Trump's guidelines not much different than Governors...where are the protesters?

And here's Gov. Tony Evers Badger Bounce Back plan...is it too long hoaxers?

Like Watching an Accident, COVID-19 Deniers welcome death just to Buy Things and help closed businesses.

It's true that the media is going way overboard covering the sparsely attended pandemic denier protests begging to go back to work, just like the media did with few obnoxious Tea Party losers disrupting town halls so people couldn't get affordable health care.

This all comes as a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll showed nearly 60% favored keeping in place stay-at-home restrictions.

A Marquette University Law School Poll, released April 1, found 86% of Wisconsin registered voters surveyed said that "it was appropriate to close schools and businesses, and restrict public gatherings" to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

The silent majority following Evers' order and staying home vastly outnumber the people who are protesting.

We can't believe what we're seeing, right? The drooling primitives known as Trump cultists are hoping a few thousand sacrificial people will bring about a healthy economy, kind of an extreme version of sacrificing someone to a roaring volcano.

So yes, the "accident" is fascinating to watch, especially with signage like this demanding shopping over life itself:

Utilizing the same tactics Republicans were so outraged about during the Act 10 protests in the dead of winter, what they angrily called "intimidation," COVID-19 deniers will now defy the same laws their hero Scott Walker put in place. You can't make this stuff up:

Despite having their permit rejected by Gov. Tony Evers' administration, organizers of Friday's rally to reopen the state said they plan to move forward with their event on the grounds of the state Capitol in Madison. "We're going to peacefully assemble," Madison Elmer told the Journal Sentinel Wednesday. Elmer said the email stated: "Due to do the Wisconsin Department of Health Services safer at home order the permit request is being denied."

As for those supposed notorious "out-of-state" liberal "provocateurs" defending employee rights, Pandemic gun-rights protesters bearing arms from Minnesota will infiltrate our state politics by setting their laser-focused sites on safe-at-home families trying to stay alive. Now it's just fine to let out-of-staters tell us what to do:

...a third group, led by Ben Dorr of Minnesota Gun Rights, has called for a "drive-in rally, operation gridlock."

Here's hypocrite and now admired authoritarian Scott Walker back in December 2011. Hey COVID-19 hoaxers, try defending the Minn. Gun Rights clowns and their promise of a drive-in rally, operation gridlock now:

Walker answered: "People should not be coming into the state trying to intimidate lawmakers, offer up threats or anything else. That’s just not the way it’s done, at least not in the Midwest. And thankfully, again, our lawmakers stood up to those sorts of thuggery attacks, and we’re not going to allow that here in the state of Wisconsin … But the people coming in from other states, that bring these sorts of tactics, just don’t belong here."

Even more indefensible, was this shocking interview from August 2013 between former candidate to the State Supreme Court and law professor Ed Fallone, and loony tunes conservative pundit Kevin Hermening, who trashed protesters...yup, just like the ones we'll see protesting their right to shop during a pandemic.



Here's some audio of Scott Walker's disapproval of out-of-state protesters silencing Wisconsinites. Keep in mind, this was enormously overblown and many times just made up, suggesting local protesters asked for their help:



Let's take a look at these "smart" protesters ignoring social distancing and not wearing masks to simply protect their fellow protesters. They talk about the risks, but think 2 weeks is enough?



Because things aren't getting worse?

Think Gov. Evers would be even more tyrannical if he said what Walker did below:

Vos/Fitzgerald scheme to Blame Gov. Evers for COVID-19 State Economic Crash!

Not Kidding: Republicans think the COVID-19 pandemic shouldn't end up hurting residents' ability to spend money. Priorities, right?

Contrast how COVID-19 affects people, according to a respiratory therapist:

Seeing patients with COVID-19, it’s a lot more frightening. This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people. Patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen, and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut down and can’t breathe at all” …  I’ve never seen a microorganism or an infectious process cause such acute damage to the lungs so rapidly. That was what really shocked me. It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube and out of his mouth. We had to restrain him. They really hyperventilate, really struggle to breathe. When you’re in that mindstate of struggling to breathe and delirious with fever, you don’t know when someone is trying to help you, so you’ll try to rip the breathing tube out because you feel it is choking you, but you are drowning.

Contrast that with concerned Republicans mustering up phony outrage over Gov. Tony Evers efforts to hurt business: It's Gov. Evers fault now!!! That's their setup for November. Anyone tell them business have closed and people are dying? 

JS: Republican leaders are asking Gov. Tony Evers not to place any further restrictions on Wisconsin residents’ ability to spend money, warning of an economic collapse.

"The consequences felt by citizens and small businesses around the state has already been tremendous … the people we serve need the jobs they have today to help weather this storm. Continued economic activity will not only help us in our fight against this virus today, it will also ensure that we don't have to fight to recover from economic collapse tomorrow.”

 A little late for that? No?

Let's look at the numbers, if we took the Vos/Fitzgerald approach, keeping more people out there working instead...

Columbia University researchers estimate the percentage of Wisconsin residents, without severe restrictions in place similar to ones Evers has taken, infected in Milwaukee County could reach 65% by July and 74% in Dane County by June — infecting 610,000 and 360,000 people in each county, respectively — 

Under measures (pushed by Evers) that infection rate drops dramatically to 2% of Milwaukee County residents and Dane County residents by the end of July. 

Blame Trump, Blame Trump, Blame Trump: No, really blame Trump...

WaPo: U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting … and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak.

Taken together, the reports and warnings showed the characteristics of a globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it. But despite that constant flow of reporting, Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans. Lawmakers, too, did not grapple with the virus in earnest until this month.

A few Senators suddenly sold their stock, coincidentally of course, like Dumb Ron Johnson, all the while saying the US had it handled.

Blame Trump, Blame Trump, who was even more concerned about getting vaping products back in the stores:

Inside the White House, Trump’s advisers struggled to get him to take the virus seriously, according to multiple officials with knowledge of meetings among those advisers and with the president.

Azar couldn’t get through to Trump to speak with him about the virus until Jan. 18, according to two senior administration officials. When he reached Trump by phone, the president interjected to ask about vaping and when flavored vaping products would be back on the market, the senior administration officials said.

Who could make stuff like this up, point by point?

Not Trump's Fault, again. Surprised? Note: Can anyone tell me what the "clear threat to this great country" would clearly be? Oh, and being late doesn't count:

 A White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said, “It’s more than disgusting, despicable and disgraceful for cowardly unnamed sources to attempt to rewrite history — it’s a clear threat to this great country. President Trump has taken historic, aggressive measures to protect the health, wealth and safety of the American people — and did so, while the media and Democrats chose to only focus on the stupid politics of a sham illegitimate impeachment.” 

How about the Crimson Contagion Simulation:  Trump didn't care...

That scenario, code-named “Crimson Contagion” and imagining an influenza pandemic, was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January to August.

The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that has not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.

The draft report, marked “not to be disclosed,” laid out in stark detail repeated cases of “confusion” in the exercise. Federal agencies jockeyed over who was in charge. State officials and hospitals struggled to figure out what kind of equipment was stockpiled or available. Cities and states went their own ways on school closings.

Trump Response...

“Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like this before.”

The work done over the past five years, however, demonstrates that the government had considerable knowledge about the risks of a pandemic and accurately predicted the very types of problems Mr. Trump is now scrambling belatedly to address.

Roll the clips...

Rep. Vos gaslights, says Gov. Evers hasn't tried to save rural Wisconsin and farmers for the last decade!!!

Come November, I want every farmer and rural community in the state to watch their Republican representatives sit on their hands when Gov. Tony Evers presented his plan to save America's Dairyland and fading rural communities. 

For the last 9 years with Scott Walker and Republicans in full control of the state, they did nothing to help farmers and rural voters while farms were disappearing at an alarming rate...NOTHING. Yet Republican Rep. Robin Vos, in a breathtaking moment of gaslighting, said this:

Vos: “Certainly if he (Evers) has finally turned his attention to rural Wisconsin, that basically shows he has ignored that part of the state for most of last year since he’s been elected governor. So if he’s a newfound convert that rural Wisconsin has problems, of course we’re going to listen.”

But Evers reminded voters that his budget, the one Republicans abandoned in order to take credit for many of Evers promises, contained farm help as well:

Evers: "Some of these proposals aren't new, many of them are a form of what I proposed in my budget that were unfortunately taken out." 

Proving Republicans have no intention of working with Evers ever, they refused to even stand up and support help for rural America:



After 9 years of taking their rural voters for granted, they never once even noticed or promised to stop the loss of farms in Wisconsin. The following didn't matter:

1. Wisconsin lost almost 700 dairy farms in 2018, an unprecedented rate of nearly two a day.

2. In 2019, Wisconsin lost 819 dairy farms, leaving 7,292 dairy farms in place. It marked the biggest drop in a single year, and underscored the negative impact of Trump's trade war in a state critical to his re-election bid. The state leads the nation in the number of farm bankruptcies, according to the American Farm Bureau.

3. During just the last decade, about 40% of Wisconsin dairy farms have shut down.

4. Wisconsin's remaining dairy farms, along with milk and cheese plants, contribute about $45 billion to the state. 

Vos is hoping no one is going to remember that he and Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, along with Gov. Scott Walker, were in charge for the last 9 years. Instead, Vos is blaming the new governor for doing nothing...seriously. Oh, and after Gov. Evers calls the special session, Republican will only gavel it in and then leave, doing nothing again...putting it off for another day. From WISN:

Vos: "It's nice that they're trying to play catchup after literally almost a decade of ignoring rural Wisconsin..."

 


You can bet Republicans will trash any effort Evers puts in front of them, so they can take credit for their own stripped down copy cat version of legislation they never would have come up with themselves. See what I mean...

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Monday afternoon that he will convene a special session Tuesday to introduce bills regarding the state's dairy crisis. The special session bills will be introduced and referred to committee. 

"Farmers are already telling us the governor’s package does more to grow the size of government than actually help our rural areas," Vos said in a written statement. "We’re open to amending the bills or introducing our own proposals in order to do what’s best for rural Wisconsin."

From a previous blog post....

Scott Walker Legacy; he Ignored and Destroyed Dairy Farms: Walker's 8 year focus was to replace our current structure of government with a theoretical conservative system that shockingly ignored solving problems...like the one things that put Wisconsin on the map; America's Dairyland. Instead of understanding the problem and leading a reform movement to save our states dairy farms, heck the whole industry, he instinctively thought of mega corporate farmers and worse, producing an oversupply milk. That resulted in low prices for the last 4 years:

In 2012, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced an incentive program to produce, as a state, 30 billion pounds of milk a year by 2020 — a 15 percent increase. 

Despite record production every year since 2002, Walker urged farmers to step it up even more. But...the market had turned and many dairy farmers were having trouble breaking even on their new investments. Some felt duped by the agribusiness system.

“The more surplus farmers produce, the lower the price of agricultural commodities for food processors," said Kara O'Connor, government relations director for the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

Who did Walker help most? Guess...

"All of the most powerful players in the industry, except the farmer, benefit from overproduction."

Notice how Walker's program alone brought down the dairy industry in the chart below:

Welcome to The State Republican Supreme Court!

The news headlines should really read, "This is getting ridiculous!!!"

I keep thinking back on a time when Republicans always accused Democrats of using the courts to pass their left-wing agenda. Well, as it turns out, it was another serious case of "projection." 

It's all here; "Conservative Activist Justices" "Legislating from the Bench": Another Walker legacy, the gerrymandered Republicans legislature and their legal attack dogs at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) are now openly admitting the State Supreme Court is conservative and theirs to command. Seriously, they couldn't wait a few days?:

WILL’s lawsuit was filed on the last day that former Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson served on the court. When Hagedorn takes Abrahamson’s place on Thursday, the Court will have a 5-2 conservative majority.

...and...

Republicans filed their lawsuit directly with the state Supreme Court just hours after conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn was sworn into office.

...and who could forget how it all started...

On limiting Gov. Evers veto power, it will be interesting to see how the State Republican Supreme Court will sell their eventual limit on vetos and over 80 years of precedent because you know they will:

Esenberg said he may also pursue having the court reverse a 1935 Supreme Court decision to further curtail the veto powers of the governor. Those who have challenged past vetoes have typically lost. In 1988, for instance, the high court ruled the governor held a "quasi-legislative" role and was allowed to strike out words, digits and even individual letters from budgets to string together new sentences.

Republican Voters love it: Even when it's obvious, GOP voters will never want to give up power. Like the originalist's con "interpreting" the legal text which could mean anything; or the lame-duck session stripping the governor and attorney generals of their power...: 

Justice Rebecca Dallet contended ... no state law gave them that power ... the state constitution says lawmakers can meet only when called into a special session by the governor or as provided by law. Lawmakers wrote a work schedule (not law) ... that was enough to comply with the constitutional provisions the majority concluded.

Ultra-Gerrymandering up Next: Would Republicans really try to bypass the governor when it's time to redraw districts? Seriously?

“I’ve heard about it,” Rick Esenberg, executive director of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), said of the plan. “Whether we would have anything to do with it, I can’t say.”

But, he added, “I understand the argument. The argument is the constitution reserves [redistricting] to the state legislature, and it should be taken literally; the state legislature should do it. It would require that precedent be overruled,” Esenberg acknowledged. But, he added, “I don’t think it’s a frivolous argument.”

Snap! Dem Governor caught again in GOP School Funding Trap?

The Republican formula is so simple; cut taxes + cut spending = nothing else matters? 

The Vos/Fitzgerald Stunt: Conservative voters love campaign ads ballyhooing how Republicans didn't raise taxes...while at the time they're approving referendums to raise their own local taxes to pay for schools. Huh? Weirder still, their voters still haven't caught on...or have they? Are we that dumb?

Snap! School Funding Trap #1, Governor Doyle: Democratic Governors keep getting lured into the school funding trap. For example, the failed GOP deregulation experiment that caused a global economic collapse, "The Great Recession," forced Governor Doyle to use his veto pen to save our schools...:

WSJ: Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle used his veto power by stitching together numbers and words from different sentences in order to spend $330 million more than the Legislature intended on K-12 education (taking money from transportation) ...led to voters abolishing what became known as the “Frankenstein veto” via constitutional amendment.

Believe it or not, Republicans continue to brag about protecting transportation funding at the expense of school funding during the Great Recession, and their voters bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Snap! School Funding Trap #2, Tony Evers: After the largest cuts to school funding by any state in the nation, the trap was set for Democratic Governor Tony Evers to pulled out his veto pen so he could fulfill his major campaign promise to restore school funding...snap! How dare he?

Republican lawmakers have introduced a state constitutional amendment that would prevent governors from using their partial veto powers to increase spending in any bills.

The proposal comes less than a week after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers used his veto power in one case to increase school funding by about $84 million more than the Republican-controlled Legislature intended.

Governors Evers Must Be Stopped!!? Since polling indicates that about 60 percent of the public approves of increased spending for schools, just how will our radically right wing gerrymandered safe Republican legislators sell the horrors of Gov. Evers additional funding for schools? A power grab...worse???

State Sen. David Craig, R-Town of Vernon said, “We need to prevent this from ever happening again.” And Rep. Mike Kuglitsch, R-New Berlin, began circulating the amendment for co-sponsors Monday, calling what Evers did a “power grab.”

Either Courts Legislate or Constitutional Amendment = Block Democrats: After 8 years of one party domination, it's laughable to accuse a Democrat of committing a "power grab," which is strange. Evers grabbed power from...or gain power by...adding more school funding?

You can bet Republicans will try to suck the air out of the room when it comes to other big agenda items pushed by Evers with this constitutional amendment distraction. And that's all it is, but will the media fall for it?

“The public should be outraged at the repeated attempts to change the powers of the office because they disagree with how those powers were used,” said Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh.

Worst Most Corrupt Conservative Activist Supreme Court Shreds Elected Office, blames "administration leviathan" and "Bureaucratic Overlords!"

It took awhile, but Republicans stuck with their plan to corrupt the judicial branch, and now they have what they needed; open and dishonest activist judges/justices legislating from the bench! This last week, Republicans were allowed to limit the governor's and AG's power:

"Constitutional original-ism?" Well, don't forget about what our state constitutional founding fathers intended too, which is now being channeled by our sitting Republican psychic mediums...I mean justices.

Good-bye Superintendent of Public Instruction: Republicans have now secured constitutionally the dismantling of public education in the future, or least greatly hold back reform and progress for years, if not decades. This was a big win for them, and an immeasurable loss for education, similar to what Republicans did to the supreme court:

JS: The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed itself Tuesday by ruling the state schools chief cannot set education policy without permission from the governor, a blow to Democrats who have controlled the state's education agency for decades.

The ruling makes successful an eight-year effort by Republicans ... Tuesday's decision overturns the court's own ruling just three years ago when justices said in Coyne v. Walker that Evers could write rules and regulations related to education policy on his own — without permission from then-Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature — because the state constitution provides him with the power to do so.

Evers, in a statement, said "The facts didn't change in the last three years and neither did the meaning of the constitution. Only the composition of the court did.”

Surprise, Republicans waited for Majority Activist Justices to pull off Scheme: Conservative lawsuit mill WILL admitted it:

AP: In her dissent, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley noted the new lawsuit was filed after two members of the court that had previously upheld the state superintendent's authority — justices Michael Gableman and David Prosser — were no longer on the court.

"And why are we here again? At oral argument, counsel for the petitioners was asked, 'you wouldn't be here asking a supreme court of the state of Wisconsin to overturn a decision that it just made two years ago if it were the same court, would you?' In response, counsel acknowledged, 'any lawyer has to make strategic decisions about what is likely to be successful.' Indeed," Bradley wrote. "Although nothing in our Constitution has changed since Coyne was decided, what has changed is the membership of the court."

Surprise, Chief Justice twists previous decision into Convoluted Word Salad Nonsense: Not kidding, really:

Chief Justice Pat Roggensack wrote in the majority opinion ... a footnote justifying how the court could reverse itself. She wrote the 2016 opinion was fractured with two concurrences and failed to establish a “common legal rationale.” As result there was no rationale to analyze, opening the door for another look at the issues.

Huh? Roggensack just obliterated precedent/stare decisis. 

Stare decisis is a doctrine, or an instruction, used in all court cases and with all legal issues. Stare decisis means that courts look to past, similar issues to guide their decisions. These past decisions are known as precedent.

Republican Justice Bradley opinion polluted with Political Trash Talk: Bradley's divisive right-wing writings in the past as a student, as it turns out, weren't so irrelevant after all. I guess she forgot the state Superintendent is an elected office determined by voters, or as Bradley puts it, the "supreme power held by the people." Bradley seems to have an issue with our overly complicated constitutionally created "administrative leviathan" known as state government. 

Justice Rebecca Bradley in a separate concurring opinion criticized what she called "the concentration of power within an administrative leviathan."

"The philosophical roots of rule by bureaucratic overlords are antithetical to the Founders' vision of our constitutional Republic, in which supreme power is held by the people through their elected representatives, and 'the creation of rules of private conduct' is 'an irregular and infrequent occurrence,'" she wrote.

Republicans blame Gov. Evers for CWD spread? Sure, why not.

Suddenly Republicans have a sudden urge to tackle the CWD crisis infecting our deer herd in Wisconsin, after doing nothing and making it worse for 8 years? No, not really...

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker took a largely hands-off approach after he took office in 2011. The disease has since spread across the state. According to the DNR, 26 counties had at least one infected deer in the wild ... 56 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties qualify as affected.

Republican Sen. Devin LeMahieu pressed Cole on why the governor's spending plan includes no new strategies for combatting CWD ... asked (if) Evers thinks fighting the disease is important.

Walker/Republicans Punted on CWD for 8 Years, Even Stopped Picking up Road Kill Deer: So I nearly spit out my coffee a few weeks back when I heard the outraged voices of Republicans grilling DNR Secretary Preston Cole about Gov. Tony Evers lack of effort to do anything about CWD.

Enter State Sen. Tom Tiffany, the guy most responsible for ripping up Wisconsin's natural resources and environmental laws. He has single-handedly put industries like mining and corporate farming ahead of sports hunting and clean water. Seriously...and I'm not joking, he's the chairman of the sporting heritage committee. Just 3 months after Evers took over as governor, Tiffany had the balls to say..."I could...say this is a failure of the Evers administration...!" I also missed the part where the state spent millions trying to fight CWD:

Republican Tom Tiffany, chairman of the state Senate’s sporting heritage committee, said he’s not surprised Evers “punted” on the disease. The state has spent millions trying to fight it to no avail, he said. 

“I could take a real partisan line here and say this is a failure of the Evers administration, but these are difficult decisions. We’re just not sure yet what is going to be effective. But they’ve got to come forward with a plan. We need leadership from the Department of Natural Resources and … the governor as well.”

Hold on there. I'm guessing Sen. Tiffany's low information voters wouldn't have noticed, but here's how Republicans made things even worse...recently.

Trolling to get moderate voters to support his reelection, Walker issued a few emergency rules supported by Democrats, including double fencing deer farms, restrictions on the movement of live deer from one farm to another, and putting a stop to transporting deer carcasses across county lines. But a joint committee of GOP Senators and Representatives basically killed all the new rules. We're now starting from scratch thanks to our anti-government/deregulation Republican majority. 

As for Evers plans for CWD...

Cole says the governor wants to see what research reveals about the disease and doesn't want to spend money on it when other states are doing the work ... the DNR needs to do more to persuade hunters to turn in deer heads for testing ... the DNR is in the middle of a four-year study on deer mortality and Evers and the agency should wait until that’s complete before making any decisions.

Forgotten list of lost Powers taken from Governor Evers?