More than one million signatures to Recall Walker

"Thanks a million." — Scott Walker

I happened to catch Charlie Sykes and his fellow wing-nuts Christian Schneider and Brian Sikma on TMJ-4 on Sunday. All were yukking it up and claiming organizers would fail to collect enough signatures to recall Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, but they got her too, with nearly 850,000 of them. These characters are in deep, profound denial.

And WISGOP challenges will likewise be an exercise in futility. Signature-gatherers have been triple-checking the docs prior to their submittal.

Now, more importantly, we'll see whether November, 2010 was a fluke.

Even if it wasn't, Scott Walker blew it, by rescinding the people's statutory rights, which wasn't necessary, and in particular wasn't necessary for any fiscal reason. Walker admitted that, and the litigation which culminated in the Wisconsin Supreme Court's invention of "supervisory/original" jurisdiction proved it. Rescinding the people's rights is not something you can do without consequence, apparently.

That's as it should be, and it's why the constitution authorizes recalls.

Randy Hopper has two mistresses now

[Randy Hopper's] charm is infectious. He is a handsome, fit man of 45 with a chin like Buzz Lightyear's, white hair, and fashionable, dark-rimmed glasses. — WPRI "fellow" C. Schneider

Jaysus. Get a room.

Ann Althouse, like Justice Prosser, sniffs a turd

According to alleged professor of law Ann Althouse, Bill Lueders, who broke the story Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly seized a colleague, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, by the neck with both hands, Governor Scott Walker's momentous budget-singing ceremony "was overshadowed by the gigantic turd Lueders felt moved to drop at exactly that moment." Althouse seems hell-bent on discrediting Lueders's reporting, despite the fact Justice Bradley herself has since affirmed it.

Most rational actors would reverse course at that point.

Perhaps Althouse is too demure to outright call Justice Bradley a liar and instead has been busying herself with attempting to discredit Lueders's confirmed reporting and failing rather spectacularly at that project.*

The alleged law professor's scatological metaphor is especially entertaining when one recalls Prosser's election-time fauxtrage at coming upon a reader post at Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg's Facebook, which read, "Stop the turd, vote Kloppenburg."

"Now, am I the turd?," Justice Prosser had actually inquired.

Apparently so, albeit not Althouse's "gigantic turd," as Althouse also assures us Justice Bradley is "significantly larger" than Justice Prosser.

I've heard students at the University of Wisconsin Law School go out of their way to avoid enrolling in Althouse's classes. That's not surprising.

* WPRI's Christian Schneider lauds Althouse for doing "yeoman's work."

eta 01: Fortunately for the rest of us Ann Althouse is not in charge of the Dane County Sheriff's Office. Justice Bradley's allegations may constitute a felony charge. They need to be taken seriously, contra the alleged professor of law's wild and frivolously idiotic speculations.

eta 02: As they are taken by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission.

As mentioned here previously, the Supreme Court is charged with overseeing the ethical behavior and education of the State's attorneys, an authority that is becoming less and less possible to take seriously.

And I don't believe it was ever possible to take Ann Althouse seriously.

Shh! Charlie Sykes and the grown-ups are speaking

Actual "conversation" from Charlie Sykes's Sunday Insight, the weekend morning teevee show that Journal Communications, Inc. foists on unsuspecting Milwaukeeans as allegedly informed political commentary:

Charlie Sykes: What will they [the Wisconsin Supreme Court] do and when will they do it?

Brian Fraley: Because it is imperative, that Judge Sumi gets slapped down. Because she acted without legal precedent, she doesn't have jurisdiction, and it's important that it's determined throughout the State that Dane County judges can't subvert the will of the Wisconsin legislature to follow its own rules and to follow the law. [smug face]

Sykes: What will happen and when will it happen?

Fraley: Uh, it will happen soon and I think that she will be slapped down and I think the law will be enforced.

The vehemence and alacrity with which Brian "Critical Thinking" Fraley speaks of "slapping down" a State judge almost makes you want to petition the DA for an investigation into conspiracy to commit battery. You really have to see it and hear it to believe it. Or not, so stupid is it.

These people have a television show.*

Then Charlie Sykes turns to WPRI "senior fellow" Christian Schneider.

Sykes: What is going to happen?

Schneider: The Supreme Court's gonna vacate her, uh, her, uh, Judge Sumi's ruling and, uh, the law's gonna stand.

Then Sykes says the Supreme Court will vacate the circuit court first thing Monday morning, which was yesterday, and which it didn't, and which chances now are nil, thanks to Sykes's dear friends the WISGOP.

And obviously none of them can explain why the court will do what.

The end.

* Then again, so does this guy.

Maintaining a political blog in Wisconsin

Is like banging your head against a [scuffed limestone] wall:

[Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann] Sumi argues that the state senate violated the open-meetings law by failing to provide 24 hours' notice of a legislative meeting — in this case, the conference committee meeting that forwarded the bill to the full senate. Yet, in her order, she doesn’t address the clear exemption to the rule provided in Senate Rule 93, which allows for no notice of proceedings for conference committee bills. The state statutes clearly give precedence to legislative rules in the case of conflict; Sumi simply believes no conflict exists, ignoring the fact that the bill was, in fact, a conference committee bill.

The rest is blargh blargh dirty hippies blargh union thugs blargh. This is in the National Review (which once upon a time preluded its founder's teevee chat show with the second Brandenburg: these days Old Bach is spinning in his crypt like Frank Luntz on methamphetamines) and its own rather less meticulous composer is the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute "senior fellow" Christian Schneider. WPRI is another outfit wrapped up with Journal Communications, Inc. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel not infrequently features WPRI "policy research" as front page news (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is considerably less impressed), Christian Schneider is an oft-featured columnist, and Mike Nichols, another WPRI "senior fellow," is a regular columnist.

And Charlie Sykes, another of Journal Communications, Inc.'s marquee performer/clowns, edits WPRI's own magazine and so on and so forth.

They're every single one of them cuddled together in bed.

They also generally don't know what they're talking about and the above is a useful case in point. In fact Judge Sumi found that the defendants failed to give two hours notice of the meeting, whereas the statute is as clear as clear can be: "in no case may the notice be provided less than 2 hours in advance of the meeting." In. No. Case. Judicial conservatives, "strict constructionists," "plain meaning textualists," are you listening.

Hypocrite

Moreover the violation concerned the Republicans' selection of a tiny venue for the conference committee meeting, which served to disallow members of the public from attending, where larger accommodation was available. This the WPRI "senior fellow" Schneider simply ignores, despite its being among the crucial connections between the Open Meetings Law and the Wisconsin constitution at the heart of the action.

Schneider then hypocritically claims that Judge Sumi "doesn’t address the clear exemption to the rule provided in Senate Rule 93." Well of course she does, as this invalid argument was among the Fitzgeralds' defenses to the complaint. And there is no such "clear exemption" because Senate Rule 93 addresses the manner of notice required, and not the time of notice required. We've been through this months ago, after Ellen Nowak, chief of staff to the Waukesha County executive, had published at WisPolitics dot com her tissue of defamatory misrepresentations.

Judge Sumi doesn't "simply believe" no conflict exists: The unrebutted evidence that witnesses presented during the court's hearings demonstrated that no conflict exists. And the cherry on the backside of Schneider's remarkable cluelessness is his appeal to a Senate Rule for guidance on what he admits was a conference committee, for which Joint Rules of procedure exist, and which Judge Sumi also addressed.

Senior fellow: The law "allows for no notice." Pure b.s.

In short, WPRI's Schneider is hopeless, uninformed, and flat wrong.

Perfesser

Meanwhile in Journal Communications, Inc.'s daily organ the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the equally addled Patrick McIlheran appeals to yet another Journal Communications, Inc. frequent columnist, Marquette's professor of #rwnj law Rick Esenberg,* to whom McIlheran laughably attributes a "most enlightening insight," linking to the prof's blog post.

McIlheran claims Esenberg "dismantled Sumi's understanding." Except Esenberg did no such thing and in fact repeats the travesty of law committed by the WaukCo. executive's chief of staff. And indeed if one follows the comments thread at Esenberg's blog you will discover your humble correspondent reiterating precisely the evidence and law which yesterday appeared as among the bases for Judge Sumi's decision, and which Esenberg either simply handwaves away or ignores completely.

And has never addressed, as far as I know. Because it's best to remain silent when you are wrong, I suppose, and allow your quasi-colleagues at Journal Communications, Inc. to wallow in their misunderstandings and present long-since-debunked "arguments" as alleged "journalism."

And, naturally, WPRI/Journal Communications, Inc.'s Charlie Sykes will repeat this complete nonsense once again this morning. We discussed similar situations at our panel event in Madison on May 12, and the Journal Communications, Inc. family is making us look like prophets.

Now maybe if we were to predict the Rapture, it will happen for sure and then all the JRNers will fly off to ... somewhere. It really is a joke.

* Esenberg is also trundled out as an expert "who has followed the case closely" in the Journal-Sentinel's straight news report of yesterday's decision. Did you know that he's the only lawyer in the State who has?

More out-of-State agitators in Madison

Well, that was fun.

A member of the editorial board of a leading East Coast media elite newspaper came to Wisconsin to tell it how to run its elections, and Andrew Breitblart of Los Angeles, California repeatedly yelled at Wisconsinites to "Go to Hell." Also a lady from Alaska in leather boots and a bump-it screeched something about abortion and Obama also.*

And baldly lied about a "rent-a-mob trashing your Capitol."

I hope every television station in the State replays Andrew Breitblart's "Go to Hell" ranting. It tells you about everything you need to know.

Another of the vagabond nincompoops was from such jetlagged parts unknown that he wound up his abusive soliloquy with a rousing, "Thank you! And good night!" I checked my watch: It was 1:26 p.m.

As for local talent, my friend Capper informs me that WPRI "senior fellow" Christian Schneider complained that the hip musings of James T. "Hip Musings" Harris, who is an internet troll in the employ of Journal Communications, Inc., were drowned out by cowbells, which goes to show you that when given a choice between two species of cacophony, Real Wisconsinites™ have the most impeccable taste.

Even our Republican elected officials were too ashamed to present themselves alongside this dais laden with inchoate, raging hominids.

Not even Glenn Grothman! Now that's saying something.

* One may only speculate as to the genesis of this fish-clubbing** madwoman's amygdalar gesticulations, but apparently one Barack H. Obama, then a State legislator in Springfield, IL, was wary of provisions in a bill being DOA under the governor's pen by dint of the United States Supreme Court's holding in Stenberg v. Carhart.

** Reportedly in a scene from Palin's "reality" teevee series, the half-term governor advises her daughter to beat the living bejeezus out of a cod as a means of assuaging her psychological frustrations.

Or else of vicariously assuaging Palin mère's. Who the hell knows.

What a difference 300,000 protesters makes

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, February 12, 2011:

Restoring Wisconsin to fiscal health is not for the squeamish. The medicine is going to be bitter. Gov. Scott Walker's proposals to strip state employee unions of much of their bargaining power illustrates just how bitter.

But Walker is right to do this. He must insist that state workers pay a bigger share of their benefits. And he's right to take steps to compel them to do so.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, February 28, 2001:

Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill is flawed. We support the governor's aim to rein in labor costs but cannot support this bill as written. . . .

But no matter how deep the budget hole, Walker and his Republican allies in the Legislature were wrong to try to bust public-employee unions. Workers have a fundamental right to organize, even when it's inconvenient for the rest of us.

In the latter editorial, the authors criticize as "reckless" the 14 Democratic State Senators for retreating to Illinois to avoid forming the quorum required to pass the so-called budget repair bill. But had it not been for the action of those 14, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wouldn't even be in the position of reconsidering its former wholesale endorsement for Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting proposals.*

So shouldn't it be thanking the 14, or even praising them?

Meanwhile at the National Review Online, Wisconsin Policy Research Institute "senior fellow" Christian Schneider asks himself, "Have the Madison protests made a difference?" and answers himself, "No."

At least the Journal-Sentinel is paying attention, and not creepily leering over "impressionable college girls" under the Capitol dome.

Maybe he's why they were bolting the windows shut there today.

* It also endorsed him for governor in the first place. The local daily hasn't yet gone so far as to enunciate the topsy turvy buyers' remorse reflected in the latest Public Policy Polling survey (.pdf; 5 pgs.).

That could be next.

McIlheran lies about Wisconsin teachers too

The Journal Communications, Inc. fellow travelers:

And, as [Charlie] Sykes points out, it is illegal. He's got links to the relevant laws and penalties.

No, Charlie Sykes doesn't, and they are lying.

Bear in mind these three shameless clowns — McIlheran, Sykes, and the WPRI's Schneider — are likely to participate in the smearing of the candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court, JoAnne Kloppenburg.

They have no credibility and prove it often. Yet the biggest media consortium in the State provides them an unaccountable platform.

See also: Patrick McIlheran hails Walker's "earlier triumph"

For Charlie Sykes, mendacity is the law

Tweets the local wing-nut howler and reputed "blogfather":

UPDATED: "Sickouts" are illegal... here's the law.

"The law," according to Sykes's trusted source,* WPRI "senior fellow" Christian Schneider, is an informational paper prepared by the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau. First of all, informational papers are not "the law," although they may make reference to "the law."

This one does: The Municipal Employment Relations Act. Second of all, Sykes and Schneider are claiming that the "sick-outs" staged by some Wisconsin teachers in protest of Governor Scott Walker's move to repeal the collective bargaining rights of public employees are "strikes." What they base that on is not explained by either of them.

Third of all, even assuming arguendo that the sick-outs are in fact strikes, these ones are not prohibited by the real law, Wis. Stat. § 111.70(1)(nm) (a provision of the Municipal Employment Relations Act), which defines "strikes" for all of the administrative directives (law) and informational papers (not law) which proceed from it:

"Strike" includes any strike or other concerted stoppage of work by municipal employees, and any concerted slowdown or other concerted interruption of operations or services by municipal employees, or any concerted refusal to work or perform their usual duties as municipal employees, for the purpose of enforcing demands upon a municipal employer. Such conduct by municipal employees which is not authorized or condoned by a labor organization constitutes a "strike" . . .

Emphases added. That is the actual "law" to which Sykes and Schneider's citations ultimately lead, whether they know it or not.

So. These sick-outs are not "for the purpose" described above — Walker and the Republicans in the Wisconsin State legislature are clearly not municipal employers** — and furthermore: "The leader of Wisconsin's largest teachers union is asking all 98,000 members to head to Madison Thursday and Friday." That would be the "authorized or condoned," as obviously the teachers' union leader is aware that both Thursday and Friday are work days. See how easy that was?

Easier than lying, which requires mendacity. And a wing-nut.

If Schneider and Sykes want to accuse teachers of breaking the law, they'd better have better grounds for it than their own foolishness.

* That was his first mistake.

** See Wis. Stat. § 111.70(1)(j), defining municipal employers.

WPRI condemned Ron Johnson's labor practices

The WPRI is a nonpartisan [*spit take*] think tank

Flash back — April 10, 2009:

Wisconsin Policy Research Institute senior fellow Christian Schneider reviews draft legislation circulating in the Wisconsin State Assembly. He's inflamed by what he discovers: It seems an employer tax credit was proposed by Assembly Democrats for small businesses which hire certain otherwise disadvantaged individuals, including ex-felons. This outrage, announces the seniorly fellow, is simply "social engineering" under cover of exploiting the economic recession.

Flash forward — October 8, 2010:

Johnson's campaign would not say how many inmates his companies employ. State records, obtained by the AP through a State open records request, indicate the companies have participated in the work release program since 1998.

Ron Johnson's companies offer private health insurance to the regular employees at the Oshkosh factories. But Melissa Roberts, an executive assistant with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, said the companies don't have to cover the inmate workers. "The benefit [the subsidy?] is that they don't have to pay health benefits," she said.

$10K times nine inmates times twelve years equals $1.08M.

Government health care, Ron Johnson has often shouted, is the "greatest assault on [his] personal Freedoms in [his] lifetime."

But today the WPRI sure hearts it some Ron Johnson.

In a strictly nonpartisan sense, of course.

Earlier — Ron Johnson: Communist China is where it's at

Ron Johnson misrepresents a WPRI poll

But the ensuing double negative can't improve things

There's an awful lot of baloney-slicing in this account (bottom line: Ron Johnson is full of it) but one amusing tidbit stands out:

[UW poli sci prof Ken] Goldstein, who ran the WPRI poll cited in the Johnson ad, said the campaign's language did not accurately summarize the question he posed. He noted the wide disagreement among policy experts over whether the Democrats' legislation was a "government takeover."*

Yeah, you don't want to mess with Goldstein and the WPRI's polls; they're a little touchy since their school voucher "fiasco" got busted.

In fairness, Ron Johnson's only been following politics since May when Dick Morris told him to on Fox News, so he wouldn't have known.

* That particular "wide disagreement" strikes me more as one between objective observers and hysterical propagandists.

For an example of the latter, look no further than WPRI's own "senior fellow" Christian Schneider, who recently claimed proposed health care reforms were "a complete federal government takeover of health care," and featuring "the government dictating to individuals what doctors they can see and what procedures they can get."

All of those would be false even if he was talking about Canada.

The WPRI "senior fellow," by the way, was delivering those hysterical propagandas on behalf of none other than Ron Johnson. On behalf of the so-called "nonpartisan" WPRI. Then fluffered by Charlie Sykes.**

So there are good reasons to fix that outfit with a jaundiced eye.

** The AM yeller's editorial contribution was a picture of a toilet, in predictable accordance with his coprophilia/coprophobia themes.

Rebecca Kleefisch likens gay couples to dogs

Don't Google 'santorum'

Republican candidate for Wisconsin lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch discusses the State's domestic partnership registry with Jim Schneider of WVCY, Milwaukee's fundamentalist radio station:

At what point are we going to okay marrying inanimate objects? Can I marry this table? Or this, y'know, clock? Can we marry dogs? This is ridiculous. And biblically, again, I'm gonna go right back to my fundamental Christian beliefs . . .

Yes, and please stay there.

h/t Cory Liebmann.

On teh web: Kleefisch's dog whistle homophobia

Wow, Christian Schneider actually has a point

For once:

[Mike McCabe's] views on this subject, on which he is constantly being cited by [Wisconsin] media,* appear driven by politics, despite the fact that the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is a supposedly nonpartisan operation.

Mr. Schneider's suggestion is well taken. The WDC is about as nonpartisan as Schneider's Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

* Truth be told, I find this baffling as well.

Terrence Wall admits he's unfit for federal office

GOP man "appalled" by his own electoral failures
"No. No. No," announces Republican, as if by rote

It's fatuous enough that pumpkin farmer Terrence Wall, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, has been denouncing Russ Feingold's honesty and integrity. Even Senator Feingold's most defiant political opponents concede him both of those qualities.

Now Terrence Wall, speaking to Milwaukee's fundamentalist Christian teevee station WVCY, is "appalled" that former State Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler has been nominated to the federal court for the Western District of Wisconsin. Appalled! I tell you.

Jim Schneider: One of the nominations that's pending before the Senate at this very moment, just passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is Louis Butler, former Supreme Court justice here in the State of Wisconsin. You're sitting on the Senate. Would you be voting to confirm Justice Butler, or not.

Terrence Wall: No. [See "No, Party of."]

Schneider: Would not meet your criteria?

Wall: No. [Ibid.]

Schneider: Twice rejected by voters here in the State of Wisconsin.

Wall: I think it's appalling to think that we would, uh, appoint a justice [sic] to the court that failed to meet the criterion that the voters want, on two occasions.

Really, because Terrence Wall — on two occasions, no less — lost popular elections, right here in Wisconsin. So according to his own reasoning, he's unqualified for the federal office he seeks. Indeed, Mr. Wall is "appalled" that his own self is even being considered.

Obviously it's a ridiculous thing for Terrence Wall to say for a number of reasons. Success in State elections is hardly any criteria to assess the qualifications of a federal judicial nominee. In fact Louis Butler has received the American Bar Association's highest rating, the same conferred on U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Furthermore within the jurisdiction covered by the Western District, Louis Butler actually won the election by more than 21,000 votes.

What's truly appalling is how Michael Gableman has been fighting tooth and nail since October, 2008 against charges he lied about a sitting Wisconsin Supreme Court justice.

[That's. Enough. Terrence. Wall. — ed.]

Terrence Wall seeks policy approval from Vatican

Some more of Republican candidate for United States Senate Terrence Wall's exclusive interview with WCVY, Milwaukee's fundamentalist Christian teevee station:

Jim Schneider: Would you be in favor of embryonic stem cell research?

Terrence Wall: No. [See supra, "No, Party of."] However, I did check with the Catholic bishop uh, office, and the representative there and talked to them at length about what is allowed, and they were talking about you can do adult stem cells and there's lots of other things you can do without doing embryonic stem cell research, and those are proven now to create solutions and embryonic stem cell research is not proven to create any solutions to cancer or any other disease.

I thought JFK put an end to that business 50 years ago.

Terrence Wall ensnared in triple non sequitur

GOP candidate refuses to engage constituent on positron decay

Another tip o' the hat to Zach:

Caller: I heard Mr. Wall state that climate change has been going on for billions of years. This tells me that he is an evolutionist and not a creationist. Yet he claims to support the religion this nation was built upon. Is this not hypocritical of him?

Schneider: Okay, well I'll let him address that issue. [To Wall:] He's referring to your term, the use of the word "billions" when there are a number of creationists who say, well, we're closer to ten thousand years old as an Earth.

Wall: Okay, well I'm not going to get into an argument about the years, I just threw out a number. The Earth has been changing, that's the point. The Earth is changing, it's continuing to change, we're not gonna, you know, that's the fact. But God created the Earth and the universe and it's just that simple.

This guy is a hoot.

On teh web: Vostok ice core.

Terrence Wall commits heresy on Christian teevee

GOP candidate disputes inerrancy of God-breathed Scripture

Republican real estate magnate Terrence "Nucular" Wall, who would like to unseat Russ Feingold in the United States Senate, recently ventured into the studios of WVCY, Milwaukee's fundamentalist Christian teevee channel, evidently unfamiliar with local doctrine.

Mr. Wall must have flipped host Jim Schneider's wig-hat when he suggested the Earth was billions of years old:

Schneider: The president is wanting to have the Congress and Senate pass legislation* that would deal with this topic of global warming. Where do you stand on that issue?

Wall: I'm highly skeptical. The fact that they changed it from global warming to now they're calling it climate change I think is a big clue that even they don't have confidence in their argument. You know, climate change. Well, of course. You know, the climate of the Earth has been changing for billions of years. I certainly hope it continues to change. I think we'd be all in trouble if it didn't change, especially if we got stuck in winter for all our lives, y'know. So I think that I am not at all believing one cent of this whole global warming thing.

As long as Terrence Wall remains situated in one place (e.g., Madison, WI) and the Earth doesn't stop revolving around the Sun he needn't worry too much about getting stuck in winter all his life.

And God said, Let the Earth bring forth ... the pumpkin.

— Genesis 1:11 (JKV)

h/t Blogging BlueTube.

* An unprecedented tricameral accomplishment.

Your Bradley Foundation dollars at work

The other day Marquette University visiting professor of law Richard Esenberg enthused about how the Bradley Foundation "funds" the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a tank where thinking is done.

The following bit of think tankery is currently on WPRI display:

Three liberals [sic] on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are ... essentially trying to get one of their colleagues un-elected. Their shady effort to force Justice Mike Gableman to recuse himself from criminal cases is merely a veiled attempt by his ideological opponents on the Court to nullify the [2008] election.

Blockbuster stuff, yes? Unfortunately, one searches in vain throughout the attendant verbiage for any support to these claims.

In reality, an attorney filed a motion with the court seeking Gableman's recusal from hearing a criminal matter. The case was scheduled for oral argument last week, on October 21.

A few days prior to that, three justices reportedly made a statement expressing a perfectly legitimate procedural concern over whether oral argument should go forward, in light of the fact that no disposition on the party's motion in the case had yet issued.

The court, on a voice vote, decided that the arguments should proceed despite the still-pending motion. One of the judges who voted to continue to the substance of the case's sentence credit issues without ruling on the motion was Michael Gableman.

He sat and listened, but refrained from question or comment.

That's about the size of it. Now if Mr. Christian Schneider of the Bradley-funded Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has any evidence whatsoever for the "shady" conspiracy which he's accusing three sitting justices of participating in, he'd probably do well to present it.

No wonder lawyers drive people crazy

And themselves, occasionally.

Marquette law professor Andrea Schneider posts a lighthearted "Ten Commandments (of Billing)" and asks if there are more Commandments anybody can think of. Even I thought of one.

Then a bunch of lawyers turn up and start to wondering: Where they're contractually obligated (presumably — they don't say) to bill in 15-minute increments and spend 25 minutes (.41666667 hours) working on a case, what to do?

Do you round down to .25 hours or up to .5 hours? (Granted, the difference is a hundred bucks if you're blessed enough to be charging $400/hr. It's bus fare and a 10 oz. jar of Gia Russa Sweet Peppers Bruschetta Topping* when you're charging 40.00.)

But, seriously. Round it down and get on with your life. Y'all just burned three whole Benjamins agonizing over it.

Rounding it up means you're billing for more time than you've expended, and you can't just go and do that without the client's permission. If you want to maintain a clear conscience, at least.

Or else take an hour to draft a letter containing an amendment to the billing increments provision of the contract and charge that $400 to the client as well. There you go, done deal. Problem solved.

I could tell some tales about my billings when I was a construction manager — e.g., charging a secretary out as an electrician superintendent — but I don't think the statute of limitations has run.

* That's good stuff, by the way. Get it at the Metrosexual Mart.

Wisconsin Democratic Assembly Outrage!

There appeared an item on prominent display at WisOpinion.com yesterday asking, "Is the Recession Hitting Felons Too Hard?"

Turns out it's the latest revelation of "policy research" from the Badger State's own "free market think tank," the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (sure sounds impressively academic, don't it).

In this "think tank" discursion, a leading "policy researcher" and WPRI "fellow" Christian Schneider (taking a break from trying to expunge from the Milwaukee Public Library all copies of Harold And Kumar Go To The Americans For Prosperity Summit), reviews some draft legislation currently circulating in the State Assembly.

And he's appalled by what he discovers: An employer tax credit proposed for small businesses* which might hire certain otherwise disadvantaged individuals, including some veterans and ex-felons.

Can you believe these crazy Democrats, wonders Schneider: Not only are they offering employment preferences to ex-felons, but they're actually "lumping in" ex-felons with veterans!

This Democrat outrage, claims Schneider, is simply "social engineering" under cover of exploiting the economic recession.

However, the "policy research" ended there, evidently.

Because had he looked at the next page of the draft legislation, he'd see that the definitions for both "qualified veterans" and "qualified ex-felons" are lifted directly from the Internal Revenue Code, where he'd find that it's not just any veteran, but only those already receiving certain forms of social assistance, such as food stamps.

And if he looked a bit further, he'd notice** that those provisions of Title 26 of the United States Code were part of a little ditty called the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, which was engineered by Republicans in Republican-controlled committees in a Republican-controlled Congress (that one led by Trent Lott, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich and the rest of the famed Contract On America crowd).

Naturally, local medium wave bloviating dissembler Charlie Sykes applauded the "think tank" item from his "blog," but of course it's never been Sykes's function to relate the truth either.

You'd expect something with the highfalutin moniker "Wisconsin Policy Research Institute" to be otherwise, but apparently it's simply yet another outlet for hypocritical Republican partisan hackery.

* Those businesses that Republicans otherwise praise as the engines of the economy which are entitled to any tax relief they can get.

** Hope springs eternal.