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.

Top blogger Ann Althouse gets her source

Inexplicably popular blogger and alleged professor of law Ann Althouse "tweeted" yesterday that reports Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser seized a colleague, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, around the throat were "unsourced." However they were not unsourced but anonymously sourced, a crucial distinction that should have been immediately apparent to a self-styled media critic such as Althouse and furthermore one who is surely familiar with the traditional discretion of the justices' law clerks, who are often privy to the court's private conferences.

The alleged professor of law went on to warn "you people" on Twitter they may be subject to a defamation action, apparently either unaware or forgetful of the substantial burden imposed on public figures (e.g., Prosser) which requires proof a defendant acted in "actual malice."

And all of that addlepated nonsense packed into one "tweet."

Anyway, now Althouse has her source:

"The facts are that I was demanding that [Prosser] get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold," Justice Ann Walsh Bradley told the Journal Sentinel.

Prosser denies everything.

Following which report Althouse adds, "From what I have heard, Bradley is significantly larger than Prosser." What, she's never even seen them?

It's strange that Althouse, who allegedly professes the law in Madison, Wisconsin, has not attended a hearing at the State Supreme Court, which also sits in Madison (just a brief sashay down State St. in fact).

Justices Prosser and Bradley sit side by each (second and third from the left,* respectively, where the latter appears no larger than the former).

And damn near everybody is "significantly larger" than Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson,** who Prosser previously threatened to "destroy."

Althouse could measure their physical attributes as they ascend the bench, in order to confirm her own "unsourced" assertion that "Bradley is significantly larger than Prosser," whatever that's supposed to mean.

Did not David slay Goliath?

Moreover, Althouse might do well to revisit the law of self defense, if that is indeed among the topics she allegedly professes to law students.

You don't get to strangle somebody who merely raises their hands.

* Conservative hero Mike Gableman is on the far right, where he invents the Supreme Court's jurisdiction from whole cloth and forward slash.

** Not only have I seen the Chief Justice, but I have met her, more than once, and I'm not even an alleged University of Wisconsin law professor.

eta: Much, much more from Wis. Atty. Briane Pagel.

Wisconsin law prof defends Delaware smug doofus

Inexplicably popular blogger Ann Althouse and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's haplessly accidental funnyman Patrick McIlheran come to the rescue of Tea Party Republican Christine O'Donnell's embarrassing performance* at a candidates debate in Delaware the other day.

Looky here what Althouse has to say, the award-winning McIlheran beams: "She's a famous blogging lawyer." What Althouse has to say is that she doesn't have a "verbatim transcript" of the eight-minute exchange, that all the press reports are terrible, but forges ahead with her "analysis" nonetheless, by relying on ... a press report.

Prof. Althouse commends O'Donnell because, Prof. Althouse claims, she was focusing on constitutional text during the tête-à-tête with Democrat Chris Coons, whereas Coons was speaking about broader principles of interpretation. Except no, O'Donnell was not.

What follows are the relevant portions of the "verbatim transcript," which took all of about 15 minutes to prepare.

The clip begins with O'Donnell delivering a moronic lecture to Coons on teaching creationism in public schools, about which O'Donnell is wrong on every single count. Eventually, O'Donnell announces:

O'Donnell (2:21):
The reason we're in the mess we're in is because our so-called leaders in Washington no longer view the indispensable principles of our founding as truly that: indispensable. We're supposed to have limited government, low taxes ... [crosstalk]

We'll leave it to Prof. Althouse to locate either "limited government" or "low taxes" in the text of the Constitution.

Coons (2:36):
And one of those indispensable principles is the separation of church and state.

At this point, the moderator tries to move on to the next question.

O'Donnell (interrupting) (2:48):
Uh, wha, where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?

[Laughter, appropriate expressions of shock and horror]

She doesn't say anything about text; they're still on the "indispensable principles of our founding." Then the moderator does move to another question, during which O'Donnell has to ask him what is in the 14th Amendment.

Moderator (3:59):
The 14th Amendment defines citizenship.

O'Donnell (4:02):
Oh.

And again, she refers to "principles." Later, the two candidates return to the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

Coons knows exactly what O'Donnell is up to, that at some point she is probably going to attempt to pose the thoroughly idiotic question, 'Where are the exact words "separation of church and state" in the Constitution.' Idiotic because everyone knows they are not there, and that it was a Jeffersonian paraphrase famously repeated in 1947 by Hugo Black in Everson v. Board of Education, and not because the Court was basing its decision — which favored the party that was a religious establishment, incidentally — on Jefferson's letter to the Baptists. Black mentioned it in passing because he understood it to be one of those "indispensable principles of our founding."

Which is what O'Donnell had brought up in the first place and what Coons was continuing the discussion on for several minutes.

Coons (5:42):
I also think you've just heard, in the answers from my opponent, and in her attempt at saying, 'Where is the separation of church and state in the Constitution,' reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is, how it is amended and how it evolved. The First Amendment — the First Amendment — establishes the separation, the fact that the federal government shall not establish any religion, and decisional law by the Supreme Court over many, many decades ...

O'Donnell (interrupting again) (6:09):
The First Amendment does?

Coons (6:11):
... clarifes and enshrines, that there is a separation of church and state that our courts and our laws must respect. Back to Roe versus Wade ...

O'Donnell (interrupting again) (6:18):
So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'the separation of church and state,' is found in the First Amendment?

There is O'Donnell finally saying "the phrase," while Coons is still speaking. But he never even suggested that "the phrase" appears in the Constitution, and indeed it isn't even clear that he heard O'Donnell saying "the phrase," because she's talking over him. Again.

Coons (6:23):
... and the Griswold question earlier, the zone of privacy is something that the Supreme Court interpreted the Bill of Rights and several of those amendments to create. It is important for us in modern times to apply the Constitution, in my view, as it exists today, and as it's been interpreted by our Justices. And if there are settled pieces of constitutional law, like the separation of church and state, like the individual right to reproductive freedom that Roe v. Wade represents, that we've lived with and have lived under for decades, in my view it is important to know whether you have on my side a candidate who believes and supports those things and on the other side a candidate who is both unfamiliar ...

O'Donnell (interrupting again) (7:06):
Let me just clarify, you're telling me that the separation of church of state is found in the First Amendment.

Coons (7:12):
Government shall make no establishment of religion.

This horrifies Prof. Althouse as it's not exactly a verbatim rehearsal of the First Amendment, but it works well enough as an expression of the spirit of the case law as it stands today, which is what Coons just got done talking about. But O'Donnell still isn't satisfied.

O'Donnell (7:16):
That's in the First Amendment.

[More laughter]

Yes. Did you not just catch Coons's example of Griswold, or what.

That "indispensable principle" is found in the First Amendment. Likewise, those other "indispensable principles of our founders," that corporations are persons, and that cash money is free speech.

(One might reasonably assume Jefferson counts as a "founder," if not a "framer," although the framer of the First Amendment, James Madison, had been a close and like-minded colleague of Jefferson's on these very issues of religious establishment and separation when both were State legislators in their native Virginia previously. Which is to say, if Hugo Black was after an authoritative contemporary voice, he could've done a hell of a lot worse than Thomas Jefferson.)

Which is what Coons had been saying all along, and he is correct, if inartful. And Althouse is wrong: O'Donnell was never talking about "text" apart from one fleeting moment that Coons probably didn't even hear, as it was practically mumbled, while he was talking.

That is what the video reveals — what Althouse's press reports don't.

Watch and listen.

* Embarrassing to view. O'Donnell is incapable of embarrassment.

eta: Moar witches.

Ann Althouse's legal research 101

Ruh roh: Inexplicably popular Wisconsin blogger/reported professor of law Ann Althouse is in horrified semi-dudgeon over a remark made by State Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg:

At a forum at the Waukesha County Courthouse [Thursday]:

"Justice Prosser has sent a clear message that he will favor the agenda of Gov. (Scott) Walker and the Republican Legislature," Kloppenburg said. "I will apply the law to the facts of the cases before me and decide them without prejudice."

What is her basis for attributing a "clear message" like that to Prosser? If she doesn't have a solid basis for that statement — and I can't see what it is — how is that supposed to jibe with her self-image as a dutiful applicant of law to fact?

Ever the keen observer, Prof. Althouse* proceeds to link to a column by the Isthmus's Bill Lueders which clearly describes Kloppenburg's "basis" and further provides Kloppenburg's own statement:

In a press release on 12/8/2010, the Prosser Campaign promised that returning the incumbent to the bench would "[protect] the conservative judicial majority" on the Court which would then be able to "act as a common sense compliment [sic] to both the new administration and legislature."

Twice, right there in Althouse's own link, yet: "I can't see what it is."

It's old news anyway.

Pro Tip: Read own links before engaging the fauxtrage.

* That comments thread is hilarious.

Jack Craver's courageous public service

For one thing, Jack Craver deserves a medal for slogging through a virtual Annapurna of pretentious tedium and producing a relatively demure profile of Ann Althouse at the Isthmus yesterday. For another, it elicited the following comment at Althouse's blog:

From looking at her vita, it appears as if Professor Althouse has not published any serious legal scholarship since 2005. Instead, it appears she is spending her time watching American Idol and blogging about it. Whether her blog brings in a lot of money or not is beside the point. The point is that she is a tenured professor, holds an endowed chair, is paid a salary commensurate with that position [reportedly $158K], and sure doesn’t seem to be producing much in the way of scholarship that taxpayers can see as a return on their substantial investment in her.

Which is to say, the prototypical Tea-Republican object of scorn.

Famous blog fight!

"I've deleted comments that contain the n-word." — Althouse

In that case, Sullivan has good grounds to be pissed. Althouse's contemptuous dismissal of the Isthmus is pretty amusing too.

When's American Idol back on?

eta: Down the Althouse memory hole.

Alleged law professor Althouse skewered again

Along with our friend Prof. Rick into the bargain this time:

I had always assumed the strength of lawyers was their ability to marshal logic, facts and analysis.[*] Esenberg and Althouse were unable to marshal even one of the three.

By the way, this space addressed Esenberg's nonsense months ago.

* Not to mention professors of the law. It's horrifying.

Ann Althouse: Recalls are all about MEEEEEEE!

"I am especially concerned about the appropriation of names of people (like me) who did not sign." — Ann Althouse, law professor

Then go apply for one of the temporary jobs with the GAB. The Board is only concerned about "concealed zealots," not openly ridiculous zealots.

Where was all this handwringing about verifying petition signatures when the Republicans were trying to recall Democratic Senators last summer?*

Nowhere to be found, obviously.

* Republican efforts failed on each and every account. Meanwhile Democrats successfully replaced two Republicans in the State Senate, yet it was the latter that was widely characterized as the failure. Seriously.

Ann Althouse's famous "NIG" pajamas

I believe these are pajamas that say "good night" all over them, but the letters "NIG" are set apart by a fold in the fabric.

— top Wisconsin blargher Ann Althouse

h/t Mutaman.

Ann Althouse on WI domestic partnerships

Er, what the:

Meanwhile, the state will accept your $115 fee for ... almost nothing ... or nothing at all if it's is too much not nothing and therefore unconstitutional.

Penetrating, especially considering that the constitutionality of the constitutional provision at issue has yet to be fully litigated.

It is said that Ann Althouse teaches ... constitutional law.

Althouse "festival of misogyny and homophobia"

Funny (and also deeply pathetic) stuff, via Brian Leiter.

c/w linkage to another hilarious Lawyers, Guns & Money thread.

Posts tagged Althouse.

Wisconsin BREAKING: Please give generously

How shall we go on?
Althouse troubled Kloppenburg "consuming [Althouse's] precious time"
Is greatest personal tragedy since Herb Kohl bored Patrick McIlheran

UW law prof Althouse "remains birther-curious"

Via Lawyers, Gun$ and Money.

In related news, concerned parties sought a permanent restraining order against celebrated online personality Meade Althouse, enjoining him from trolling internets discussion boards. "He's clearly a hazard to himself and to others," said a source close to the investigation.

By the way, this here is one of the funniest threads of all times.

Profess the law or GTFO!

Fcuk u! No u!!1 lolz

You'd think U of W's alleged law professor Ann Althouse has been on teh internets long enough to be aware of the kids' "or GTFO" jokes. But no.

At least Meade Althouse, who once comically retrieved an anarchist's neckerchief from a Capitol sculpture, gets "zOMG pix or it dint happen."

Little GT[F]O

UW a haven for wild, empathetic liberals

Obama comes from the law academia environment that I'm very familiar with [she's a law professor at the University of Wisconsin] where that talk about "empathy" is what you hear all the time. It's very normal, it's "sophisticated," and I can understand how Obama has just been soaking in that. And then when he, as a former constitutional law professor, comes to us and starts to tell us about law, I can really understand how he thought he was saying something profound and meaningful.

— Ann Althouse, via Terrence Berres

Huh. I think I took just about every available constitutional law class and seminar at Marquette University (a Roman Catholic school) and never once did I hear anyone say anything about empathy for litigants, or for anything else, come to think of it.

(Although I do recall a crucifix hanging in a stairwell, which I've heard is an archetypal symbol of empathy, if not a command to practice it.)

Good thing I was never indoctrinated by law professors like Barack Obama was. It must take place during their secret kulturkampfs kaffeeklatsches, and then imparted subconsciously in code.

By the way, has anybody yet explained why anyone takes the famed blogger Ann Althouse at all seriously?

Ramesh Ponnuru is concerned

Ramesh Ponnuru, who is apparently some sort of "senior editor" at the National Review, is very troubled that Senator Joe Biden referred to the Due Process of Law provision in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as "the liberty clause." Horror of horrors.

Ponnuru also claims that Biden "misdescribes" Roe v. Wade.

What Biden described to Katie Couric was the trimester framework of gestation established by Roe, and it wasn't a misdescription at all. More succinctly, Roe v. Wade held (among other things) that the government's interest in a human fetus as opposed to that of its bearer increases along with the course of that fetus's development.

One of the contemporary criticisms of Roe — one that issues from its supporters especially — is that the division of gestation into three equal periods is arbitrary and is furthermore out of step with current medical knowledge (Roe v. Wade is now more than 35 years old).

But Biden's description is accurate and obviously the question of fetal development has played a determinative role in attitudes toward abortion since time out of mind. Roe contains a lengthy review of that history, as do the numerous accounts cited in Roe's footnotes.

As for the "liberty clause," it's simply a common shorthand for one feature of the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause:

No State shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law[.]

As a matter of fact, it's a shorthand favored by Chief Justice John Roberts, who invoked it during his Senate confirmation hearings in 2005 during questioning by — guess who — Joe Biden:

It is my view that all of the Justices — I think of a case like the Glucksberg case, in which the majority subscribed to the view that there is an appropriate mode of analysis to determine the content of the liberty clause, that it does include protection beyond physical restraint, and that that protection applies in a substantive manner.

And:

I have also explained the sources that judges look to in determining the content of that privacy protected by the liberty clause. They're the ones that have been spelled out in the Court's opinions, the nation's history, traditions, and practices.

They were discussing the Due Process Clause, just not its "life" or "property" components because the constitutional theory underlying Roe v. Wade and many other related decisions of the Court, "substantive due process," derives from that liberty component.

So much for Ramesh Ponnuru, who appears to be unworthy of any concern, although I understand he's taken seriously by a number of political conservatives. The latter fact is probably the real concern.

Now this character claims that "Ramesh Ponnuru is right," and goes on to announce that Joe Biden "doesn’t even seem to be able to explain the doctrine of incorporation properly."

What the ?

Incorporation doctrine — the idea that the 14th Amendment makes the protections contained in the Bill of Rights enforceable against State governments — never even came up.

Even professor of law Ann Althouse is dazed and confused:

Biden: I think the liberty clause of the 14th Amendment ... offers a right to privacy. Now that's one of the big debates that I have with my conservative scholar friends, that they say, you know, unless a right is enumerated — unless it's actually, unless [it] uses the word "privacy" in the Constitution — then no such "constitutional right" exists. Well, I think people have an inherent right.

Althouse: Again, this is blatantly wrong and unchallenged. Some conservatives reject the right to privacy, but Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito clearly affirmed it in their confirmation hearings in Biden's own committee. Is Biden deliberately lying or is he ignorant?

Where exactly did Senator Biden say that either Justice Roberts or Justice Alito were among his "conservative scholar friends"?

And these are the "famous bloggers." Lord help us.

"The only thing stupid here is Althouse's column."

Bruce Murphy is a little late to the party, but better late than never:

Bill Lueders had three off-the-record sources telling him that Justice Prosser "allegedly grabbed fellow justice by the neck," as the headline of his story noted. And as we now know from Justice Prosser, he had both hands on Justice Bradley’s neck.

Yes, well, try telling that to Mr. Althouse.

Then of course there was this guy too.

Ann Althouse submerged in vat of CO2

Or something. It's kind of surprising that a professor of law would be unfamiliar with the concept of carbon dioxide as a pollutant:

"That is certainly one possible interpretation of the statutory definition." — Antonin Scalia, Massachusetts v. EPA (2007).

Witches were once at least honest, albeit evil

"I asked [Coons] where in the Constitution is the phrase 'separation of church and state,'" O'Donnell explained. "He said the First Amendment."

That's a lie.

"Well I think [the First Amendment] says exactly what it says, that the government will not create, will not dictate, that every American has to believe a certain way ... "

Dear God. Has Althouse made something up to defend this too?

You can't blame people for being ignorant — we're all ignorant to some degree about a whole lot of things. But when you're this ignorant and you act as if you know it all and you're presenting yourself as eligible for high federal office, it becomes an issue.

Getting them in the right order

Linguist Benjamin Zimmer's take on Chief Justice John Roberts's garbled textualism. The bafflingly popular Ann Althouse, meanwhile, can't even get the mistakes right. C.J. Roberts said, "the Office of President to the United States," which was the weirdest flub of all.

I'm reminded of this:

Alan Semen: Sir Edwin, which has been for you the most demanding of the great Shakespearean tragic heroes that you've played?

Sir Edwin: Well, of course this is always a difficult one, but I think the answer must be Hamlet.

AS: Which you played at Stratford in 1963.

SE: That's right, yes, I found the role a very taxing one. I mean, er, Hamlet has eight thousand two hundred and sixty-two words, you see.

AS: Really.

SE: Oh yes. Othello's a bugger too, mind you — especially the cleaning up afterwards, but he has nine hundred and forty-one words less than Hamlet.

AS: How many words did you have to say as King Lear at the Aldwitch in '52?

SE: Ah, well, I don't want you to get the impression it's just a question of the number of words ... um ... I mean, getting them in the right order is just as important. Old Peter Hall used to say to me, "They're all there Eddie, now we've got to get them in the right order."

AS: Sir Edwin, get stuffed.

SE: I've enjoyed it.

Great Actors.