Sunday, September 4, 2011

Republican Rep. Robin Vos Bashes Union Spending in Recalls!! But Corporate Spending...?

In what can only be described as bizarre, Rep. Robin Vos basically thinks the unions should have play dead during the recall election, while anti-labor forces spent wildly swaying and influencing voter opinions. According to Vos, it’s a way for unions to prove their public support, without unfairly tipping the scales with a positive union message.     
Republican Wisconsin state Rep. Robin Vos said the big money spent by pro-labor forces in the recall elections shows "that they're not about protecting workers rights, they're about protecting political power."

Union money is free speech, the last time I looked at the Citizens United decision. But the new normal according to Vos, leaves only corporate free speech rights in place, because they are the all-powerful and omnipotent “job creators.” With so few jobs available, who needs those union “job protectors” anymore?

But no one ever takes the time to ask Vos, or any other union busting Republican, why “corporate bosses” are so much better than “union bosses.”  
“This is the last grasp of those political bosses to be able to showcase why they need to have the political power, and they lost," he said.

The unions didn’t lose. But the real point Vos admits to should be much scarier; the only political power now is corporate. Vos appears to relish the shift in power.   

One warning for Wisconsinites who don’t mind seeing wages, benefits and their quality of life lowered:
“As the changes have had time to sink in, people appear to be accepting it, and it appears to be part of the new status quo," said James Sherk, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

They would like that.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

National Socialist Movement Rally just a more honest Tea Party Crowd.


A great counter protest blunted the pathetic neo-Nazi protest today in West Allis. It must have been a confusing day for conservatives, who might have agreed with the National Socialist Movement's racist message, but wondered why they went and called it socialist.


Fox 6: Hundreds of counter-protesters crowded in West Allis to shout over the voices of 30 to 40 members of the National Socialist Movement Saturday afternoon. Both sides brought their messages to city hall to be heard.

"That message is not welcome here in our community and we're here to stand together and let them know that we're not going to take that," said Mandela Barnes with Coalition for Racial Justice.

"Are you hate mongers, are we racists, are we biggots?  Absolutely not.  There's nothing hateful or racist about our message," said Jeff Schopp of the National Socialist Movement.

Through fences and police protection, the neo-Nazi group waved flags bearing swastikas. One speaker among the neo-Nazis called the Holocaust a "phony" event. The neo-Nazis say their rally was in response to reports of black youth attacking white people on the opening day of the Wisconsin State Fair.
 

Ron Johnson’s authoritarian desire for “leadership.” Follow the leader conservatives love it.


Leave it to dumb Ron Johnson, the two bit Ayn Randian actor playing a senator, to reveal his craven desire to march in lockstep to someone’s fearless leadership. Is it any wonder why Johnson wants Paul Ryan to step into the presidential race; Ryan claims he’s a leader.

Always in touch the senseless side of analysis:
U.S. employers stopped adding jobs last month – and Senate Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin blames a “lack of leadership” from President Obama. 

How (Ron Johnson) simple was that?

Neo-Nazi Rally Claims Peaceful Demonstration!

While the press and right wing media played up the angle that the Neo Nazi rally in West Allis related in some way to socialist liberals, the real story played out during an interview last night during the Fox 6 coverage:

A group of neo-Nazis held a news conference Friday evening to assure the public they were planning a peaceful rally on Saturday. During that news conference, an African-American man confronted them and there was a calm but tense exchange of words between the two.

A group called the National Socialist Movement has planned a rally in "defense of white America" for 2 p.m. at the West Allis City Hall. The Chicago-based group claims the rally is in response to mob attacks where whites were beaten by African-Americans at the Wisconsin State Fair.
More to come.....

The Democrats "Backlash" video shows the Town Hall Rebellion against Republicans Supporting Ryan's Plan.

I guess I can't complain. The following videos lack of many of the available clips of town hall meetings showing public outrage over the Republicans call for ending Medicare and inaction of a jobs bill. But it's a start and on the right track:
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) released a powerful new web video, "Backlash," to highlight news clips and scenes from town halls and protests all around the country that show Republican Members of Congress facing outraged constituents for choosing to protect millionaires and Big Oil instead of Medicare and seniors.



"Backlash" is part of the DCCC's "Accountability August" grassroots and paid campaign to hold vulnerable House Republicans accountable for “choosing Millionaires over Medicare.”

Obama White House Whispers, “Deficit 20 Percent Lower!!”

In another example of Democratic wimpiness, Obama whiffed on the Republican campaign topic of deficits. They can’t be serious?
“The federal budget deficit will run 20 percent lower than expected this year.”

That’s big. According to the OMB, the expected shortfall of $1.645 trillion is now just $1.316 trillion. And that’s despite the continuation of the Bush tax cuts and roll out of the Affordable Care Act.

What I don’t get is the logic of making cuts when the economy is at an all-time low point. You would think a reasonable time to get your house in order, and curb spending, is when the economy is back to normal. 

Democracy to negative, overwhelming to voters!!! Recalls threw our “political system into utter turmoil!” Are they kidding?!!

Thank you New Richmond News, for your pathetic call for recall reform. No shallower words were ever written. For some this whole democracy things is just too troublesome.

And supposedly the loser’s in this whole democratic experience were...the voters? Jaw dropping in its misguided understanding of our government, the New Richmond News editorial spelled out the Republican position well:
Now that election is done, we vote for recall reform: The recently completed recall elections … were an interesting exercise in the democratic process. No matter what side … the loser in the whole situation was the voter.

Because of big money negative ad campaigns, we’re supposed to give up on democracy:
Elections continue to bombard voters on a regular basis. As the debate rages, and the negative campaign tactics mount, voters tend to become disenfranchised with the whole democratic process. People become overwhelmed by the onslaught of political messages. And, with the recent recalls, the campaign messages were even more negative than your typical election battle. Even though large numbers of voters cast their ballot in the recent local election, one has to wonder if the battle was all worth it.

So the weary public turned out in droves to “ cast their ballot? For the sake of “stability,” we need to protect politicians from the voters.
Wisconsin needs to return some sense of stability to its political system. Elected officials … should be left alone to complete their appointed terms without the threat of such political reprisals … limited to those people who have broken the law, those who have been found guilty of ethics violations or those who have generally proven themselves unfit for public office.

The New Richmond News’ closing statement is not only scary, but profoundly wrong on so many levels:
The ability to recall elected officials at any time for any reason throws our political system into utter turmoil. Such uncertainty in the political landscape harms our state, and it harms the state’s election process.

I’m breathless. 

Another Eulogy for the Teaching Profession.


In their successful bid to tear down societal progress made by the American people, the Republican Tea Party destroyed an entire profession, all because they were taxpayer supported "public" employees.

We are now relegated to stories like the following, in praise of those special teachers who turned us completely around. It's also true that those same teachers did little or nothing for our other classmates. 

NY Times-Charles Blow’s Op-Ed, In Honor of Teachers

I wanted to celebrate a group that is often maligned: teachers. But how do we expect to entice the best and brightest to become teachers when we keep tearing the profession down? We take the people who so desperately want to make a difference that they enter a field where they know that they’ll be overworked and underpaid, and we scapegoat them as the cause of a society wide failure.

A March report by the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that one of the differences between the United States and countries with high-performing school systems was: “The teaching profession in the U.S. does not have the same high status as it once did, nor does it compare with the status teachers enjoy in the world’s best-performing economies.” High school teachers in the U.S. work longer hours (approximately 50 hours), and yet the U.S. devotes a far lower proportion than the average O.E.C.D. country does to teacher salaries. A 2005 National Education Association report; nearly 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within their first five years teaching; they cite poor working conditions and low pay as the chief reason.

Take Wisconsin, for instance, where a new law stripped teachers of collective bargaining rights and forced them to pay more for benefits … “about twice as many public schoolteachers decided to hang it up in the first half of this year as in each of the past two full years.”

I was not a great student. My work began to suffer so much that I was temporarily placed in the “slow” class. I came back to my hometown school. I was placed in Mrs. Thomas’s class. On the first day of class, she gave us a math quiz … I quickly jotted down the answers and turned in the test — first. “Whoa! That was quick. Blow, we’re going to call you Speedy Gonzales.” She said it with a broad approving smile, and the kind of eyes that warmed you on the inside. She put her arm around me and pulled me close while she graded my paper with the other hand. I got a couple wrong, but most of them right.

I couldn’t remember a teacher ever smiling with approval, or putting their hand around me, or praising my performance in any way. It was the first time that I felt a teacher cared about me, saw me or believed in me. It lit a fire in me. I never got a bad grade again. I figured that Mrs. Thomas would always be able to see me if I always shined. I always wanted to make her as proud of me as she seemed to be that day. And, she always was. I went on to graduate as the valedictorian of my class.

And all of that was because of Mrs. Thomas, the firecracker of a teacher who first saw me and smiled with the smile that warmed me on the inside. So to all of the Mrs. Thomas’ out there, all the teachers struggling to reach lost children like I was once, I just want to say thank you. You deserve our admiration, not our contempt. 

Jacksonville FL - Crown Jewel of the Sunshine State


Eyewitnesses told police that Richardson, 20, and Billy Lorenzo Johnson, 31, arrived together at 1324 Prince Street around 4:30 p.m. and soon thereafter got into a physical confrontation with 26-year-old Kenneth E. Curry.

Police believe Richardson pulled a handgun, then so did Curry, and they began shooting at each other.

During the shooting, 19-year-old Danielle Dominique Melton and a toddler, Marc Smith, were shot, as was Johnson. Another person reported that Richardson fired into her apartment.
Just a couple days earlier this happened.
Ten people were wounded and an unborn child died in a hail of bullets in a neighborhood shooting near Riverside just before 9 p.m. The pregnant mother lost her 29-week unborn boy and an 18-month-old girl was in critical condition after the gunfire.

Six of the victims were women and three were men, all unidentified. A male victim remained at Shands Jacksonville hospital Monday.

Police were looking for at least two shooters Monday and did not say if they knew of a motive. No suspects have been identified.

One of the first things that comes to mind is the pro-gun argument that guns are not the problem. They say violent people are the problem and they always say that as if we don't agree with it. We do agree. We understand perfectly well that there are bad guys who do bad things and the gun does not make them do anything.

The problem is gun availability, and that's where the pro-gun guys themselves come into it. They are the source of the guns used in crime. They'll scream and yell and twist and lie and do everything possible to obscure that fact, but if you think about it, it's clear these guns used in Jacksonville shootings were not manufactured in some gang member's basement. They started out lawfully owned and somehow were allowed to flow into the criminal world.

In their enthusiasm to deny all responsibility for this problem, as a type of distraction, we often hear the ridiculous proposition that even if we removed all the guns, these violent criminals would use other weapons to do the same thing.

I wonder how that would have worked in Jacksonville. Would as many people have been wounded and killed if no guns had been used? That's a rhetorical question, you don't have to answer.

Florida continues to wear the crown and Jacksonville is one of its most precious jewels.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Per Student Funding and Teacher Jobs Cuts Stall the Economy.

As I hear it, we should all be happy Gov. Walker provided the tough love and “tools” to deal with the cost of education and bring about a balanced budget. Ah, but the cuts aren’t over, the shortfalls haven’t ended, and the austerity measures now will look gentle by comparison. 

Remember, we’ve been cutting education and services to the bone for at least ten years, and the tightwad whiners haven’t noticed a thing. Let's face it, they’ll never ever be satisfied. Rest assured, they’ll be the first ones to whine, “private schools don’t want to meet or listen to us.” They're accountable to the bottom line, not us.

But if we’re so worried about our kids future, why are we cutting their education off at the knees? Is it just so they won’t have to pay higher taxes as adults. Sounds like a little tightwad parental projection. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities broke down the numbers:

They described the problem this way;
These cuts are occurring at a time when schools face demands from parents, employers and civic leaders to bring more and more students to higher levels of academic proficiency, in large part because workers will increasingly need higher levels of educational attainment to thrive in the workforce. States' large cuts in spending on education have serious consequences for the economy, both in the short and long term. They also counteract and sometimes undermine important state education reform initiatives, and put upward pressure on local property taxes.

State education budget cuts have deepened the recession and slowed the pace of economic recovery by reducing overall economic activity. The spending cuts have forced school districts to lay off teachers and other employees, reduce pay for the education workers who remain, and cancel contracts with suppliers and other businesses. All of these steps remove demand from the economy.

Local school districts already have eliminated 293,000 jobs nationally since August 2008, federal data show. In addition, education spending cuts have cost an unknown but probably very large number of additional jobs in the private sector as school districts cancel or scale back private-sector purchases and contracts (for instance, purchasing fewer textbooks). These job losses shrink the purchasing power of workers' families, which in turn affects local businesses and slows recovery. While it is not possible to calculate directly the additional loss of jobs resulting from state education budget cuts, it appears very likely that school districts will continue to cut jobs and also to cut funding for some private-sector jobs, negating some of the job growth that otherwise would occur in the economy as a whole. 


Far Right Wing Verbal Gymnastics: Stimulus Lost Jobs…from the higher estimates.


We catching on, aren't we?

Like Paul Ryan’s ginned up expectations that all of Obama’s predictions are to be factual and numerically perfect, Rick Santorum has decided that estimates made by the administration must be exact too.

In a moment of absolute stupidity, Santorum not only said the stimulus lost jobs in a ludicrous attempt at spin, but he got his numbers wrong, never thinking long enough to realize the impossibility of those numbers. In this clip from CNBC, Ali Velshi:


SANTORUM: [Obama] passed a huge stimulus package that now we know, over the past two quarters, has actually cost American jobs, and that’s from the report of his own administration. They claimed in December that, uh, by the end of last year that they created 280 million jobs, and now they’re saying that they created only 240 million jobs. So look, in this, you’re talking about huge increases in spending. In other words, there’s 30 million less jobs as a result of the stimulus package.

VELSHI: That’s not a loss of jobs, Senator, that’s a smaller aggregation of jobs. You can’t go on a campaign, a national campaign with this kind of math Senator. It’s just incorrect…I know you’ve got a lot of interviews to do. You might want to check that math.

Cheeseheads and the Vanishing Paul Ryan Town Hall Ploy Inspire Others to Protest...

This great post from the Job Party shows how inspirational the Wisconsin labor movement has been.

This afternoon we took the Wisconsin Fight Back local to Rep. Michael Grimm's Staten Island office.

The energy and enthusiasm was strong, as New Yorkers demanded that their congressman create jobs now as opposed to supporting the slashing of the social safety net inherent to the Paul Ryan budget.

The Wisconsin inspiration was real and palpable, and the connection to Paul Ryan intrinsic. The Wisconsin fight back is similarly being taken local in almost all of the town hall outbursts nationwide, as it is the nihilistic cuts of the Ryan budget that has inspired such activation. We just addressed it directly and made the Wisconsin-spirit of the event more overt.
Moreover, as Wisconsin has taken the town hall model up a notch in light of Ryan refusing to hold a free one, we followed suit by bringing the town hall to Grimm---including unemployed constituents of his walking inside to apply for jobs! Grimm followed Ryan's lead in not holding any town halls where he could be held accountable to his constituents, so we wanted to make sure he also heard from those he purportedly represents who are suffering direly from the jobs crisis. 
 
Like Ryan in Wisconsin, Grimm in New York now has to dodge angry cheeseheads in his back yard.


Ryan, on the “Promises of Job Creation.”

You can blame the media, again, for pretending “predictions” are more than just that…a prediction. Predictions aren’t promises either, like Rep. Paul Ryan suggests.  

Yet that’s the meme posed over and over by Ryan and the Republican Party, who oddly enough, are successfully portraying Obama as a lousy two bit version of Nostradamus.

The Hill: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) blasted the White House; “Today’s report confirms that the President’s policies have failed to deliver on his promises of job creation, deficit reduction, and much-needed economic growth. Today’s report estimates that the unemployment rate — despite assumptions of stronger economic growth — will remain above 8% through the end of the President’s term in office.”

The presumed precision of “promises and assumptions” is something Ryan continues to get away with, despite his own poor record of promises and assumptions about deregulation that created the Great Recession.
No one would “promise” lower unemployment, but they sure as hell would try to achieve it.
My fear is that we’ll continue to vote against our own self-interest, to lower the standard of living, and to cede control in our quest to downsize government.
Giving up our government to corporate interests, while at the same time defining corporations as “people,” is not a subtle reinterpretation of the Constitution. It's a takeover. We’re one president away from realizing this scenario.  

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Not Obama, but Congress should create jobs. House Republicans have the purse strings, have Done Nothing!!!

I am so tired of the press pretending Obama dropped the ball on jobs. Excuse me, the congress was tasked to do that, and the House Republicans were put in charge of job creation. How did the message get so screwed up? From Fox News:


The Crazy World of Sen. Frank Lasee!! Now he wants to go to Washington, D.C.

I knew Frank Lasee when he was in the Assembly. He played my conservative foil for a few hours on WIBA and I got a chance to beat up on him relentlessly. What I found out; that when they left the station, they were energized thinking they beat me up.

He was extreme then, but at least conversational. That was then, this is now. I've been getting his email newsletter for awhile, even featured a few of them here, but just as a reminder I thought it would be good to reflect back. Why?
State Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, said he is moving toward making an official announcement later this month about plans to run for the U.S. Senate seat. "It's likely that I'll be running for the U.S. Senate," he said.
Here's a quick summary of his bizarro past:

This is a picture story from many of his newsletters:



State Sen. Guns Galloway, the Constitutional Carry Nut, Just missed causing more Stories like the one Below.

“Guns” Galloway, who pushed hard for Constitutional Carry-where no training is required, would be shocked that such an accident below could be possible. After all, who needs training for a God given right?
A 75-year-old Brookfield man remains hospitalized after apparently accidentally shooting himself in the leg with a gun he grabbed after seeing two strangers in his backyard Wednesday morning, police say. About 7 a.m. the man became concerned when he saw two people in the backyard of his home ... The man, obtained a handgun and "was carrying it around and it accidentally went off and he shot himself in the leg"  ... The man lives alone and was not able to call for help. He remained on the floor until being discovered by a meal delivery service about 1:30 p.m. 
He had every right to bleed to death too.

"Guns" Galloway and Duffy to attend Wausau's Labor Day Parade. They Need to Feel your Love!

Can you believe these low rent tea party scavengers still want to parade their anti-labor hypocrisy in public?

I'm sure we'll all feel like leaving our political differences behind, right?
WausauDailyHerald: Two of the Wausau area's three Republican representatives said they plan to attend Monday's Labor Day parade after organizers backtracked late Tuesday night on a ban of GOP lawmakers. State Sen. Pam Galloway of Wausau said she plans to attend Monday's event and hopes it will be about families watching a parade -- not politics. "I think the community is eager to put this thing behind us," Galloway said.
I hope Galloway understands that many can't put their lost wages, and right wing personal attacks on their professionalism, on hold so she can smile for the cameras. What a ghoul.
In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, Duffy said he plans to attend the parade with his children. "I'm thrilled the organizers of this event have decided to set aside political differences and hold a parade in which we can all celebrate the American worker, both union and non-union," Duffy said in the statement. 
Don't you just wanna cram the words "celebrating the American worker" down Sean Duffy's throat?

Will America let Marco Rubio get away with Medicare/Social Security Comment?

It's gotten to the point where Republicans are saying so many outrageously dumb things, it's hard to hold them accountable for any of them.

Big Ed Schultz focused like a laser on his radio show today on the video comment below by Rep. Marco Rubio, the Republican wonderkind. According to Rubio, Medicare and Social Security weakened us as a people.

Anyone out there with elderly parents think they've been weakened by these programs? Did it make you any less a family? Did such a dumb idea even occur to you? Rubio isn't alone. This is where the GOP is headed; the complete tear down of the great American experiment. Car washes, basketball fund raisers...that's the future of senior care.



Where is the research that backs up Rubio's claim?

Huffington Post: Florida Senator Marco Rubio is continuing his war of words with Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow, seizing on their recent criticism of his remarks for a fundraising pitch. The MSNBC hosts had both bashed Rubio's recent speech at the Reagan Library. He had said that entitlement programs "actually weakened us as a people," suggesting that the programs made people more dependent on government.

Last Thursday, Ed Schultz responded on his show. "I'll tell what's weakening our society: political hacks like Marco Rubio, who want to get rid of social safety nets," he thundered.

Likewise, Rachel Maddow accused Rubio of flip-flopping on Medicare, comparing his statement to earlier remarks about the importance of Medicare for his family. She asked, "What would he run as, the guy who says Medicare saved his father and his family but it's also turned you weak and helpless?"

The most important position by the Rubio’s Reclaiming America PAC is summed up in this statement:
“These are the typical attacks that are routinely launched against those who are standing up for our conservative principles.” 
Run on it, we dare you.

Latest GOP Jobs Bill?: Woman's Protection Act. More Small Government Regulations Directing Doctors to Do Their Bidding.

It's funny how Fitzwalkerstan Republicans hate "government" health care, yet find it okay to intrude in abortion decisions made by a doctor and patient. They know where their support lies; Wisconsin Right to Life.

Lawmakers may soon consider changes to state abortion laws, and they could include controversial provisions that were just struck down in Texas.
This latest effort, in a long list of "jobs bills" by our state Republicans, goes after professional doctors who may be endangering their patients seeking a termination of their unintended pregnancy.
Sen. Mary Lazich: "Overall, it's a medical procedure, and we want to make sure the procedure is safe. That's what this is all about...we're working on the bill, and the focus is safety. That's my concern. Safety. Health care safety."

Brilliant. Politicians like Lazich are simply making sure DOCTORS are safe to see. Politicians always know better than doctors when it comes to medical safety and procedures. It's all about safety, and we should thank Lazich for her feigned concern.

So what if a judge struck down a similar law in Texas, saying it violated the First Amendment by requiring doctors and patients to participate in government mandated speech. The law also doesn't apply to those with normal pregnancies.

From WISC Channel 3000:



By the way, doesn't Lazich come across outrageously creepy? Is there a way to keep us "safe" from her?

One Good Accusation Deserves another? Justice Gableman tries to prove Justice Anne Walsh Bradley the Court Abuser.

UPDATE: Yeah, right!!!  TPM:
Allegation that liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley hit him during a court meeting on September 18, 2008 -- a date when the court did not meet. Gableman's answer is that he is correcting a lapse of memory: It did happen on September 18 -- but in 2009. In any event, the incident happened exactly as I related it to the officers and as it was set forth in the report. While Justice Bradley might not be able to recall it, I certainly do." 

Justice Michael Gableman lied his way in the court, avoided punishment due to a decision by his conservative cohort Justice Prosser, and now has a tale to tell about Justice Bradley. What is it about the media pass these conservative activist justices are given for provably inaccurate statements?

One thing for sure, high court women justices are a tough intimidating bunch. 
WSJ: Three Wisconsin Supreme Court justices are disputing an allegation by Justice Michael Gableman that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley rapped him on the head during a 2008 meeting at which they were reportedly present.

Gableman relayed the alleged incident to Dane County Sheriff's deputies during the investigation into a June 13 altercation between Bradley and Justice David Prosser. The event took place during a meeting with the other justices on Sept. 18, 2008, Gableman said, a date he said he remembers because it was his birthday and just weeks after he joined the court … Gableman said he was in a meeting with other justices, including Justice Patrick Crooks, who he said was "reading the horoscopes." Gableman said he made a joking comment to Abrahamson, calling her by her first name … In response, Gableman said, "Justice Bradley came over to him, hit him on the back of the head and told him that he needed to show respect to the chief," according to sheriff's reports. He said he believed Bradley wasn't being playful because no one was laughing at the time.

Asked to respond to the allegation, Bradley said in an email to the Wisconsin State Journal that "Justice Gableman recounts an event that never happened on a date that, according to my records, it could not have occurred. "And Abrahamson said that, according to her records, "no meeting, conference or oral argument of the court occurred on September 18, 2008, or on any day that week." She said she asked Bradley and Crooks to check their records, which also show no meetings that week. And, she said, Justice Patience Roggensack earlier requested that the court not schedule anything between Sept. 15 and Sept. 29 that year.

Former Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske called the contradiction between Gableman's account and the denials by the three justices "disturbing" and the account itself "bizarre." "I have known Justice Bradley for 20 years. I cannot imagine her hitting another justice in anger because he (Gableman) called Justice Abrahamson 'Shirley' — because everybody calls her Shirley," said Geske, adding that even the custodial staff at the court refers to the chief justice by her first name.

Gableman is a zealot conservative, bought and paid for Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce. His credibility dissipated quickly after this recent comment about his good friend David Prosser:
Gableman also insisted to the detectives that Prosser never put his hands on Bradley's neck. But even Prosser acknowledged doing that, calling it a "total reflex."