Disorderly Conduct Citation Is Means of Harassment

Fascism at Wisconsin state capitol was struck down as
unConstitutional by state and federal judges in 2013-14

Republican campus speech regime echoes unlawful effort to stile speech at Wisconsin Capitol, 2011-14

Update: Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II and council member Dana Yellow Fat cleared by jury of disorderly conduct, (Indian Country Today).

Madison, Wisconsin — Republicans and only Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature are pushing a bill aimed at squelching progressive students' right to protest on the University of Wisconsin System campuses, (2017 Wisconsin Assembly Bill 299).

The text of AB 299 drips with rightest polemics alleging, in what amounts to trolling, that, "In recent years, institutions have abdicated their responsibility to uphold free speech principles and these failures make it appropriate for the system to restate and confirm its commitment in this regard," (36.02 Campus Free Speech Act. (1) Legislative findings, (c)).

The proposed remedy of the rightwing to non-existent problems of free speech on campus is to enable the increased use of Wisconsin's Disorderly Conduct statute for municipalities and institutions. Students holding to disfavored political views can be cited with disorderly conduct specifically under this proposed statute and ultimately be expelled under the Republican legislation. [Prior to the inception of AB 299, students can be cited for disorderly conduct under existing statute. In the University of Wisconsin-related bill, mere deliberation of the bill also is intended to degrade the national reputation of the UW, in concert with numerous other Republican initiatives.]

Wisconsin's Disorderly Conduct statute for municipalities and institutions is the go-to law for Republicans using the machinery of law to target, harass and heavily fine non-Republicans through civil citations.

For example, the Solidarity Singers at the Madison Capitol were heavily fined for disorderly conduct, along with 100s of Wisconsinites, as Republicans threatened to heavily fine anyone who looked, (seriously anyone who looked at singers or was deemed "spectating" in the words of a Republican Capitol cop) at the wrong crowd.

The Republican effort targeting non-Republicans at the Capitol was justified on similar grounds as the UW System-speech legislation: Preserving free speech, (WKOW-TV).

The Republican anti-free speech regime was held as unConstitutional under the First Amendment.

If one wishes to see the "free speech" regime Republicans are contemplating inserting on campus, look at the state capitol circa 2013-14, or at Fitchburg, Wisconsin today.

Gorsuch the Statist Activist Lies to Begin Day Two

"I am heartened by the support I have received from people who recognize that here is no such thing as a Republican or a Democratic judge. We just have judges in this country," intoned Judge Neil Gorsuch on Day Two of his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Wow. Gorsuch must be the real deal—an intellectual jurist who modestly wishes to ascertain the law and facts in hearing federal litigation.

Don't believe it. The hearings are a blunt exercise in partisan power as blatant as exists in American society. And federal litigation is a means of Gorsuch imposing his religious, authoritarian politics.

Gorsuch is a statist activist looking to degrade the liberty claims of Americans, and he has reproductive rights and the 14th and 15th Amendments in his sights, for starters. Gorsuch will receive the vote of all Republican senators, and face the opposition from nearly all Democratic senators.

Discrimination claims, claims for liberty against incursions by the police and all manner of government, the entrenched private power of the corporation against the individual, Gorsuch would repeal decades of legal protection for Americans as a hostile Trump administration looks to inflict trauma onto American citizens.

The Fourth Amendment looks to die a quiet death if Gorsuch wins confirmation.
---
Consdier Justice Lewis Powell, writing for a unanimous Court in 1972, denouncing the Nixon administration’s electronic surveillance, warrantless-wiretapping program not just on Fourth Amendment grounds, but as a betrayal of the sovereign rights of citizens in a democracy to criticize their own government:

"History abundantly documents the tendency of Government - however benevolent and benign its motives - to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. ... The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society."
(UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972))

Gorsuch represents the ideological brand of statists who look at civil liberties claims with suspicion and hostility, and Justice Lewis F. Powell, (no civil libertarian), would today never have been nominated by a Republican president, so radical has become the anti-people party.

Leading White Supremacist Pushes Voter Fraud Lie for Trump Admin

The Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault (1791–1824)
The Raft depicts the real-life tragedy of the doomed 1816 journey
of the remains of the 19th-cenutry French frigate that saw the
gruesome death of some 400 human beings—doomed by
malevolence, incompetence and arrogance in a historic act
of indecency captured by an appalled and fascinated Géricault.

Trump's propaganda aimed to mobilize American whites for self-defense

Following Republican and only Republican howls of voter fraud comes voter suppression, an attack on the foundation of American democracy.

Though many Americans require no reason for the enactment of state laws obstructing the votes of blacks, browns and other latent criminals trying to pass themselves of as good Americans, the voter fraud lie is employed by every anti-voting rights activist from Donald Trump to state Republican Party hacks to local polling workers.

There simply is not enough room here for immigrants and minorities, who anyway do not enjoy a claim to living in the United States; this is a widespread sentiment which Trump seeks to exploit.

It does appear that the national mainstream press has had enough of the Republican nonsense on voter fraud. Witness the Sunday news shows last week as a senior Trump administration racist was forced to confront facts in an apparently new journalistic-political terrain, (This Week, (McGraw, ABC News)).


The Trump administration's Stephen Miller appeared on This Week was challenged in a manner not typically seen on the utter lack of evidence supporting Donald Trump's made-up claims of massive voter fraud.

For an important summary of the American political culture from Slate Magazine, see Jamelle Bouie:

Trump’s birtherism didn’t just feed anti-Obama distrust and paranoia among conservative voters. It helped feed a sense of grievance—a feeling that their country had been hijacked by nefarious forces, and they needed to take it back. And whether Trump realized it or not at the time, it also helped till ground for his eventual presidential campaign and its message of nativist anger and racist hostility. It is now important to remember all of this, as Trump and his backers stoke another conspiracy theory, aimed at delegitimizing a different set of opponents.

Since November, Trump and his allies have adopted a similarly false and conspiratorial take on the election, claiming without evidence that millions of unauthorized immigrants voted in the presidential race, handing a popular vote victory to Hillary Clinton. 'In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,' declared Trump just a few weeks after the election. He doubled down on this claim during the presidential transition, repeating it during a meeting with lawmakers and subsequently announcing a 'major investigation' into said fraud. In recent days, the president has given a new twist of specificity to his claims of voter fraud, telling a group of Senate Republicans and Democrats that illegal voters from Massachusetts were responsible for Clinton’s win in New Hampshire.

On Sunday, Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president, offered his own support for Trump's claims. 'This issue of busing voters in New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics,' said Miller in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. 'It’s very real. It’s very serious.' Despite being repeatedly pressed for evidence on this claim, Miller said, 'This morning, on this show, is not the venue to lay out all the evidence.' This is what someone says when he doesn’t have the goods. 

No, Miller, Trump and the rest of the Republican Party do not have the goods.

What they do possess is bad intentions that is a grave threat to the American people.

Do not be surprised if you see contemporary brown shirts such as the Milwaukee cops who had recently set a special unit to drive around black neighborhoods, (replete with a command center), until the unit was later disbanded.

Wisc. Voting System Marred by Bureaucrats, Republicans and Racists

Reporting on voter obstruction has noted the policy pretext of voter impersonation and the growing normalization of racism.

Deceit and racism animate the work of some election observers who in turn cause U.S. DoJ and civil rights observers to show up to watch them.

Check your polling place if you vote on Election Day, and you'll see what I mean.

The fact is many white Americans simply do not like the sight of black, brown and otherwise non-white voters showing up to effectively cancel their legitimate white votes.

White America wants its country back so Donald Trump has happily joined the fight against voting.

This fight against voting is administered at the local polling system by municipal bureaucrats populating smaller municipal offices. The human resources at the polling place, typically, are not the best and brightest.

Their aim often is to stop and frustrate the vote of as many non-whites as possible.

To become an election official, there is no test given on federal and state election law, administrative law, case law, voting rights, and the history of fighting for voting rights.

Now-a-days, the Republican Party names its poll workers and not on the basis of civil rights advocacy and understanding of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.

The civil rights of the voter are not met at the point of voting with erudite voting rights advocates with both an understanding of, and inclination to preserve voting rights.

This defect comes from municipal bureaucrats, never the brightest bulbs of a community, populating our smaller municipal offices who administer elections with either an enlightened purpose of a liberal democracy or as in segregated Fitchburg, Wisconsin in Dane County a zeal to implement voter suppression.

Few object. This project is as deplorable as it is illegal.

Watch this space.

Donald Trump Is Encouraging Intimidation and Racial Profiling at the Polls

Voter obstruction is a reality, with or without Donald Trump. But Trump knows a valuable asset using whites against minority voters.

Ari Berman at The Nation has a critical piece, Donald Trump Is Encouraging Intimidation and Racial Profiling at the Polls.

At home in Wisconsin, our state has some 3,583 voting precincts.

In 2011, Wisconsin Republicans decided to name their polling workers across the state, (Barbour, Wisconsin State Journal.

No Republican need live in the district of the polling place at which they are assigned to harass targets of opportunity.

Take some 3,500 voting sites, harass and obstruct non-Republicans across the state and Republicans have a decent suppression regime.

Combine this effort with the many election law changes Republicans have enacted and the total suppression result is significant, (Ferral, The Capital Times), if not challenged.

Drip by drop, incursion by incursion, Wisconsin is changing before our eyes.

Lunatics in Louisiana Assault Americans

Humanity meets police hysteria and chaos
A poised, young nurse, Ieshia L. Evans, terrifies
two Louisiana cops in Baton Rouge the week of July 11.
The hysterical, anti-social posture of police toward any
assemblage of people calling for human rights
and civil rights continues the week after police
gunned down two men in Louisiana and Minnesota.
Ms. Evans was arrested on charges claiming she
obstructed the highway, (The Guardian)

Citizens telling the truth in public is human activity cops will not tolerate

In the 1960s-70s Civil Rights protests few asked human rights demonstrators to find common ground, accommodation, and reconciliation with police units and racists who were beating, arresting, taunting, castrating and killing civil rights workers and people breathing while black. Black folks were expected to go back to where they belong— away from decent, white society.

Today, in defiance of reason, police acting
with impunity and the specific support of white liberals and racists alike, are presented as misunderstood, dedicated and honorable people with whom American must unify.

Welcome to America, 2016. President Obama will deliver an address in Dallas today.

The talk will be devoid of demands to stop killing, taunting, arresting, beating and otherwise preventing the lives of black and brown. The talk will be heavy on healing and honoring police.

I'll take a pass on the "interfaith" and unity BS.

Obama and America's failing is the premise that police killing, arresting, beating, assaulting and preventing the lives of Americans is acceptable. It's not.

As Sam Mitrani puts a truism about police:

The police were not created to protect and serve the population. They were not created to stop crime, at least not as most people understand it. And they were certainly not created to promote justice. They were created to protect the new form of wage-labor capitalism that emerged in the mid to late nineteenth century from the threat posed by that system’s offspring, the working class.

Slave patrol badge, 1858. Slave patrols to hunt down
escaped slaves were the original police in the South.

In other words, the money we pay cops to halt social change and terrorize progressives could be used for large capital investments in creating a new society, and empowering the lives of people, for whom our society exists.

Obama will not protect the First, Fourth and 14th Amendment liberties today.

He'll offer his own penned flowery rhetoric, as he runs from meaningful demands that police act as the defenders of liberty, and not the destroyers of liberty.

Why not admit the truth that police are largely composed of panicky, paranoid and dangerous anti-intellectuals? The type of people who make a black father write, "nothing I can teach [my 13-year-old son] will guarantee he won’t become another statistic until we address the institutional and structural racism inherent in policing today."

For every Obama flacking for killer cops, there is a new, young activist spreading hope for change and human rights in America.

One such civil rights workers is DeRay Mckesson, featured on the Chris Hayes Show:

Wisconsin Citizens Get Another Free Speech Win Against Republicans

Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans cost Wisconsin taxpayers $75,000 this week after pursuing the Republican project to deny liberties of Wisconsin citizens at the Capitol.

The costs to individuals and to Wisconsin society incurred by denying Constitutional rights to disfavored blocs of the citizenry are incalculable.

The pay-out comes after the state of Wisconsin settled a federal civil rights lawsuit in June 2016 related to the Walker administration's actions against Wisconsin citizens who protested Scott Walker and advocated civil liberties and solidarity with other citizens.

The case is Philip Dominic Salvia v. Adam Fell and Chris Weiss.

Jeff Scott Olson is the civil rights attorney in Madison, Wisconsin representing Mr. Salvia.

"The lawyer who won the [Salvia] case promised to file another lawsuit representing about 100 protesters arrested in 2013 during a crackdown by the Capitol Police of a singing protest that has been going on in and around the Statehouse for more than five years. If successful, that would add to the more than $180,000 the state has already agreed to pay protesters," (Marley, Edmondson Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Walker's top Capitol cop had ordered the arrest of Wisconsin citizens for voicing anti-Walker political speech, a years-long enterprise that briefly in August 2103 expanded into Capitol cops monitoring, surveiling and circling citizens at the Capitol, followed by repeated voiced warnings by Capitol cops that citizens faced arrest for "spectating" the Solidarity Sing Along, (Mal Contends).

"This event has been declared unlawful by the secretary (of the GOP's former Wisconsin Department of Administration (DoA) Secretary, Mike Huebsch,) You could be subject to arrest," announced Capitol police in August 2103.
---
Reports Molly Beck this week in the Wisconsin State Journal: "Taxpayers will pay a local radio show host $75,000 to settle a lawsuit he filed against Gov. Scott Walker’s administration after being arrested in 2013 while covering the arrests of protesters at the state Capitol."

Dominic Salvia, co-host of the liberal talk show Devil’s Advocates Radio Show on The Mic 92.1 FM, will receive the money as part of an out-of-court settlement in a federal civil rights lawsuit Salvia filed in 2014 against three Capitol Police officers who handcuffed and ticketed him during the July 2013 mass arrests of singing protesters,"
---
Walker, the hyper-politicized Department of Administration, (ridiculed widely as the "Department of All"), and Walker's Capitol police chief, David Erwin all worked together to develop anti-protesting strategies, in open defiance of the Wisconsin and United States Constitution.

Wisconsin Rep Sandy Pope (D-Middleton) was threatened with arrest in August 2013 at the Capitol for observing the Solidarity Sing Along, reports Isthmus.

No capitol police officer went on record as opposing the effort to encroach on the civil liberties of Wisconsin citizens.

During August 2013 when Salvia was arrested, Recbecca Kimble reported in The Progressive: "Every noon hour in the Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda feels a little bit different. Today it felt like a prison. ... Two journalists, Nicole Schulte and Leslie Peterson, were actually chased by police officers who tried to grab their cameras. They continued to film the arrests and were not themselves arrested. But Greg Kinsley and Jeremy Ryan were arrested for filming."

U.S. District Court Judge William M. Conley issued a temporary injunction against the state of Wisconsin and effectually ordered the restoration of the First Amendment at the Wisconsin Capitol ending the Republican-imposed permitting regime in 2013. (Mal Contends)

In September 2013, Wisconsin Republicans backed down from their permitting scheme altogether, reaching an agreement with Wisconsin citizens, recognizing the facts of the Capitol as a public forum space and affirming the constitutional rights retained by American and Wisconsin citizens.

The DoA had issued 100s of civil citations that were all dismissed by state courts.

Walker, the Republican Wisconsin Dept. of Justice and the DoA suffered a series of legal defeats in state and federal court between 2013 and 2015.

Below is a video of Capitol cop and woman beater, Michael J. Syphard, walking up to citizens in August 2103 and warning them they will be arrested for watching the Wisconsin Solidarity Singers.

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke Blasted, Writer Calls for Personal Experiences

The Marshall Project today hit Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke and asked for reports from the public of unethical and unlawful conduct from the Sheriff's office.

By Maurice Chammah of The Marshall Project

If you live in one of these cities — Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Brownsville — we’d love to know if you’ve had personal experiences with these sheriffs. ....  Let us know at:  mchammah@themarshallproject.org.

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke is the leading spokesman for those who don't want to see the criminal justice system 'reformed.' He is a regular presence on Fox News, and a symbol of a countercurrent in the black community against #BlackLivesMatter. His supporters are encouraging Donald Trump to consider him as a running mate. Back home in Milwaukee, though, he’s been consistently marginalized by other local leaders. 

Clarke should be in prison on felony misconduct charges. That Clarke is not reveals much about law enforcement and out-of-control police assaults on the public, (Balko, Washington Post).

Scott Walker and Republicans Are Poisoning State Prisoners Too

"Although they insist the water is now safe, Fox Lake officials have told inmates, staff and visitors about the high lead and copper levels and advised them to run the water for 15 to 30 seconds before using it for drinking or cooking, or when a faucet has been unused for more than six hours. (The state DNR recommends running the water for two to three minutes under those conditions.)"

Dee J. Hall has the story at WisconsinWatch.

Does pumping 'inmates' full of toxic heavy metals seem a cruel and unusual punishment, (Eighth amendment, United States Constitution)?

Scott Walker's Decline Was Foretold, No Bottom in Sight

How would Scott Walker's assaults on the
First Amendment fly with voters in the
Granite State, the nation's first presidential
primary? Contact the
New Hampshire Union Leader
and find out. Email letters@unionleader.com
or snail-mail at:
Letters
New Hampshire Union Leader
P.O. Box 9555
Manchester, NH 03108-9555; or
the Concord Monitor; and other
New Hampshire newspapers.
Live free or die is a sacred commitment,
lacking in Scott Walker's delusional
conception of America. Reference
Michael Kissick v. Huebsch and Erwin. And
Dane County Judge Frank Remington's
ruling for other victims of Walker.

No Time to Forget Scott Walker's First Amendment Violations

Scott Walker's decline as a 'top tier' candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency was predictable.

What's inexplicable is why when Scott Walker said he was "praying" on running last spring and early summer, (god evidently gave Walker the go-ahead) (Bauer, AP), Walker did not anticipate he would be asked policy questions and appear at unscripted public events.

Walker's "obvious lack of preparation on national and international issues" (Larison, The American Conservative) should have led the political media straight to comparisons of Sarah Palin, and Walker's benighted brand of Wisconsin legislators requiring the gerrymandering of the state for election to public office.

The latest NBC/Marist poll shows Walker polling at five percent in made-for-Walker Iowa and four percent in New Hampshire (Murray, NBC News).

No bottom appears in sight for Walker, perhaps because he deceitfully assured god he would become a policy wonk, perhaps a future student at the UW-Madison La Follette Institute of Public Affairs.

Instead, Walker demonizes poor children and working families, robs from the disabled and elderly, still makes appeals to racists, is intent on stopping the healing of the sick, and presents public teachers and the University System as less important than the interests of his campaign donors.

These objectives are fine with most Republicans. It is Walker's lying, pandering and pretending to knowledge that both insults Republican voters' intelligence and offends sensibilities, emphatically those of flinty Granite State residents and self-righteous Iowans.

Some voters' religious traditions hold "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Seventy-one-year-old Ann Fleischli's hand was cut to
the tendon on June 14, 2014 when she was handcuffed
and manhandled by a Wisconsin Capitol Police officer,
under Scott Walker's administration's imposed rules.
Fleischli's alleged offense is predicated on gathering
petition signatures regarding a local proposed development.
The Madison attorney Fleischli also once wrote a column
noting the"Madison branch of Women’s International League
for Peace and Freedom's founder, the famed Jane Addams,
began an audacious campaign to stop World War I."
(The Capital Times) No apology was ever offered to
Ms. Fleischli by Scott Walker, though the Capitol Police
did offer to call the police after Fleischli's blood stained
the Capitol floor where she was detained. The perp,
Wisconsin Capitol Police Officer Michael J. Syphard,
was never charged and continues to serve on the
Capitol Police 'Force' to this day.

Ample interpretations are used. Scott Walker's reading is perverse: Be poor and die, take money from billionaires and destroy the liberties and common welfare of the people.

In opposition to Walker, consider America's pioneering social contract: Life, Liberty, Happiness, Safety, protection against tyranny and a demand that petitions not be met by repeated injury.

Walker has failed these aspirations.

Scott Walker's reign in Wisconsin, including specifically the state capitol in which Walker's administration's created rules carried out by thugs that had to stopped by a federal judge in 2103 citing the First Amendment and Wisconsin long commitments to petitioning the government at the capitol, would be met by some sort of reaction from Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans.

Walker's hostility to the First Amendment is under-reported news.

Does Walker propose this regime for the country?

New Hampshire and Iowa residents ought consider and ask this question of Scott Walker repeatedly. Perhaps news of what Walker did at the capitol that he compares to conquering ISIS/ISIL would end this foolish man's quest for power.

United States District Court Judge William M. Conley for the Western District of Wisconsin issued a preliminary injunction [Michael Kissick vs. Michael Huebsch and David Erwin] against Walker and his Department of Administration in 2103 that led to a consent agreement that Walker and his cops knock it off.

"The Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda functions, both literally and symbolically, as a city center and is fully utilized as a public space to which all have claim," noted Judge William M. Conley in Michael Kissick vs. Michael Huebsch and David Erwin (Mal Contends), citing Wisconsin's National Historic Landmark Nomination document, among other historical capitol documents in his 2013 preliminary injunction that led to a free speech victory over Walker.

Conley had noted the vital societal purpose of public discourse, and the inherent civil rights citizens retain in the United States Constitution, summed up well in the New Hampshire state motto:

Live Free Or Die!

Scott Walker Brings McCarthyism Back to Wisconsin

Scott Walker cannot stand the expression of speech, political activity or as Michael Mann and Randi Weingarten point out in The Guardian today, scientific inquiry surpassing the confines of Walker's evangelical worldview.

Walker now routines boasts of taking on the Wisconsin citizenry as though popular sentiment and civil rights are defects in society to overcome.

Of course in Scott Walker's worldview, this neo-fascist outlook is precisely what drives Walker to use the machinery of government to destroy the rights and common wealth of the people of Wisconsin.

That the University of Wisconsin System should ever face such fervent and fetid opposition as Scott Walker and the Republican Party is a nightmare project that not even Joe McCarthy dared attempt.

Note Mann and Weingarten:

In Wisconsin, legislators have just lowered the high bar for dismissing tenured faculty at the direct demand of Scott Walker and the state Republican regime. Shared governance, in which the Wisconsin university system once led the world, has been reduced to a mere advisory process. In practice, this means that decisions about academic programs – and the faculty who work on them – will be made by administrators who are either themselves political appointees or who serve at the leisure of these appointees.

Scott Walker is a candidate for the presidency of the United States and wishes to inflict onto the nation what he has wrought onto Wisconsin.

Fred Harvey Harrington (1912–1995), Wisconsin needs you.

Scott Walker's Failed Attempt to Kill the First Amendment

Wisconsin Capitol Police manhandle citizens
opposing Scott Walker, frightening children
and abusing seniors. Photo: Dawn Henken

Let presidential candidate Scott Walker defend his actions against the First Amendment

That a sitting public servant of Wisconsin claims to he "took on" on families who assembled at the state capitol to protest a secret public policy item is revealing of Scott Walker.

Scott Walker has an anti-democratic conception of what America is and should be, a deranged idea of personal liberty, and is a public servant who has apparently never studied the United States Constitution.

"If I can take on 100,000 protesters. I can do the same across the world," said Walker last February (Cillizza, Washington Post) in claiming his qualification to deal with ISIS/ISIL as president.

This is not Scott Walker misspeaking.

Walker destroyed the First Amendment rights of the people to assemble and voice their disapproval because 100,000s of Wisconsinites disagreed with Scott Walker who bragged he dropped a policy "bomb" by surprise.

The judiciary stepped in and stopped Scott Walker cold, who never apologized or expressed regret, instead offering the imbecilic comparison of ISIS to protesting citizens.

Walker's deplorable tactic of halting speech because of its political content veered into the absurd when his administration ordered citizens in 2013 arrested for looking at a protest, seriously; "spectating," Walker's palace guard called the alleged infraction, only to back off after a hail of criticism.

Walker's and his cops at the Capitol became so hostile a federal judge had to intervene and order that Walker's Capitol police stop violating the Constitutional rights of Wisconsin citizens.

"The Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda functions, both literally and symbolically, as a city center and is fully utilized as a public space to which all have claim." - United States District Court Judge William M. Conley in Michael Kissick vs. Michael Huebsch and David Erwin. (Mal Contends)

Walker wants followers, not citizens. And Walker's administration ordered the capitol police to act as lawless thugs in pursuit to shut down disfavored speech. (Capital Times)

Walker's conversion of several dozen civil service jobs into high-paying, politically appointed positions came with Walker's taking on the Wisconsin people: Cronies v. civil liberties.

This should politically disqualify Scott Walker as a serious candidate for public office, and at the least be examined and challenged as recent history.

Think this is hyperbole. Watch this videos, as the capitol police are walking around the rotunda, harassing people for "spectating" and declaring "you could be subject to arrest."

Here is a video of a lone woman, in her young 20s, being harassed by a capitol cop working for the Walker administration for reasons surpassing comprehension.

Scott Walker Loses Another Free Speech Case, Citizens Prevail

Six more citizens won another free speech case against the Scott Walker administration who decided to close off the state Capitol to speech critical of Republicans after Walker infamously began publicly pursuing policies on which Walker refused to campaign.

This case in Dane County Court follows other civil rights victories against Walker's Dept of Administration (DoA) that unilaterally closed the state capitol, and crafted and imposed free speech rules stifling the civil liberties of Wisconsin citizens.

"Dane County Judge Frank Remington awarded plaintiffs Jeremy Ryan, Jenna Pope, Valerie Walasek, Lauri Harty, Anne Hoppe and her mother, Kathleen Hoppe, damages totaling $44,830," yesterday reports Glaze, Wisconsin State Journal.

Virtually all of the 100s of citations issued by Capitol Cops and every case that has reached state and federal court has resulted in wins for citizens against the Walker administration.

 "The Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda functions, both literally and symbolically, as a city center and is fully utilized as a public space to which all have claim," noted United States District Court Judge William M. Conley for the Western District of Wisconsin in Michael Kissick vs. Michael Huebsch and David Erwin (Mal Contends), citing Wisconsin's National Historic Landmark Nomination document, among other historical documents in his 2013 preliminary injunction that led to a free speech victory.

Conley had noted the vital societal purpose of public discourse, and the inherent civil rights citizens retain in the United States Constitution.

John Doar Worked for Civil Rights

Wisconsin native John Doar passed away yesterday.

Doar personified why the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice became for many Americans the fulfillment of the promise of equality.

Today, the likes of John Doar are the political enemies of the White Party, what used to be the Republican Party.

Nice work by Roy Reed in the Times this morning.

Betting when John Doar did his work for the DoJ in the 1960s, he did not imagine the hostility of the Republican Party of 2014 to the fundamental civil rights of all Americans.

Likely, Doar would have been appalled by the statements of the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Roberts that racism is now over in America.

Republican Jurisprudence—Protecting Police Felons, Preventing Civil Liberties

Update: See also Texas campus cop empties gun on unarmed student: ‘Oh, you’re gonna shoot me?’ Student killed in traffic stop.

The following video of a recent police assault against a mother and her family demonstrates anew why the GOP's 5-4 decision in Atwater V. Lago Vista (2001) is of critical importance as a virtual police state holds sway in many spheres of police-public interaction.

From the Lawrence O'Donnell Show, is a video of a panicked mother fleeing police felons in New Mexico. The officer then incredibly opens fire on the vehicle fleeing the police crime. The officer was later fired after the video aired on national TV. More and more, we see police officers acting as felons and an American public becoming victims of police empowered by law enforcement administrations and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Walker's cops threatened citizens, knowing they had backing of Walker

Update: Two state representatives are requesting that Wisconsin Capitol Police release communication transcripts. A good bet is, if the transcripts are released, they will not reveal radio chatter with the words, 'We can't just arrest and intimidate people for political expression, observing political expression for god's sake. Call Walker and Erwin and tell 'em they're nuts. This ain't Russia, you know.'

The DOA Secretary has determined this is an illegal event; you could be subject to arrest for spectating.

Most people in Wisconsin watching the videos (through social media and non-traditional news sites) of cops threatening citizens for observing knew the GOP game was up.

Circling GOP police in the Wisconsin state capitol will not be mistaken for constitutional scholars or civil libertarians or for that matter:  Civic Americans.

Officer Syphard and two new hires. What are they afraid of?
Officer Michael J. Syphard grabbed a photographer and threw
him to the ground this week.Syphard was not on duty shortly after.Sloey, reached by phone said he cannot
comment on Syphard or related matters.
Photo by Craig Spaulding

Watching these enraged people in various police uniforms scream at people for filming arrests; accosting citizens; it's obvious a constitutional republic is not the favored society they wish to inhabit, and their police state actions would soon stop.

No, these GOP cops are not bright people; but they do know DoA Secretary Mike Huebsch (a GOP hack), Scott Walker and Walker's personal security guard now playing capitol police chief, David Erwin (a GOP hack) have their backs.

These are Republicans.

Walking up to women warning them away; stop watching or we'll arrest you.

Walking up to state representatives and saying; stop watching or we'll arrest you; literally scaring young children as parents hurry away from loud, disturbing cops.

Even the most obtuse news outlets finally began asking questions, pushing the DoA flack to announce that spectators will not be arrested, avoiding the questions; Where did the cops get this idea and why were they telling folks they would be arrested?

Getting a straight answer out of someone like Erwin, Huebsch or Walker is never going to happen.

Erwin, Huebsch or Walker live on lies. Ask anyway.

Republican efforts to cleanse Wisconsin history of the capitol as an open space and the people's cultural and political gathering area have been ongoing for the last two years.

The solidarity sing along and its support system have constantly moved away from other events at the capitol, as civilized, courteous people do.

Republicans should observe the solidarity sing along and learn what courtesy and rights in a constitutional democracy look like.

As for David Erwin, state capitol police chief, don't be afraid to give him a call or write a letter on matters with which he may assist you.
Phone: (608) 266-8797
Email: david.erwin@wisconsin.gov
Mailing Address: Wisconsin Capitol Police, B2 North State Capitol, Madison, WI 5370

Erwin writes on the Capitol website that it is "my honor and privilege to serve the people of the State of Wisconsin." 

Yes, it is. Try to remember this like ... now. 

Blue Cheddar Live Blogging at the Wisconsin Capitol

Click this link to see live feed of Wisconsin state capitol as police persist in circling and warning those who "spectate."

Wisconsin Citizens: Film and Record Everything

Officer Syphard and two new hires. Officer Michael J. Syphard
grabbed a photographer and threw him to the ground this week.
Syphard was not on duty yesterday.Sloey,
reached by phone this morning said that he cannot comment on Syphard
or related matters. Photo by Craig Spaulding

Here's some contact information that some of you may find useful, from the Solidarity Sing Along:

Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin
Phone: (608) 266-1212
Email: govgeneral@wisconsin.gov
Mailing Address: Office of Governor Scott Walker, 115 East Capitol, Madison, WI 53702

Mike Huebsch, Secretary of the Department of Administration
Phone: (608) 266-1741
Email: mike.huebsch@wisconsin.gov
Mailing Address: Office of the Secretary, 101 East Wilson Street, Madison, WI 53703

David Erwin, State Capitol Police Chief
Phone: (608) 266-8797
Email: david.erwin@wisconsin.gov
Mailing Address: Wisconsin Capitol Police, B2 North State Capitol, Madison, WI 53702

Scott Walker's Cops: Even Watching Means You Are Now Subject to Arrest

Wisconsin citizen holding sign inside state capitol
in the week of August 5 - Photo by Blue Cheddar

How I wish this headline were a Jonathan Swift reductio ad absurdum comment.

It's not, it's a fact.

Outrage and disgust at Republican Party grows as GOP cops now try to quell even watching, "spectating" as the circling cops say, other citizens singing.

Seriously.

"This event has been declared unlawful by the secretary (of the GOP's Wisconsin Department of Administration, Mike Huebsch,) You could be subject to arrest."


Such are the words of capitol cops, just following orders, circling the capitol warning families, children, veterans, legislators, anyone to stay away from their capitol.

It is only time before a Judge orders court-appointed marshals in to protect capitol visitors from the GOP's capitol police.

"Two journalists, Nicole Schulte and Leslie Peterson, were actually chased by police officers who tried to grab their cameras. They continued to film the arrests and were not themselves arrested. But Greg Kinsley and Jeremy Ryan were arrested for filming," reports Rebecca Kimble in The Progressive. "Every noon hour in the Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda feels a little bit different. Today it felt like a prison."

Just as the GOP intends.

These warnings themselves chill and prevent the First Amendment as well as the Wisconsin Constitution; no judge would fail to toss GOP-issued citations for breathing, walking and observing at the capitol. Or singing for that matter.

And that's what this is: A Republican effort to keep non-GOP people away from the capitol.

Cops have been filmed throwing a photographer to the ground for filming an arrest. (Check the link for his thoughts.)

Think this is hyperbole. Watch this videos, as the capitol police are walking around the rotunda, harassing people for "spectating" and declaring "you could be subject to arrest."

Here is a video of a lone woman, in her young 20s, being harassed by a capitol cop for reasons surpassing comprehension.

Now, capitol officers are patrolling the capitol rotunda walking up to lawmakers, staffers, state workers and families to ensure none are there to sing or watch, or "spectate."

Susan C. writes (via Rock Netroots):
"As I was walking out of the capitol today I overheard two women, shepherding four children, aged 6-10, talking about how 'horrible it was in there today.' I turned around and engaged them. It turned out they had to leave because one of the little girls was so scared she never wanted to go back in the capitol again. I asked, 'Afraid of the singers?' Her mom looked at me like I was crazy. She said, 'No, the police.'

Here's video of a capitol cop harassing a family (they look very dangerous, especially the young man of approximately 12-dangerous-years)

Wisconsin Rep Sandy Pope (D-Middleton) was threatened with arrest at Capitol for observing the Solidarity Sing Along, reports Isthmus.

Outrage is growing:

"My friend, a fellow veteran of the war in Vietnam who has, with due diligence, generally overcome Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, fell after being handcuffed in the Capitol by Walker’s new cops (last week). My friend’s back was injured and he was taken to a hospital after this uncalled-for violence. He wasn’t physically resisting anything. He was—-he’d be the first to point this out—-politically and spiritually resisting unfairness, oppression, and intolerance. My friend has experienced those transgressions before and after his service as a decorated and wounded war veteran." 

Today through August 11 is the National Veterans For Peace Convention held in Madison. 

Look for more GOP cops to bust some veterans today for not being Republican. 

But this fight for democracy against the Republican Party has already been won by Wisconsin citizens.

Sen. Erbenbach Hits Capitol Police in Letter

Sen. Jon  Erbenbach (D-Middleton) ask for an explanation in a letter to the GOP's Police Chief Erwin.

Arresting people for the alleged equivalent of a municipal ordinance violation, physically attacking Wisconsin citizens?

What is the problem child police chief up to now?