Monday, March 17, 2014

Republicans will never believe the Capitol Arrests were "unconstitutional."

The state constitution is very clear about protesting the government. We also know the state Capitol was specifically designed to accommodate public protests. Put the two together and it becomes even clearer that the arrests at the Capitol were simply meant to intimidate Wisconsinites from publically bringing attention to Walker's failures, and to protect his carefully manufactured image as a successful "leader."

And Capitol protesters continue to get their citations dismissed, all the while the DOA is cooking up new ways to boot protesters.

In fact, one judge was surprised the state flip flopped on their reasons for the arrests:
As nearly 400 citations issued to people for singing in the Capitol rotunda last summer without a permit make their way through the Dane County courts, Judge Frank Remington dismissed all such cases in his court March 10, finding the administrative rules for which they were cited unconstitutional.
“Surprisingly the assistant attorneys general argued that every person charged was unique and their circumstances could not be characterized as similar. They claimed that because the cases were unique Judge Remington should not adopt or follow Judge Markson's ruling. However, earlier they had made a contradictory claim that the singers all acted as a unified group of more than 20 people, who collectively sang songs criticizing the government inside the capital building,” explained Sparer. “The judge did not accept the State’s new argument, and ruled that the law and facts were so similar that Judge Markson's ruling had settled the matter and that the State was precluded from rearguing the points before each and every judge.
What was the cost to taxpayers for this crackdown that many conservatives still believe was justified?
None of the citations issued to people for singing in the Capitol from 2012 and 2013 has yet resulted in a successful prosecution by the Dept. Of Justice, and Judge Peter Anderson ordered the DOJ to prepare a cost benefit analysis of the hundreds of prosecutions by April 1.
But none of this ever gets the GOP in trouble.

Walker and the Republican majority are gliding into the midterms feeding off the revenues created by the nations slowly recovering economy, and not from anything they've done. That's the irony of the upcoming elections. Thanks to Obama and the short lived Democratic majority, Republicans are seeing state surpluses they're now using to make their case for reelection.

No matter what the GOP does, from their god awful racist, sexist and bigoted statements to proposals that would deregulate again, voters are apparently so intrigued by their confidence that they just might be put back in charge.  

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