Debate notable for lack of debate

Mike Plaisted is not going to be pleased with me. Neither is Renato Umali. I really wanted to get down to the Bremen Café in Riverwest last night, where both of them were performing. But I've been fighting off a nasty cold for the last few days and wound up snoozing under a blanket for most of the evening. Next time, gentlemen, I promise.

Renato is an easygoing guy, and I'm sure he'll forgive me. He probably won't even take back my 2005 Umali Award (long story). So is Plaisted, I imagine, and so will he, I hope. But maybe not when he finds out what I ended up doing instead of catching his acoustic set at the Bremen: I watched his arch-nemesis, Rick Esenberg, on the teevee.

Esenberg, along with three other local worthies, appeared on Milwaukee Public Television's long-running panel discussion series, 4th Street Forum, to debate religion and politics. Only one problem: they were all religious! And things didn't even start getting close to feisty until there were only about ten minutes left in the one-hour programme.

The Shark's fellow panelists were the Interaith Conference's Marcus White (he of "Coexist controversy" fame), Susan Vergeront, a former State legislator and "Christian Nurturer," and Renee Crawford, associate director of the local ACLU.

Ms. Crawford was pretty cool, although she didn't appear much inclined to mix it up with her fellow panelists. Man, I wish I'd been there, if only to pass Renee a few talking points. As a friend of mine comically described — I believe it was — Duran-Leonard II, "The lack of violence was sickening."

Some of the discussion was directed toward the religiosity of the current and past presidential candidates, and the appropriateness of their advertising their various religious beliefs as some kind of qualification for public office. To her credit, Ms. Crawford mentioned the No Religious Test Clause of the Constitution, but Esenberg the lawyer was quick to point out that this is purely an "institutional" proscription, in that it only prevents actions by the government.

The obvious response to that is two-fold: (1) the language of that clause is among the most forceful in the Constitution, and it's not unreasonable to extend its admonition as a directive, or at least a suggestion, to the populace and (2) the Constitution famously begins with the words, "We the people," not "We the lawyers." See (1).

Esenberg finally did get a chance, however, to enunciate his curious hypothesis that government neutrality toward religion is impossible, and its pretense should be abandoned, because government's influence is nowadays so pervasive that no matter what it does, it's bound to offend someone and possibly even interfere with somebody's "free exercise" of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

He gave, as a rather unfortunate example in my view, the idea of public schools informing students that sexual orientation is primarily an objective matter of biological imperative and should be regarded as such may impinge on some students' rights to freely exercise their own religious beliefs that gay people are icky and Hellbound.

Esenberg was challenged by a woman in the audience, who essentially asked — and I'm paraphrasing liberally here, but I believe this was the import of her inquiry — 'Do you mean to tell us, Mr. Esenberg, that secular notions of respect for individual human dignity should be sacrificed in favor of atavistic devotion to ignorance and bigotry?'

Score. You go, lady in the gray sweater.

Other than that, there was little friskiness to be had, and my own favorite religio-political subject, creationism, didn't pop up until nearly the end of the show, when Pastor Vergeront made some sideways appeal to making room in science for irrationality, and lamented the fact that creationists are often not treated respectfully.

Now, I'm no Christian Nurturer myself, but it's my understanding that the man they call Christ had little patience for liars, hypocrites, and deceivers either. At that point, Ms. Crawford suggested that "intelligent design" be taught as a separate course, which begs the question, "What will they do after the three minutes it takes to explain, and enumerate the evidence for, 'intelligent design'?"

They need to have me on that show. I could shake 'em up a bit. Or at least get myself Tasered by security for insolence.

John McAdams: FAIL

The blogger at From Where I Sit asks:

Being an agnostic, I find this observation by John McAdams at Marquette Warrior interesting:

But not believing in God doesn’t change the fact that people have a deep desire to feel righteous, to feel clean and redeemed and right with God — or with something equivalent to God.

What do you think, does he have a point?

No. People who don't believe in God pretty clearly don't have desires to feel right (or wrong) with something they don't believe in. Nor do they seek redemption from non-existent saviors. And, obviously, aspirations to righteousness and cleanliness don't need to have anything to do with God at all. The latter has more to do with shampoo and laundry detergent.

As for "something equivalent to God," when the believers arrive at anything approaching consensus with respect to the alleged attributes of God (which will be never*), then maybe we can talk. Not even the Bible is consistent when it comes to describing said attributes.

McAdams is doing nothing more than projecting and, furthermore, it's the height of fatuousness to claim insights as to the "deep desires" of atheists, or anyone else for that matter, let alone portray those insights as "fact." Prove it.

One thing we can all — figuratively speaking, of course — thank God for is that Prof. McAdams isn't teaching theology. Or logic.

* Case in point.

Musical notes: On histrionics

A lovely and devoted reader sent through this recent New York Times article, which is about concert pianists engaging in physical histrionics at the instrument. Since it was elicited by my post about Glenn Gould here, and the article uses him as an example of said histrionics, I'm compelled to defend the late Mr. Gould against these silly accusations.*

First of all, it must be stressed that the effective performance of J.S. Bach's keyboard works requires a degree of concentration that may be fairly described as verging on the superhuman. Bach's collection of 48 Preludes and Fugues, Das wohltemperierte Clavier, has been aptly portrayed as the Old Testament of the piano repertoire (Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas being the New).

Additionally, Bach's Goldberg Variations, which Gould recorded twice, once at the outset and once at the conclusion of his career, is so technically difficult few pianists even attempt it, let alone completely own it, as Mr. Gould did.

So it isn't any wonder their execution might involve a few grimaces and head bobs on the part of the performer. Bearing this in mind, here is what Bernard Holland of the Times wrote:

More often, I suspect, performers just want everyone to know how wonderful they are, right down to their virtuoso fingertips. There are bad examples out there. Liszt evidently jumped around when he was a young touring virtuoso, but he is said to have sat at the piano like a stone later in life. Glenn Gould, who acted out his musical eccentricities with remarkable finesse, looked like the music he was making.

The bad example, as any self-respecting classical music critic should know, is placing Glenn Gould in this context.

Number one, Gould detested the flamboyant Franz Liszt and most of his Romantic contemporaries. Take a look at Gould's extensive recorded catalog; it's as if the 19th century never happened.

Second, Gould was a "touring virtuoso" for only a short time. The fact is, Gould gave up public performances for good in 1964 at the age of 31, devoting the remaining 20 years of his life to recording and other solitary pursuits. To the extent that Gould wanted anyone to know how "wonderful he was," it was through getting people to listen to the music, and not watching him play it. That people were watching him is precisely the reason Gould eschewed the concert stage.

Not only that, but Glenn Gould was among the most notorious and nocturnal hermits of all time, and any suggestion that he craved public notoriety at all is stuff and nonsense. I daresay the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's most excellent music writer Tom Strini would never commit such a stupendous faux pas.

In other musical notes, my good buddy the Brew City Brawler, in the course of checking out his homage to a few seminal American punk bands, inspires me to two things: pull out my original Bad Brains ROIR cassette, and point to a couple of amusing commentaries by Henry Rollins, the former frontman of Black Flag:

Dear Ann Coulter (YouTube, 2:25)

Evolution (YouTube, 2:44)

While it may be fair (albeit simultaneously absurd) comment for some unintentionally comic buffoon to claim this here blog is riddled with "anti-Christian bigotry," let it not be said that my penchant for diverse musical appreciations is anything but catholic. And speaking of Catholics, be sure to check out the Brawler's takes on the latest developments within and without the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

* Which are in no sense whatsoever any reflection on my lovely and devoted reader, I hasten to add.

Mitt out you

Like many Americans, I was both dumbfounded and speechless at Mitt Romney's idiotic and internally contradictory message to a gathering of alternately disenchanted and vocally disgruntled conservative Republicans yesterday.

Fortunately for the speechless, there is Jon Stewart.

That is the best Johnny Carson impression, by the way.

And, as Dana Milbank observed, Mr. Romney doesn't really believe the appeal to Democratic terrorism he claims is the reason he's "suspended" his presidential bid. That's because it would be embarrassing to tell the truth, which is simply that Mrs. Mitt Romney ordered him to stop pissing away all that dough.

After all, "strong families" was one of the three legs on Mitt's "campaign stool." Come to think of it, Romney's CPAC speech was a freestanding and fragrant campaign stool all of its own accord.

Death of irony confirmed

"Like I said, I give very little credence* to a gang lead [sic] by IT who posts from the 'Champagne of Hate Blogs' and touts his 'Anti-Christian Bigotry' bona fides on his sidebar."

— a college Republican

See also: the ad hominem fallacy.

* Down On The Corner

The anti-Federalist Society

Esteemed counsel Mike Plaisted has thrown down another priceless commentary related to the April 1 election contest between Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman of Burnett County. I offer the link partly in self-serving recognition of his generously framed glances in my direction, but also for a couple of other reasons.

The first is to note the obvious: Plaisted's central point addressing young GOPer Daniel Suhr's regurgitation of the Gableman campaign's thus far unsupported claim that Justice Butler "consistently sides with criminals over law enforcement" is completely ignored by Suhr when he turns up in Plaisted's comments thread.

Suhr, who describes the claim as "an effective punch from the Gableman campaign," instead uses the opportunity to break the news that Microsoft now allows us to convert Word documents to Adobe Acrobat files and to confirm how much he likes his bibliography of, as Plaisted puts it, "Everyone Who Said Anything Bad About Butler."

Earlier, Mr. Suhr got himself definitively schooled on statistical methodology by Clutch, another highly instructive comment that, for one reason or another, Suhr chose not to respond to.

I should add that I happen to know what Clutch does for a living and, without revealing too much, can reasonably predict that he would easily qualify as an expert witness in the discipline according to either the Frye or the Daubert standards (those are two U.S. Supreme Court cases that address the elements of how to go about evaluating the admission of expert testimony).

That Suhr insists on regarding the Gableman claim as an "effective punch" while continuing to ignore requests that he support it serves only as more confirmation that Suhr's project is 95% GOP politics and 5% reading the cases (and the latter only where they allegedly provide positive servicing of the former).

Instead, what Suhr and Rick Esenberg — who also makes an appearance in Plaisted's comments — object to is Plaisted's suggestion that Esenberg and Suhr were somehow in league over the production of Suhr's "research briefings," which he's since helpfully forwarded to the Gableman campaign.

While you can't blame either of them for denying it, you can hardly fault Plaisted for putting it forth either. Plaisted has documented a number of connections between Marquette Law School, the Federalist Society, and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the latter two outfits being among the anti-Butler forces.

As for the law school itself, it should be noted that Esenberg's boss, the individual who brought him aboard the faculty, Dean Joseph Kearney, is himself a Federalist Society man. And Dean Kearney can boast the most impeccable Fed Soc credential of all: he clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.

For Esenberg's part, he's written a series of lengthy posts attempting to rebut some of the things I've said here. The posts, although entitled, "Setting the record straight," rebut very little. The detail he finally did catch me on by the third in the series I acknowledged immediately and added a correction to the original post.

What Esenberg's series does is explain some of the philosophical groundwork for Esenberg's own objections to Louis Butler's jurisprudence, at least as Esenberg sees it. That is legitimate commentary and he does not ineptly or misleadingly manipulate the law to make his point. His Fed Soc paper, "A Court Unbound?" is available here, is very well written, and is well worth reading.

(As mentioned previously, "A Court Unbound" is the theme of WMC's World Tour of Breakfasts, which kicks off next week.)

A Consistency Unbound By Political Convenience?

Now for some philosophical observations of my own. The Federalist Society gets its name and purports to take its guidance from James Madison. Of all the Framers of the Constitution, Madison was its most assiduous assembler and defender. He, together with Alexander Hamilton, is one of the principal authors of the Federalist Papers, a series of 85 brilliant polemics in defense of the Constitution that appeared in the New York press in the immediate aftermath of the Constitution's drafting during the summer of 1787.

The Federalist position initially was that the Constitution did not require a Bill of Rights, because federal power was already self-limiting, expressed as it was in a series of specifically enumerated powers; for example, Article I, Section 8, which sets forth the powers of Congress (most of them). Ultimately the anti-Federalist forces, who distrusted federal power in favor of local control, won out, and Madison himself shepherded the Bill of Rights through Congress. The Bill of Rights consists of either the first eight or the first ten of the Amendments to the Constitution, depending on which scholar you read.

Regardless, the heart of the Bill of Rights is a set of protections against the government afforded to criminal defendants, contained in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments. While these restrictions originally applied only to the federal government, they have since been deemed applicable to the States through the legal force of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which is a directive to the States.

Additionally, the States have their own bills of rights, the language of which in many instances is identical, or functionally identical ("substantially similar," in the lawyerly vernacular) to the federal Bill of Rights.

The U.S. Supreme Court is charged by the Constitution with interpreting the scope of the federal protections and, hence, these must be followed by the States, as a minimum. In other words, the States may interpret not only the federal Bill of Rights more broadly than has the U.S. Supreme Court, but they may interpret their own State bills of rights more broadly than has the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the federal Bill of Rights.

For example, there is nothing in the federal constitutional scheme that forbids a State from finding a police search unreasonable even though the U.S. Supreme Court may have found a similar search not unreasonable.

Lately, ironically, we have Federalist Society members and their fellow travelers denouncing as "activist" opinions of Justice Butler's that they claim reject federal control, in the form of U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of the Bill of Rights, in favor of self-determination by the State of Wisconsin, by way of its own interpretation of its own State bill of rights.

Ironic because this is precisely the sort of State power the anti-Federalists sought to preserve. Now here are the self-styled Federalists criticizing Justice Butler for exercising it.

Go figure.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

Haggard gayhab seed finds no purchase

Dear New Life Church family and friends,

Today, our church's board of trustees will release a statement regarding the end of the restoration process for Ted Haggard.

They tried to make me go to gayhab / I said no, no, no.

h/t livius the great.

Next exit: Fictionberg

dueling billboards

h/t PZ.

Brooks & Dunn it is, then

The poor man's Bruce Springsteen has prevailed upon the poor man's Ronald Reagan to cease and desist with the campaign tunes:

In an e-mail this week to campaign manager Rick Davis, Mellencamp's publicist suggested McCain should find the singer's rousing classic-rockers like "Pink Houses" and "Our Country" to be an "embarrassment."

"Mr. Mellencamp identifies very strongly with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and was supportive (with these same songs!) of the candidacy of John Edwards . . ."

Back in the day, the real Springsteen was similarly taken aback at the real Reagan's comically misguided reading of Bruce's powerful antiwar anthem, Born in the U.S.A. Republicans, they never learn.

One for the road: The River

Pewaukee's winger shindig

This weekend's conservative love-in at Pewaukee, among its featured assortment of reliable right-wingers, advertises as an invited speaker Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, arguably one of the fruitiest nuts — if not a nuttiest fruit — in American politics.

While there are any number of Coburn entertainments to be found throughout the internets, including Coburn's demand for his own lethal injection, since he's advocated the death penalty for abortion providers despite having provided them himself, a couple of gems are reported in this American Prospect article from 2005.

Following a discussion of Coburn's revelations of rampant lesbianism in Oklahoma high school bathrooms, there is this:

At the end of January, Coburn, who has landed on the Senate Judiciary Committee (where nobody cares how many people go to the bathroom at once), was talking about class-action lawsuits and the silicon-breast implants that occasioned a few of them. This, according to The Washington Post, is what he said:

"And I thought I would share with you what science says today about silicone-breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows."

Torts reform, teats reform, whatever.

Coburn's devotion to "ultimate science" continues here, with a thorough evisceration of the Junior Senator's opposition to naming an OK post office after Rachel Carson, author of The Silent Spring.

Finally, at Salon.com, a disturbing account of Dr. Coburn's having sterilized a 20-year-old woman in 1990, allegedly without her consent.

All of this is in addition to Coburn's hysterical claim that "the gay agenda," which "wields extreme power," is "the greatest threat to our freedom we face today." Al-Qaeda is a gay front group, apparently. And doubtless those rampant teenage lesbians are right there with them, destroying America one high school washroom stall at a time.

Talk about a wide stance.

While Coburn was invited to the love-fest, he isn't listed on its own non-gay agenda, so maybe Coburn was either too batshit wacky even for the "summit," or vice versa. But they did manage to secure Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman and local blogger Owen Robinson, whose presentation is reported to consist of holding up Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel clippings and remarking, "Interesting!"

Another local blogger, Mike Mathias, also received an invitation to speak, except Saturday's the day he sets aside for rearranging his sock drawer.

eta: It's called the DAD summit and admission is $29. Hmm.

Glenn Gould revisited

I felt a little bad about criticizing Canadian pianist Glenn Gould's playing of the Mozart sonatas, on the occasion of that composer's 252nd birthday. Now I feel I need to make amends. So, below are links to Glenn Gould performing J.S. Bach's Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828.

The keyboard Partitas (there are six of them, originally published in the late 1720s) are suites of short pieces derived from French dance forms, as indicated by the movement titles. Bach composed a number of such works for various instruments. The music is ingenious and sublime and these performances are unparalleled, as are all of Glenn Gould's Bach recordings. Additionally the YouTube transfers are close to as good as they get, no pixellation and with the audio in near perfect sync with the pictures.

Apart from his sheer brilliance, they also highlight a few of Glenn Gould's numerous eccentricities, including the humming, the self-conducting, and the famous battered dining room chair with its legs sawn off.

Enjoy, and marvel. 2008 is the Year of Glenn Gould.

I. Ouverture (4:51) II. Allemande (5:44) III. Courante (3:14)
IV. Aria (1:14) V. Sarabande (5:15) VI. Menuet (1:18)
VII. Gigue (1:23)

Super Tiw's Day

Here's a worthwhile piece at ABCNews.com, concerning a number of questions that might be put to at least two of the remaining aspirants to the presidency, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. One in particular, directed at the fomer Arkansas governor, merits a bit of additional commentary:

Article 19 of the Arkansas state constitution states, "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court." Although it and similar laws in other states are not enforced, do you support their formal repeal?

It amazes me that such completely irrational nonsense continues to exist on the books, let alone that it was put there in the first place.

The latter component, dealing with competency to stand as a witness in court, is particularly bizarre. While it derives from an arcane notion in the law of evidence (since abandoned) that a witness' credibility and reliability for stating truthful observations somehow obtain from "swearing to god," it utterly contradicts more reasonable notions of credibility relied on by the government almost daily.

When, for example, criminal suspects are questioned by the authorities, their statements are deemed to be especially credible because those statements are made "against their penal interest." In other words, the truthfulness of the statements is assessed against the suspect's informed knowledge that those statements may well end up putting her or him in the slammer, or, in some States, prostrate upon the lethal injection slab.

Why not, similarly, the testimony of an atheist? Because for a large majority of Americans, a declaration of non-belief in god has less to do with such temporal inconveniences as life in prison or state-sanctioned homicide but the skewering of the heathen on the eternal rotisserie of hellfire and damnation. So, for the believer at least, what statement could possibly be more representative of "against their penal interest" than "I don't believe in gods"?

Much religion is silly enough on its own without injecting it into politics or worse, codifying its imaginary prescriptions into the laws of the land, where we all live for the time being.

Back atcha, James Rowen

Jane Hampden's series on Milwaukee Public Radio about local bloggers continued yesterday by featuring an interview with James Rowen, who maintains the most excellent, informative, and thought-provoking The Political Environment.

Rowen's journalistic and political résumé indicates that he's "been everywhere, man," as Johnny Cash happens to be putting it on my iPod at the moment. Mr. Rowen was also kind enough to mention your humble correspondent when asked to name a few of his blogosphere recommendations. "A lot of people have cited that blog," replied Ms. Hampden, "that mysterious blog." But I haven't heard from her yet, despite what I've been told is my sexy radio voice.

Additionally, Mr. Rowen's son is currently running for an aldermanic seat in Milwaukee's 3rd District. That election takes place on February 19, the day of Wisconsin's presidential primary. Given that the Democratic nominee appears unlikely to shake out today, the 19th could be a momentous day nationally, and here's hoping a big turn-out favors Sam McGovern-Rowen.

Yes, that George McGovern; Sam is George's grandson, and the eldest McGovern will be in town next Tuesday. I'm a bit too young to remember Senator McGovern's own bid for the presidency, my impressions of the man coming initially from Hunter S. Thompson's masterwork, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, but I'm not as young as James Rowen thinks I am either!

The Other Side shares a nifty George McGovern reminiscence here.

A Roger Goodell Joint

An informal straw poll, conducted yesterday in the city of Glendale, WI, among my friends, colleagues, and disciples, leads me to believe that most of them are today pleased with the New York Giants' Super Bowl win. My own favoring of the NYG was informed by their desire to avenge the narrow loss to the Patriots in Week 17 and a general sympathy toward the underdog in all things sporting.

Tom Petty was a safe choice for the halftime show, beleaguered as the NFL has been with abominations such as Justin Timberlake's grasping at Janet Jackson's nipple and Up With People. I'm not much of a fan, and consider it remarkable when his efforts rise to the level of rock 'n' roll competency.* But I wished he'd played that song of his about taking massive hits off the bong or rolling another spliff or something. It's always been my favorite.

That may not have gone over real well with Commissioner Goodell, but I bet a lot of the players would have dug it too.

* Is that an album title or what.

Butler "rather fond" of own opinions

And that, my friends, is supposed to somehow, some way count as what lawyers and judges refer to as "precedent." I kid you not.

Read (including the comments).

Amazing.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

What's Herbie Hancock up to these days

Playing piano for Barack Obama.

Catchy tune.

Gableman: Over the rainbow and out to lunch

Last Tuesday during his debate with Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler, Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman let fly this startling little shot across the bow:

[Butler] has a substantial and consistent history of legislating from the bench and we don't have too look far or long to find a series of cases that reflect that. I think what he said here today sounded very good, but in addition to all these longstanding case precedents he cited, I remember reading one case where he cited The Wizard of Oz and based decisions on social science studies that were manufactured at colleges and universities.

Gableman was apparently referring to a 2005 decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court called State v. Dubose (.pdf; 63 pgs.).

Gableman's remark is instructive for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it raises the question whether he even knows what he's talking about. As for 'citation,' it's a term of art, and it means something specific to lawyers. Aspirants to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in my opinion, shouldn't play fast and loose with legal terms of art for the sake of mugging in front of the crowd.

It's not only misleading, it's dishonest, because one would expect Judge Gableman to fully understand what is meant by them.

First of all, Dubose was authored by Justice Patrick Crooks, not Butler. Second, Dubose embodies a very complicated due process analysis that involves revisiting a number of Wisconsin and U.S. Supreme Court cases in light of a considerable amount of more recently obtained empirical data having to do with the reliability of eyewitness evidence, and in particular evidence gathered through a certain type of police identification procedure. To put it mildly, Dubose does not lend itself to one-liner soundbites, especially the utterly nonsensical one offered by Gableman.

And one has to be especially careful reading Dubose because it contains three separate dissents, by Justices Wilcox, Prosser, and Roggensack. Each takes issue with the majority opinion for different reasons. It requires some serious work just to tease out the competing strands of analysis in Dubose, let alone portray it accurately for the layperson. To reduce it to, "He cited The Wizard of Oz" is, on a charitable reading, an act of negligence and, to my mind at least, raises a concern as to Gableman's suitability for the position he seeks.

While Butler joins Crooks's DuBose opinion in full, he writes separately only to shed light on a failure he detects in Justice Roggensack's dissent. To wit, Roggensack relies, at one point, on the very data she had derided as "disputed social science theory" only a few paragraphs previous. That's about the entire thrust of Butler's very brief concurring opinion. His apparent sin, to return to Gableman's dishonest characterization, was to criticize Roggensack's skepticism over the empirical data by saying this:

Unless, and until, we improve eyewitness identification procedures so that the likelihood of irreparable misidentification is significantly reduced, we can no longer proceed as though all is good in the Land of Oz.

That's it. A figure of speech, hardly the "citation" that Gableman would attempt to have us believe.

Incidentally, our good friend Daniel Suhr is also completely wrong (surprise) when he claims that Butler wrote to "especially defend" the majority's use of the empirical data. He was not "especially defending" the majority, he was "especially criticizing" one of the dissents for a glaring error of reasoning. It is notable, however, that Suhr also makes an issue of Butler's offhand reference to the "Land of Oz." It's almost as if Gableman was presented with Suhr's "Research Briefing" in preparation for his debate with Butler. D'ya think?

Suhr, by the way, can be more easily excused for his ineptitude than can Gableman, since Suhr hasn't sworn his lawyer's oath yet. (If there's a god in heaven, my humble prayer to her or him is that Daniel Suhr pulls Justice Butler for his swearing-in ceremony.)

Gableman's portrayal of empirical data as "manufactured" at colleges and universities is also quite telling, and he is kidding himself — and the Wisconsin electorate — if he thinks he'll just be able to laugh off relevant empirical studies prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice if and when he finds himself on the Supreme Court.

It's often said that there's a crock of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it appears that Judge Gableman is entertaining us to a crock of something else, something more fragrant than gold.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

Lower than the serpent's belly

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Two mentally disabled women were strapped with explosives Friday and sent into busy Baghdad markets, where they were blown up by remote control, a top Iraqi government official said.

I can't imagine anything more depraved.

Friday fallacy funnies

One of my pet peeves (I tend to cultivate a number of them) turns on the expression "ad hominem" as it is often popularly applied. Many people think it means simply "insult," as if calling someone a stooge or a buffoon is an ad hominem. Not so.

Argumentum ad hominem (argument against the man, or person) is a type of logical fallacy, committed when one attempts to undermine an opponent's argument by claiming something about the opponent's character affects the quality of the argument itself. The fallacy obtains from the fact that there is no logical connection between the argument stated and the character of the person putting forward the argument. In other words, bad people can make good arguments; being bad cannot per se make your argument bad.

Misunderstandings over what ad hominem means are not confined to your garden variety Daily Kos comment-leaving trolls, either. Consider the following, from a quartet of well-heeled Milwaukee attorneys working for silk stocking firms down the road from your humble correspondent:

False advertisements or ad hominem attacks are never appropriate. But Wisconsin citizens are smart enough to distinguish between fair criticism and scurrilous smears.

"Scurrilous smears" are not in and of themselves ad hominem. While ad hominem may involve a scurrilous smear, ad hominem requires that the smear is put to use for the purpose of undermining an otherwise perfectly valid and well supported argument. A smear or an insult standing alone are just those, a smear or an insult.

Another thing about the ad hominem is that they are often easy to find, although truly textbook quality examples are less common. By fortuitous coincidence I just happened to find one this morning at, of all places, the online lair of one Daniel Suhr (see below) made all the more comical by the website's title block, which declares the entire domain to be devoted to "Systematically Debunking Liberal Rhetoric."

Here, let me show you it.

Following a wistful missive entitled, "I'm tired of John McCain's lies," a fellow named Gregory chimes in to offer a number of eminently reasonable observations on the recent GOP Florida presidential primary. Moments later, the aforementioned Suhrian associate Brian, author of the wistful missive, rejoins:

Gregory,

You’re a Democrat. That isn’t an accusation, that’s a fact. Do you think I’m going to take anything you say seriously? Of course liberals like you prefer McCain to Romney. So does the collectivist New Yawk Times.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is worthy of submittal to Prentice Hall.

And the spanking continues

Oh my deary, deary me.

Of State v. Knapp, the anti-Butler forces' signature criminal case:

What you leave out with this creative use of the passive voice is the fact that the police INTENTIONALLY VIOLATED THE SUSPECT’S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS specifically to obtain such a statement. This is not a case, as you suggest, of the police inadvertently failing to follow some obscure rule, but an intentional violation of the constitution. In fact, such a violation can be a federal crime. I think it’s 18 U.S.C. s.241 - violation of civil rights under color of state law.

Sounds familiar. That intentional violation was precisely the reason the Wisconsin Supreme Court distinguished its decision from United States v. Patane, the U.S. Supreme Court plurality opinion to which Daniel Suhr claimed Justice Butler "arrogantly" failed to "defer." In fact Butler also pointed this out during his online debate with Michael Gableman on Tuesday, when Gableman attempted to go after him over Knapp. Gableman had no response, incidentally, only the initial talking point. Said T.P. is not holding up real well.

And I believe Atty. Henak is referring to 42 U.S. § 14141, known in Department of Justice circles as the Police Misconduct Statute.

[eta: My mistake; see Atty. Henak's comment below. - iT]

There's more:

Let me get this right. Gableman’s campaign makes a statement that is demonstrably false, i.e., that Butler “consistently sides with criminals over law enforcement.” Butler then calls him on it and presents the facts that he has voted to affirm convictions in 98% of the cases presented to the Court. And you say that Butler is the one spinning the facts????? Get real!

And this coup de grâce:

Over the years, I have represented many people who were convicted of crimes it ultimately turned out they did not commit. Most of those reversals, by the way, were entered by the federal courts stacked with right-wing, GOP-appointed judges after the Wisconsin state courts had upheld the convictions.

Those crazy, madcap liberal activists! (Many of whom were appointees of the canonized St. Ronald Reagan, no doubt.)

Three more spankings, in a row, commencing here. Check 'em out.

Any suggestion that the hilariously ambitious Republican trickster Daniel Suhr quit while he's behind is not an attempt to stifle speech, but rather purely an expression of compassionate conservatism.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

Suhr spanked. Hard. Again.

Remember Daniel Suhr, the would-be GOP operative whose laughably dishonest attempts at scholarship were debunked right here? Sure you do. Doubtless young Daniel is favoring his tender posterior following on its latest unequivocal reaming. A daintier sample:

You and others attacking Justice Butler apparently want a right-wing automaton; someone who will automatically side with the police or the prosecutor regardless of the facts or the law. While I doubt that Judge Gableman would go that far, one wouldn’t know given the misleading propaganda attacking Justice Butler.

Ouchies. Read it all. Can't say he wasn't asking for it.

Comes GOP3 colleague Brian's devastating retort:

I try not to bore myself first with reading long liberal rants about the living constitution and second almost anything out of the mouth of lawyers.

I’ll leave Daniel to respond to inane thoughts about the law.

I'll admit D. Suhr, Esq. is uniquely qualified to dispense those.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

Where are all the brain fossils?

PZ Myers, a developmental biologist from Minnesota and proprietor of the famous blog Pharyngula, has announced for Jesus and converted to Christianity.

Not really, but he did turn up on a local Christian radio station today. And, to great comic effect, so did a man by the name of Geoffrey Simmons, one of the most idiotic creationists in recent memory.

Simmons is another of these "fellows" with the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank devoted to propagandizing on behalf of "intelligent design," the latest ongoing and spectacular failure at Reclaiming Science for Christ.™ Simmons has written a couple of books, one comparing Darwin's 19th century knowledge of physiology with 21st century medicine (Simmons is an M.D. and Darwin predictably doesn't fare very well) and another purporting to discuss in depth the fossil record.

Simmons's publisher, Harvest House Books, says it's committed to providing "products that affirm Biblical values" and "proclaim Jesus Christ as the answer to every human need." If Simmons ever needed Jesus, it was this afternoon. Some relevant facts would have been helpful also. Nay, verily, even just one. Sadly, it was not to be.

Apparently PZ was invited to impart on the topic of "evidence for evolution versus evidence for intelligent design" (read: tons v. none). But things began to go awry 90 minutes before airtime when PZ received a message from the station informing him that Simmons agreed to participate, but only on the patently ridiculous question, "Are Darwin's theories fact or faith issues?"

Despite immediately sensing shenanigans, PZ soldiered on, appeared at the appointed time, and proceeded to casually and affably pick clean the hapless bones of Dr. Simmons. According to the show's hosts, the audio will be available tomorrow at its website, KKMS.com. It's worth a listen.

During the "debate," Simmons made a number of false claims about the fossil record, an area in which, the radio hosts informed us, Simmons is "expert." Simmons, for example, declared there are no pre-whale fossils demonstrating some of the physical features characteristic of modern whales. The truth is, the evolutionary history of whales has involved some of the most revelatory endeavors in paleontology of late, owing to the discovery of a number of remarkable confirmations of evolution throughout the Indian Ocean.

PZ rattled off a number of such examples, none of which Simmons had even heard of, but said he'd once read an article in Scientific American, or something. While sleeping at a Holiday Inn, I bet.

One of the funnier exchanges occurred during a comparison of human and chimpanzee brains. Finding himself in uncomfortable agreement with PZ on the numerable close similarities, Simmons was moved to suddenly demur when PZ observed that the only substantive difference between the two organs was their relative volumes. Simmons then began to declaim on the distinctions, offering as evidence — wait for it — an anecdote about being able to play both concertos and "rock 'n' roll songs" on the piano.

Take that, godless evilutionist!

But the grandest insight came from another Discovery Institute drone, commenting at Uncommon Descent, the blog of William Dembski, one of ID's leading dim bulbs. The commenter, skeptical of PZ's claim that much is known about brain evolution, posed the apparently rhetorical question, "Does anyone know of any brain fossils?" This is what passes for evidence of intelligent design, incidentally. Life must have been designed because there are no brain fossils. While the Designer may have been intelligent, its disciples, not so much.

Never mind that the brain is composed of soft tissue, and is rather unlikely to fossilize. And never mind that the fossil record is only one of any number of evidences for evolution. Generally, it's bones that fossilize, so if a well preserved human brain is ever discovered, it's guaranteed to be that of a creationist.

WMC to restrict WJCIC speech restrictions

In a move that will likely be portrayed as a sop to its several critics, John B. Torinus, Jr. has been added to the State Bar's campaign watchdog committee, the WJCIC. Torinus is a board member of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), which last year directed more than $2 million toward the successful candidacy of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler.

Ziegler herself recently forfeited a $17,000 settlement in fines and fees pursuant to ethical violations while a judge in Washington County. Ziegler's case remains before her current colleagues, who are considering another panel of Wisconsin judges' recommendation that Justice Ziegler be publicly reprimanded for her ethical lapses.

A number of WMC's fellow travelers, whose common goal is apparently to replace Justice Louis Butler with the virtually unknown Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman, have expressed reservations about the WJCIC's motives and potential effects.

Gableman is being touted in several quarters as the conservative alternative to Butler, who has been breathlessly depicted as a detriment to the "safety, prosperity, and health of the citizens of many states, especially Wisconsin." For his own part, Gableman describes Butler as a "liberal" and an "activist" who "legislates from the bench" based on his "personal sympathies or feelings."

In fact, Gableman attempted to accuse Justice Butler of relying on "The Wizard of Oz" during an online debate Tuesday. Fortunately for Gableman, he has a number of surrogates gathering on the horizon more than eager to do the heavy lifting on his behalf.

A WMC Matrix Unbound?

Meanwhile, a quartet of downtown Federalist Society operatives recently criticized the WJCIC on the op-ed pages of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, decrying the committee's activities as "inappropriate," and urging the candidates not to sign the committee's proffered advertising agreement, which reflects existing Supreme Court Rules on judicial electioneering.

While Butler has since signed the agreement, Gableman said Tuesday he is "in discussions" with the committee.

Rick Esenberg, a newly minted professor of law at Marquette University, has criticized the WJCIC extensively at his widely influential blog, deriding it as "truth police," and suggested that the committee's interpretations of Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules may be unconstitutional according to his reading of a federal case called Duwe v. Alexander. (The one sentence in Duwe that might arguably apply to the present circumstances concerns questionnaires distributed to judicial candidates by Wisconsin Right to Life during a previous election cycle.)

Esenberg is also the author of a memo prepared for the Federalist Society entitled, "A Court Unbound?" That phrase coincidentally happens to be the same (sans the question mark, perhaps as a reply in the affirmative) as the one selected by WMC to promote its statewide series of "breakfast meetings," which kick off February 13. The 11-page memo was praised by an Esenberg research assistant as "the definitive work" on the Wisconsin Supreme Court's recent jurisprudence. [It's actually very well done and doesn't deserve ridicule on that basis, but the praise is completely over the top.]

Additionally, the WMC has produced a video presentation, also entitled "A Court Unbound," featuring Esenberg seated in a book-lined study and pronouncing on a series of philosophical issues.

The one-page .pdf announcing Torinus's addition to the WJCIC is available here. The inevitable shenanigans that will ensue between now and the April 1 election will be available here and elsewhere.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

John McCain said a bad, bad thing

The Prince of Darkness dishes some more dirt this morning, confirming John Fund's previous dishery that Senator John McCain described U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito as "too conservative." McCain, in the meantime, has been makin' flippy floppy,* calling Alito a "magnificent choice" for the Court.

Reports Novakula:

I found what McCain could not remember: a private, informal chat with conservative Republican lawyers shortly after he announced his candidacy in April 2007. I talked to two lawyers who were present whom I have known for years and who have never misled me. One is neutral in the presidential race, and the other recently endorsed Mitt Romney. Both said they were not Fund's source, and neither knew I was talking to the other. They gave me nearly identical accounts, as follows:

"Wouldn't it be great if you get a chance to name somebody like Roberts and Alito?" one lawyer commented. McCain replied, "Well, certainly Roberts." Jaws were described as dropping. My sources cannot remember exactly what McCain said next, but their recollection is that he described Alito as too conservative.

Grow legs, story, grow legs!

All of which is a cheap excuse to revisit Robert Smigel's hilarious "Fun With Real Audio" segment from Saturday Night Live devoted to the now-Chief Justice John Roberts Senate confirmation hearings:

"I hesitate to opine ..." (QuickTime, 2:28)

* Feat. Jerry Harrison of Milwaukee, WI.

By how much can you miss a point

Über-Catholic Dad29, when he's not obsessively navel gazing over liturgical minutiae, occasionally unearths some classic material. For example this gem, delivered in elegantly scented Jesuit prose, alleged to debunk a couple of recent bestsellers, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens's God is Not Great.

Via ol' Dad, Fr. Edward Oakes, S.J. (I can never see those initials without thinking of Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S.J., one of Ambrose Bierce's fictional collaborators on The Devil's Dictionary) disgorges the following:

It is ... blinkered ahistorical myopia that makes reading these books such a surreal experience. For like a “red thread” running through all their other arguments, each book has one central claim: Belief in God causes violence. The obvious corollary to this thesis is almost too absurdly risible to merit formulation, and some authors are just coy (or embarrassed) enough not to say it out loud; but others are bolder and shout it from the rooftops: If only atheism would take hold as the majority view throughout the globe, humans would lose their propensity for violence, lion would nestle beside the lamb, children would regain their long-lost happiness, swords would magically turn into plowshares, churches would empty and the resultant collapse in the market-price for incense would alone reverse global warming.

Eh, no. Neither author claims that said belief is the sole cause of violence, nor that the absence of belief would eradicate all violence. Only that belief has led to much violence, and postulates that whatever violence proceeded from belief may well have not occurred in its absence. So that leaves Oakes, S.J. with, well, appeals to Adolf Hitler and Joe Ratzinger, as it turns out. In other words, nothing.

Speaking of risible, as if on cue, the esteemed Professor John McAdams wanders cluelessly into ol' Dad's comments thread to deposit this profoundly rudimentary misunderstanding:

[Re:] The burden of proof is on the one making a claim.

Yea [verily?], but saying God exists is a claim, and saying that He does not is a claim.

Your claims don't get any special advantages.

Except Dawkins, for one, makes no such claim. Dawkins is a scientist, and scientists don't go around claiming to prove the non-existence of beings, supernatural or otherwise. In fact, throughout Dawkins's frequently uproariously funny book, he allows for the — albeit vanishingly small — possibility of "god." His point is that the evidence for it is nil and the arguments in favor of its existence are so threadbare and unconvincing, it's more than reasonable to rule out god in the meantime, for the most part.

That being the 99.99999999999999999999999999999% part.

This is generally the position of most atheists, and also why the claims are not comparable as McAdams seems to think.

Oddly enough, ol' Dad's webpage prominently displays an animated "God Bless America" graphic, which in turn features images of the destruction of the World Trade Center. If memory serves, that event was engineered and conducted by a gentleman named Mohammed Atta, who left frighteningly detailed directions as to the proper ablutions to be performed over his corpse on the occasion of his successful religious martyrdom and ensconcement at Valhalla.

Notably, he didn't ask to be buried with copies of Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Note: The author denies his insolence is evidence for the existence of god, although he acknowledges the argument has been made.

A Gableman moment

One of the revelatory moments that occurred in yesterday's online debate between Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman came after a caller, Dan from Milwaukee, asked Butler how the latter went about building the list of group and individual endorsements listed on his campaign website.

Butler, following on his reiteration that the election itself is a non-partisan affair, stated that his endorsements were collected from "across the board," including from within groups that are traditionally associated with Republicans.

Gableman, in an awkward play at carpe-ing the diem, remarked that, "I notice my opponent says he's reached out to Republicans. Does that mean he's the Democrat?" Except Butler mentioned that he'd also gathered support from groups traditionally associated with Democrats, yet that prompted no penetrating inquiry from Gableman as to whether that meant Butler is "the" Republican.

Probably because Gableman is "the" Republican.

Not only that, but during his own opening statement, Gableman had specifically appealed to the support he enjoys among Democratic sheriffs and district attorneys. Whoops!

Hopefully this isn't the sort of comically selective reasoning Gableman intends to apply at the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

A pox on WisPolitics.com

WisPolitics.com, which touts itself as "Wisconsin's Premier Political News Service," somehow managed to crank out 20 paragraphs (short ones, granted) on this afternoon's online encounter between Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman without once invoking the name of the young man who moderated the debate.

His name is Kyle Duerstein, a student in UWM's Journalism program, and he acquitted himself impressively well throughout the 75-minute broadcast, in addition to performing an important and innovative public service, for which I assume he received no remuneration.

Surely he at least merits a mention, by name.

Duerstein's own blog is here. Just because the selection of links on his blogroll is indicative of a disturbingly horrific propensity toward conservative politics doesn't mean he deserves to be snubbed.

UPDATE: WisPolitics has since credited young Mr. Duerstein for his exemplary performance. Now if WisPolitics will periodically add this here blog to its daily "editorial links," all will be right with The World.

Butler / Gableman call-in

UWM Journalism student Kyle Duerstein has scored a radio interview with Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman, slated to begin this afternoon at 4:30 (that's Central Standard Time [UTC-6] for all you devoted readers at the Deutscher Bundestag).

The live broadcast will be available here, from the looks of it.

Call in and ask Judge Gableman how come he ruled to deny insurance coverage to a 14-year girl who was thrown from a vehicle and severely injured in April, 2002.

Meanwhile, Gableman has received the endorsement of our friend, the Republican Congressman and dedicated historical revisionist, Paul Ryan. Said Ryan: "Wisconsin voters can trust the Judge Gableman won’t look for loopholes for criminals to crawl through.”

Don't look at me, that's what it says at Gableman's webpage.

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

Metro temperatures, IQ to plummet

Milwaukee can bid farewell to both today's balmy temperatures and its mean IQ score by Wednesday, as a bitter cold front brings sub zero weather back to the Cream City, a drop of potentially more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

While seasoned Metro residents can be counted on to brave the latest winter weather snap, a recently spotted marquee at The Rave advertising the Jan. 30 appearance of popular Detroit "singer" Kid Rock serves notice that the "entertainer" will concurrently wreak havoc on the Milwaukee area's overall IQ, which normally enjoys an above-average score in the 115-120 Stanford-Binet range.

Mr. Rock is expected to draw vanloads of adequately functioning brain stems from neighboring Waukesha and Racine counties, who for several hours on Wednesday will reduce Metro Milwaukee's mean IQ to dangerous, "low moron" levels.

Milwaukee previously endured a similar crisis in overall intelligence during the visit last year of Mr. Rock's fellow Michigander Ted "Motor City Madman" Nugent, also to The Rave.

"The city can generally handle these precipitous drops in IQ," said Marquette University Professor of Developmental Psychology Waldo Jeffers, "but both Nugent and Rock are also reportedly conservative Republicans, so the hazards are especially acute."

"The upside for Michigan," Jeffers added, "is that with Kid Rock out on tour and Ted Nugent living in Waco, Texas, it's looking statistically like frickin' MENSA Central over there."

Mr. Rock and entourage are scheduled to make their way along Wisconsin Ave. early Wednesday afternoon, and additional armed guards and paparazzi will be placed inside the George Webb restaurant at 16th and Wells just in case the crew decides to venture out for a few plates of waffles and a drunken punch-up.

However, by late Thursday Metro Milwaukee's IQ should be stabilized, and Prof. Jeffers said no further imminent threats are known, at least until former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley comes to town in March.

Source: The Rave.

Loophole hooey and the WJCIC

Ever since the President of the State Bar of Wisconsin, Tom Basting, formed a committee (the WJCIC) to monitor the ongoing and future election campaign between Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler and Burnett County Circuit Court Judge Michael Gableman, the First Amendment paranoia has been flying thick and furious.

It's plainly unconstitutional! It's an attempt to regulate speech!! zOMG teh librulz!!!!11 Et cetera, et cetera.

Never mind, apparently, that any regulation of speech is already embodied in Chapter 60 (.pdf; 38 pgs.) of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules. What the WJCIC has done is merely distilled from the Rules an advertising agreement which simply reminds the main players to abide by those Rules. It has also, in what seems to me a decidedly innocuous request for a mutual gesture of good faith, asked that the two principals sign and return the agreement.

Now we have Rick Esenberg of Marquette University Law School conjuring an invocation of a "Basting test" according to which, presumably, statements made during the campaign are assessed. No word yet on the actual elements of the mysterious Basting test, although a number of clues may be discerned in the popular press.

In an op-ed piece that appeared ten days ago in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel condemning the State Bar's "improper role," four corporate attorneys* from three of Milwaukee's largest law firms weighed in with their extrapolations upon the WJCIC agreement. (I hope it didn't take all four of them to come up with this jeremiad.)

"The pledge [sic] seeks to prevent the candidates from engaging in speech that the eight-person committee believes is false, unfair or otherwise offensive," they write.

It does? The closest thing the agreement comes to presenting the WJCIC as an adjudicator on Truth, Justice, and the American Way is that it charges itself with "reviewing" campaign literature. It presents no such standards of "belief," other than those already set forth in the Supreme Court Rules and those Rules' explanatory commentary.

None other than Esenberg himself commended the op-ed in glowing terms. Esenberg, who assiduously seeks to portray himself as above the fray — and occasionally succeeds — has lent his credentials and views of the State judiciary to Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), a business group that last year devoted more than $2 million worth of issue advertising in generous service to the successful election of Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler, the formerly ethically-challenged circuit court judge from Washington County.

In fact it was the often low quality of that campaign's discourse that prompted Mr. Basting to institute the WJCIC in the first place. Something about protecting the integrity of the judiciary and the general view of the legal profession, or some such rubbish. As if the President of the State Bar has any business seeking to insinuate himself into these concerns. The cheek and temerity of that man!

Then WMC is embarking on a February World Tour (.pdf; 4 pgs.), at which Esenberg is the featured speaker, albeit his appearance will be live via DVD, hard copies of which will be distributed to the breakfasting revellers. It's unclear whether the DVD contains only Esenberg's mini-disquisition already available here, or an expanded, unedited version. But I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later.

Meanwhile, writing in Madison's independent weekly Isthmus, columnist David Blaska describes the WJCIC as a "front group" for the State Bar (although he also calls Michael Gableman "Max," which may be a strange, possibly Freudian typo or a personal term of endearment). But does Blaska seek out the actual text of the WJCIC's advertising agreement? Of course not, he takes the four corporate attorneys at their word, quotes exclusively from their J-S op-ed number, and concludes, "Tell the Bar's committee to go pound sand." (Emphasis in original.) Relying on secondary opinions when the primary authority is just as easily available ... great work.

No wonder Charles J. Sykes is evidently a fan (for it was He).

As for the advertising agreement itself, it would be difficult to dream up anything more innocuous or less sensibility-offending.

After a series of “whereases,” the actual statements that the two electioneering principals are urged to endorse are presented in numerical bullet points. Premised as they are in the Supreme Court Rules, I can't imagine anyone objecting to any of these blinding glimpses of the bleedin' obvious, with the possible exception of number five, which reads:

I agree, based upon my personal examination of judicial advertisements, to publicly disavow advertisements that impugn the integrity of the judicial system; falsely or unfairly impugn the integrity of a candidate for the Supreme Court; or erode public trust and confidence in the independence and impartiality of the judiciary by verbally or visually attempting to lead voters to believe that a candidate will decide issues or cases in a predetermined manner.

Donning my strict constructionist hat, I notice that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes reference to "abridging the freedom of speech." And I'm therefore at a loss to explain how an agreement to "publicly disavow," which necessarily implies more speech, is construed by some as having the effect of "abridging" speech, which means 'lessen.'

Personally, I couldn't care less whether either candidate signs the advertising agreement or not. I honestly don't think it would make much of a difference anyway. But I applaud and support Tom Basting's efforts at maintaining decorum and civility in a campaign where, given the conservative stakes articulated by Esenberg and the WMC, the discourse could very well degenerate in a hurry.

In a number of instances, it already has. Curiously, those instances seem to have emanated from supporters of Michael Gableman. So it makes one wonder what speech, exactly, the WJCIC's detractors are fearful at having "abridged." Mike Plaisted has some ideas.

* A tip o' the cheesehead to the redoubtable and ubiquitous John Foust for pointing out that the apocalyptic four are also actively involved with the Milwaukee Chapter of the Federalist Society (Warning: that last link may frighten children and small animals).

[Please visit the iT Butler/Gableman archive.]

W. A. Mozart

The last person that many people would prefer to hear playing Mozart — aside from Louis Farrakhan — is the late Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.

While Gould recorded all of Mozart's 17 sonatas for solo piano, he often performed them either agonizingly slowly or else so ridiculously uptempo as to make a mockery of them, in some instances rendering them almost unrecognizable compared to the traditional interpretations of Mitsuko Uchida, Daniel Barenboim, and the rest.

In any event, here's a snippet of Gould playing and discussing the theme and variations from Mozart's Piano Sonata in A, Kv 331:

Gould plays Mozart

Notice that Gould sarcastically refers to the more widely acknowledged tempi as the "Hollywood With Strings" versions.

It's frequently lamented among music lovers that Mozart, who was born on this day in 1756 and who succumbed to rheumatic fever in 1791 at the age of 35, died too soon. Gould, on the other hand, notoriously commented that Mozart "was a bad composer who died too late rather than too early." As one of the most gifted and remarkable musicians of the 20th century, Gould could get away with those sorts of observations. Unfortunately, Gould himself was only 50 when he left us in 1982.

Since Mozart by all accounts enjoyed a good joke, here's some dude performing the third movement of the same work on a guitar:

Rondo: alla Turca

Screen cap funnies I

Fruit of the poisoned mind

We've already seen how the young GOP operative Daniel Suhr, in an effort to paint Louis Butler as a detriment to the "safety, prosperity, and health of the citizens of many states," completely misrepresented two criminal appeals cases, Cleaver and Farris.

It just so turns out that that mispresentation extends to a "GOP Triumvirate" of cases, the third being a Vermont decision from last year called State v. Peterson.

Declares Suhr: "In State v. Peterson, the Vermont Supreme Court cited Knapp and two other state supreme court decisions when holding that the Vermont Constitution provided broader pre-Miranda evidence gathering protection than the U.S. Constitution."

Once again, the Vermont court reached its conclusion independently of Knapp. It did not rely on Knapp in any sense whatsoever. Like the Ohio case, Farris, the Peterson court simply "notes" that it happens to have reached a disposition similar to Knapp. Knapp isn't presented as an authority for the Peterson result at all.

While Suhr's language is a bit more coy this time around — 'Peterson cited Knapp when holding ...' — it most certainly doesn't belong in a list of cases devoted to the proposition that the baleful presence of Louis Butler is infecting the jurisprudence of courts throughout the land and who, by extension, must be deposed.

Peterson turns on an analysis of United States v. Patane, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that also figured prominently in Knapp. But Patane is assessed in light of the Vermont Supreme Court's own prior holdings, certainly not those of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and most definitely not those of Louis Butler.

A proper — and honest — treatment of Peterson would have been, 'Peterson cited Knapp after holding ....' But of course this wouldn't have supported Suhr's personal opinion that Louis Butler is a menace to civilization as we know it. Unfortunately, none of these three cases, Cleaver, Farris, or Peterson, even support Suhr's personal opinion. This is unvarnished political attack against Justice Butler, and what doesn't appear to figure prominently in it is honesty.

Well, that's enough of that. I see no point in checking any more of Daniel Suhr's disingenuous politicking. Three strikes. In a row.

Yer out.

Oh, by the way, I notice that Counsellor Mike Plaisted, in the course of his fine work here, links to a supposedly politically influential local conservative blogger, who opines:

Daniel Suhr of GOP3 has done a great service by analyzing all of Justice Butler’s opinions to evaluate his judicial philosophy.

Uh huh. It's a service alright.

No Person except a natural born Millionaire

The U.S. presidency is an expensive office to purchase. How expensive? Ask Mitt Romney:

[S]ome in his camp say they expect him to spend $40 million to $50 million on his effort to secure the nomination.

Of his own money. Just to get nominated.

Romney's assets are reported to be valued in the neighborhood of a quarter of a billion dollars so really, $50 million is pretty much just walking around money for Mitt. But the higher end of Mitt's camp's estimate would put paupers like John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani on federal assistance.

Here's a not unreasonable interpolation to the United States Constitution, Art. II, Sec. 1, Cl. 4:

No person ... shall ... be eligible to that Office [of the President] who shall not have attained to the net worth of thirty five million Dollars.

It's funny 'cause it's true.

h/t Washington Babylon.

Suhr takes another Knapp

Further to my post below, I had occasion to look at the case following immediately on Daniel Suhr's reference to State v. Cleaver.

As discussed previously, in his latest piece of anti-Louis Butler politicking, Suhr wonders whether (1) State v. Knapp has been "used as precedent for further decisions," and whether (2) "other courts [have] accepted or rejected the rationale and rule offered[.]"

He then presents a purported example of the foregoing from Ohio, State v. Farris (.pdf; 20 pgs.).

Of Farris, Suhr writes: "[T]he Ohio Supreme Court cited Knapp and one other state supreme court decision to hold that the Ohio Constitution provided broader pre-Miranda evidence gathering protection than the U.S. Constitution." Emphases added.

The impression Suhr is attempting to convey, clearly, is that the Ohio court relied on Knapp, or used Knapp as authority in support of its disposition. Except it didn't. The Farris court reached its conclusion independently, based on, among other things, previous holdings of the Ohio Supreme Court. But not Knapp.

The sole mention of Knapp in the entire opinion is as an aside. The Farris court simply observes, at the conclusion of its own independent analysis, that its decision happens to put Ohio in accord with Wisconsin on a particular question of law. That's it, that's all. No reliance on Knapp, and no citation to Knapp as authority.

So, as for the Ohio case of State v. Farris, the answer to Suhr's own two questions are (1) No and (2) Neither. To be sure, Knapp was not used as precedent in Farris. And Farris neither accepted nor rejected Knapp's "rationale and rule."

Which raises the question: Why in the world is Suhr using this Ohio case in support of his premise that Knapp has "been relied on by parties in Wisconsin and in other jurisdictions scores of times"?

The answer, obviously, is that Suhr has a preordained political thesis in mind, has set about gathering evidence in support of that thesis, and has few qualms about presenting as "evidence" citations to the law that, on closer inspection, in no way support his conclusion.

Additionally, there is a dissent in Farris. It's worth mentioning that while the dissenters disagree with the majority, their disagreement has nothing to do with Knapp either. Rather, their fundamental objection turns on whether the circumstances of a police confiscation of a bag of marijuana following a traffic stop should be evaluated according to the Fifth Amendment's Self-Incrimination Clause or the Fourth Amendment's Search and Seizure Clause. The dissenters don't mention Knapp at all.

Nor has Suhr any legitimate business mentioning Farris for the purpose of maligning Justice Butler. Bad form, Daniel.

Louis Butler: Menace to the Homeland

'Gaze upon my mighty visage and tremble, Oh ye Citizens of these United States.'

Daniel Suhr, Marquette law student and research assistant to Rick Esenberg, is really cranking up the hyperbole these days.

We've all had a look at Suhr's previous hijinks here, here, and here.

Now Suhr has noticed that a number of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler's opinions are being put to use by lawyers not only in the Dairy State but throughout the land: "In just the two years since the decisions, they have been relied on by parties in Wisconsin and in other jurisdictions scores of times." Shocking!

It's nice to see the lawyers are doing their jobs, however, in relying on the latest cases in support of their arguments.

On its face, Suhr's most recent contribution to the conservative project of toppling Louis Butler has the appearance of an impressive effort, decorated as it is with extensive footnotes and citations to cases and defendants' briefs which themselves refer, however obliquely, to the offending Butler opinions.

For the non-lawyers out there, Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw are two remarkable electronic legal database services, which hyperlink cross-references to just about every mention of every case everywhere, from all time (I'm exaggerating only slightly). Furthermore they feature search functions whereby, for example, a researcher plugs in a case citation, and the service returns every instance where that case is mentioned, by any court, State or federal, in law reviews, etc.

I believe they even contain the complete Nancy Grace transcripts.

The databases may be partitioned; in other words, a user might search for a case only within Wisconsin, only within Delaware, or only within a certain federal circuit, or whatever. As a tuition-paying law student in good standing, Suhr has unlimited access to the complete universes of both Lexis and Westlaw, access, incidentally, that would consign many of us struggling shysters to the poorhouse after a week or two, at $12 a minute.

However, the unfortunate effect of this miracle of technology is that the conscientious lawyer must actually read the returned citations, at least to the extent of determining the context in which the cited case is mentioned, and the use to which that case was put by the citing authority.

Which returns us to the now-infamous case of State v. Knapp. I don't have time to explore every instance where Suhr found a mention of Knapp — or his other three cases — in the database. At any rate (e.g., $12 a minute), that's not my job, that's Daniel Suhr's job.

But in quickly skimming through his list of citations, one in particular caught my eye, a Wisconsin appeals court case called State v. Cleaver (.pdf; 11 pgs.).

Interested and attentive readers may recall that the holding in Knapp which provoked conservative ire was that physical evidence (i.e., the bloodstained sweatshirt) obtained as a result of the authorities' failure to issue a criminal suspect his Miranda warning was inadmissible at trial. This, the conservatives claim, is an "arrogant" departure from U.S. Supreme Court rulings that extend Fifth Amendment self-incrimination protection only to the defendant's verbal testimony.

And, as I had noted more than once in previous posts here, Knapp was distinguishable from relevant U.S. Supreme Court rulings because the authorities had intentionally withheld the Miranda warnings. And not in good faith, either.

So. Now we have Suhr putting forth Cleaver for the general proposition that the physical evidence component of Butler's holding in Knapp is wreaking havoc throughout the land. Only one problem: Cleaver doesn't involve physical evidence, but it does involve the question of intentional withholding of Miranda warnings, and that is the reason it cites to Knapp.

In short, Suhr's attempt to place Cleaver in support of his conclusions is flat wrong. Yes, Cleaver cites to Knapp, but not for the purpose of appealing to its holding concerning the non-admissibility of physical evidence. And it is true that Cleaver involved pre- and post-Mirandized statements (April 26 and April 28, respectively). Of the latter, Suhr writes: "[The Cleaver court] further suppressed statements given after [the suspect] was Mirandized as fruit of an earlier violation."

This is correct. But see: "The intentional nature of the police conduct on April 26 drives our assessment of the legality of the April 28 statement." Thus spake the Cleaver court (emphases added).

Not only that, but in one of its own footnotes, the Cleaver court further distinguishes itself from Knapp by pointing out that while Knapp was based upon a Wisconsin constitutional provision, the case under consideration, Cleaver, is based on the Fifth Amendment. [see below] Interested and attentive readers will also recall that this was the other conservative objection to Knapp: that by relying on the State constitution and not the Fifth Amendment, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had insulated its holding from federal review.

Ergo, double flat wrong. As if that wasn't enough, the Cleaver court goes on to apply to its decision the U.S. Supreme Court's reasoning in Missouri v. Seibert, one of the very cases that the conservative objectors to Knapp suggested Louis Butler should have deferred to. So make that double flat wrong plus dramatic irony.

[eta: This is incorrect. While the circuit court below's ruling was based on the Fifth Amendment, the reviewing court in Cleaver affirmed the circuit court by invoking the parallel Wisconsin constitutional provision, Art. I Sec. 8. Therefore, not double flat wrong, only single flat wrong, and thanks to Rick Esenberg for pointing this out. - iT]

But the worst is yet to come. From Suhr's "conclusions":

[Butler's opinions] will likely become more solidified as time passes, to the further detriment of the safety, prosperity, and health of the citizens of many states, especially Wisconsin.

And there you have it, faithful readers. Fear for your very lives!

Good grief. Leave it to Cleaver.