republican ones) are above the law and don't need to adhere to the laws that they themselves had passed. Needless to say, WMC spent tons of money in making sure that Annette Ziegler, Michael Gableman and David Prosser were on the bench, just so that they could shred the Constitution and the law books and make irresponsible decisions like this one.

Indeed, as Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson also pointed out:

Justice Shirley Abrahamson accused the majority of reaching a hasty decision that’s light on legal analysis, opening them up to the unnecessary charge that they “reached a pre-determined conclusion not based on the facts and the law, which undermines the majority's ultimate decision.”

Abrahamson agreed in her opinion that the the challenge to the legislation raises fundamental constitutional questions. But she did not join the majority opinion because she believes the court should follow its own rules and the constitution in such a case. Thus, she believes the case should have followed the normal appeal route rather than the court taking original jurisdiction and issuing a decision that gives the case “short shrift.”

As if prescient of this, it was also widely pointed out that Prosser had made the statement during the campaign that he would be the perfect compliment, or rubber stamp, to the Walker administration.

Now there's even more reason to suspect the Supreme Court's supreme folly.

In the wake of the scandal arising from David Prosser's alleged assault on his colleague, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, the right in their desperation, has also given us the clue.

For example, Cindy Kilkenny points out a commercial for Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson from when she ran for re-election a couple of years ago.  In the commercial, as Cindy clearly demonstrates, is an appearance of Judge Maryann Sumi, who had initially and properly ruled that the union-busting, economy-killing bill was passed illegally and thus was null and void.

So now, apparently without consulting case history or of applicable case law, Prosser not only joined his colleagues in issuing a predetermined ruling, but also wrote his own opinion on the case, in which he took absolute glee in his diatribe against Judge Sumi.  His opinion it was so harshly written, it sent a tingle down Charlie Sykes' leg and he couldn't stop talking about it for days.

In other words, he fed his misogyny in a fit of temper aimed at Judge Sumi and indirectly at Chief Justice Abrahamson (whom he has a special hatred for) in retaliation against perceived wrongs caused by female authority figures.  At the same time, he was able to appease the Koch Brothers and WMC, who paid a lot of money for him to retain his seat on the Supreme Court.

Between the obvious corruption and the physical assault on another Justice, Prosser is unfit for the bench at any level and needs to be removed, either of his own volition or through actions of the other Justices or, lastly, through recall.

Furthermore, his ruling on the union busting bill should be vacated, since it's obvious that it was not based on the law or the Constitution, but on his political alliances and his own personal flaws.

Prosser: A Good Writer And An Even Temperament - Redux

Everyone in Wisconsin is playing the newest fad in games: Clue - The Wisconsin Supreme Court Edition.

David Prosser displaying the proper hand
position for a one-handed choke hold.

It all started when the story was finally brought out that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused her fellow Justice David Prosser of choking her. What earned her his wrath and alleged attempt of dispensing corporeal-bordering-on-capital punishment was telling him to leave her chambers.

Prosser immediately denied it and said he would not comment further on it.

Bradley Walsh reaffirmed her allegation and it also came out that she had told Prosser to do something about his anger control problems.

Somewhere in this, Christian Schneider, indirectly paid Koch Corp employee, earned his nickname of Atomic Pantload, when he came up with this fantasy tale of Bradley Walsh being the aggressor and trying to rush Prosser, who was merely defending himself by going for her trachea.

But there is more than a few problems with this tale of the magi.

First, as noted above, going for the trachea is not considered a defensive maneuver.  It is an act of hostility.

Two, it is a textbook example of a batterer's excuse-making.

Three, Prosser has a long history of being both a misogynist and having a temper problem.  No matter how well the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel might tell us that Prosser is "a good writer," the facts are overwhelming against Prosser on whether he has an even temperament.

Four, even has he complains of the media citing anonymous sources, he himself cites anonymous justices.  Apparently anonymous justices are worth ten time just your average run of the mill anonymous source.  Secondly, I wonder why he's not naming names.

If it was one of the more law abiding justices, like even Chief Justice Abrahamson herself, you know he would be naming them immediately to support his story and show what "a crazed woman" Bradley Walsh really is.

So that leaves the conservative justices.  It could be Michael Gableman, whose claim to fame is by winning  his election by violating judicial ethic rules and flat out lying about his opponent.  Or it could be Annette Ziegler, famed for her start on the bench under a cloud of admitted ethics violations herself.

To sum it up, Mr. Pantload's story is so full of holes and inconsistencies, it might make an interesting Perry Mason episode, but that's about as close to reality it would ever get.

In this particular game, the only proper answer can be: "It was Prosser, in the chamber, with a choke hold."

Adding Collusion To The Corruption

Some days, it is just an impossible feat for a rational mind to understand how Wisconsin's Republicans can even think they are anywhere still close to representing the people of Wisconsin.

It seems like we can't go a day without another example of corruption from their side raises its ugly head from the miasma they're swimming in.

Take*, for example, our not so supreme Supreme Court. Apparently the Republicans weren't happy with having the majority bought and paid for by the likes of WMC and the Koch Brothers.  They also weren't happy with just having them making an uninformed, dishonest and predetermined decision based on ideology and not the law.

Now they can add collusion to the ongoing list why the whole lot of them needs to be removed from their respective offices:

Four Republican legislators met with Sheboygan County department heads Monday as part of monthly sessions involving state and local officials.

After the meeting, county corporation counsel Carl Buesing briefed other county attorneys across the state on information pertaining to the collective bargaining bill’s inclusion of employee contributions to their pension and health care.

“This Monday morning we met and were assured that the Supreme Court was going to rule by Wednesday and that that legislature was going to clean up all the loose ends,” Buesing wrote in the email.

If you wondering why they would do this, besides the simple fact that this is one of the most unscrupulous lot you could find, well the article explains that as well:

“If the legislature had to fold the collective bargaining package again into the state budget, that would re-inflame the passions of February and March,” Common Cause executive director Jay Heck said. Legislative consideration of the collective bargaining bill drew thousands of protesters to the capitol in those months. Heck said as separate branches of government, it was expected the court would act independently of any legislative deadlines.

So what now? Again, back to the article:

Heck of the government watchdog group told WKOW27 News the possibility an assurance was given about a pending state Supreme Court decision requires more answers.

“There needs to be a full explanation by the speaker, the supreme court spokesperson or the justices themselves to make it clear, that there wasn’t coordination on this matter.”

And any investigation into this needs to be done by a non-state agency, preferably on the federal level and one that cannot be unduly influenced or coerced by Scott Walker and his bully boys.

After all, we already know that they are not above political retaliation.

*Insert your own "Take our Supreme Court...please." joke here.

"Lack Of Fact, Lack of Reason"

Brendan Fischer, legal fellow at PRWatch, analyzed and broke down the highly questionable and irregular act of the Koch-sponsored majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  Here is an excerpt, but do read the whole thing:

"Many people would likely find it puzzling," Justice Crooks writes in dissent, that "we, the highest court in the state, cannot simply order up whatever information is needed." But because of the unusual procedural posture, "those boxes of documents, transcripts and evidence that we ordinarily review were not made available to us."

Justice Abrahamson, also dissenting, wrote that "faced with no record, [the four justices in the majority] conjure their own facts -- something this court should never do, regardless of whether it is exercising appellate or original jurisdiction ... The ready availability of a direct appeal by aggrieved parties makes this all the more puzzling," Justice Crooks wrote. "I am convinced that these significant issues should be addressed through a direct appeal, which would allow this court to more fully resolve, with the benefit of a complete record, the complex legal and factual issues at stake."

The lack of factual background tainted the Court's decision and constitutional interpretation. Nothing prevented the Court from waiting to accept a direct appeal, and to make a careful decision based on a complete evidentiary record. But with Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald threatening to insert collective bargaining into the budget if the Court did not act before the end of Tuesday, the court rushed an order with minimal factual background.

According to Justice Crooks, "those who would rush to judgment on these matters are essentially taking the position that getting this opinion out is more important than doing it right and getting it right." Indeed, that is what happened. In its rush to issue an opinion, the conservative majority overreached, issuing a problematic constitutional interpretation and violating its own judicial principles in the process.

Read it all and allow yourself to feel the rage. Then join in the fight to take Wisconsin back, while there's still a Wisconsin to take back.

A Correction: I Was Wrong About Wisconsin Supreme Court

In my last post, I wrote this about the Supreme Court of Wisconsin:

Now word as come out that the "Supreme Court" of Wisconsin has, without apparent deliberation or research of the law, has ruled the open meetings laws to be invalid and that our elected officials (or at least the Republican ones) are above the law and don't need to adhere to the laws that they themselves had passed. Needless to say, WMC spent tons of money in making sure that Annette Ziegler, Michael Gableman and David Prosser were on the bench, just so that they could shred the Constitution and the law books and make irresponsible decisions like this one.

This turned out to be rather shoddy reporting on my part, and for this I apologize.

The truth is, it's much, much worse than what I had reported.

First of all, the corruption was easy to spot, as former Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske points out:

Former Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske said Wednesday that she found Tuesday's high-court decision on the collective bargaining law disconcerting.

The court, which ruled 4-3, to reinstate the collective bargaining law left the perception that the decision was partisan because of the timing, she said.

"They had five hours of oral argument and issued a complicated decision within a week," Geske said in a telephone interview. "They didn't use their usual process."

Geske, a distinguished professor of law at Marquette University's Law School, is also a former justice. She served on the state's high court from 1993-'98.

The court, she said, is always faced with cases that both sides want action on quickly. But the role of the court is to take the case, analyze it thoroughly, review prior case law and render a decision.

"You want to establish the law for the future," Geske said. "Cases always are urgent. But the court always takes its time."

Instead, the court acted on the day the Legislature was prepared to vote again on the collective-bargaining law. The court issued its decision late Tuesday afternoon.

The "coincidences" of the timing of the ruling as well as how the Republicans "knew" that the Supreme Court was going to rule the way it did raised suspicions among more people than just Geske, and thus come amazing and horrifying things were found.

First of all, if the gentle reader would remember, there was a very despicable and irresponsible anti-Joanna Kloppenburg advertisement flooding the air waves. Said advertisement was paid for by a group called "Citizens for a Strong America" which turned out to be just another of the myriad and sordid front groups for the Koch brothers.

But Prosser isn't the only one who received the blessings of the Koch brothers. Michael Gableman received nearly $7,000 from the Koch brothers' PAC:

Likewise, Annette Ziegler received nearly $9,000 in the same manner:

But Prosser's connection to the Koch brothers doesn't just end with a commercial.

Brian Schimming, who used to be Prosser's chief of staff when Prosser was in the state assembly, and was the director of Prosser's recount team, and is first vice chair of WISGOP, also has a history of being a lobbyist for the Koch brothers (along with some other interesting names like Steve Foti and George Petak).

Along with Schimming, Ray Carey, who was a legislative aide to Prosser, is currently a lobbyist for the Kochs.

We can't do anything about Prosser for the the moment. But perhaps it's time to seriously consider recalling Gableman and Ziegler along with Scott Walker in the next round of recalls.  It's time and beyond that we return to our roots and make WisKochsin back into Wisconsin!

The Corruption Of Wisconsin Is Complete -- Or Is it?

If you love Wisconsin, love your freedom, or want a thriving, healthy economy, things look grim indeed.

It would appear that the corruption of Wisconsin is now complete.

We have an uneducated, inept and unethical governor who managed to gain his seat through the massive expenditure of people like the Koch brothers, the road builders, WMC, and other big money special interests. Even though his campaign was about creating jobs, he has done everything but that.  His biggest claim to fame thus far is getting busted out by a blogger as being a kowtowing serf to the Koch brothers.

The Republican legislature, also sponsored by Big Corporation money, actually makes Walker look like a piker by taking his malevolence and expanding it, passing laws which can only be generously described as legalized prejudice and bigotry.  While they claim that the budget that they crafted resolves the alleged deficit and doesn't raise taxes, nonpartisan groups have repeatedly shown this to be patently false.  It spends more money than before and raises taxes and fees on working families and on the poor.  To add further insult to injury, the legislature has taken these higher taxes and fees and used it to suppress or even eliminate the rights of these very same people.

Now word as come out that the "Supreme Court" of Wisconsin has, without apparent deliberation or research of the law, has ruled the open meetings laws to be invalid and that our elected officials (or at least the Republican ones) are above the law and don't need to adhere to the laws that they themselves had passed.  Needless to say, WMC spent tons of money in making sure that Annette Ziegler, Michael Gableman and David Prosser were on the bench, just so that they could shred the Constitution and the law books and make irresponsible decisions like this one.

As a result, it would appear that the Republicans and conservatives of all three branches of the government have assaulted and insulted the state and its citizens in almost every aspect of imaginable.  They have stripped the working class of their very rights and their livelihoods, trashed environmental protections, raised taxes and fees on those least able to afford it while giving magnanimous rewards to their campaign donors (read Big Business), attacked the rights of women, attacked the rights of gays, attacked the rights of minorities and almost every other atrocity to our freedoms and our values.

As I said, it appears that the corruption of the state is complete.

However, the fight is not over. Far from it.

There are still tens of thousands of people pouring into Madison to make our collective voices heard.

There are tens or thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people actively involved in recalling those that have violated all sense of decency and abused the authority of their office.  And that is only the first wave.

People are still anxiously and eagerly waiting for winter to return so that they may finish the job in recalling Scott Walker and the rest of the corrupt senators, as well as work to flip the Assembly as well as the Senate.  There are even some looking at removing WMC's justices and replacing them with justices that love the law and justice.

The "ruling" from the Supreme Court can, I believe (note: I am not a lawyer), be brought back for reconsideration, since it is so blatantly and egregiously out of line with what the law says. Furthermore, at least two separate actions have already been filed against the content of the law, and many more lawsuits are expected, even as early as today, regarding every aspect of this law, from the content to the way it was passed.

And to further strengthen one's heart and one's resolve, it would appear that part of the road to recovery has already been paved for us, with a very powerful ruling that would find the union-busting, rights-stripping, economy-trashing bill itself to be illegal:

In 1935, when Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the NLRA, or the Wagner Act), it recognized the direct relationship between the inequality of bargaining power of workers and corporations and the recurrent business depressions. That is, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners, the economy fell into depression. The law therefore recognized as policy of the United States the encouragement of collective bargaining.

While the NLRA covered US employees in private employment, the law protecting collective bargaining in both the public and private sectors has developed since 1935 to cover all workers "without distinction."

In summary, while it might very well appear that Big Corporation and their corrupt puppets have won once and for all, that is as far as from the truth one can get and not become a de facto Republican. The union busting bill will be postponed from be enacted or enforced by dint of the lawsuits against it. And even if they try to illegally enforce it like they did with the restrictions to the Capitol Building, the unions are prepared for such a contingency and it will be only a temporary hardship as we continue to take back our state and put mature, responsible and accountable officials in the place of the corrupt ones now misrepresenting themselves as leaders.

So, if some conservative comes up to you to gloat about their "victory," just smile politely, agree with them that the war is all but over, and keep smiling in your knowledge that while the war may indeed soon be over, its not in the way they think it is.  The only real accomplishment that Walker, the WISGOP legislature and the Supreme Court have done is making their recalls all the easier to accomplish.