No better example of the right wing "bubble world" alternative reality than the fake "precedent" of never approving a justice nominee in a presidential year. They've been proven wrong so many times, and so many times they keep repeating it:
From today's PolitiFact came this revelation, with a picture:
As to Moore’s claim, we covered much of this ground in a
March 2016 fact check when Ryan said: "There is a precedent" for not
nominating someone to the U.S. Supreme Court "in the middle of a
presidential election." We rated his statement False.
Now of course Republican laughing stock Joe Biden is so wise he's shaping their justice nomination policy around a comment he made some time ago:
Mitch McConnell cites non-existent clause in the “Biden Rule” as reason there will be no Senate hearing for Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland: The Senate Majority Leader said that the august body "will continue to honor the Biden rule," which doesn't exist
Who knew Biden still had this much sway in the Senate, especially with Republicans? McConnell's complete misreading of the "rule," which was nothing more than an observation, is something called "a Humpty Dumptyism." It predates the Biden Rule. It's "the practice of insisting that a word or sentence means whatever one wishes it to."
I don't know how they did it, but they couldn't even get this one right. This is the "Biden Rule:"
Biden made an observation to the effect that if an outgoing president nominates someone before the summer of his last term in office, that person typically receives the Senate’s approval, but that if he or she is nominated during the summer, that person does not — meaning that McConnell even gets what could be called the “Biden Observation” wrong.
Republicans got the wrong impression somewhere along the way, that the people didn't decide that when they voted twice for Obama. Or they're just making it up as they go along. Did they forget?
Even after facing the inconvenient fact the "Biden Rule" is a power elite fiction made up by Senators, Republican true believers won't budge from their easy bubble world answer:
Alexander Hamilton's writings in The Federalist explained the "originalist" thought behind getting the Senates consent; basically trying to get politics out of the process:
To Hamilton the added advantage of providing “excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the president, and would tend greatly to preventing the appointment of unfit characters from state prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.”
What the hell Democrats? The “battered partner” party has
secured itself as a minority fringe group of spineless whiners. You can forget about our current band of losers ever standing up
for anything specific, unless Republicans bring it up first.
Adding to the Republicans long list of trashing local
control,now with the help of Democrats, is this gem:
Local fire departments would have to allow Christmas trees in churches under a
measure that passed the Senate … The plan would prohibit cities from enacting
or enforcing any rules related to fire safety that prohibit the placement of a
Christmas tree in a church. It would also apply to the rotunda of the state
Capitol.
A live tree in the Capitol makes sense because the building is under the watchful eye of security at all times, but churches?
Whitewater-area Republican Sen. Steve Nass called it a common sense
bill. "Never did I think that we would be here in the state Senate having
to pass legislation so people can enjoy a Christmas Tree." The plan passed on a bipartisan 25-7 vote.
Anytime you make a guy like Republican Steve Nass seem like the voice of reason, you've got a big identity problem. Why weren’t Democrats on the same page with Sen. Fred
Risser about letting local government decide?
Sen. Fred Risser said the bill was essentially asking local
officials to ignore their own judgement. "Can you imagine legislating
against fire safety?" he said. "That's what we're doing here."
The cowering Democrats that went along with this party breakdown should be ashamed.
I am so tired of hearing about the “angry electorate.”
Excuses, excuses. Who the hell is making the electorate angry?
Republicans of course!
For example, Wisconsinites are "angry" about the road conditions and delayed projects statewide due the Republicans ridiculous pledge to never raise taxes, ever. The "anger" will only increase, as things get even worse, while Republicans defer maintenance by denying reality:
A two-year-old report showing Wisconsin roads to be in the third-worst shape in the U.S. was refuted by the Department of Transportation on Tuesday, with officials saying the "roughness" indicator used in the report was not widely accepted as a true gauge of road worthiness.
So let's argue about that for the next 10 years, while doing nothing. That should really piss everybody off. As one readers comment makes perfectly clear...
"State DOT officials say the International Roughness metric is outmoded, the fact remains that the same metric was used to measure every other state."
Paul Ryan blames an "angry electorate" for the embarrassing failure of his budget, now blocked by member of his own party. Remember when Republicans made it seem like a Democratic problem?
For years, the GOP attacked Senate Democrats for the same failure.
Hey, it's the "angry electorate," the sole creation of the Republican Party.
Rural conservative voter are angry over large corporate farms, a GOP favorite that pollutes their wells and squeezes out family farms.
Rural conservatives are angry over closing community schools that end up destroying towns. They're angry over cuts to school funding (for vouchers) that force teacher and school busing cuts. They're angry over fewer local health care clinics.
Republicans are angry over the existence of that other political party. The so called "left," "liberals," and "Democrat" Party have been vilified to the point that they no longer have relevance. Right wing media has replaced everything else, which is a bizarre turn of events no one could have predicted. Blame the kid glove treatment by the press over obvious BS, fiction, lies and irresponsible behavior by Republicans that lead us to this point. My conservative friend in Milwaukee wrote...
One radio talk host claims the truth can be found somewhere in the middle of the battling "right" and "left." Since when is the truth in the middle?
But then conservatives who hate government the most can't wait to get on the public dole themselves. In fact, in the Ohio race to replace John Boehner, 15 candidates ran in the primary there. So many that voters either didn't bother to vote, or couldn't remember who they voted for:
I don't know why, but suddenly an avalanche of stuff is coming out on Trump, and none of its good. Funniest thing? When Trump takes a jab at the reports, no matter how heinous, sick or brutal, he turns it into Trump loving ammunition against his critics. Really, there's no stopping this slide into despotism.
This first clip is an overall look at how Trump incites the mindless clone army:
Trump won't hesitate to set a bad example, like legally defending the guy who sucker punched another American at one of his rallies:
Loved this gif pairing Trump with a troublesome Bernie Sanders...
The comparisons are finally in, and it looks like Donald Trump is going to be the worlds next Hitler:
Like Trump Hitler's brownshirt said...
The best person to appear as Hitler? Welcome Sarah Silverman, on Conan O'Brien:
Ted Cruz did a fine job finding a creative ad agency that gave us a kids eye view of Trump:
Louis C.K.'s now popular description of Trump, as read by Lawrence O'Donnell:
Check out the different hate filled events taking place across the country, as Trump voters live out their "leaders" most authoritarian fantasies. Hover your mouse over each face for a popup story:
Republicans have a dangerous problem "projecting" every ugly part of their ideology onto liberal Americans, who couldn't think more differently. It protects and feeds their anger. But liberals are also victims of their own projection, like when they think conservatives will someday see the light and change their ways. For example...
She doesn't have to. It's the perfect cover of phony outrage.
Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like every right wing flack and corporate lobbyist is getting media time defending Rebecca Bradley's unforgivable commentary that can't be reversed; can you still be a conservative and take back saying a majority of Clinton voters are either totally stupid or entirely evil? They're saying that now for gods sake. Or how about "degenerate queers," words no one else uses. And that's her public face.
Right wing special interests want us to believe Bradley's bigoted and partisan comments aren't any different than shotgunning too much beer at a party and "morning-after walks of shame through a random guy’s filthy apartment."
The only thing they haven't said yet is how refreshingly honest she was back then.
"I accept her apology," because that's how forgiving Republicans usually are? Fmr. Commerce Sec. Bill McCoshen, who
is now the Managing Partner of corporate lobbyists Capitol Consultants, had this grasping at straws excuse. Here and Now:
McCoshen: "I don't believe she was a judge at the time...everything we're talking about here today, Frederica, is before she was a judge."
Republicans now think Bradley's even More Qualified: Or how about lunatic fringers Brian Sikma, at Media Trackers, who had to be reminded that Bradley should be held to a higher standard as a public office holder, than say One Wisconsin Now's Scot Ross:
Sikma: "...but at the same time, you know, Scot Ross is a big public figure here..."
Yup, the same:
Temperament...it's her Temperament: Watch Bradley become unhinged after hearing from soft spoken JoAnne Kloppenburg:
While Obama is taking a few weeks to review possible nominees for the supreme court, Walker's unvetted Bradley got the track, before anyone else could turn in their application:
Here's One Wisconsin Now's Jenni Dye on Bradley's insane comments:
Since there's no right wing principle that can't be reversed (because Republicans have different rules when they're in power), trolls who are easily convinced that something is true if it's repeated enough, are sticking to the fabrication that there is precedent for not nominating a supreme court justice in a presidents final year. I feel a little dumber just typing that. This suddenly got tweets:
Still clinging to their guns, god and lies, who cares about the truth. First, PolitiFact already decided this one:
False, but who cares. Liberal media right?
But as it turns out, "precedent" isn't the real reason, as if most of us didn't already know that. Here's Dumb Ron Johnson with the bubble bursting truth:
TPM: Johnson was asked on Wisconsin radio show "Morning Mess" about Senate Republicans' refusal to consider President Obama's forthcoming nomination to the Supreme Court. The host hypothesized that things would be different if Mitt Romney were in the White House.
"It’s a different situation. Generally, and this is the way it works out politically, if you’re replacing — if a conservative president’s replacing a conservative justice, there’s a little more accommodation to it."
Oops, and for added measure, why not freely admit the court is a partisan right wing arm of the Republican Party too:
"But when you're talking about a conservative justice now being replaced by a liberal president who would literally flip the court — you know, let's face it, I don't think anybody's under any illusion — President Obama's nominee would flip the court from a 5-4 conservative to a 5-4 liberal controlled court. And that's the concern is that our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, our First Amendment rights to free speech and religious liberty, will be threatened."
The great American truth teller Sen. Elizabeth Warren was just as stunned as I was:
Warren: "I mean, what's it gonna take for these guys. Ron Johnson today said 'well, if it were a Republican president, yea, we'd feel differently about doing that vote.' I mean, can you be any more naked about what's going on? That there is no point of principle here for those guys. This is naked politics."
Remember when justices were supposed to impartial? Not a lot of people do today. The same reasoning went into eliminating the Government Accountability Board overseeing elections in Wisconsin; it was replaced by partisan political hacks because basically no one is really ever impartial anymore, so screw it.
WaPo:Richard A. Posner is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit: The decision of the Republican Senate majority to consider no nominee of President Obama to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court ... is significant, but not for the usual reasons given ... the Senate’s action lies in reminding us that the Supreme Court is not an ordinary court but a political court, or more precisely a politicized court, which is to say a court strongly influenced in making its decisions by the political beliefs of the judges. Most of what the Supreme Court does — or says it does — is “interpret” the Constitution and federal statutes, but I put the word in scare quotes because interpretation implies understanding a writer’s or speaker’s meaning, and most of the issues that the court takes up cannot be resolved by interpretation because the drafters and ratifiers of the constitutional or statutory provision in question had not foreseen the issue that has arisen. This is notoriously the case with respect to the Constitution ... Eighteenth- and 19th-century politicians, and many 20th-century ones as well, did not foresee or make provision for regulating electronic surveillance, sound trucks, flash-bang grenades, gerrymandering, child pornography, flag-burning or corporate donations to political candidates. When judges are not interpreting, they’re creating, and to understand judicial creation one must understand first of all the concept of “priors.” Priors are attitudes, presuppositions derived from upbringing, from training, from personal and career experience, from religion and national origin and character and ideology and politics ... they are impervious to evidence ... their priors will tug them this way or that, and the tug may be decisive ... bowing to the inevitable is not misconduct, however much it deviates from the “official” — the self-protective “the law made me do it” — conception of judicial decision-making. The Republican senators’ behavior is proof (were any needed) of the Supreme Court’s politicization.
My conservative friend in Milwaukee had this response to Posner's opinion...I wish I was kidding, or at least he was:
For the record, never forget how every Republican presidential candidate went along with an attempt to sabotage the country for their own selfish political gain, offering up second grade excuses for the delay:
The supposed non-partisan candidate for Wisconsin's Supreme Court, Rebecca Bradley, appeared on...ready for this, conservative talk radio, where else, and got the drooling obedient host (Jay Weber) to praise her courage and character. That's how the Republican media machine works in Wisconsin.
Bradley presented an obviously prepared statement that sounded canned and completely insincere.
Click to enlarge-right temperament?
But after listening to the tone and vitriol, the first thing you'll notice; this doesn't sound anything like a Supreme Court Justice. Bradley's heated disjointed rant should be enough to disqualify her as a serious candidate all by itself. This is how she deals with adversity?
None of this is Bradley's fault of course, and besides, she's now flip flopped on all the issues. That would make her a liberal? Here's the audio from WISN featuring only Bradley's comments, minus the Jay Weber ass kissing:
My favorite line: "To do this to a women, is absolutely sexist. If I were a man, this would not be a story." That would be a logical line of attack, except that her opponent is also a woman, and doesn't have Bradley's long list of moral and ethical lapses, not to mention radical position on contraception. Even more ruthless, Bradley uses the opportunity to push her campaign site by inviting listeners to visit.
My conservative friend in Milwaukee said he didn't care what she did, because the whole debacle is just a liberal media creation hit piece. Yea, I suppose the liberal media planted the bigoted commentary in the Marquette student newspaper and forced her to say nasty disdainful things about Democratic Party voters who swept Bill Clinton into office. What is this this two party thing that keeps getting in the Republicans way?
My god how bad can this get? I guess we can rule any kind of vetting process by the Walker administration. Let's take a look at what we know about Justice candidate Rebecca Bradley so far:
JS: The matter raises questions about the vetting process used by Walker, who has acknowledged he was unaware of college newpaper writings by Bradley in which she condemned "queers" and addicts for essentially killing themselves through their conduct, called voters stupid or evil for electing Bill Clinton president, and compared abortion to the Holocaust and slavery. In one column, she also wrote: "Heterosexual sex is very healthy in a loving marital relationship. Homosexual sex, however, kills."
Here we go again...Rebecca Bradley's affair? What happened to conservative values?
As a private attorney, Rebecca Bradley represented in a
child placement case the former chief operating officer of the law firm where
both had previously worked — and with whom she acknowledged having had an
extra-marital affair, according to court records. At the time, the ex-wife of J. Andrew Bednall objected to
Bradley's representation based on her relationship with Bednall, the records
show. The court-appointed attorney overseeing the interests of Bednall's son in
the 2005 placement case agreed with those concerns. Bradley responded in a January 2005 affidavit that she could
remain on the case."At one time I had a romantic relationship with
(Bednall), which we both believed might result in marriage. We broke off that
relationship in November 2002, although we have continued to date on a
nonexclusive basis since that time," wrote Bradley, who was divorced in
2004.
Bradley the Victim? Sure, and blame the messenger (JS) while you're at it:
"I'm not sure what you're talking about or what you're
trying to do to me," she said. "There were motions filed in that case
and the judge dismissed them and that's all I have to say. The Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel should be ashamed of itself and you can put that on the
record."
The test for GOP voters will be do they vote for her anyway, because "they won, get over it," or opt to put someone responsible in. In this day of Trump and Cruz, I'm not sure.
I nearly spit out my coffee this morning after hearing a miffed Rebecca "bigot" Bradley whine about supporter frustration over a little hate speech. Poor baby. This is a hybrid form of the Fox News trick "some say...:" Wisconsin Public Radio:
"They cannot understand why the media is going after me like this. They cannot understand why the media is going after me like this. I'm somebody who has put myself out there to serve the people of Wisconsin, and I deserve a little more respect than I'm receiving."
That's a fine example of Bradley's "hot headed" temperament. After JoAnne Kloppenburg pointed out how Bradley continues to espouse right wing positions on the issues (like contraception is murder), Bradley blew up and childishly attacked Kloppenburg (at 2:21)...not exactly the kind of behavior you want to see on the bench. The Milwaukee Bar Association Forum :
Bradley's "orginalist philosophy" is the preposterous idea that only conservative judges and justice know exactly what the founding fathers meant when they wrote the Constitution.
Kloppenburg highlighted Bradley's volatile temperament, lack of maturity and disrespect for the litigants/attorney's appearing before the state's highest court when she left during arguments to fund raise with WMC lobbyists. With the calm and precision of a Supreme Court justice, Kloppenburg laid it all out:
After Scott Walker tried and failed to unconstitutionally silence the protesters at the Capitol with a bizarre set of permits and free speech restrictions, the state asked the Court of Appeals to insert specific language that would make the law whole again, which they refused to do. Kloppenburg is on that court and wrote the decision. The State v Crute:
On an interesting side note, Bradley is outraged that the soft spoken Kloppenburg continually brings up how Scott Walker appointed her 3 times in 3 years. Bradley said Walker was just doing his "constitutional duty" when there was a vacancy...a duty Democrats like Obama don't have I guess, especially in their last year in office. Ironic?:
Soft spoken Kloppenburg is tough. Check out her closing statement. As for Bradley, has she got a bad case of projection or what...:
Bradley:"If people instead want to be dictated to and ruled by a majority of justices that happen to sit on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, they will elect Judge Kloppenburg."
I'd like to remind Bradley that with or without her, there's still a conservative activist majority:
The question here is this; just how much has Rebecca Bradley changed, or will we find out she's been replaced by her doppelganger. I mean really, this is getting ridiculous.
Nothing Unusual: A lot of Rebecca Bradley’s comments are typically
conservative, no big surprise. But as a nominee and sitting appointed Justice
on the State Supreme Court, yikes.
Bradley is an extreme right winger. No wonder Scott Walker
wasn’t shy or even a wee bit hesitant to appoint her three times. To him, she was conservative activist gold.
We now have to ask ourselves why we would trust the
judgement of Scott Walker, who started off his first term seeing 6 close aides
convicted during the first John Doe.
(Rebecca's) column, which appeared in the Marquette Journal in 1992,
features the then-undergraduate student denouncing the feminist movement in a
counterpoint piece titled “Awaiting feminism’s demise ... largely composed of angry, militant, man-hating lesbians
who abhor the traditional family.” Bradley also expressed support for the views of columnist
Camille Paglia, who Bradley said “legitimately suggested women play a role in
date rape.”
On that rape thing, I wonder how this Twitter troll is going to deal with her obsession over Sanders' 1972 essay, pictured here:
We all know how bad Justice Thomas is. Nobody was fooled by his ploy to play the victim during his nomination hearings. But playing off that, this is a real Bradley gem:
"Feminists whined about the 'ordeal' perjurer Anita
Hill suffered under the male-dominated Senate judiciary committee ... I call
Murphy Brown the 'near-perfect' feminist model only because she failed to abort
her baby."
It's almost like reading a transcript of Vicki McKenna's pathetic excuse for a radio show. Sadly, Bradley is running out of excuses in this career pile up:
Asked if she could clarify what she meant when she wrote
Paglia "legitimately suggested that women play a role in date rape,"
Bradley told the Cap Times she would need to go back and look at the column
again, noting that it's 24 years old … "I wrote opinion pieces 24 years
ago on a variety of issues, and they are opinions that some people may agree
with, some people might disagree with. I really haven’t gone back to read all
of them. It’s been quite some time."
There is no way Bradley will be seen as anything but an extreme activist jurist.
Her
campaign did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the latest
release.
It's an amazing game of words coming from the the Walker administration. Walker says we should stay with fossil fuels because that will keep prices down, all the while the PSC is raising prices, all the while solar and wind energy generation is now competitive and costs less.
It always seemed odd to me that utility companies that made money from energy use, would tell their customer how to save energy. That charade has ended:
Wisconsin's electric utilities back the bill, which would
cut funding for the Focus on Energy program by $7 million at a time when
electricity costs in Wisconsin have risen above the national average.Utilities and state regulators say the proposed cut would
return money to ratepayers, the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel reported.
Since really big business took control of Wisconsin's legislature, the muscle flexing has begun, at the expense of it's citizens and smaller businesses:
But the program's supporters cite its savings, pointing out
that the program has delivered $3 of savings to customers for every $1 spent. Theresa
Lehman, director of sustainable services at Miron Construction. said
at a time when capital spending budgets are tight, the program offers
incentives that help customers cut their costs by allowing them to afford the
upfront expenses of switching to more efficient LED lighting. St. Elizabeth
Hospital in Appleton is saving $30,000 a year by upgrading the
lighting in its corridors, Lehman said. Another client, Lake
Mills Elementary School, received $100,000 in incentives from the program
and is now saving $85,000 every year on its energy costs, she said.
Families and businesses will now pay more, and not save energy. Hey, we're just trying to save the utilities money!!!
Supporters of the cut, including Wisconsin utilities and
manufacturing groups, say it fixes a problem that effectively charges some
utilities twice for the program. Investor-owned utilities are paying into the program based
on a percentage of sales, and then municipal utilities — which buy power from
investor-owned utilities — are paying into the program separately, at a rate of
$8 per meter. The proposed change would collect program funding by retail
rather than total utility electric sales, so investor utilities aren't paying
for both their customers' and municipal customers' contributions to Focus on
Energy. "Our concern is the formula and getting rid of the
double charge," We Energies spokesman Brian
Manthey said. Total funding for the program would increase over time
as utility power sales rise, he said.
And that savings will go right back to the customer, so they can pay for the increases by the PSC. Not a bad scam;
Madison-based Alliant Energy and Milwaukee-based WEC
Energy Group, parent of We Energies
and Wisconsin Public Service, are backing the bill. All three of the
utilities estimate they would see savings of about $2 million a year. PSC spokeswoman Elise
Nelson contends the change is about equity and fairness and
"would put $7 million back in ratepayers' pockets."
In Walker's way from the beginning: Keep the following in mind, since it's directly related and is another example of Walker outsourcing Wisconsin jobs. Scott Walker's first victim was a 30 year old Wisconsin company, replaced by one from Baton Rouge, La.
WSJ: Focus on Energy, a statewide program that promotes energy
efficiency … new management by an out-of-state corporation, suspension of a
popular rebate program, and sharp funding cuts in the pending state budget … Nearly
20 people already have lost their jobs … In the past 10 years, more than 91,000
businesses and more than 1.7 million residents used the program and saved $2.20
for every dollar spent. The nonprofit Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp. (WECC) has
handled the program since 2001 … grew to 235 employees, with clients in 12
states and a building in University Research Park that’s a showpiece for energy
efficiency. But a panel decided in May (2011) to award the contract to Shaw
Environmental & Infrastructure, part of The Shaw Group, a publicly traded
Baton Rouge, La., corporation
I wonder why….
Other divisions of Shaw design and build power plants, erect pipelines and manage radioactive waste.
Hey, didn't Republicans end the nuke plant moratorium? Coincidence? And so Walker’s war on green energy began:
Since taking over Focus on Energy on May 9, one of Shaw’s
first decisions, with PSC support, was to suspend payments to businesses that
install renewable-energy systems, as of June 30. Contractors like Seventh Generation Energy Systems were
stunned. “It’s pretty devastating,” said James Yockey, chief executive officer.
“It probably took out six to 10 projects that we were looking to close ... for
work in the fall and the coming spring.” Several of the projects were wind
turbines for farmers. “I think the incentives are decisive in people saying
yes,” Yockey said.
We're a good Christian state now, thanks to Scott Walker. His appointed bigot Justice Rebecca Bradley, who thinks gays are degenerates and perverts, fits right in with this in kind attack on a popular summer hangout on the Wisconsin River. WISC:
DNR closes Mazomanie's nude beach, cites illicit activity as reason: The DNR said it will close approximately 140 acres of the 46,000-acre property, but not because of nudity.
Even though they've tried to close it before for that specific reason. The beach is also a popular nudist destination:
“What we're talking about is illegal drug use as well as public sexual activity going on at the beach," said Brian Hefty, with the DNR.
Which of course must be the DNR's mission now. Gone are the concerns over clean water and the protection of wild life, it's all about drug use and sexual activity now:
Hefty said the department's repeated efforts to assuage problems in the area for more than a decade have made little impact. Further, the illegal activity has kept prospective users from visiting the beach.
Hmm, those who don't want to go to a nude beach...can't go to a beach with nudists!!! Think about that. It's like closing down dog parks because people without dogs or have dog allergies can't go. Again, there just aren't enough parks?
There are so few beautiful public areas and access points along the Wisconsin River? Guess so:
“This is one of Wisconsin’s most beautiful spots, and the citizens of Wisconsin ought to be able to visit the sight and be comfortable doing so," Hefty said.
The thing is, the beach is popular because...ready for this, it's a nude beach:
Longtime users of the beach called the closure a "misdirection" by the DNR, noting it impacts most those frequent visitors who have cared for the beach longer than anyone else.
WKOW's coverage:
With state parks now funded by entrance fees, I'm wondering where the money is coming from to redevelop an already popular beach. And they're in a real big hurry:
The beach may not be closed forever. Redevelopment efforts hope to re-brand the space as family-friendly by adding more picnic and parking space, new trails and a canoe drop-off location.
It's been pretty unmistakable; Republicans oppose almost everything - science; K-12; higher education; the environment; labor; the New Deal; the opposition party; even the Constitution, demanding a rewrite via a constitutional convention.
And while pundits predict the collapse of the Republican Party, especially if Trump is the nominee, I think its just the opposite. The chaos of "every man for himself" is the desired end game for Republicans.
Thomas E. Mann, of the Brookings Institution, and Norman
Ornstein at the American Enterprise Institute, have had to add to their book, “It’s
Even Worse Than It Looks.” Back in 2012, they prophetically wrote:
“The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier —
ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic regime;
scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts,
evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political
opposition.”
Here's some of what Mann and Ornstein have added. Kind of what we've been thinking. WaPo:
Fast forward to 2016. Incredibly, Republican destructiveness
is even worse than it was four years ago — and the party is paying
for it with a surge of anti-establishment populism that is tearing apart its
coalitional base. It is the radicalization of the Republican party — not just
in terms of ideology but also in an utter rejection of the norms and civic
culture underlying our constitutional system — that has been the most
significant and consequential change in American politics in recent decades.
Tribal politics fueled by partisan and social media leaves us with a good vs.
evil view of democracy and a visceral hatred of the opposition party. Republicans in Congress — from the day of President Obama’s
inauguration in 2009 — pursued a strategy of unified opposition to every Obama
policy and initiative, including those they had recently supported, such as
investment in infrastructure, health care reform and climate change. They also
worked with their counterparts in cable television and talk radio to demonize
every victory and to delegitimize the president. Today, incredibly, it’s even worse than it was. Continuing
to fan the flames of hatred of Obama, Republican leaders openly acknowledged
that little if anything of consequence would be considered by Congress during
the last year of President Obama’s term, then trashed long-standing precedents
by refusing to schedule the traditional hearings at which the Administration
presents its budget or to even consider any presidential nominee to fill the
Supreme Court vacancy. Donald Drumpf, America’s equivalent of European right-wing
populists and possibly the most miscast presidential front-runner for a major
party in American history, makes a mockery of the Republican establishment
agenda and presages the GOP’s possible break-up. It is a self-inflicted wound,
but one with disastrous consequences for us all.
Rebecca Bradley's short lived half ass'ed apology is turning into an all out attack on the media and One Wisconsin Now. Bradley ran for cover on conservative talk radio, getting the extra spin machine treatment. Didn't she once say she was "non-partisan." No time for that when your in a full blown public image disaster like this.
One Wisconsin Now's research director Jenny Dye ran down the impressively nasty list of Bradley qualities Walker is quite happy with on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, already a national embarrassment. Devil's Advocates Radio Network:
Republican trolls may hate liberals more than anything, but when one of their own screws up, they're okay with being just like liberals. Like magic, they're exempt from their strongly held "principles" and responsibilities.
The following troll response to Bradley's grotesque heart felt bigotry...ignore the issue completely:
Not remotely comparable (see for yourself), but a lot easier than watching the Bradley self destruct.
Anyone think Bradley actually apologized for her comments?
"To those offended by comments I made as a young college student, I apologize..."
...and to those who agree with Bradley? They know, wink, wink, they got the message.
Did her bigotry and condescending view of Democratic voters humble Bradley? Nope, she fought back and blamed the messenger for quoting her verbatim:
She also accused One Wisconsin Now of conducting a "blatant mudslinging campaign to distract the people from the issues at hand," according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
Is it possible a conservative would not hold the following conservative values repeated ad nauseam in the presidential race?
An Associated Press review of the Marquette University student newspaper on Tuesday uncovered columns by Bradley where she defends the school's Warriors mascot and criticizes political correctness as a "frightening trend." She wrote in April 1992 that "The PC movement is entirely the agenda of feminists, gays, liberal extremists and 1960's radicals who never left school and consequently are largely ignorant of the real world."
What the hell does she know about the 60's?
And how about this non-answer response from Scott Walker, :
"It's really irrelevant in that it's now up to the
voters to decide come... April," Walker said. When asked, Walker would not
explicitly condemn Bradley's comments or share his own views on the subject.
And as we're constantly being told, these outrageous conservative views don’t
really reflect conservative views…
He said Bradley's early views did not reflect those of young
conservative activists, like himself, at the time.
But just as frightening is Walker's lack of concern over putting a justice on the state's highest court that held these strong bigoted and intolerant views:
Walker said the question of whether he would have appointed Bradley to the Supreme Court had he seen her 1992 opinion pieces is irrelevant. State Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling disagreed, saying: "As elected officials, it's our job to lead by example. Hate speech, discrimination and intolerance are never 'irrelevant.'"
Walker also believes conservative activist judges and
justices never have a reason to recuse themselves:
Asked if Bradley would have to recuse herself from
significant cases involving discrimination of gay and lesbian people, Walker
said no, because there is nothing in her judicial record that suggests she
would be biased on those issues.
Could someone so ideologically driven like Rebecca Bradley change her view of "queers," as she describes them, and Americans she said are "totally stupid or entirely evil" for voting for Bill Clinton? Didn't think so.
Bradley said Monday she was embarrassed about the columns
"as a very young student, upset about the outcome of that presidential
election"
"To those offended by comments I made as a young
college student, I apologize, and assure you that those comments are not
reflective of my worldview. These comments have
nothing to do with who I am as a person or a jurist, and they have nothing to
do with the issues facing the voters of this state."
Never a great judge of character (6 of his closest aides convicted in the first John Doe investigation), Walker stepped in it again...:
A spokeswoman for Gov. Scott Walker, who appointed Bradley
to three judgeships in as many years, said on Monday that "neither the
Governor nor our office was aware of the columns." In a statement, Walker said Bradley "appropriately made
it clear today that a column written in college does not reflect her views as a
Supreme Court Justice, a court of appeals judge, a circuit court judge or as an
attorney."
They don't reflect her views today? Why would we assume that, when these weren't just one or two ambiguous statements, they were pretty clear:
Scott Foval, the Madison-based Regional Political
Coordinator for the national organization People For the American Way, said "I question how anyone in the LGBTQ community, or anyone living with HIV/AIDS feels they could get a fair decision from her. The demeaning statements she authored gravely undermines her ability to continue to serve on the state Supreme Court.”
We've got to stop using "question" when "can't" works even better. Here's the WISC coverage:
The thinness of Bradley’s legal resume left her referencing things like a college term paper she wrote in applying for one of the unprecedented three appointments in three years by Gov. Scott Walker. And while disclosing other articles she authored, she specifically failed to make any mention of her newspaper writings.
She was young, angry about Bill Clinton's win, why would we ever doubt her impartiality and ability to leave politics out of her decision making?
Senator Tammy Baldwin, who just so happens to be the first openly gay person to serve in the Senate, called Judge Bradley's trash opinions "hate speech."
Now that the public and press have finally picked up on Trump's right wing authoritarianism, I thought it would be a good to take a look again at Wisconsin's own authoritarian despot; Scott Walker. Walker's presidential spilled over with scary gems like this:
Reuters-Scott Walker on Iran: "This is
not a country we should be doing business with ...The United States needs a foreign
policy that putssteel in the face of our
enemies." "We don’t need more information,we don’t need to waitto confirm the next Secretary of
State,we need decisive
leadership and we need it now. This won’t be easy, butwhen America leads, and has a
strong president with clear priorities whobelieves
in American strength, the rest of the world will follow."
Walker's ambitious campaign agenda was peppered with outright authoritarian edicts that somehow got lost in the coverage. Like the following frightening plan to break the country up into little fiefdoms.
Walker to spin off states, dissolve "United" States, saying it's too big to fail!!!
Like another poisonous snake we're all familiar with, Scott Walker is rattling, and he's about to strike. So you've got to ask; shouldn't we do something?
In a just released interview with right wing spinmeister Breitbart, Walker doesn't acknowledge the existence of an opposition party. He doesn't care if most Americans disagree with what he has planned for popular government programs polling says people support overwhelmingly.
Carrying out the rest of his divide and conquer agenda, he would separate the states into miniature country-like entities, with their own transportation, infrastructure, workforce, and environmental laws. And he wants a tough punishment base system of social safety nets that would make anyone down on their luck wish they were never born:
Walker said that if he’s elected president in 2016, he’d aim to severely cut back on the size and scope of the federal government—and he touted his experience battling the unions in Wisconsin. “For me, what I learned from what we did four years ago in Wisconsin, is you got to strike early” ... I’d like to take huge chunks of the federal government and send it back to the states. For years people have talked about Medicaid—that’s a good start, to block grant that. But I’d take major social service programs, I’d take transportation and infrastructure, workforce and development, environmental protection, and heck I’d take education and instead of spending each of those down from Washington where the federal government skims off huge chunks of money and sends pennies on the dollar back to the state governments, why not keep those dollars back in the states where states can be more effective, more efficient, and certainly be held accountable to the hardworking taxpayers?
It's hard to be accountable under a one party system, you think?
Right now, at the federal level, we have a federal government that’s too big to fail. We need a government that’s small enough to succeed.
The closer this guy gets to the presidency, the more nervous I'm becoming. Here's audio of his comment:
Former Nixon counsel John Dean wrote an entire expose' on Walker, because yes, that's how obvious Walker has been about his intentions. Walker isn't just a "conservative without a conscience," as Dean has written, he's a "double high" authoritarian, shaping the country around his singular vision of power. Dean wrote this back in March of 2012, believe it or not:
My focus here is on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who strikes some who have written to me as a distinctively prototypical authoritarian politician; what social science has labeled as a “double high” authoritarian; and the type of person which I described in my book as a conservative without conscience. There are many examples of Walker’s harsh and uncaring treatment of those whom he does not believe to be entitled to equality. Desirous Of Personal Power: As governor, Walker sought to remove civil service jobs, in order to make them political appointments, and thus subject to his control. Most strikingly, he has sought to undercut the public-employee unions so that he would not have to deal with them, thus increasing his power. He has increased his personal power over some fifteen state agencies, and I suspect that he is just getting started. Walker’s push to get Act 10 passed into law was done in about as authoritarian a fashion as you will ever see, outside of a dictatorship.
And "slick" is too kind a word to use; liar works just fine, according to Dean:
His lying is notorious. Politifacts Wisconsin finds Walker to be an accomplished falsifier. I watched a video of a Walker speech at the Goldwater Institute. He’s slick; fast-talking, confident, and dishonest—I watched him distort facts with which I was familiar. He spoke in mostly half-truths. About twenty-five percent of the population has, in varying degrees, (a) disposition to follow a double high authoritarian, many blindly or simply because it assuages their fears. And, of course, these are aggressive followers who can attract others who are unaware of the nature of the person they are electing, thus enabling an authoritarian leader like Walker to gain ever-growing control. Good luck, Wisconsin.
If it wasn't so surreal, it would be funny to listen to all whining about how Trump doesn't represent the Republican Party. So who's doing all the voting, putting Trump at the top of the Republican presidential ticket? Are we actually watching Republicans support but deny their possible nominee? Could this get any more bizarre?
Republican politicians may not have notice the right wing authoritarian movement (check out this Vox story link) that's been swallowing up their party, or their own extreme behavior that embraces a one party national authority.
Last September, a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst named Matthew MacWilliams, wondered if authoritarianism might correlate with support for Trump. He polled a large sample of likely voters, looking for correlations between support for Trump and views that align with authoritarianism. What he found was astonishing: Not only did authoritarianism correlate, but it seemed to predict support for Trump more reliably than virtually any other indicator ... repeated the same poll in South Carolina and found the same results. Authoritarians are thought to express much deeper fears than the rest of the electorate, to seek the imposition of order where they perceive dangerous change, and to desire a strong leader who will defeat those fears with force.
Making the rounds on Twitter yesterday was this jaw dropping clip of a clueless crowd, mindlessly giving the infamously familiar raised arm salute to Trump, who asked them to pledge their vote:
Get this; we're supposed to believe the crowd of Trump supporters were "liberals." State Sen. Dewey "Lord Voldemort" Stroebel not only said Trump wasn't a Republican, he also said on Upfront with Mike Gousha...
Stroebel: "...I made a comment after one of the debates, things that I was hearing coming out of his mouth, I thought I was on the floor of the Capitol listening to a Madison 'liberal' with some of the things that were being said. It was really hard for me to take, and hard for me to understand."
Liberals, who do they think they are, Americans or something. GOP strategist Brian Fraley came right out and bashed Trump's authoritarianism and boorish behavior, all the while sounding just as boorish and authoritarian as Trump and Scott Walker:
Fraley: "He's not a Republican, he's renting the party as a vehicle to move forward...look, the guy is not a conservative, he's not a Republican. He has no core. The only thing he is absolutely sure of, is his own greatness. And I just think his penchant for authoritarianism, his boorish behavior, his misogyny, he's a danger not just to the party...(but to) the republic."
All true and everything quality Republicans like about their chosen party leader, Donald Trump:
Fraley revealed another problem Republicans have; they keep making dumb ass pledges. Because of a pledge candidates made to have access to the debate stage, they're now locked into voting for eventual nominee. Now that's freedom and liberty...
Stroebel: "Ah I think you're going to see a lot of people staying home."
Oh, and GOP strategist Fraley, would wear as a badge of courage, his party's move to prevent Trump from being the nominee, usurping the choice of conservative voters everywhere. Nothing authoritarian about that....
