MAL Contends — Legal, political, campaign news, and analysis

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Scariest 14 Words in Politics

I'm from the Republican Party and I'm here to save Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security and Medicare Targeted by Ayn Rand-worshipping Republicans

"I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and 'shareholder value' the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one. If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be 'forced' to make 'hard choices' - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked."

- Mike Lofgren, who retired on June 17, 2011 after 28 years as a Republican Congressional staffer. TruthOut, Saturday September 3, 2011 Update: Trump and Musk appear motivated to get in on the action, a politically fraught posture that may spell beginning of the politcal end of this administration.

Elizabeth Bothfeld v Wisconsin Elections Commission , 2026AP001168, Wisconsin Gerrymandering Case

See https://wscca.wicourts.gov/case/2026AP001168

2026AP001168 Elizabeth Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission

News Updates

Wisconsin Examiner

Anti-abortion groups urge attorney general to halt mailing of abortion pills
59 minutes ago
WisPolitics

Duffy endorses incumbent Rep. Green’s challenger in GOP primary
3 hours ago
NYT - The Upshot

Democrats Accuse Trump Administration of Stonewalling Major Transit Projects
4 hours ago
SCOTUSblog

Challenge brought to Trump’s new birthright citizenship order
4 hours ago
Ken Klippenstein

The Rebels Already Won
5 hours ago
Drop Site News

Hormuz at Breaking Point and Remembering Journalists Killed in Gaza
7 hours ago
Drop Site News

Hormuz at Breaking Point and Remembering Journalists Killed in Gaza
7 hours ago
Consortium News

Local US Cops Adding AI Drones to Tech Surveillance
7 hours ago
The Kennedy Beacon

The MAHA Profile: Jeffrey Tucker, the Libertarian Who Embraced Health Freedom
8 hours ago
Mondoweiss

Understanding Israel’s campaign to destroy Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank
9 hours ago
The Lever

How A Hedge Fund Billionaire Became The Democrats’ New Kingmaker
10 hours ago
Humanity for Prisoners

Innocent man gets help from a cop!
10 hours ago
Racket News

Cliché Alert: Return of the "Beer Test"
10 hours ago
Milwaukee Neighborhood News

Post From Community: Laughing Liberally Milwaukee, September 12, 2026
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scheerpost.com

The Mamdani Era
13 hours ago
Just Security

Early Edition: August 11, 2026
13 hours ago
The Milwaukee Independent

A burnout economy: The myth of economic freedom in a system designed to exhaust Americans
15 hours ago
The Marshall Project

Why Did an Illinois Prison Fail to Stop 70 Fires?
15 hours ago
CounterPunch.org

Iran Has Changed the Question
19 hours ago
CounterPunch.org

Iran Has Changed the Question
19 hours ago
Informed Comment

History Has Proven Leibowitz Right about Israel
21 hours ago
Electronic Intifada

Resisting Trump's escalating attack on independent media
1 day ago
Freedom of the Press Foundation

After the encampments, threats to student journalism at Columbia persist
1 day ago
A Biologist's Guide to Life

The long-range risk of bioweapons
1 day ago
Richard Falk

How to End The Iran War: Security for Iran, Restraints for Israel
2 days ago
Isthmus: Madison news & culture since 1976

Dare to say no
3 days ago
WisconsinWatch

Green Bay clerk resigns amid investigations into duplicate ballot incidents
4 days ago
Military Religious Freedom Foundation - Letters, Includes Hatemail, and Accolades

RAI Italia’s Award-winning Documentary Series: The Human Factor Previews, Under The Uniform Featuring MRFF’s Mikey Weinstein. Watch the Short Clip Video Preview
4 days ago
NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), located at the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center

One week of Pacific Northwest wildfire activity
5 days ago
U.S. Press Freedom Tracker

Venezuelan journalist detained by federal immigration agents in Florida
5 days ago
Seymour Hersh

COULD NEXT YEAR DELIVER A PRESIDENT VANCE?
5 days ago
OpenSecrets News

OpenSecrets upgrades lobbying database with deep client-firm analytics, redesigned visuals and universal search
5 days ago
Sabato's Crystal Ball

The Kamala Conundrum: Examining A Potential 2028 Harris Presidential Run
5 days ago
Blog – Constitutional Accountability Center

Reflections on My Fellowship
6 days ago
The Appeal

After More Than 20 Years in Prison, Georgia Man Wins New Trial in “Shaken Baby” Case
1 week ago
Sixth Amendment Center

A Path Forward: New 6AC Report Recommends Hybrid Model to Improve Public Defense in Monroe County, Michigan
1 week ago
Captimes.com

Remembering Corey: Ruiz family demands answers, recalls loved one lost
2 weeks ago
U.S. Right to Know

Tracking the Trump administration’s favors to the pesticide industry
2 weeks ago
U.S. Right to Know

Tracking the Trump administration’s favors to the pesticide industry
2 weeks ago
Glenn Greenwald

Send In Your Questions — This Week's Videos Are Subscriber-Powered
3 weeks ago
Reporters' Alert: Fresh Ideas for Journalists

Suggestions for Reporters: June 11, 2026
1 month ago
Tone Madison

The meanings of Tone Madison
4 months ago
AIPAC Tracker Blog - Track AIPAC

Track AIPAC Adapting Data Methodology to Identify the Israel Lobby’s Hidden Donor Movements
4 months ago
McClatchy National, World News

Republican ad says Rep. Adam Gray is ‘punishing our troops.’ Is it correct?
1 year ago
Constitutional Law Analysis

Response and Reply in the Alien Enemies Act Case
1 year ago
Center for Public Integrity

Public Integrity’s “40 Acres and a Lie” project is honored by the Philip Meyer Journalism Awards
1 year ago
Media Against Apartheid and Displacement

What Western Media Hides About October 7th with Asa Winstanley
1 year ago
Politics: Latest & Breaking US Political News

Trump backs Sam Brown in US Senate race, widening momentum gap in crowded Nevada GOP field
2 years ago
How Appealing

“The underlying suit, filed in the District of Massachusetts, concerns the ‘hate speech’ provision of a public middle school dress code, which the defendants applied to prohibit a twelve-year-old student first from wearing a t-shirt that read ‘There Are Only Two Genders’ and then from wearing that same t-shirt with the words “Only Two” covered by a piece of tape on which was written ‘CENSORED.’”
2 years ago
Biosafety Now

1918 And All That
2 years ago
This Can't Be Happening

Please take a moment to go to our new Substack site and subscribe (It’s free!)
2 years ago
Innocence Project

Perry Lott is Exonerated After 35 Years of Wrongful Conviction in Ada, Oklahoma
2 years ago
U.S. Uncut

FDA Issues Warning Letters to Three Infant Formula Manufacturers
2 years ago
In These Times

How Israeli Spyware Endangers Activists Across the Globe
3 years ago
Blog - In Pursuit of Justice

Channel 3000 “Remembering Tony Robinson”
3 years ago
Tone Madison

Inaugural Madcity Meltdown skate contest set for May 7
4 years ago
Truthdig

Placeholder Article for Testing
4 years ago
Democracy Docket

Back to School: Student Voting 101
4 years ago
David Bollier - digital commons

Philippe Aigrain (1949-2021): An Appreciation
5 years ago
The Innocence Network

Network Coordinator – Innocence Project
5 years ago
TomDispatch

Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, The Madness of War, American-Style
5 years ago
The Wheeler Report

Child Care in Wisconsin – Part IV
5 years ago
Reuters Politics

Trump unfit to be U.S. president, Democrat Pelosi, conservative Bolton agree
6 years ago
Cop Block

“City of Manchester” Gives Cop Blocker $15,000 After Illegal Arrest by Lying Cop at DUI Checkpoint
6 years ago
John Ikerd

Why is Antitrust Reform a Big Deal?
7 years ago
White House
Arctic Report
Center for Constitutional Rights
Politics
Naked Capitalism
Wisconsin Supreme Court opinions
The Electronic Intifada
EPWisco on Twitter
The White House
Redistricting Updates
Balls and Strikes — Legal
Five Four Pod
Wisconsin Examiner
Politics Brief
www.thecentersquare.com - RSS Results of type article with keyword(s) of #topstory
X Medea Benjamin
Brewers News
Substack
Center for Constitutional Rights
FIRE - 2024 Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
White House News
Democracy Docket
Carrie Prejean Boller
2026AP001168 Elizabeth Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission

Show 10 Show All

Jackie

Spotting Political Prosecutions

Horton, Harper's Magazine Harper's Magazine, Spotting Political Prosecutions

Richard Posner's evisceration of fallacious and deceitful argument against voting rights

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Frank v Walker; League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) of Wisconsin et al v. Deininger (Nos. 14-‐‑2058, 14-‐‑2059)
On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc; Oct 10, 2014
Judge Richard Posner's work is an evisceration of major fallacious and deceitful arguments against voting rights, and in favor of restrictive photo voter IDs.

Republicans are not so certain about voters; enacting voter obstruction laws wherever they hold a majority, secure in the knowledge that federal Republican judges will reside in the Republican legislatures' "fact-free cocoon in which to lodge the federal judiciary." (Posner, Frank v. Walker; p. 26)

Wisconsin v Steven Avery

Motion for Post-Conviction Relief. 08-16-2022. Includes affidavit from witness, Thomas Sowinski, who saw prosecution's star witness planting murder victim's car onto defendant's property. Tape and log of Mr. Sowinski's Nov. 5, 2005 phone call to Manitowoc Sheriff Dept was hidden from the defense, despite requests for all recordings and information, and despite duty of the State to disclose evidence, and duty not to withhold exculpatory evidence, Brady violation.

- Steven Avery Motion to Stay Appeal and Remand, includes new eyewitness affidavit. April 12, 2021

- Steven Avery Legal Filings - Updates

- State of Wisconsin v. Steven A. Avery, Appeal Number 2017AP002288

- Wisconsin Democrats Block Exoneration Seekers

- Wisconsin Dept of Justice report of the investigation and prosecution of the wrongful conviction of the exonerated Steven Avery; authored by Amy Lehmann, Deb Strauss, Dec 17 2003

- Brendan Dassey 2019 Pardon Petition, denied by Gov Tony Evers, December 2019.

Wrongfully Convicted in Wisconsin

Prosectuors, police frame innocent men. Click above for linked documents and analysis in fast-developing story.

Support Local Dane County, WI Business

Follow Capital Newspapers' lead — support local business; click above

Mal Contends on Twitter

Click on Mal Contends on Twitter, to follow.

Daily U.S. Department of Defense Contracts

Click on link for DoD contracts

Wrongfully Convicted: Penny Brummer

Who Killed Sarah; It Wasn't Penny Brummer

Alex Kozinski on liberty

"The right to do what the law does not prohibit, without fear of harassment or punishment, is one of the hallmarks of a free society." — Judge Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
(Foreword in Sidney Powell's Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (Brown Books Publishing Group, 2014))

Wisconsin Misconduct in Public Office

SCR 946.12(3). Misconduct in public office. Any public officer or public employee who does any of the following is guilty of a Class I felony. See link above.

Class-action, civil rights suit against Milwaukee

Collins, et al v. City of Milwaukee, et al

"For almost a decade, the Milwaukee Police Department has pursued an aggressive and unconstitutional policing strategy promoting large numbers of stops and frisks citywide. Between 2007 and 2015, the department almost tripled their traffic and pedestrian stops, from around 66,000 to around 196,000, following the launch of the program in 2008."

Milwaukee residents have long protested that police officers are conducting stops and frisks of innocent people, and particularly treating people of color as suspects for no good reason, stopping innocent men, women, and children as they try to go about their daily lives. The department conducts far more stops and frisks in the parts of Milwaukee that are predominantly Black or Latino than in other areas."
- From the ACLU

Wisconsin Journals/Blogs

- Treaty Rights
- WisPolitics WalkerWatch
- Door County Pulse
- Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
- The Progressive
- Bad River Watershed
- Wispolitics
- Cognitive Dissidence
- Democurmudgeon
- Wheeler Report
- The Daily Page - Isthmus
- Wisconsin Supreme Court
- ACLU Madison
- AFL-CIO Blog
- WisOpinion
- The Political Environment
- One Wisconsin Now
- Milwaukee Shepherd-Express
- Wisconsin LGBT News
- UW-Madison Center for Global Health
- University Place - Wisconsin Public Television

Sea of individual rights

"When conservatives like [Robert] Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."
- Stephen Macedo. The New Right v. the Constitution (Washington: Cato Institute, 1987)

Free Penny Brummer Petition

Please sign Petition to demand new trial for wrongfully convicted Penny Brummer, convicted out of 1990s animus against lesbians by Dane County law enforcement, tunnel vision, and a frighteningly hostile stance of district attorneys toward claims of injustice and "blind obedience to finality," (Findley, Washington Post).

Reward - $10,000 for info leading to the arrest and conviction in 1994 killing of Sarah Gonstead

Updated - An innocent woman sits behind bars for 21 years now, sentenced to 50 years.

If you have any info leading to the arrest of the person(s) responsible for 1994 death of Sarah Gonstead, please call toll-free at 800-407-1178.

Sarah's murder, a bullet to the back of the head, is consistent with biker executions, likely a .22 magnum.

The murder of Sarah occurred in 1994 in Madison, Wisconsin. Saw something, know something? Call.

Robert Jackson's "The Federal Prosecutor"

- Jackson should be required reading for all U.S. Attys and prosecutors. "While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst. ... Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics of success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character. Whether one seeks promotion to a judgeship, as many prosecutors rightly do, or whether he returns to private practice, he can have no better asset than to have his profession recognize that his attitude toward those who feel his power has been dispassionate, reasonable and just."

Innocence Consultants

Innocence Consultants

American prison system

"The .... current American prison system, is a leviathan unmatched in human history,"
- Glenn C. Loury in Boston Review.

Wrongfully Convicted: John Maloney

Wrongfully Convicted: John Maloney

From veteran Green Bay cop to inoocent, wrongfully convicted

Robert H. Jackson on the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg

“That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
— Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal; November 21, 1945, in the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg, Germany. Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States, made his opening statement to the International Military Tribunal in Case No. 1, The United States of America, the French Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics v. Hermann Wilhelm Göring, et al.

- Advice for Prosecutors from a Brilliant Jurist -

"Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics of success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character. Whether one seeks promotion to a judgeship, as many prosecutors rightly do, or whether he returns to private practice, he can have no better asset than to have his profession recognize that his attitude toward those who feel his power has been dispassionate, reasonable and just." - Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, April 1, 1940.

###

Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis

Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis

By Tim Townsend

When the Earth Moves Again

(A)nd if you care to see the future; look into the eyes of your young and dancing children…

- Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane (1971)

On being police

Hector Jordan - Trail-blazing Latino Hero-Cop-Humanist

The Strike — The Improbable Story of an Iconic 1886 Painting of Labor Protest

The Strike — The Improbable Story of an Iconic 1886 Painting of Labor Protest

James M. Dennis, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

President Theodore Roosevelt on Veterans

Republicans are after veterans' benefits: "A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled, and less than that no man shall have." - President Theodore Roosevelt. Speech to veterans, Springfield, IL, July 4, 1903

U.S. Constitution

United States Constitution

Veterans' Resources

University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, Veterans Law Center - Vet Like Me, Hardy Stone War Is Truama - Veterans' Attorney, Robert Walsh -- Veterans for Common Sense - - Veterans' Suicide Prevention Hotline [1-800-273-8255, Veterans Press 1] - Fix the VA Movement - Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories - 91Outcomes - Blaming the Veteran: The Politics of PTSD (Ford, Huber, and Meagher) - PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within - Military Connections/Resources - Veterans' Attorney, Robert Walsh - Veterans for Common Sense - Economic Costs of the Military-Industrial Complex - Vietnam War Resources - Vietnam Center and Archive - Veterans' Post - Vets for Justice - The Veteran Voice - IAVA - Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America - Post's PTSD Primer - The American Vets and Servicemembers Survival Guide - Vote Vets - Military Veterans' Vital Phone Numbers

On the Fourth Amendment, back in 1972

"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." - Justice Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., writing for unanimous court in: United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)

Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Human Rights, Civil Rights

- NAACP Legal Defense Fund
- Brennan Center for Justice
- Hector Jordan, Trail-blazing Latino Hero
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Fourth Geneva Convention (full text)
- Innocence Project, Wisconsin-Madison Law School
- Military Religious Freedom Foundation
- Center for Constitutional Rights
- Amnesty International
- Southern Poverty Law Center
- Witness Gaza
- Association for Civil Rights in Israel
- B'TSELEM - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
- Palestinian Center for Human Rights
- Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
- Free Gaza Mission
- Guantanamo: Beyond the Law
- ACLU
- Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
- Boumediene v. Bush/Al Odah v. US, opinion preserving habeas corpus -
- United States Constitution
- Mordechai Vanunu Site
- National Council of La Raza
- Anti-Defamation League
- Bill of Rights Defense Committee
- Human Rights First
- Council on American-Islamic Relations
- American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

National Weather Sites

- America's Weather -
- Severe Weather Map -

Radar Map

- Weather Radar - [Point and Click.]

Bertrand Russell

"Those whose lives are fruitful to themselves, to their friends, or to the world are inspired by hope and sustained by joy: they see in imagination the things that might be and the way in which they are to be brought into existence. In their private relations they are not pre-occupied with anxiety lest they should lose such affection and respect as they receive: they are engaged in giving affection and respect freely, and the reward comes of itself without their seeking. In their work they are not haunted by jealousy of competitors, but concerned with the actual matter that has to be done. In politics, they do not spend time and passion defending unjust privileges of their class or nation, but they aim at making the world as a whole happier, less cruel, less full of conflict between rival creeds, and more full of human beings whose growth has not been dwarfed and stunted by oppression."

- Bertrand Russell
Proposed Roads To Freedom
(1918, Cornwall Press, Inc, Cornwall NY)

U.S. Supreme Court Decision - Michigan Dept of State Police v. Sitz

- Michigan Dept of State Police v. Sitz (1988); Rehnquist Court allows police roadblocks; Brennan-Marshall-Stevens dissent

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Michael Leon

MAL: Michael Leon is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. His reporting has been recognized by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Leon's writing has appeared nationally in The Progressive, The Advocate, In These Times, CounterPunch and The Champion—the journal of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and locally in the Isthmus, the Capital Times and the Fitchburg Star. Leon works as a writer, editor, veterans' advocate, and public relations consultant.

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