Refugees from the Havens Center have flocked to the Blaska Center for Policy Research and Experimental Work Farm to determine why our liberal acquaintances (for they are our acquaintances) are so self-righteous, indignant, and dour and sour.
Pressed into the wet plates under our electron microscopes is a nice bit of doggerel penned by Jeff Waksman and the Dane County Republican Party that has our Lefty acquaintances sputtering mad.
Jeff, through the party, issued a press release "apologizing" to Judge Maryann Sumi, whose family uses the image of Gov. Walker as a pin cushion and, as Dane County circuit judge, has assumed the role of Lord Protector of the State of Wisconsin via temporary restraining order. That PR reads, in part:
The Republican Party of Dane County recognizes that Judge Sumi is a leftist living in Dane County. Her friends are leftists living in Dane County. Her son is a left wing activist in Dane County. She goes to cocktail parties held by leftists in Dane County. She shops at organic gourmet food shops run by leftists living in Dane County. If she were to enforce the law of Wisconsin and do what was in the best interest of the people of Wisconsin, she'd be exiled from her lifestyle. She'd lose her friends!
The leadership of the Republican Party of Dane County have all made the choice to stand against the Dane County elite. We accept that Left feels righteous vandalizing our homes and keying our cars. It's only fair. We disagree based upon logic and principle. That is intolerable! We prioritize the Constitution and the well being of the people of Wisconsin over foie gras at cocktail parties. That's the choice we made. We respect Judge Sumi's decision to live her life with the rich diversity that liberals cherish.
Such cheek! Criticizing an elected official! What has Madison come to?
An apology, senator!
Progressive Dane's spiritual leader, Madame Brenda, erupts into raw anglo- saxonisms, such is her fury at this breach of common decency:
What more crazy shit could they do? I want someone to apologize for this. ... check out this awful/crazy press release about Judge Sumi if you haven't already seen it, their behind the scenes explanation of what they really meant and some of the comments from my friends.
Another local lib, a fellow with the unfortunate last name of Walker, blogs "RPDC press release unfairly characterizes Dane Co. liberals as intolerant" and then goes on to prove the GOP's point.
I am reminded of consigliere Tom Hagen, who demands of the committee investigating crime boss Michael Corleone:
Senator! Senator! This committee owes an apology, this committee owes an apology -- an apology SENATOR!
Compared with what conservatives get here on a daily basis, including boycotts, intimidation, death threats, property damage, comparisons to Hitler, harassment? Pretty weak tea. Let me recycle UW professor William J. Cronon: "At long last liberals, have you no sense of humor?"
The miscreant confesses
The perpetrator of this assault on the judiciary, the aforesaid Waksman, is a UW student who volunteers with the local Party. He told this Blogge, "I got 100+ e-mails and phone calls telling me to go f- myself for daring to challenge that status quo, proving my point."
Jeff's telephone number has been posted on Twitter and on blogs with instructions to harass him. "So I did get some angry phone calls."
"I've also been threatened by multiple people saying they're going to put in a FOIA request to see if I've been misusing my @wisc.edu account."
Ha! That's a good one! The same people who cried McCarthyism when Republicans asked to see Professor Cronon's e-mails!
Below are some of Jeff's favorite e-mails from the past 24 hours, reproduced as written:
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Nice apology letter. You're all pieces of shit. Right wing social conservative bible beaters. Bite me.
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Now please, wash your face, read a book, perhaps a recap on democracy, and then take a nap for that is what sassy little boys should do when they are too tired and don't get their way.
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You are an embarrassment to America. Whether you agree with the judge's ruling or like whom she has cocktails with you cannot ignore her ruling. Good try, I hope you are held in contempt and spend a few days in jail learning about the American justice system.
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I suppose when your party is a morally bankrupt, sociopathic, ragtag collection of aging frat boy pseudo-fascists, and you know you're on the wrong side of history, you get understandably desperate.
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Fuck yoiu and the horse you rode in on.
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You are a disgrace to your party for your childish political tactics, you are a disgrace to our state, and your mothers should be ashamed of you.
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So I guess you'll be looking at working in one of Koch Industries' factories making paper or something. Something I will refuse to buy because of who made it. In the meantime, Justice Prosser going down in flames will be your first hint. I'd get my resume polished up right quick, if I were you. I'd leave this job off of it, too, because, as a Wisconsin employer, you betcha I'll refuse to hire someone dumb enough to have produced your kind of work.
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You need to wake up and smell the roses, before you are doing a stint in Dane County's jail...or worse for being a party to such trash talk.
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Attacking an officer of the court? Your parents must be cringing in shame.
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You need to go to some third world country where this kind of thing is acceptable. You kind will not last long in Wisconsin.
Come to think of it, reminds me of the typical spittle-flecked ravings against Blaska by DailyPage Forons. (Rhymes with ...?)
Leave the gun; take the cannoli
Members of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24, have begun circulating letters to businesses in southeast Wisconsin, warning that they will face a boycott if they don't support collective bargaining for public employee unions.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that the letters ask businesses to express that support by displaying union signs in their windows -- or else.
"Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business," the letter says. "And sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members." [MJ-S: Union threatens boycott of any business that doesn't show support]
Jim Haney, the retiring head of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, made this analogy:
"It's kind of like the old protection racket," he said. "'If you have the right sticker, we won't break your knees.' This is beyond the pale to force a small-business person to choose when they want to stay neutral. But that isn't good enough."
But good Leftists like Madame Brenda are worried about a little parody.
Dane County liberals, intolerant? Lacking in humor? It's so UNFAIR!
The judge isn't in our pocket? Accuse him of pedophilia!
The National Review describes what the mob the Left is willing to do to judges who don't play ball. What they are trying to do to Justice Prosser differs in more than degree from the local GOP's parody of Judge Sumi.
Wisconsin supreme court justice David Prosser went to bed one night a respected former prosecutor, and woke up the next morning the target of a $3 million union-run smear campaign, falsely accused of being an enabler of pedophiles. That is what you get when you oppose the political machine that has been fleecing taxpayers in Wisconsin and elsewhere for a generation. ... When you've lost the election, lost the vote in the legislature, and don't have the law on your side, lies, invective, and blunt force - the Left's main weapons in Wisconsin - are what you have left. [NRO: Bench brawl in Wisconsin]
It's not enough, apparently, that the alleged victims have asked the Kloppenburg ads to be pulled or that it barely registers on PolitiFacts' truth meter.
