Sounds more like a threat than a safeguard.
Quote from Wisconsin State Journal, 10/6/2023
Do not use to wrap legislators.
Saturday, October 7, 2023
Day 1072 of GOP election denial hysteria (Trump Big Lie Clown Show Circus, Mike Lindell edition
ATTACK Of the Clown Show zombies
starring Election Denial King
Mike Lindell
Headline: Colorado Sun, 10/6/2023
The attorneys for Minneapolis-based Parker Daniels Kibort LLC and the Denver-based Reisch Law Firm LLC asked the judge overseeing the suit, filed by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer, to let them withdraw from the case.
Parker Daniels Kibort said Lindell and his companies informed the firm this week that “they are not able to get caught up with or make any payment on the large amount they owe in arrears nor pay for anywhere near the estimated expense of continuing to defend against the lawsuits going forward, including either the legal fees or litigation costs.”
Related posts:
Day 998 (Shawnna Bolick)
Day 999 (Dave Williams)
Day 1000 (Mike Lindell)
Day 1003 (Janel Brandtjen)
Day 1004 (Dinesh D'Souza)
Day 1005 (Sonny Borrelli)
Day 1006 (Daire Rendon)
Day 1007 (70% of GOP voters)
Day 1011 (Peter Bernegger)
Day 1013 (Sidney Powell)
Day 1015 (Matt Maddock)
Day 1016 (Nick Sherman)
Day 1017 (Boris Epshteyn)
Day 1019 (Rudy Giuliani)
Day 1020 (Eric Burlison)
Day 1025 (Mark Finchem)
Day 1026 (Brian Schimming)
Day 1027 (Jenna Ellis)
Day 1030 (David Whipple)
Day 1031 (Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman)
Day 1032 (Joe Oltmann)
Day 1033 (Kari Lake)
Day 1035 (Abe Hamadeh)
Day 1037 (Douglas Frank)
Day 1039 (Warren Daniel)
Day 1040 (Craig Berland)
Day 1041 (Jason Frazier)
Day 1042 (Tina Peters)
Day 1044 (Meshawn Maddock)
Day 1046 (Jim Womack)
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Day 1069 of GOP election denial hysteria (Trump Big Lie Clown Show Circus, Wisconsin edition)
ATTACK Of the Clown Show zombies
starring Wisconsin Election Denial Queen
Janel Brandtjen
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10/4/2023
Impeachment articles drafted by five Republican lawmakers seeking to remove Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe from her job contain more than a dozen misleading and false statements that misrepresent Wolfe’s role and regurgitate election disinformation.
The impeachment resolution, put forward last month by Republican Reps. Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls, Scott Allen of Waukesha, Elijah Behnke of Oconto, Ty Bodden of Hilbert and Chuck Wichgers of Muskego, claims Wolfe was directly responsible for decisions made by elections commissioners and falsely ties her to debunked election lies.
Related posts:
Day 998 (Shawnna Bolick)
Day 999 (Dave Williams)
Day 1000 (Mike Lindell)
Day 1003 (Janel Brandtjen)
Day 1004 (Dinesh D'Souza)
Day 1005 (Sonny Borrelli)
Day 1006 (Daire Rendon)
Day 1007 (70% of GOP voters)
Day 1011 (Peter Bernegger)
Day 1013 (Sidney Powell)
Day 1015 (Matt Maddock)
Day 1016 (Nick Sherman)
Day 1017 (Boris Epshteyn)
Day 1019 (Rudy Giuliani)
Day 1020 (Eric Burlison)
Day 1025 (Mark Finchem)
Day 1026 (Brian Schimming)
Day 1027 (Jenna Ellis)
Day 1030 (David Whipple)
Day 1031 (Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman)
Day 1032 (Joe Oltmann)
Day 1033 (Kari Lake)
Day 1035 (Abe Hamadeh)
Day 1037 (Douglas Frank)
Day 1039 (Warren Daniel)
Day 1040 (Craig Berland)
Day 1041 (Jason Frazier)
Day 1042 (Tina Peters)
Day 1044 (Meshawn Maddock)
Day 1046 (Jim Womack)
2020 pandemic road trip to from Wisconsin to Montana: Chapter 11, Gibson Park and Central Avenue in Great Falls
Photo by Retiring Guy
Chapter 11: Gibbon Park and Downtown Great Falls
October 4, 2020
Gibson Park is an oblong sliver of green space that stretches for nearly a mile to the northeast from 1st Avenue North. It is called the jewel of Great Falls’ park system, but when you look at the city’s parks website, nothing else comes close, especially in the area of amenities. Gibson Park is clearly in a class of its own; everything else is ‘paste’ in comparison. A number of Nelson family slides shows the park at its colorful peak. Along with the extensive flower gardens, the park includes a duck pond, bandshell, walking paths, picnic areas, and a basketball court. It was a frequent destination when we lived in Great Falls, especially after church, or so it appears, as the Nelson kids usually look to be dressed in their Sunday best..jpg)
Photo by Retiring Guy's Dad
My only memories of family visits here are feeding the ducks and using the playground equipment. One time, Barb — she must have been 2 at the time — dashed in front of a swing as one of her brothers arced forward, a leg glancing a blow against of
her forehead, enough to result in a fit of crying. At least that’s always been my version The details are lost in a haze. Was I pushing you, Lar? Or vice versa? Dad or Mom? Questions that will forever remain unanswered.
Overall, the park remains in good condition, although the area around the duck pond looked a bit shabby. And I suspect the parks department has a small budget for flowers. It was in the latter half of a beautiful Sunday afternoon when JoAnna strolled along the paths, but we encountered few other visitors. I hope it was just an anomaly that such a beautiful place was so underutilized.
Central Avenue in 1955
Postcard from Retiring Guy's collection
Photo by Retiring Guy 2020
From Gibson Park, we walked to Central Avenue, the main, and for all practical purposes, the only business district in Great Falls in the 1950s. It once was home to a typical array of national chain stores, all of them within a two-block cluster as you can see from the street numbers — Sears (400), Penney’s (509), Montgomery Ward (410), Woolworth’s (414), Ben Franklin (506), and a Rexall drug store (426). Two locally owned department stores, Buttrey’s (501) and The Paris of Montana (321) also served as anchors. All of them, of course, are long gone, having moved to locations in outlying areas of the city or gone out of business. (Sears, a Homestore outlet, and Penney’s are the only members of this group who remain, and they probably won’t be around much longer.)
Remaining photos by Retiring Guy (2020)
The beginning of the end for Central Avenue as Great Falls’ prime retail district occurred in 1959, when a shopping center opened on 10th Avenue South, the main east-west thoroughfare through the city. When we lived there, development along this stretch was limited mostly to motels, gas stations, and drive-in restaurants. (I have a vague memory of going with Dad to an A&W on one of our last days in Great Falls.
Today, Central Avenue has been transformed into a pedestrian-friendly area where numerous restaurants and bars are located, most them having outdoor seating. (A must nowadays.). Nevertheless, downtown Great Falls was even quieter than Gibson Park. We pretty much had the streets to ourselves.
“We should look for a place to have a beer,” JoAnna suggested.
“There’s a brewpub – I think it’s called the Mighty Mo -- a block from here,” I noted, having done some research on the drive from Der Lodge.
Unfortunately, it wasn't open. Neither were any of the other restaurant and bars in the near vicinity
“Do they have blue laws here?” JoAnna wondered aloud.
“I hope not,” I replied. “That would certainly limit our options for dinner.
Since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, we decided to check our options. We found a restaurant, MacKenzie River Pizza that offers covered patio seating and a slightly obscured view of the Missouri River. As I recall, the area used to be the exclusive province of warehouses and other industrial-type buildings. Now it is part of
the River’s Edge Trail, an extensive urban bike-pedestrian system that runs along both sides of the river.
.jpg)
Cheating to win elections: Wisconsin GOP defends the use of cracking and packing in drawing legislative districts (Dane County fest)
The 80th Assembly District includes an indefensible hodgepodge of Dane and Iowa counties carved out by a Wisconsin GOP that knows it has to cheat to win. Why do Republicans do this shit? In 2020, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden received 75% of the vote in Dane County. In 2022, Democratic Governor Tony Evers received 79% of the vote. These kind of lopsided outcomes fries the GOP.
So they draw these kinds of crazy lines.
GOP cracking of Middleton (green box; see map below), Fitchburg (gray box), and Iowa County (red box) and packing of Oregon (orange box) and Mount Horeb (purple box). Gerrymandering GOP working overtime!
Mike Bare (D-Verona) has represented the 80th District since January 2023. He defeated his Democratic opponent by 39 percentage points. In other words, there's nothing to gerrymander here, so why bother? Let Dane County be Dane County.
Headline: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/11/2023
Somehow, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tyler Katzenberger can write an article about legislative district without mentioning 'gerrymandering', 'packing', and 'cracking'.
It's called journalistic malpractice.
The UW Applied Population Lab defines 'cracking' as
drawing districts in such a way as to divide a concentration of specific types of voters across several districts such that they are a minority in each one, with practically no hope of achieving representation in any of the districts. This practice also helps make districts less competitive.
Th UW Applied Population Lab defines 'packing' as
the practice of drawing particular districts in such a way as to ensure that another party's candidate wins that seat by a tremendous margin. Although the opposing party is all but guaranteed the seat, packing makes surrounding districts less competitive, and thus tips the balance of power in the legislative body overall toward the ruling party.
x
Meet the leaders of the packing and cracking brigade!
Bad optics: Wisconsin Senate, Wisconsin Assem/bly
Wouldn't you rather have this diverse group in the majority? They support fair maps.
Related reading:
Isthmus, 12/3/2022
A large majority of the county’s 302,575 votes cast went for Gov. Tony Evers — 78.6 percent, compared to only 20.7 percent for Evers’ Republican challenger Tim Michels. Evers also got 4,759 more Dane County votes than Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes, who was trying to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. That, plus low turnout in the city of Milwaukee, helped Johnson eke out his 1 percentage point margin of victory statewide. One big takeaway from Dane County’s show of strength is that Republicans can’t win if they don’t try to compete here.
Other posts in the series:
See also: Wisconsin Gerrymandering Spotlight, round 2
See also: Spotlight on Wisconsin gerrymandering
Actually, as we have learned this year, Kevin McCarthy is made of wood
Headline: Public Notice, 10/4/2023
Jeffries also led his own caucus in voting unanimously to oust McCarthy. California Representative Adam Schiff explained why succinctly. “Kevin McCarthy is not trustworthy.”
All of which constitutes the final humiliating episode in the pratfall speakership of McCarthy, a legislator who seems to lack both a spine and basic quantitative aptitude. Watching him try to get the House to do any damn thing is a masterclass in unmastery, a virtuoso display of self-immolation. How did this man stumble into power? What did the country do to deserve him? The answer to that last question is that while the country doesn’t deserve McCarthy, the Republican Party does.
Other dummy posts:
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
GET ME REWRITE: New York Times reporter Peter Baker ignores Jennifer Rubin's admonition to mainstream media
Not a single mention of the Freedom Caucus. Yet another example of journalistic malpractice.
Headline: New York Times, 10/1/2023
Here's what Rubin wrote in a recent subscriber-only op-ed.
If possible, the Republican Party has descended further into chaos, conspiracy-mongering and contempt for the intelligence of the American people. While mainstream media outlets follow the latest shiny object the GOP throws in their path (e.g., Hunter Biden’s indictment, a bogus impeachment inquiry), consider how far removed from normal, responsible governance House Republicans have strayed. We’ve become so accustomed to their antics that the extent of their irresponsibility and sheer lunacy often gets overlooked. And, sadly, the mainstream political media does not level with Americans that Republicans’ conduct is unprecedented. [emphasis added]
Middleton public market still awaiting vendors
Photos and video by Retiring Guy
Related posts:
Middleton public market still awaiting vendors. (5/23/2023)