Not quite full disclosure

Marquette University visiting professor of law Richard Esenberg, in the course of delivering an effusive bouquet to Bradley Foundation chairman Michael W. Grebe, helpfully notes:

By way of full disclosure, Bradley funds the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and I have a relationship with them.

The WPRI is what's known as a conservative "think tank."

Now perhaps it depends on what one means by "full disclosure," I suppose, but what Prof. Esenberg deigns not to disclose is that the Bradley Foundation also donates generously to the Alliance Defense Fund and Esenberg has a relationship with them as well.

Esenberg's co-counsel on the case of Appling v. Doyle, a challenge to Wisconsin's domestic partnership law,* includes two ADF attorneys, Austin Nimocks and Brian Raum. Both lawyers hail from ADF HQ in Scottsdale, AZ, but presumably have an interest in Wisconsin affairs.

One indication of that interest may obtain from the title of a 2003 tome authored by the ADF's chairman, Alan Sears: The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today. (The Homosexual Agenda was revealed to begin at 6 a.m. every day.)

Among the ADF's mottos is "Without Christ, we can do nothing."

The non-adherent is advised to bear the latter admonition in mind when considering offering oneself up as a potential ADF plaintiff.

Ms. Julaine Appling, who has long engaged in a frightful battle of wits against Satan and all of His minions, undoubtedly qualifies.**

This is easily available public knowledge, of course, but Prof. Esenberg's selective revelation doesn't appear to satisfy his own invocation of "full disclosure." They are the words he chose, after all.

Also worthy of helpful note is the fact that the Bradley Foundation recently forked over a check for $250K to The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, whose student division's deputy director*** turned up at the same law school faculty blog last week to distribute an edition of a FedSoc newsletter containing this comically antiseptic description of Mike Gableman's celebrated teevee spot:

The one television ad run by the challenger’s campaign drew national media attention for its aggressive tone.

Well, sure, that's one decidedly passive way of putting it. Another is to say it amounted to a statement deliberately misrepresenting the record of his political opponent, contrary to both the letter and the intent of Wisconsin Supreme Court Rule SCR 60.06(3)(c).

Yet another is to portray it bluntly as has the Wisconsin Judicial Commission: Gableman lied. Furthermore, the FedSoc employee in question failed to disclose his own whimsical shenanigans in service of none other than Mike Gableman and his political ambitions.

However, that's perfectly understandable, for a variety of reasons.

* Ain't it just so typical of those scheming liberals to short-circuit the democratic process and head straight into court. In this case, straight into the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the lower court finders of fact be damned (no pun intended; please see the following footnote).

** The named defendants being resistant to service of process, thus the selection of Gov. James Doyle et al as their corporeal stand-ins.

*** That is, a compensated FedSoc employee, not simply a member.

Koch outfit friend of the [Wisconsin Supreme] court

"This relationship is one of those thumbs on the scale." "Prosser should step aside now." "It's a bad idea to stay on the case."

Herewith a "friend of the court" brief filed by the Institute for Justice, Minnesota chapter (a.k.a. "out-of-State agitators"), in the case of Wisconsin Prosperity Network v. Gordon Myse, a challenge to a State of Wisconsin campaign financing rule. The Institute for Justice was "initially funded" by the Bros. Koch and is sustained by 2.4 millions of dollars in Milwaukee's own Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation generosity.

Wisconsin Prosperity Network is one of ten petitioners to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ten also includes such local right-wing luminaries as Republican candidate for Senate Kim Simac, the shouting Tea Party preacher "Apostle" David King, the Koch Bros. front group Americans For Prosperity, and the MacGyver Institute, which maintains what it calls — in what just has to be an ironic, postmodern jape — a "news service."

All are represented by oft-celebrated WISGOP counsel, James Troupis, along with our friend Rick Esenberg, known to profess the law — and lay effusive bouquets on the Bradley Foundation — at Marquette University.

Which is all fine and dandy, I'm sure, quite apart from the fact Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, to whose considered deliberation the petition now falls, retained one James Troupis to preserve Justice Prosser's bid to maintain his position among the "conservative" majority of that court, for the next ten years, and for which Mr. Troupis did zealously advocate (and did promptly bill a cool seventy-five thousand).

Notwithstanding its dubious provenance, is the Koch/Bradley amicus brief meritorious? Perhaps. The First Amendment is — and should be — an imposing barrier to restrictions on political speech. After all, it was none other than Justice Prosser who ruled that a State Supreme Court may not oblige its members, through a reasonable code of ethical judicial conduct, to refrain from slandering their colleagues without offending the First Amendment (a ruling that offends the intelligence).

Nevertheless it's worth noting that one of Justice Prosser's colleagues, Mike Gableman — for it was his unethical shenanigans to which the aforementioned ruling was designed to protect* — publicly interrogated a Wisconsin attorney for her alleged ties to the Open Society Institute, which for present purposes might be seen as a "liberal" corollary to the Koch/Bradley consortium. We thank Justice Gableman for providing the illumination upon his vague paranoias, but we don't expect any similar grilling of the petitioners' counsel during oral argument Setpember 6.

Another unique feature of this case dates to last August, when Justices Prosser and Gableman literally rewrote the Wisconsin constitution.

They did so to articulate a power of theirs which they had just divined, the power to prevent the two other equal branches of government from operating. This they did before even deciding whether the petitioners — or "Apostles," in at least one instance — had even bare standing to sue.

Whereas Article VII of the Wisconsin constitution empowers the Supreme Court to "issue all [injunctions] necessary in aid of its jurisdiction," the two self-advertised conservatives inserted language to the effect of "necessary in aid of deciding whether or not we have its jurisdiction."

More detail here and here.

There's a pretty decent argument to be made that Prosser/Gableman were way out of line, in terms of what "in aid of its jurisdiction" means in the Wisconsin constitution. It contemplates a jurisdiction that has been taken, a case that has been accepted in compliance with the judiciary's enumerated powers of jurisdiction. It doesn't contemplate empowering the court to slap injunctions on the executive branch prior to making any other judicial determinations at all, including whether or not the court itself has jurisdiction over the action in the first place.

If you haven't the jurisdiction, then how can you issue the injunction?

And it wasn't the last time the duo fabricated a novel judicial power.

I have no idea what's so "conservative" about either of them, frankly.

Except that they're "pro-life," or something.

* Here's a short film of Gableman, J. returning the favor, featuring Gableman denouncing, inter alia, "out-of-State influences." Seriously. Special disapprobation is reserved for Jesse Jackson, for some reason.

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.

Can't get enough WPRI? Try the Journal-Sentinel.

Today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has not one but two columns by Wisconsin Policy Research Institute "senior fellows," neither of which identify WPRI for the right-wing Bradley Foundation-funded Republican Party/Scott Walker shill that it is. In fact the president of the Bradley Foundation, Michael Grebe, was Scott Walker's campaign chairman.

WPRI also has a magazine of its own, which is edited by right-wing radio shouter Charlie Sykes. Charlie Sykes is also an employee of Journal Communications, Inc., which owns the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

And the Journal-Sentinel endorsed Scott Walker for governor of Wisconsin, despite the paper's occasional quarter-hearted editorial page objections to Walker and his henchpeople's policies. Just so you know.

WISGOP: Incest is [Michael] best

[Former U.S. Attorney Steven] Biskupic and his fellow attorneys based their complaint on a piece of propaganda put out by the MacIver Institute, a "public policy think tank" funded by the ultraconservative Bradley Foundation. The Bradley Foundation is headed by Michael Grebe, former chair of the Walker gubernatorial campaign and the chair of Friends of Scott Walker, one of the organizations that filed the suit in Waukesha County.

By Lisa Kaiser.*

* Best** advocacy journalist in Wisconsin.

** Best as in the superlative, not the aforementioned WISGOP law firm.

Meet Charlie Sykes's "fraudulent" petitioners

Accusations of recall fraud fall flat:

"I feel like it's bad because you're judging a book by its cover and you don't know anything about us," said Ms. Love, who is 20.

Got that right. They saw your picture. That's all they needed to know.

Where are the photos with ID cards? The JS article says the DPW provided them, but why not show them and let viewers/readers decide? Media Trackers — here's some video evidence, we'll give you our opinion and even put a ? in the title to make it clear we're not making factual claims. JS — here's a claim the Democrats are making. We believe it, therefore, we don't have to show you the supposed "proof" the Democrats provided.

Nice try, counselor, but your reckless desperation is showing.

That's former Mike Gableman clerk/current Rick Esenberg associate — at the latter's Bradley Foundation-funded Kulturkampf law boutique, incidentally — Tom Kamenick demanding the two young ladies relinquish their right to privacy and assume the burden of production. Seems to me the burden is on Charlie Sykes, Media Trackers, and their disciples and in that production they all of them failed rather spectacularly.

Full retraction and apology from Charlie Sykes in the morning, I'm sure.

Stellar work, you Bradley Foundation "intellectuals."

Wisconsin, meet your enemy

"In some way or another, most [local] conservatives, I guess, would have a connection to us," said Michael Grebe.

The Bradley Foundation.

Where Charlie Sykes is an "intellectual." rofl

Funnier still, the Bradley Foundation promotes "competent government," which apparently refers to powerful legislative committees chaired by the likes of Jim Ott, Mary Lazich, Leah Vukmir, and Glenn Grothman.

And their top attorney plays fast and loose with legal terms of art.

Nothing terribly "intellectual" about that either.

Recall Walker training session filled to over capacity

According even to the Bradley Foundation front group Wisconsin Reporter. As a matter of fact enthusiasm for the movement to recall Governor Scott Walker is so great it even attracted at least one suspicious interloper from the Bradley Foundation front group Wisconsin Reporter. While her tale is certainly amusing and Dem Party spokesman Zielinski is correct the outfit is generally up to no good, this was a training session for volunteers, not for the press, as evidenced by the two Democratic Party documents that Wisconsin Reporter provides.

One is a schedule of upcoming training events for volunteers, and the other is the WisDems' sign-up form for volunteers. Members of the legitimate press understand the distinction between public meetings and closed training sessions and they would do more in advance of their desire to attend than fill out the online form, which is for volunteers.

Either the Wisconsin Reporter is aware of that protocol and was being cute by trying to gain admission as a volunteer or else the Wisconsin Reporter is not aware of that protocol, in which case they come off as pretty amateurish in this latest stunt to antagonize Graeme Zielinski.

Because that's what this "story" is all about. Apparently the reporter sat and listened to remarks delivered by Kathleen Falk, the former Dane County Executive who is among the leading contenders to challenge Walker in the event of a recall election next year, but didn't see fit to report one single thing Falk said, preferring to gin up a fake controversy brought about by the alleged reporter's own questionable tactics.

If the training session was so well attended that organizers even ran out of printed packets for actual volunteers, it's no surprise that the reporter managed to essentially sneak by, given that the organizers' attention would have been necessarily focused on, well, organizing.

All in all, an entertaining diversion for the usual wing-nuts but apart from the fact that the Recall Walker volunteer enthusiasm exceeded even the organizers' expectation, there's not a lot to see here except as more evidence Wisconsin Reporter is less interested in reporting than trying to make a bigger deal out of its ongoing feud with Zielinski.

Most importantly, any legitimate news outfit that insists on using Wisconsin Reporter — or the MacGyvers or the so-called Media Trackers — as a source needs to be aware that Wisconsin Reporter may be muckracking but without any commensurate commitment to objectivity.

Fear superstition, deny science

A couple more Bradley Foundation projects. The Bradley Foundation's president was Republican Governor Scott Walker's campaign chairman.

Think tank hook-up a "fiasco" for UW-Madison

Bradley cash — not liberals — is pollster's bad juju

Via Mpeterson:

The university described WPRI as a "nonpartisan, not-for-profit think tank" in announcing the partnership last year. But the institute acknowledges a free-market, limited government slant and receives funding from the Bradley Foundation, a Milwaukee group that supports numerous conservative causes.

Quite the tale, this here.

As a result [of the "fiasco"], the university recently asked WPRI to stop using its logo, has stopped providing graduate students for the project and won't publicize future polls.

Definitely well deep into "fiasco" territory. Approaching "goat rodeo."

And this makes no sense whatsoever:

Asked about other schools that would have rejected the deal, then-Interim Provost Julie Underwood said: "They don't have the kind of responsibility that we do because of our national prominence and our great resources."

That's not why you don't reject the deal, that's why you do reject it.

What I don't understand is why Prof. Ken Goldstein is lambasting the "liberals" for his discomforts. It appears he made his own bed with the WPRI gang (which includes just about every local right-wing Republican "pundit" notable). In fact it's difficult to understand why he's even surprised by what all transpired. What did he expect?

Academics aren't that naïve, are they?

By God, if the mere mention of "conservative think tank" doesn't set the klaxons to pealing, then you sure can't follow much politics.

eta: Bit of an update up in here.

And Emily Mills's accompanying photo-illustration is genius.*

Finally, Milwaukee Magazine editor Bruce Murphy gets a lick in:

Claims one former Democrat officeholder: "[WPRI president George] Lightbourn held jobs in budgeting and administration that were considered egghead jobs, but George was often referred to as George Lightbrains."

So mean! By the way, here's Mr. Lightbourn complaining about his overly generous government pension again, courtesy the Journal-Sentinel, which printed nary a word about the WPRI/UW "fiasco."

* Depicted is WPRI propagandist and Journal Broadcast Group superstar of all media Charlie Sykes, for the uninitiated.

Scott Walker's Judge Bradley (Foundation)

Reports the local organ:

Scott Walker on Monday appointed president of the Milwaukee chapter of the Federalist Society Rebbeca [sic] Bradley to fill a spot on the circuit court bench in Milwaukee County.

Obviously.

Q. What is your favorite website?
A. NationalReview.com

Dear God help us, here comes another one.

Patrick McIlheran gets his hack bum spanked

Ouf.

George Stanley is the Journal-Sentinel's managing editor. It's about bloody time somebody in-house corrected Patrick McIlheran's drivel.

Good on Stanley.

eta 01 OWN's Scot Ross concurs in part, dissents in part:

Two cents: I think it's incredibly hypocritical of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to point this out, when it pays [McIlheran] to churn out this right-wing, pro-corporate propaganda on a regular basis without any consistent voice of opposition. Until he strays from the company line ...

eta 02 Jon Entine responds. Mr. Entine, a journalist and American Enterprise Institute (Scaife, Bradley, etc.) "fellow," wrote the article from which Patrick McIlheran produced the pregnant children:

Mr. Stanley ... is flat out 100% wrong. He lied to his readers.

P. McIlheran hisself next appears in-thread. Flamewar!

eta 03 Jon Entine returns for some more:

For the record, Mr. McIlheran did not contact me. I noticed this article on Google News and read the comments. Frankly, Mr. Stanley's comment is so undeniably wrong and irresponsible, I believe he should be publicly reprimanded by the publisher and perhaps even fired. It's so antithetical to the established canons of journalism. Moreover, he criticized his own reporter[*] in public, which is as unprofessional as it gets. And he was wrong to boot. He should start with a public apology. And I would suggest an independent review of the Journal Sentinel's reporting on BPA and chemicals as it is apparent that his judgment is polluted beyond repair. What a disgrace for the JS.

Good Day Sir!

* McIlheran was not "reporting" and Stanley didn't "criticize" him.

eta 04 And yet still more additional Jon Entine:

For example, Health Canada's ban came after its science advisory panel concluded, starkly: "Bisphenol A does not pose a risk to the general population, including adults, teenagers and children." It was then overruled by the political arm of Health Canada, which said in its news release that "decisions have to be made to meet society's expectations" — in other words, in response to hysteria generated by the likes of the JS.

I don't know where the AEI "fellow" Jon Entine's quote comes from, but Health Canada's website reads:

Health Canada's Food Directorate has concluded that the current dietary exposure to BPA through food packaging uses is not expected to pose a health risk to the general population, including newborns and infants.

Emphasis added. Health Canada then goes on to note its steps were/are taken to protect "this sensitive segment of the population."

So why does Jon Entine hate Canadian newborns and infants?

(By the way, positive and approving appeals to "This is how Canada does it!" are something you hear quite often from journalist Patrick McIlheran when he's on the healthcare warpath, aren't they. Oh yes.)

And: Medium wave howler Charlie Sykes to the rescue!

Well, there's at least one common denominator emerging here: The Bradley Foundation. Can law perfesser Rick Esenberg be far behind?

Justice Roggensack is hardly a conservative judge

Once again, much is being made in the newspapers these days of the altercation which took place in the chambers of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley back in June, 2011.

One reason for that is because there is an impending general election* for the seat of incumbent Justice Patience Roggensack and another reason is that Justice Bradley removed herself last week from the case of Wisconsin Judicial Commission v. David T. Prosser, Jr.

It was an altercation that Justice Roggensack had "almost nothing to do with," says risibly lies one of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's several in-house right-wing Bradley (no relation) Foundation propagandists.

Unless authoring a meanspirited, lawless order and then leading her little posse of alleged "conservatives" into Justice Bradley's chambers to insist on its immediate publication to allay the concerns of Republican allies in the Wisconsin legislature counts as having "almost nothing to do with" the subsequent confrontation among justices.

Meanspirited in the sense that the order is practically a personal attack on Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi, in whose courtroom the Republican legislators' attorneys freely admitted they had violated both the Wisconsin statutes and the Wisconsin constitution.

Lawless in the sense that Justice Roggensack and her Republican pals invented a jurisidictional authority for the Wisconsin Supreme Court that not only is not found in the State constitution but is explicitly contraindicated in the rules of appellate procedure: There is no such thing as "supervisory/original jurisdiction." They represent separate grounds for a party having her case heard by the Supreme Court.

In fact, there is no such thing as "supervisory" jurisdiction among the Wisconsin Supreme Court's panoply of constitutional powers, but there is superintending jurisdiction. Therefore if Roggensack and her fellow Republicans wanted to dream up the law more accurately, they should have invented "superintending/original" jurisdiction.

Furthermore in Justice Roggensack's own granting of her motion for recusal, she cites a Wisconsin statute she apparently believes requires her recusal. Except the statute refers to "any civil or criminal action or proceeding," whereas WJC v. Prosser is neither a criminal nor a civil case, thus the statute upon which Roggensack depends is irrelevant.

And they call her a "conservative" judge? Hardly. To top it all off, the same alleged conservatives then utterly contradicted themselves.

Where has this been reported? Nowhere, except at this here space.

* The primary election is Tuesday, February 19.

The only conservative on that ticket is Ed Fallone.

More fraud accusations from Bradley "intellectuals"

Charlie Sykes — "Recall Fraud Captured on Videotape"

Can you see the "fraud"? Because I can't. False accusations of fraud are becoming a habit with the Bradley Foundation's stable of "intellectuals."

Pretty desperate already, they are. Not to mention wildly irresponsible.

Michael Grebe, a lawyer by both profession and temperament

Really. Well maybe he better look into what his beneficiaries are saying.

"Speaking of fraud, can WTMJ PLEASE stop airing the Right Size Smoothies ad?" — Charlie Sykes blog commenter CleoOne

Haha. Is consumer fraud paying Charlie Sykes's bills?

MacGyver Institute "ignores critical facts"

We asked MacGyver spokesman Brian Fraley* if he had evidence beyond the video to back the group's claim. He said he did not.

What else is new.

* And Bradley Foundation "intellectual."

Media Trackers: "Our attorneys stand prepared."

Where were they before Mr. Sikma started publishing malicious lies?

Less than prepared, evidently.

Here's what Marquette professor of law Rick Esenberg had to say:

Any suggestion that there is either an action for defamation against either [Media Trackers' Brian Sikma or 620 AM WTMJ's Charlie Sykes] or the basis for a criminal charge is wildly off base given the nature of their remarks and applicable law.

Which was in response [sic] to this:

You said: It was not wrong for Media Trackers to raise the issue.

This outfit did much more than simply raise the issue. Media Trackers' "conservative media analyst" — that's the undeservedly hifalutin title conferred by Wisconsin Public Radio, which devoted an utterly pointless half an hour to him the other day — Brian Sikma reportedly told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "[Lena Taylor] was, in fact, an accessory to one felon voting on April 5."

And your good pal Charlie Sykes wrote: "Are [Democrats] all fine with Lena Taylor, a respected member of their party in the legislature, being an accessory to voter fraud?"

According to Freer v. Marshall & Ilsley Corp., 2004 WI App 201, "'imputation of certain crimes' to the plaintiff" raises a cause of action for defamation in Wisconsin. And there is a certain crime in Wisconsin that would fit Sikma's and Sykes's accusation of "accessory to voter fraud," described in Wis. Stat. § 12.13(1)(h).

Prof. Esenberg offered zero support for his dismissive handwaving.

But who knows, maybe he will be one of Brian Sikma's attorneys.*

In the meantime Mr. Sikma appears intent on measuring the homeless shelter's clothesline, to ensure it's up to municipal building code snuff.

I mean, those homeless people must be guilty of something, right?

* And if so, courtesy the Bradley Foundation, completing the circle.

MJS right-wingers to "elevate level of discussion"

Hilarious.

Notes Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial page editor David Haynes: "Another writes regularly for a local think tank." Except three of them do, in addition to a fourth who writes regularly for WPRI, but he already has a regular column in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. What Haynes also fails to mention is that Rick Esenberg's Kulturkampf boutique law firm — which last I heard consists of Prof. Rick and Mike Gableman's former law clerk — is in essence a subsidiary of the Bradley Foundation.

Here's Prof. Rick "elevat[ing] the level of discussion."

And some observers may recall Prof. Rick's lojinks last spring, when he and his compadre James Troupis filed a frivolous lawsuit in Oconto County, the distorted fruits of which they used to underpin 14 comic faux-arrest warrants against the State's Democratic Senate caucus.

Whose idea was it to let this character teach law at a university?

Glad I got the hell out of there before he turned up.*

* Although I admit I was sworn to the bar by Justice David Prosser (following an extended homily on professional ethics, ironically enough).

Of course it could have been worse: it could have been Mike Gableman.

Meet your Bradley Foundation "intellectuals"

This is always good for a laugh.

Suit alleges inappropriate truth-telling

A right-wing Washington D.C. "think tank"* wants to sue NASA scientist Gavin A. Schmidt for his Herculean undertakings at the website RealClimate.org:

Yes they’re planning to sue Schmidt for the "inappropriate behavior" of moderating comments at RealClimate. Of course, the point of this vexatious suit isn’t to win — it’s to harass and distract Schmidt because he is being effective.

Very, very effective.

This is a remarkable and fascinating story, and one has been able to witness, over the course of just a couple of days, the construction of a right-wing meme based entirely on falsehoods and ignorance.

Schmidt has been virtually instrumental in correcting the factual record and enlightening the ignorant. And now they want to punish him with a lawsuit: for telling the truth. Think-tank about that.

Read: Every factual assertion by the CEI fellow is false

* Whose benefactors include Milwaukee's own Bradley Foundation.

Speaking of your Bradley Foundation intellectuals

Who could forget this all-times classic:

Although the authors of the WPRI Report argue that "[m]ost of the empirical research done on retail gasoline markets suggests that the primary problem in the market is not predatory pricing, but rather a propensity towards price collusion," there is no evidence in the WPRI Report of any actual collusion in the Wisconsin motor vehicle fuel market. — Seventh Circuit Ct. App.

Price collusion = voter fraud.