Metropolitan Opera revealed as Nazi collaborators

Item: NPR is "of course Nazis" sez Faux News head

* Attractive Schutzstaffel insignia tote with every $25 donation.

Tea Republican challenges the disabled vote

Experts in Alaska election law:

One of the new allegations raised by Joe Miller campaign spin doctor Floyd Brown was from a Miller write-in observer in Cordova who claimed to have seen several ballots for Lisa Murkowski written in the same handwriting. . . .

"Somebody with Parkinson's disease, you know, their hand shakes but they're fully capable of voting and they go out to the poll to vote, they may very well ask for somebody who could write legibly, would you please write the name in for me," said Alaska lieutenant governor Craig Campbell.

Classy.

Winnig admits little chance of winning

You don't hear this very often: "Joel Winnig doesn't expect to win in his bid for a place on the State Supreme Court," reports the Capital Times. "But he's hoping his candidacy will add a positive note to an electoral process that in recent years has been marked by rancor. 'I'd just like to see it cleaner,' says the longtime Madison attorney."

Meanwhile a featured link at Mr. Winnig's website is to a piece by columnist Joel McNally that calls Michael Gableman "a low life."

Gableman is not running, but expect him to figure prominently.

Even creationists hope Wisconsin "wakes up"

Train manufacturer Talgo, which has its U.S. headquarters in Seattle, has invested millions in a new manufacturing facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While we hope Wisconsin wakes up to the permanent job opportunities from train manufacturing, we recommend you pursue the relocation of the Talgo facility to Washington State — perhaps along the economically distressed area of southwest Washington. Our State has a long and successful history with Talgo — reaching back to the mid-1990s. The move would complement Amtrak's new maintenance facility in south Seattle.

From a letter to governor Christine Grigoire of the State of Washington, delivered by the Cascadia Prospectus, a conservative outfit subsidiary to Seattle's Discovery Institute, the notorious national clearing house for "intelligent design" creationism.

Wisconsin's governor-elect Scott Walker has urged the federal government to reduce Talgo's Milwaukee sales backlog by half.

"Open for business," he calls this strategy.

Me and God are watchin' Scotty grow

h/t KS

Snark not exclusive to politics bloggers

Item: Governor-elect demands sitting governor stop projects

November 11, 2010

Scott Walker, Governor-Elect
Office of the Governor-Elect
17 W. Main Street, 310
Madison, WI 53702

Dear Governor-Elect Walker:

I am writing in response to your letter dated November 10th. I am aware that there are those who would attempt to pit incoming and outgoing administrations against each other. As you know, Governor Doyle and this administration have worked hard to avoid this. We will continue to work with you and your team in an orderly and responsible manner.

With respect to the specific items you mention, obviously you have not had the opportunity to be briefed on these items. For example, the health care exchanges you mention will require legislation and will not go into effect until 2013 at the earliest. The Charter Street Plant, on which work has begun, has natural gas capabilities along with the biomass fuel purchased from Wisconsin farmers and foresters.

Our offer to brief you on these and any other measures still stands.

Sincerely,

Daniel J. Schooff, Secretary
Wisconsin Department of Administration

Kudos, sir. Walker is reportedly set to authorize Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to join a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the health care reform bill, yet he isn't even familiar with which provisions take effect when or how they are to be implemented.

Walker: Wait your turn and learn the law.

Pleasing news for Scott Walker opponents

"I plan to spend a fair amount of time in Illinois." — Scott Walker

"Personally, we would love to have [Talgo] stay in the State of Wisconsin," Walker added, which is remarkable, because only a couple of days ago Walker had urged the federal secretary of transportation to cut the rail equipment manufacturer's sales by half.

Meanwhile Walker calls his strategy "open for business."

Why Republicans are glad there is global warming

Because it will lure all the sunbelt retirees back to Wisconsin.

"I'm glad there's global warming." — U.S. Senator-elect Ron Johnson

Tea Party strict constructionism in Alaska

Miller's campaign disputed the charge, saying observers are simply challenging votes that don't meet the strict letter of the law — including those with minor misspellings of Murkowski's name or those with legibility or penmanship issues.

Alaska law says nothing about either legibility or penmanship.

To be sure, deficiencies in either legibility or penmanship would serve to obscure accurate determinations of voter intent, which is exactly the standard of evaluating ballots that Tea Republican Miller at the same time argues is a subjective and therefore lawless one.

In other words, there's legal strategy, and there's abject hypocrisy.

eta: And it's nice to see an election law specialist agrees with me:

In this case, throwing out minor misspellings would disenfranchise voters for a technicality. I've traced use of the voter intent standard in State courts back to 1885, and Alaska has a particularly strong version of it.

Rick Hasen at Slate.

Threatened backcharges mount for governor-elect

This is quite the spectacle:

If Talgo leaves, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett and his chief of staff Pat Curley have said, the city could consider legal action against the State to recover the millions of dollars it invested in renovating the Tower Automotive plant for the company.

I don't know how far they'd get with that. It was reported months ago that Talgo's commitment to the Milwaukee location extended only through 2012, when it was projected manufacturing would be complete on the Amtrak Hiawatha and Oregon DOT train sets.

I suppose the wisdom of the expense of helping Talgo set up operations in Milwaukee depends on your (political) perspective, but I'd question whether the State would be on the hook for those costs just because Talgo didn't secure more orders from the State.

The high speed line between Milwaukee and Madison was a nice plum dangled in front of Talgo but it was more of a hope than an intent.

Meanwhile the Journal-Sentinel's resident Walker-fluffer Patrick McIlheran argues that constructing a train between Milwaukee and Madison will eradicate the existing bus service, a prophecy substantially disconnected from the fact there are eight daily trains and more than 30 daily buses between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Also, gay Nazis.

Liberals in denial ongoing some more

Greg Sargent reports on negative reaction to a friend of the court brief filed by a number of U.S. Senators in State of Florida v. DHHS:

Under the [Wickard v. Filburn] decision, Seidman points out, Congress was allowed to compel people to stop producing their own wheat and buy it on the interstate market. Seidman argues that under this precedent, the individual mandate is constitutional, because health reform does the same.

Compelling to stop is distinguishable from compelling to start. Stopping something assumes there was some thing happening that needed to be stopped, whereas compelling to start something acknowledges that there was no thing happening to begin with.

This remains at the crux of the argument: activity vs. inactivity, and Wickard v. Filburn offers no such obvious solution to that dilemma, whether the Commerce Clause empowers the regulation of inactivity.

Seidman points to Medicare Advantage, and notes that it's supported by taxation which, of course, is compelled by the Federal government. Under Medicare Advantage, this money is used by the Federal government to purchase health insurance. "We require people to give money to the Federal government, which then gives it to insurance companies," he says.

The taxing power argument already failed in the district court.*

Next!

* Seidman's example would work in support of a single-payer system.

Box Lid #4

4. Place ballots [in this box lid] where the oval is marked for Write-In category (colored in, X, Star, Check) and THE NAME WRITTEN APPEARS TO BE A VARIATION OR MISSPELLING OF MURKOWSKI OR LISA MURKOWSKI. Also place in this lid any ballot that an observer challenges so that the director can make a determination.

There probably won't be enough ballots in Box Lid #4 to make a difference, but Tea Party Republican Joe Miller — he's the guy who handcuffs and "detains" reporters — insists that counting any ballot with even the slightest misspelling of Murkowski's name is unlawful.

And he's probably wrong about that, because Alaska's apparent statutory demand for electors to be perfect spellers is likely a too onerous and narrow requirement for a showing of "voter intent."

That a voter wrote Murkowsky or Merkowski instead of Murkowski shouldn't deny them a constitutional right and that right is certainly more compelling than a State requirement that all voters be spelling bee champions or else their otherwise lawful ballot is discarded.

Miller's claim — and what he claims the Alaska rule of law is — smacks of the voter literacy tests that plagued the pre-Civil Rights era.

But if there does happen to be a significant number of ballots in that category, we might count on Box Lid #4 to be 2010's hanging chad.

Meet your new Republican committee chairs

Only in America:

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who will seek the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship, maintains that we do not have to worry about climate change because God promised in the Bible not to destroy the world again after Noah's flood.

Via Juan Cole.

Now Walker wants existing Talgo orders canceled

"We know what needs to be done to try to get out of a deep hole. First you have to start digging." — Ron Johnson

Just the other day, governor-elect Scott Walker made overtures to the Spanish rail manufacturer Talgo, which has set up shop in Milwaukee, urging them to remain here despite Walker's opposition to the proposed high speed line connecting Milwaukee and Madison.

The idea is that Talgo would receive contracts to manufacture the train sets running between Wisconsin's two largest cities. In the meantime, Talgo has orders from the Oregon Department of Transportation for two trains running between Portland and Eugene.

That line is likewise part of the federal government's High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program. The Wisconsin governor-elect's latest bold move is to urge Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to scrap the national high speed rail program in its entirety.

That is, according to Walker's proposal, the trains Talgo is building for Oregon would be canceled as well. Last week Scott Walker was massaging Talgo, but this morning he wants to cut its sales in half.

Scott Walker campaigned on promises to deep-six the train, and to "create" 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin. Walker hasn't even assumed office yet, and he's already a few thousand of those jobs in the hole.

Forward!

Incredible revelation revealed

Rep. Petri said that plan was unlikely to prevail in Congress because the money has already been set aside specifically for rail and there are other States requesting it for that purpose.

Amazing.

Also: the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008.*

How could career politician Scott Walker possibly have known?

* Which Petri supported.

Kissing not as bad as Hitler for German pope

That is seriously the premise of McIlheran's column today. Reports McIlheran, when protesters staged a kiss-in along the papal parade route in Barcelona, they would have failed at perturbing Mr. Ratzinger, 83, as he had "endured the rise and fall of the Nazis."

Me too, whenever I hear about gay people, I automatically think of the Third Reich. I mean, who doesn't. Nazi regalia is sexy.

McIlheran was also comforted by the fact that because the kissing "tantrum was overwhelmed by reverence," fewer Spanish nationals will be tortured eternally in McIlheran's contemplated afterlife.

However McIlheran's source (a link he found on the internets) said it wasn't clear if the pope was aware of the kiss-in, as he communed with the faithful sealed in an airtight bulletproof glass box on wheels.

The Beeb takes the Popemobile for a spin: "German, of course."

Would you believe the pope had an F-150.

Fun Pontiffact: Paul VI was one of the last Italian popes, which is why there was always a soccer ball in the trunk of his Popemobile.

NYSE loves stimulus, loves GOP not at all

One of the Fox News business "experts" on the teevee this morning claimed that the Dow Jones Industrial Average* closed at 11,444 yesterday because of this week's Republican gains in the House of Representatives. Tuesday's election results were known well before trading opened on Wednesday morning, with the DJIA at around 11,200. After a couple of hours of stasis, it began to fall, and by 2:30 it had lost nearly 100 points. A late rally brought it back to 11,200: No change on the day, despite the Fox expert's Republicans theory.

Then on Thursday morning, after the federal reserve announced $600bn in hated stimulus spending, the noisy condemnation of which is what won Republicans their elections, the Dow Jones gained more than 200 points by 11 a.m. So the Fox News "expert" was basically just making stuff up — par for the course — and the market, which those Republicans speak of as if The Oracle, responded far more positively to the hated spending than to the election of Republicans.

Go figger.

* Note the steady losses during the last two years of the George W. Bush administration and the steady gains under the first two years of Barack H. Obama's (he's the sworn enemy of capitalism bent on destroying the American economy and way of life). Under whose would you prefer to have invested your privatized social security?

Lot of people want their hands on that $810M

One of whom is not Wisconsin's incoming governor.

"Walker has a record of being anathema to public transportation."

In 2009, the Federal Railroad Administration received 259 grant applications from 37 States and the District of Columbia requesting nearly $57 billion in funding — far exceeding the initial $8 billion available under the Recovery Act.

Source.*

"I just heard from Ray LaHood today, he called and said, 'Well, Wisconsin might not want the money for high speed rail.' We're here, here we are. We'll be happy to take it."

Illinois governor Pat Quinn.

* Walker opposes the solid red line to the SE of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

The expectation of privacy: A two-State review

In Sarah Palin's Alaska and in James Doyle's Wisconsin.

Mike Plaisted is too kind

But he better not be gone for long.

No point to Van Hollen joining HCR suits now

Sort-of-newsy item:

Wisconsin governor-elect Scott Walker has said he would let AG Van Hollen go ahead with the health care challenge.

The current governor should have let Van Hollen go ahead months ago but at this juncture, Van Hollen's joining one or more of the suits is largely shambolic, as much of the work has already been done.

The most important of the challenges, State of Florida v. DHHS, is shortly headed for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

It's important because the district court resoundingly rejected the federal government's ex post facto rationalization that the so-called individual insurance mandate is authorized by Congress's power to tax. It seems to me not unfair to speculate that the feds devised the argument because there is such scant legal support for the proposition that the Interstate Commerce Clause — which empowers Congress to "regulate Commerce ... among the several States" — authorizes Congress to compel by coercive penalty the bringing into existence of the very commerce Congress might then regulate.

That tactic appears precluded by the plain text of the Constitution.

If the district court's ruling invalidating the tax power argument survives its appeal, then the individual mandate is in serious trouble. And even if the 11th Circuit does reinstate the validity of the federal government's power-to-tax argument, the Supreme Court as currently comprised — where this case is inevitably destined — will not be sympathetic to either the taxing or commerce power justifications.

Suspicion

Another significant challenge is contained in Virginia v. Sebelius, whose litigation is similarly well underway. The plaintiff's principal lawyer, Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli, was recently observed dictating to Fox News's Greta Van Susteren what sounded suspiciously like a verbatim rehearsal of a blog post that appeared at this location nearly one year ago, so I have a hard time disagreeing with him.

So far the only court that has provided a positive result for defenders of the individual insurance mandate is one in Michigan, but that decision relied on an untenably selective reading of Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court's most recent set of pronouncements on the (yes, "evolving") meaning of the Interstate Commerce Clause.

While it will be argued that Raich defines the Commerce Clause so broadly such that it leads in the direction required to support the validity of the individual mandate, at least in that case there was commerce already in existence — marijuana plants growing in a Californian's apartment, which are presumed to have value in commerce — over which the federal regulatory powers extended, no matter how attenuated was the regulated object from the regulation.

So I wouldn't expect the Michigan decision to stand.

Notorious

And if Scalia gets a crack at its interpretation of Raich — whose majority opinion Scalia did not join but rather wrote separately to agree with its result according to what he claimed was his "more nuanced" understanding — I would expect him to react violently.

And then there is the rejuvenatedly notorious Clarence Thomas, who will take the opportunity to reverse nearly every Commerce Clause decision since and including 1819's McCullough v. Maryland.*

Whatever the ultimate disposition in the ongoing set of cases, Van Hollen's ceremonial participation will have little effect either way.

Attorney General Van Hollen's energies will be better spent joining Obama and his press secretary in defending Congress's enumerated power to order the president to declare a "national day of prayer" annually in America because clearly, that legislative authorization is discoverable throughout Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Besides, it's an actual State of Wisconsin case and we're still waiting for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to schedule the oral arguments.

* Justice Thomas wouldn't care much for this Beloit high schooler's t-shirt either, and moreover would likely condone the local authorities' taking the young man out back and having him birched.

See also: Liberals in denial.

Stop spending and/or privatize social security now

The AP reports:

Stocks are rising sharply, one day after the Federal Reserve announced a $600 billion plan to stimulate the economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 189.59, or 1.7 percent, to 11,404.72 in late morning trading, a day after closing at its highest level since September 2008.

The latter two-year gains were attributed to Obama's and House Democrats' successful efforts at destroying the U.S. economy.

Calumnist Patrick McIlheran: Lazy or stupid

Jay Bullock points out that, contra McIlheran, three times as many Democrats who voted against Romneycare lost their House seats yesterday. We hear McIlheran is joining the PolitiFactWisc team.

eta: Patrick McIlheran writes many dumb things.

Quotes of the day

Journal-Sentinel:

U.S. Senator-elect Ron Johnson said the largest applause line he got Tuesday night at his victory party was his vow to repeal the health-care law.

Reuters:

"Regardless of Republican rhetoric ... last night's Congressional results won't yield changes in healthcare reform law," said Leerink Swann analyst John Sullivan.

So the point in electing Ron Johnson was ... what exactly?

What's on the big GOP agenda

Swivel-eyed maniacs get a mandate

The GOP plans to hold high profile hearings examining the alleged "scientific fraud" behind global warming, a sleeper issue in this election that motivated the base quite a bit.

Reports top pundit Marc Ambinder.

Funny, because only a couple of days ago Ambinder wrote:

[Ron Johnson's] "gaffes" have been of the type that drive elites crazy, like opposing global warming science. I think the science is solid, but voters don't really care about that stuff this cycle.

Maybe he forgot.

Ron Johnson headed for China again

"We know what needs to be done to try to get out of a deep hole. First you have to start digging." — Ron Johnson

h/t UppityWis.

Federal takeover of health care well underway

Ron Johnson promises to "repeal" all of this medical research.

For why? Because: "It's the single greatest assault on [his] Freedom in [his] lifetime." That's what Ron Johnson has said. Many, many times.

Ron Johnson's inspiration Ayn Rand called it the Virtue of Selfishness.

One firm that received $1.2M is Geron Corp., which is conducting the first trial therapies for quadriplegics using embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are derived from surplus in-vitro fertilizations that would otherwise be discarded. Johnson promised that is the first project he would abandon. We'll let him inform the quadriplegics.

Quadriplegia, I am willing to bet, is a far greater assault on freedom than any of Ron Johnson's insipid Fox News Channel talking points.

Running to the right of Prosser

It can be done.

WLJ: What is the first concert you went to?
Borowski: Alice Cooper at the 1980 Wisconsin State Fair.

Elected*

* They totally ripped off that intro from Jimi Hendrix.

Feingold and Yemen

Item: Earlier Flight May Have Been Dry Run for Plotters

One of the harsher critics of US counterterrorism policy is US Sen. Russell Feingold (D) of Wisconsin, who is as critical of Obama's Afghanistan policy as he was of President Bush's Iraq policy. Senator Feingold has said since shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that prolonged military operations in Islamic countries cause the US to become bogged down and lose sight of extremist threats popping up elsewhere.

In a Dec. 2 letter to Obama explaining his opposition to the president's Afghanistan troop build-up, Feingold said, "Al Qaeda and its affiliates are located in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa, and other places around the world."

"Rather than investing so many of our resources in Afghanistan, we should pursue a comprehensive, global counterterrorism strategy," he said.

CSM, 01/05/2010

On the other hand, you have Ron Johnson, who believes making such statements is inappropriate to the role of a United States Senator.

Johnson's structural views of government apparently have something to do with the Framers of the Constitution not being accountants.

More Feingold ironies noted

Ironically, a big factor in Feingold's struggles may be the stubborn independence he's supposedly lost. Consistent with his longtime opposition to unlimited campaign spending by outside groups, Feingold has told organizations that support him, including the Democratic Senatorial Senate Committee, to stay away from his race.

A rarity indeed.

Who said lawyers don't know how business works

Firm billed Madoff trustee $15.8M to recover $849,000

Feingold ironies noted

By both a Capital Times editor and reader:

And let's take that irony one step further. Ron Johnson claims his biggest asset is that he's a "self-made businessman" who hates health care reform. Except that RoJo:

1. Married into his money and his CEO position, and had a large portion of his sales go to other family-related businesses.

2. Took low-interest loans and other government assistance to help his company, but claims that all of these moves are bad for everyone else.

3. Despises the public option, but saves money for his company by having employees be covered under Badger Care ... which is the State equivalent of the public option!

I know the polls are bad in this race ... but if this State is foolish enough to pick a dishonest GOP rubber stamp like RoJo over the real deal in Feingold, this State is not what I have previously known it to be.

And this morning the New York Times reports that, "Not long ago, most Americans had scarcely heard of Yemen," the shipping origin of bombs discovered on cargo airplanes the other day.

But Senator Feingold has been warning about Yemen's potential as a launching ground for international terrorism at least since 2002.

In 2002, RoJo was counting up the hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payment savings he realized through state-structured industrial revenue bonds, the same kind he now criticizes specifically where they're offered to a manufacturer of electrical transformer insulation, a business in all practical effects identical to his own.

That's not mere irony, that's flat-out hypocrisy.

Bob Barr, liberal moonbat for Russ Feingold

From one consistent reader of the Constitution to another:

What I look for in Washington are folks in the Senate and the House who put the Constitution first. Not the "R" or the "D", not partisan politics but the Constitution. And what you have in Russ Feingold, and I have worked closely with him over a number of years to try to rein in the Patriot Act, to try to rein in the government surveillance and so forth — this is a man who understands the Constitution, who supports and fights sometimes against his own party to defend the Constitution in the Congress of the United States in ways that are much more consistent and much more proactive than a lot of Republicans.

Earlier: Bob Barr, liberal moonbat

Compare:

I will say, y'know, prior to doing this, I've sat down and read the Constitution probably, thoroughly, three ... probably about five or six times. It is not an easy document to read. It is not, unless you study it in detail, it's hard to study. — Ron Johnson

See also: Ron Johnson's Second Amendment fantasies

In Wisconsin, a mandate conferred by apathy

For those of us who would prefer that Wisconsin retain for another term the most principled member of the U.S. Senate, another trend-affirming poll and a grim assessment:

Wisconsin has one of the largest enthusiasm gaps of any State in the country. Although it appears Democrats will have turnout issues pretty much everywhere the problem is unusually severe in Wisconsin.

What springs immediately to mind is an episode the Recess Supervisor highlighted several weeks ago, after Obama appeared with Russ Feingold at a rally in Madison:

Emily Lawless, a UW-Madison junior from Lakeville, Minn., waited in line five and a half hours for the chance to see the president live. . . . [But] Lawless admitted she would likely not vote. "It's too much work with the absentee ballot," she said.

I've never absentee voted, but I can't imagine it's much more trouble than paying the cable teevee bill or choosing from a restaurant menu.

Less than 5-1/2 hours exertion, surely.

What the Public Policy Polling report is saying is that the electoral success of the vapid Ron Johnson will be determined not so much by Wisconsinites voting for him as Wisconsinites not voting for anyone.

It's the self-described "likely voters" who are driving these polls whereas among the larger pool of registered voters, the contest is much closer. That is, the polled respondents who favor Russ Feingold are also admitting that they are not going to vote anyway.

No good will come of that.

Make sure I got mine, Alaska Jack

An adventure in Objectivist rational self interest

He's adequately repented and should be allowed to get on with his life I suppose, but still, there is this sparklingly telling gem:

Records of the disciplinary action show that Mr. Miller was concerned how the handling of the matter could affect his health coverage.

Yet this is one of the gang of crude dissemblers who oppose reforms aimed toward alleviating that very concern for millions of others.

Says it all.

The Silence of the WPRI Hypocrites

Sykes & Co. too busy think-tanking nonpartisanly
No surprises there, but do check out Cory Liebmann.*

There is no evidence in the WPRI report — 7th Circuit

* Speaking of whom, this is an item Cory dug up quite a while ago, but I haven't seen him given any credit now that it's hit the papers.

On the other hand, Kleefisch's likening gay people to one of the lower animals is typical conservative Christian twaddle, and not surprising.

Nor is it surprising why Kleefisch has been kept hidden away since becoming Scott Walker's running mate. One smart move there.

'How to Steal $49.99999999 Million' wouldn't fit

Parties dispute meaning of "less than"

(Arbitration services courtesy of Wolfram MathWorld.)

Gableman's revisionist "success"

Says the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

[James Bopp] successfully argued in 2009 that State Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman could not be disciplined for a campaign ad that said opponent Louis Butler "found a loophole" while representing a sex offender appealing his conviction.

If by successfully argued you mean failed to win your motion to dismiss, sure. More generally, success is measured by succeeding.

Once again: the party arguing the "loopholes" was the State. Butler's position obtained from the plain language of the Wisconsin statute which barred the victim's prior sexual history from being introduced as evidence at trial.* And ten out of ten appellate judges agreed.

Under different circumstances self-described conservatives assert their faithful devotion to the law's plain language, except when as a matter of political expediency hypocrisy is more convenient.

And all three judges who heard Bopp's oral presentation — convened on Gableman's motion, it's important to emphasize — nevertheless found that Gableman violated the State code of judicial ethics.

So it's not clear to me where success enters into any of this.

The entire parade of ugly circumstances, initiated by Michael Gableman and carried forward by James Bopp, was a blight.

* Atty. Bopp: It is a loophole, that had nothing to do with [the defendant's] guilt or innocence.

Judge Snyder: 'Loophole' has kind of an emotional ring to it. It wasn't so much a loophole as it just was a properly argued application of the rape shield law, was it not?

Atty. Bopp: Well, uh, it turned out to be, yes.

No, it didn't "turn out to be." It was all along, right from day one.

How about the separation of mosque and state

I bet this character wouldn't disagree too strongly with that concept.

Liberals in denial, continued again

The most common argument against the mandate is that in giving Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, the founders didn't create the authority for the federal government to regulate inaction. In other words, they say citizens can't be compelled to participate in interstate commerce, such as buying health insurance. Most legal scholars disagree with this interpretation ... — TPM

Sounds suspiciously like wishful thinking* to me.

* Perhaps even magical thinking.

Incidentally, here is Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett's very recent paper (h/t David Ziemer) on the individual mandate, Commandeering the People: Why the Individual Health Insurance Mandate is Unconstitutional. It's comprehensive, fairly devastating, and has already been cited approvingly by the district court in Florida by way of rejecting the federal government's taxing power argument.

Read it and weep, I'm afraid.

Here we go again

"Conservative" judge vs. public defender

Last time out the former party got himself into an ethics imbroglio which half the court that heard the case contends is unresolved still.

Press Release: Stephens for Justice Committee

Related: Retiring WMC CEO kills irony dead

You know who else was a strong leader?

Dane for Senate.

h/t Mary Spicuzza

Ron Johnson fails to provide health care coverage

Asserts the Great State of Wisconsin:

It is important to know which companies [e.g., Pacur] fail to provide coverage for some or all of their employees and instead rely on the government to cover these costs.

— Karen Timberlake, Dept. of Health Services Secretary

Yesterday Scott Suder, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Assembly, threw a conniption when he learned the State's Department of Health Services publishes partial summaries of the number of employees (and their dependents) at Wisconsin companies who are recipients of the medical assistance program known as BadgerCare.

Claiming to be unconnected with the Ron Johnson for Senate campaign, Rep. Suder fired off a press release charging everyone from several local reporters to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold to Governor Jim Doyle with unlawful shenanigans. "Russ Feingold is so desperate that it appears Jim Doyle has to break the law in order to disparage an Oshkosh businessman," Suder said, and then, upping the ante, "This time they have gone too far by violating the law."

But it might appear that Rep. Suder's tactic has backfired.

This morning the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Rep. Suder has already received a reply from Karen Timberlake, the department secretary, from whom Suder demanded an explanation.

Timberlake's response could well drive Suder even wilder:

In her letter to Suder, Timberlake said the department "provides such information because it is important for taxpayers to know which companies fail to provide coverage for some or all of their employees and instead rely on the government to cover these costs."

And among those would be none other than Fox News/Republican candidate Ron Johnson, who is "relying on the government" to cover the cost of his own employees' health care benefits, the same Ron Johnson who has repeatedly called government-administered health insurance "the greatest assault on [his] Freedom in [his] lifetime."*

Suder pointed to a DHS administrative rule that refers to "safeguarded information" relating to BadgerCare that may not be distributed as including "past or present employment."

However, the administrative restriction applies to "individual applicant[s] or recipient[s]," none of whom are individually named in any of the summary documents published at the department's website or by the various news outlets that ran the original story (Lisa Kaiser at the Shepherd Express was the first, after which the Journal-Sentinel and the Associated Press picked up and went with it).

Perhaps Rep. Suder could successfully argue that releasing the employment information itself reveals the identities of individual applicants or recipients, in which case the Department of Health Services has been violating the administrative rule for several years.

Maybe we'll find out soon enough whether he'll try or not. It's not hard to read Timberlake's reply as at least mildly politically charged and if Suder was that excitable yesterday, he may be fit to be tied today.

* In fact he claims it — and Dick Morris — as his primary motivation.

Quote of the day

I'm tempted to be That Guy who says Feingold is more likely to make the shocking comeback than Sestak. — Nate Silver

Except it wouldn't be as shocking as Wisconsin electing a cipher.

Ron Johnson's Stasi manhandles affable scamp

Right in view of the American flag!

Related: Joe Miller's Tijuana border patrol

Suder demands to know who uploaded Excel files

It's a Ron Johnson campaign outrage!

State legislator wants answers and he wants them NOW:

State Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) said Monday that the State's decision to release the number of those enrolled in BadgerCare to the Journal Sentinel "compromised the integrity of the information."

Um ...

Wisconsin Department of Health Services Employer Reports

h/t Lisa Kaiser.

The Tail-Gunner flourishes yet

No, it's not Mike Gableman this time

Our flag is a symbol for all the true Americans — not the Communists, socialists, fascists, nor others who are opposed to the free-enterprise system.

LETTER: Feingold opposed flag-burning [amendment]*

As a matter of fact, Senator Feingold's position was in accord with Justice Antonin Scalia's. So is Scalia a Communist, a socialist, a fascist, or some "other" opposed to the free-enterprise system?

* As did Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the noted Marxist-Leninist whose cash money free enterprise champion Ron Johnson loves.

Divisive Ron Johnson now with added petulance

Julie Leschke, a former Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce employee who left the Chamber to work for the Johnson campaign, contacted at least two people in the Oshkosh Area School District to ask them to write a rebuttal letter to association president Len Herricks' letter endorsing Feingold.

They declined.

Fox News's Ron Johnson can't even get along with a tiny education committee. How does he think he's going to get along in the Senate?

Earlier: Ron Johnson hearts the Social Darwinist, Charles Murray

Burris says farewell

He'll especially miss Senator Ralph Feinberg.*

Otherwise Burris's recollections are entirely accurate: Senators Feinstein and Feingold were indeed the first two to buck the Democratic opposition (following this blog, of course).

* cf. "Get me that clown, Renchburg." — Richard Nixon

Visit the Ronald Burris archives-mausoleum.

Liberals in denial, continued

Van Hollen also was wrong to seek to join other attorneys general in a lawsuit over the individual mandate in the new federal health care law. Van Hollen claims the legislation "was a clear case of federal overreach" for requiring citizens to buy health insurance. We'd say it's Van Hollen who is overreaching.

— Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial.

The truth is, Van Hollen's been spot on the money so far. And the AG can expect more vindication forthcoming from Virginia by year's end.

HCR is in trouble, and not from Ron Johnson's silly cries of "repeal." Congress may regulate commerce, but it seems doubtful Congress may coerce into existence the commerce it's empowered to regulate.

And if the federales' taxing power argument keeps failing as hard as it did in Florida, then that coercion into existence is all it's got left.

It may be necessary, but is it proper? It's got to be both.