Trump Secures Victory in Electoral College, as Bid to Flip Electors Flops
Posted: December 19, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, History, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: 2016 Presidential Election, Americans, Barack Obama, Democratic Party (United States), Direct election, Donald Trump, Electoral College (United States), Hillary Clinton, Republican Party (United States), Wisconsin Leave a comment
President-elect Donald Trump won more than enough votes in the Electoral College on Monday to secure his White House victory, as the latest – and perhaps last – stop-Trump movement failed to gain traction in state capitals.
A fervent push by anti-Trump forces to persuade electors to defect had turned the normally mundane civic procedure into high drama.
But the representatives designated to cast ballots in accordance with their states’ Nov. 8 decision mostly adhered to the results of the election. With several states still voting, Trump had 304 votes and Hillary Clinton had 169.
It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Texas put Trump over the top, despite two Republican electors casting protest votes.
Elector antics were few and far between, with most the disruptions occurring on the Democratic side. A Democratic elector in Maine tried to vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders, but switched to Clinton after it was ruled improper. Another who tried to vote for Sanders in Minnesota was replaced; a Colorado elector who tried to back Ohio Gov. John Kasich likewise was replaced. One of the biggest deviations was in Washington state, where three electors voted for Colin Powell and one voted for “Faith Spotted Eagle;” the remaining eight went to Clinton, the state’s winner.
It marked the first time in four decades the state’s electors broke from the popular vote. Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman vowed to work with the state attorney general and charge the four unfaithful electors with a violation of Washington state civil law. Such violations carry a fine up to $1,000.
With Trump’s win now secured, a joint session of Congress is scheduled for Jan. 6 to certify the results.
Trump’s undisputed Electoral College victory could serve to deter any further last-ditch efforts to effectively nullify his November win and prevent his inauguration, though the battle could shift next to his Cabinet picks.
Few expected the “faithless elector” push to imperil Trump’s victory on Monday. Only one Republican elector – Texas’ Chris Suprun – publicly stated he would vote for an alternative candidate. More than three dozen would have had to abandon him to complicate his path to the presidency.
But GOP electors still faced immense pressure — with some even receiving threats — from Trump foes in the run-up to Monday’s Electoral College vote. Those urging disorder in state capitals often cited Clinton’s popular-vote win, by roughly 2.6 million votes, over Trump in November.
Celebrities made public appeals to electors to use the arcane process to upend Trump’s victory, as some Democratic electors tried to persuade their Republican counterparts to defect. Reports that U.S. intelligence officials determined Russia interfered in the election to boost Trump – findings disputed by Trump himself – only fueled efforts to wield the Electoral College vote as a political circuit-breaker. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s Official: Clinton’s Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California
Posted: December 18, 2016 Filed under: Politics, White House | Tags: Americans, Barack Obama, Central Intelligence Agency, Democratic Party (United States), Direct election, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Republican Party (United States), RUSSIA, Twitter, Wisconsin Leave a comment
Outside California, Hillary Clinton lost the popular vote by 1.4 million to Donald Trump.
John Merline reports: Democrats who are having trouble getting out of the first stage of grief — denial — aren’t being helped by the fact that, now that all the votes are counted, Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote has topped 2.8 million, giving her a 48% share of the vote compared with Trumps 46%.
To those unschooled in how the United States selects presidents, this seems totally unfair. But look more closely at the numbers and you see that Clinton’s advantage all but disappears.
As we noted in this space earlier, while Clinton’s overall margin looks large and impressive, it is due to Clinton’s huge margin of victory in one state — California — where she got a whopping 4.3 million more votes than Trump.
California is the only state, in fact, where Clinton’s margin of victory was bigger than President Obama’s in 2012 — 61.5% vs. Obama’s 60%.
But California is the exception that proves the true genius of the Electoral College — which was designed to prevent regional candidates from dominating national elections.
In recent years, California has been turning into what amounts to a one-party state. Between 2008 and 2016, the number of Californian’s who registered as Democrats climbed by 1.1 million, while the number of registered Republicans dropped by almost 400,000.
What’s more, many Republicans in the state had nobody to vote for in November. Read the rest of this entry »
President Barack Obama, Supporters Push Policies and Appointments Before Trump Takes Over
Posted: December 9, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Politics, White House | Tags: Americans, Blue wall (politics), Democratic Party (United States), Direct election, Donald Trump, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Wisconsin Leave a comment
President Barack Obama is trying to put the people and policies in place that he wants to outlast his presidency in the final weeks before Donald Trump takes over. But his supporters want more, way more.
Since Election Day, President Barack Obama has appointed 56 people to boards, commissions and offices in the hopes that they remain in those posts for years to come.
He has reduced the prison sentences of 79 federal inmates. He has handed out the nation’s highest civilian honor to 21 people who he said personally made an impact on his life.
[21 recipients honored with Presidential Medal of Freedom]
President Obama honored 21 recipients during his last Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony at the White House Tuesday. “Everybody on this stage has touched me in a very powerful, very personal way,” Obama said. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elouise Cobell, Ellen
And he has churned out rules, regulations and policies several times a week.
Obama is trying to put the people and policies in place that he wants to outlast his presidency in the final weeks before Donald Trump takes over. And his supporters want more, way more.
[Read more here, at McClatchy DC]
Every president tries to push through last-minute policies before their time in office comes to a close. But this year has a more frantic feel as special interest groups push Obama to do more, not just because the president-elect is of a different party but because few people know what he will do.
“People are, as you can imagine, they are getting quite desperate,” said Rena Steinzor, a member of the Center for Progressive Reform, a liberal advocacy group, who is pressing Obama to act. “Filling boards and doing whatever he can to establish protections that Trump would have to unwind is a good strategy.”
With six weeks remaining, their to-do list for Obama is long:
They want him to issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose their political donations. They want him to pardon immigrants in the country illegally and direct federal employees to quickly process applications for immigrants who came into the United States illegally as children. And they want him to make good on his campaign pledge to close the prison for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay.
[Read the full story here, at McClatchy DC]
Time is running out for President Obama to fulfill his promise to close Guantánamo. He now has less than 50 days to finish the job and close the door or he risks opening the floodgates for President-elect Trump. Amnesty International USA’s Security & Human Rights Program Senior Campaigner Elizabeth Beavers
No one disputes that Obama has the authority to do what he is doing, but Trump supporters don’t think he should be doing them anyway. Read the rest of this entry »
Chris Wallace Grills Jill Stein: Fox News Sunday Full Interview
Posted: December 4, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Democratic Party (United States), Donald Trump, Electoral College (United States), Green Party of the United States, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin 1 Comment
Dr Jill Stein Appeared on Fox New Sunday with Chris Wallace. Wallace immediately grills Jill Stein On the recount efforts asking “why not New Hampshire”. Why Only States that Clinton lost? Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace engaged in a pretty combative exchange today while discussing Stein’s recount efforts, with Wallace trying to get Stein to admit that there have been no recounts that have switched tens of thousands of votes.
Steven Crowder writes:
“At the end of the day, Jill Stein isn’t changing any hearts or minds over this. The longer this charade of a ‘recount’ continues, the more ridiculous leftists are going to look in regard to the election. Which is hard to do. At this point, Democrats are pulling a Usain Bolt in that they’re only breaking their own records. In this case, records in national embarrassment. They’ve already racked up the top ten highest scores. Looks like Stein wants to go for an even twenty.”
[more here – Chris Wallace Absolutely Roasts Jill Stein on Her Recount Scam]
The interview started with Wallace wanting to know why Stein hadn’t requested a recount in New Hampshire even though Hillary Clinton carried that state by a much more narrow margin than the three states she did request recounts in. Stein explained that it was because the deadline had passed for New Hampshire.
After Stein noted that she would look to expand the recounts to other states if they see a systemic issue regarding machine error and hacking, Wallace asked Stein if she knew the highest number of votes that had been switched via a recount. When she brought up a situation with Toledo in 2004 where 90,000 votes were erroneously marked blank — she has brought this up before — Wallace explained that officially, the biggest change had been roughly 1200 during the 2000 Florida recount in that year’s presidential election. ‘There’s not a chance in the world here, Dr. Stein, that the vote is going to change in those three states,” Wallace exclaimed, pointing out the margin in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Read the rest of this entry »
OH YES SHE DID: Teacher ‘Baby Boo’ Sara Domres Admits to Sex with 16-Year-Old, Sent Him Selfies During Her Honeymoon
Posted: August 5, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Education, Law & Justice | Tags: Akola Airport, Child pornography, Elementary school, Investigation, Manslaughter, Minor, Plea, Sara Domres, Sexual assault, Sexual Misconduct, Student, Teacher, Underage, Wisconsin 1 Comment
WAUKESHA COUNTY, Wis. – A former high school teacher has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a student while working at New Berlin West High School in Wisconsin.
“Investigators found evidence on Domres’ phone of the two referring to each other as ‘baby boo.”
Sara Domres, 28, pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of sexual assault of a student by school staff, both felony charges. She will be sentenced on September 30.
According to court documents, the relationship between Domres and the 16-year-old male student began during the 2014-2015 school year. A criminal complaint states that the victim was in an English class taught by Domres, and the two “became friends and began to text each other a lot.”
“On the same day that her husband had his bachelor party during the 2015-2016 school year, Domres had sex with the boy at the Motel 6.”
Investigators found evidence on Domres’ phone of the two referring to each other as “baby boo.” Texts read, “I love you!” and, “You’re extremely attractive to me!!!”
Sara Domres in court
“The two also allegedly had sex at the Park and Ride on Moorland Road in New Berlin in July 2015.”
On the same day that her husband had his bachelor party during the 2015-2016 school year, Domres had sex with the boy at the Motel 6 off of Bluemound Road in the Town of Brookfield, according to court documents.
[Read the full story here, at Q13 FOX News]
The two also allegedly had sex at the Park and Ride on Moorland Road in New Berlin in July 2015.
Sara Domres in court
Investigators were able to confirm the victim’s phone had been connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi, and Domres “paid cash” for the room. Read the rest of this entry »
Legislating from the Bench: Court Strikes Down Wisconsin Right-to-Work Law
Posted: April 8, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Politics | Tags: Dane County, Illinois, Lincolnshire, Republican Party (United States), Right-to-work law, Scott Walker (politician), Trade union, Union dues, United Auto Workers, Wisconsin Leave a comment
Right-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. Twenty-four other states have such laws.
Wisconsin’s right-to-work law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down Friday as violating the state constitution.
Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident it would not stand. Schimel has not made a decision on whether to seek an immediate suspension of the ruling while the appeal is pending, spokesman Johnny Koremenos said.
“We are confident Wisconsin’s freedom-to-work law is constitutional and will ultimately be upheld.”
— Governor Scott Walker, on Twitter
Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. Right-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. Twenty-four other states have such laws.
The unions argued that Wisconsin’s law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who don’t pay dues. Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust agreed.
“Once again, a liberal Dane County judge is trying to legislate from the bench. No one should be forced to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.”
— Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester
He said the law amounts to an unconstitutional governmental taking of union funds without compensation since under the law unions must represent people who don’t pay dues. That presents an existential threat to unions, Foust wrote. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Tony Dokoupil Reveals Why Reporters Won’t Challenge Donald Trump
Posted: March 29, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John Kasich, MSNBC, National Enquirer, News conference, Republican Party (United States), Seat of local government, Ted Cruz, Wisconsin Leave a comment
On The Lawrence Show on MSNBC, National Reporter Tony Dokoupil in a revealing moment lets slip to show host Lawrence O’Donnell why reporters will not challenge GOP Frontrunner Donald Trump on policy issues after Trump stumbled through a local Wisconsin radio interview with Charles Sykes.
Trump: ‘She Grabbed Me!’
Posted: March 29, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Battery, Cory Lewandowski, Damage Control, Donald Trump, Fox News, media, Misdemeanor, news, Press Conference, Wisconsin 2 Comments
Michelangelo’s Secret Sauce Revealed: Pizzeria Manager Accused of Locking Teen in Freezer
Posted: March 28, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Duct tape, Franklin High School, Franklin Wisconsin, Iris Struck, kidnapping, Pizza Restaurant, Wisconsin Leave a comment
Teen locked in a restaurant freezer, bound and beaten. Pizzeria manager charged with false imprisonment and child abuse. If convicted, he faces a maximum 12-year sentence.
FRANKLIN, Wis. — Colleen Henry reports: A Franklin pizzeria manager is accused of repeated abuse of a teenage waitress.
“Sometimes, he would duct-tape me to the shelves or tie me up with rope so I couldn’t get out,” Iris Struck said.
[VIDEO: Waitress locked, abused in restaurant freezer]
Iris Struck is a junior at Franklin High School and waited tables after school until police arrested her boss.
Police said the manager would text the girl telling her to come back to work after hours, which was easy because the family lived in the apartment behind the restaurant.
[Read the full story here, at WISN]
According to the criminal complaint, the manager of Michaelangelo’s would then lock the girl in the restaurant freezer.
“He handcuffed her to the shelves in the freezer, make her take her socks off so her feet were on cold floor,” Iris’ mother, Lea Struck, said. Read the rest of this entry »
THE PANTSUIT REPORT: EmailGate Update
Posted: January 9, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Chuck Grassley, EmailGate, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Madison, The Pantsuit Report, United States Department of State, United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Wisconsin Leave a comment
John R. Schindler writes: Back in October I told you that Hillary Clinton’s email troubles were anything but over, and that the scandal over her misuse of communications while she was Secretary of State was sure to 
get worse. Sure enough, EmailGate continues to be a thorn in the side of Hillary’s presidential campaign and may have just entered a new, potentially explosive phase with grave ramifications, both political and legal.
The latest court-ordered dump of her email, just placed online by the State Department, brings more troubles for Team Hillary. This release of over 3,000 pages includes 66 “Unclassified” messages that the State Department subsequently determined actually were classified; however, all but one of those 66 were deemed Confidential, the lowest classification level, while one was found to be Secret, bringing the total of Secret messages discovered so far to seven. In all, 1,340 Hillary emails at State have been reassessed as classified.
There are gems here. It’s hard to miss the irony of Hillary expressing surprise about a State Department staffer using personal email for work, which the Secretary of State noted in her own personal email. More consequential was Hillary’s ordering a staffer to send classified talking points for a coming meeting via a non-secure fax machine, stripped of their classification markings.
[Read the full text here, at the Observer]
This appears to be a clear violation of Federal law and the sort of thing that is a career-ender, or worse, for normals. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee termed that July 2011 incident “disturbing,” and so it is to anyone acquainted with U.S. Government laws and regulations regarding the handling of classified material.
Part 1
But the biggest problem may be in a just-released email that has gotten little attention here, but plenty on the other side of the world. Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: Two Injured in Shooting Incident at Wisconsin Mall
Posted: December 19, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption | Tags: Charleston SC, Dane County, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Madison, Mass murder, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin, Wisconsin State Journal Leave a comment
Two people have been injured following a shooting incident that caused the closure of a Wisconsin mall Saturday afternoon, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
“We don’t believe this is related to terrorism. This was obviously not a mass shooting. This is an incident where we had young people…who were in a dispute and one of them pulled out a firearm and unfortunately shot a gun in the middle of East Towne Mall on the busiest shopping day of the year.”
— Madison Police spokesman Joel DeSpain
Madison Police spokesman Joel DeSpain told the paper that one of the victims was transported to a local hospital with leg injuries.
“We don’t believe this is related to terrorism,” DeSpain said, “This was obviously not a mass shooting. This is an incident where we had young people … who were in a dispute and one of them pulled out a firearm and unfortunately shot a gun in the middle of East Towne Mall on the busiest shopping day of the year.”
The mall ordered stores to close and evacuate in the aftermath of the incident. The mall was secured shortly before 3:45 p.m. local time, police said. Read the rest of this entry »
50-year-old Man Accused of Beating Up His Own Uncle Over $3 Pot in Card Game
Posted: June 10, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption | Tags: Arraignment, Cannabis, Complaint, Disorderly conduct, drugs, Gambling, Poker, Port Washington, Waterford, Wisconsin 2 Comments
Katie DeLong reports: A 50-year-old Waterford man is accused of beating up his own uncle over a $3 pot during a card game called “(Expletive) On Your Neighbor.”
Back on January 10th, officials responded to the 29000 block of Elm Island Drive in Waterford for a report of an assault.
There, officials spoke with a 69-year-old man who advised he was playing cards when his nephew, Scott Labisch attacked him — kicking him in the ribs multiple times. An officer observed small cuts above the man’s right eye, and the man said his nose bled as a result of the attack.
The man was taken to the hospital for treatment. There, he was diagnosed with non-displaced fractures to the three ribs, according to the criminal complaint.
Officials spoke with another man who indicated people were at his home playing cards when Labisch “beat up” his uncle over approximately $3 that was in the pot during the game. Another person confirmed the assault. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Kelly File: Bullied by People with Badges: The Wisconsin Constitutional Atrocity
Posted: April 23, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: corruption, David French, Fox News Channel, Megyn Kelly, Nancy French, Republican Party (United States), Scott Walker (politician), United States, Wisconsin 5 CommentsThis is a great segment on the Wisconsin Constitutional atrocity on Megyn Kelly’s show last night… featuring David French and his viral article on National Review
[The vital article: Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’]
[Also see – Wisconsin’s Shame: Even Salon Agrees the Raids Were Wrong]
[More – Wisconsin’s “Constitutional Atrocity” : Eric O’Keefe and David French]
Source: patheos.com
Follow Nancy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Also see – Wisconsin Democrats Using “John Doe” Laws To Terrorize Conservatives]
More – David French’s bio and archive on National Review
Unintended Consequences: President Obama Gives Walker Campaign Unexpected Boost
Posted: April 7, 2015 Filed under: Politics, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Charles Krauthammer, Chris Christie, Dana Perino, Foreign Policy, General practitioner, Iran, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Republican Party (United States), Rick Perry, Scott Walker (politician), White House Press Secretary, Wisconsin 2 Comments
Inexperienced President with Abysmal Foreign Policy Record and Negative Polls Reflecting Low Public Trust Tries to Give Foreign Policy Advice to Popular GOP Candidate
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker would be taking a foolish approach if he follows through with vows to revoke a nuclear deal with Iran if elected president. Obama was asked in an NPR News interview about Walker’s recent comments that he would reject any deal Obama reaches on his first day as president.
As Former White House Press Secretary and The Five Co-Host Dana Perino notes, Bush 43 ignored candidates.
Obama says if the president’s ability to strike agreements starts being questioned, it will be a problem for allies and embolden U.S. enemies. He says he’s confident anyone knowledgeable enough to be elected president won’t take that approach. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Big Government – Especially Big, Corrupt Government – Fights Back When it Feels Theatened’
Posted: March 7, 2015 Filed under: Politics, Think Tank, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Governor of Wisconsin, Iowa, Republican Party (United States), Rudy Giuliani, Scott Walker (politician), United States, Wisconsin 1 Comment
…Government has, so far, stood up to everyone who came in promising to reform it, shrink it, or even make it perform with a modest degree of competence. Stood up to them and backed them down and chased them out of town. It is tougher and meaner than anyone it has had to deal with.
Vastly tougher than Barack Obama who retreats behind a pose of insouciance, as though running the government with a degree of managerial competence is much too pedestrian a role for him….
Scott Walker, on the other hand, seems actually to relish the role. And maybe even to enjoy the fight. The venomous quality of the attacks on him is pretty clear evidence that his enemies fear him…
They’ve had enough of the big vision stuff. Right now, they’ll take toughness and competence...(read more)
Why Eric Holder Won’t Let Go of Ferguson
Posted: February 24, 2015 Filed under: Law & Justice, Politics | Tags: Al Sharpton, Attorney general, Eric Holder, Ferguson, Lawsuit, Missouri, National Action Network, National Urban League, Police officer, President of the United States, Racism, United States Department of Justice, Wisconsin 2 Comments
The attorney general seems intent on taking one more jab at the police before leaving the Justice Department
Jason L. Riley writes: When all was said and done, the events that unfolded in Ferguson, Mo., last summer were not extraordinary but rather all too familiar. Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown, a black robbery suspect, resisted arrest, attacked a police officer and was shot dead. We’ve seen this movie many times before. But what might have prompted a helpful discussion about high crime rates in black communities has instead prompted a dishonest debate over police behavior.
“…the Justice Department seems to have come to the same conclusion as the Ferguson grand jury and found no grounds for a criminal prosecution of Mr. Wilson. Mr. Holder might now be trying to justify his bigfooting by suing the city, but there is probably no basis for that, either. Hence, the leak to the media that a civil lawsuit may be in the works.”
Professional agitators in the civil-rights community push false narratives to stay relevant, but we should expect more from the Justice Department. Instead, we have Attorney General Eric Holder channeling Al Sharpton . Last week Mr. Holder said that he will soon announce the results of his Ferguson investigation. CNN, citing “sources,” reported that Darren Wilson, the police officer involved in the shooting, is unlikely to be charged but that Justice is preparing to sue the Ferguson police department “over a pattern of racially discriminatory tactics used by police officers, if the police department does not agree to make changes on its own.”
“This is about expanding federal power in the police departments. The lawyers at Justice believe they are the ones who should be promulgating national standards of how cops should behave. And police departments are so afraid of bad publicity that they agree to settle the case with all kinds of rules that Justice wants to impose.”
— Hans von Spakovsky, former Justice Department attorney
After months of looking into the incident, the Justice Department seems to have come to the same conclusion as the Ferguson grand jury and found no grounds for a criminal prosecution of Mr. Wilson. Mr. Holder might now be trying to justify his bigfooting by suing the city, but there is probably no basis for that, either. Hence, the leak to the media that a civil lawsuit may be in the works. The leak was an 
egregious breach of protocol and, in effect, a threat. We’ve seen this movie before, too.
[Check out Jason Riley’s book “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” at Amazon]
In 1994, Congress passed a bill that made unlawful “the pattern or practice” of conduct by police “that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Since the law’s inception, the Justice Department has taken action against more than 50 state and local police departments, and nearly all have opted to settle rather than litigate. Investigations often come at the urging of groups like the NAACP and ACLU. Read the rest of this entry »
Rise of the Robots: Next for DARPA? ‘Autocomplete’ for Programmers
Posted: February 15, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Robotics, Science & Technology | Tags: American Anthropological Association, Animation, Anthropology, Michigan State University, Nervous system, Rebecca Blank, Scott Walker (politician), University of Wisconsin System, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin 3 Comments
Writing computer programs could become as easy as searching the Internet. A Rice University-led team of software experts has launched an $11 million effort to create a sophisticated tool called PLINY that will both “autocomplete” and “autocorrect” code for programmers, much like the software to complete search queries and correct spelling on today’s Web browsers and smartphones.
“The engine will formulate answers using Bayesian statistics. Much like today’s spell-correction algorithms, it will deliver the most probable solution first, but programmers will be able to cycle through possible solutions if the first answer is incorrect.”
— Chris Jermaine, associate professor of computer science at Rice
“Imagine the power of having all the code that has ever been written in the past available to programmers at their fingertips as they write new code or fix old code,” said Vivek Sarkar, Rice’s E.D. Butcher Chair in Engineering, chair of the Department of Computer Science and the principal investigator (PI) on the PLINY project. “You can think of this as autocomplete for code, but in a far more sophisticated way.”
Sarkar said the four-year effort is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). PLINY, which draws its name from the Roman naturalist who authored the first encyclopedia, will involve more than two dozen computer scientists from Rice, the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the company GrammaTech.
“Imagine the power of having all the code that has ever been written in the past available to programmers at their fingertips as they write new code or fix old code. You can think of this as autocomplete for code, but in a far more sophisticated way.”
— Vivek Sarkar, Rice’s E.D. Butcher Chair in Engineering
PLINY is part of DARPA’s Mining and Understanding Software Enclaves (MUSE) program, an initiative that seeks to gather hundreds of billions of lines of publicly available open-source computer code and to mine that code to create a searchable database of properties, behaviors and vulnerabilities.
Rice team members say the effort will represent a significant advance in the way software is created, verified and debugged.
“Software today is far more complex than it was 20 years ago, yet it is still largely created by hand, one line of code at a time. We envision a system where the programmer writes a few of lines of code, hits a button and the rest of the code appears. And not only that, the rest of the code should work seamlessly with the code that’s already been written.”
— Swarat Chaudhuri, assistant professor of computer science at Rice
He said PLINY will need to be sophisticated enough to recognize and match similar patterns regardless of differences in programming languages and code specifications. Read the rest of this entry »
Commentary: ‘I Don’t Vaccinate My Child Because It’s My Right To Decide What Eliminated Diseases Come Roaring Back’
Posted: January 23, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Humor, Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: 1918 flu pandemic, Anti-Vax, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ebola virus disease, Infectious disease, Influenza vaccine, National Institutes of Health, satire, Superstition, Thiomersal, Vaccination, Vaccine, Wisconsin 3 Comments
The decision to cause a full-blown, multi-state pandemic of a virus that was effectively eliminated from the national population generations ago is my choice alone, and regardless of your personal convictions, that right should never be taken away from a child’s parent. Never.
Andrea Martin writes: As a mother, I put my parenting decisions above all else. Nobody knows my son better than me, and the choices I make about how to care for him are no one’s business but my own. So, when other people tell me how they think I should be raising my child, I simply can’t tolerate it. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, I fully stand behind my choices as a mom, including my choice not to vaccinate my son, because it is my fundamental right as a parent to decide which eradicated 
diseases come roaring back.
“The bottom line is that I’m this child’s mother, and I know what’s best. End of story. Politicians, pharmaceutical companies—they don’t know the specific circumstances that made me decide to breathe new life into a viral infection that scientists and the nation at large celebrated stamping out roughly a century ago.”
The decision to cause a full-blown, multi-state pandemic of a virus that was effectively eliminated from the national population generations ago is my choice alone, and regardless of your personal convictions, that right should never be taken away from a child’s parent. Never.
“It’s simple: You don’t tell me how to raise my kids to avoid reviving a horrific illness that hasn’t been seen on our shores since our grandparents were children, and I won’t tell you how to raise yours.”
Say what you will about me, but I’ve read the information out there and weighed every option, so I am confident in my choice to revive a debilitating illness that was long ago declared dead and let it spread like wildfire from school to school, town to town, and state to state, until it reaches every corner of the country. Leaving such a momentous decision to someone you haven’t even met and who doesn’t care about your child personally—now that’s absurd!
Maybe I choose to bring back the mumps. Or maybe it’s diphtheria. Or maybe it’s some other potentially fatal disease that can easily pass among those too young or too medically unfit to be vaccinated themselves. But whichever highly communicable and formerly wiped-out disease that I opt to resurrect with a vengeance, it is a highly personal decision that only I and my family have the liberty to make. Read the rest of this entry »
The Gangsters of Election 2014: The Paramilitary Arm of Wisconsin Progressive Democrats’ Campaign to Defeat Scott Walker
Posted: October 25, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, Law & Justice, Politics, Think Tank, U.S. News | Tags: Barack Obama, Chisholm, George Will, Joe McCarthy, John Chisholm, John Doe, Michael Barone, Scott Walker, Tammy Baldwin, Walker, Wisconsin 4 Comments
The Nastiest Political Tactic this Year
The early-morning paramilitary-style raids on citizens’ homes were conducted by law enforcement officers, sometimes wearing bulletproof vests and lugging battering rams, pounding on doors and issuing threats. Spouses were separated as the police seized computers, including those of children still in pajamas. Clothes drawers, including the children’s, were 
ransacked, cellphones were confiscated and the citizens were told that it would be a crime to tell anyone of the raids.
“Such misbehavior takes a toll on something that already is in short supply: belief in government’s legitimacy.”
Some raids were precursors of, others were parts of, the nastiest episode of this unlovely political season, an episode that has occurred in an unlikely place. This attempted criminalization of politics to silence people occupying just one portion of the political spectrum has happened in Wisconsin, which often has conducted robust political arguments with Midwestern civility.
Because of Chisholm’s recklessness, the candidate he is trying to elect, Burke, can only win a tainted victory, and if she wins she will govern with a taint of illegitimacy.
From the progressivism of Robert La Follette to the conservatism of Gov. Scott Walker (R) today, Wisconsin has been fertile soil for conviction politics. Today, the state’s senators are the very conservative Ron Johnson (R)and the very liberal Tammy Baldwin (D). Now, however, Wisconsin, which to its chagrin produced Sen. Joe McCarthy (R), has been embarrassed by Milwaukee County’s Democratic district attorney, John Chisholm.
“Chisholm’s aim — to have a chilling effect on conservative speech — has been achieved by bombarding Walker supporters with raids and subpoenas: Instead of raising money to disseminate their political speech, conservative individuals and groups, harassed and intimidated, have gone into a defensive crouch, raising little money and spending much money on defensive litigation.”
He has used Wisconsin’s uniquely odious “John Doe” process to launch sweeping and virtually unsupervised investigations while imposing gag orders to prevent investigated people from defending themselves or rebutting politically motivated leaks.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker speaks in Chicago. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AP)
According to several published reports, Chisholm told subordinates that his wife, a teachers union shop steward at her school, is anguished by her detestation of Walker’s restrictions on government employee unions, so Chisholm considers it his duty to help defeat Walker.
[More Dirty Tactics in Wisconsin Governor’s Race]
[Also see – Gangster government — Michael Barone’s description of using government machinery to punish political opponents or reward supporters]
In collaboration with Wisconsin’s misbegotten Government Accountability Board, which exists to regulate political speech, Chisholm has misinterpreted Wisconsin campaign law in a way that looks willful. He has done so to justify a “John Doe” process that has searched for evidence of “coordination” between Walker’s campaign and conservative issue advocacy groups. Read the rest of this entry »
Analysis: What the Press Corps Isn’t Telling You About the Scott Walker Probe
Posted: September 5, 2014 Filed under: Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Club for Growth, Harry Reid, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Scott Walker, Ted Stevens, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Walker, Wisconsin Leave a comment
A First Amendment Education
The selective investigation of the political speech of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker‘s allies goes to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals next week, and with any luck the judges will vindicate a district court’s preliminary injunction that has shut down the probe. They should do so before the November election because this unconstitutional exercise is being exploited by Mr. Walker’s enemies to defeat him.
“Neither collaboration among independent groups nor communication between independent groups and a political campaign is illegal. On the contrary, it is speech protected by the First Amendment.
The latest media misinformation concerns emails that show Mr. Walker raised money for the Wisconsin Club for Growth. But raising money for Super Pacs and 501(c) groups is routine political behavior, as President Obama and Harry Reid routinely demonstrate.
“The prosecution brings to mind the abuses against the late Ted Stevens, who was convicted of corruption in office only weeks before an election because prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence. In Wisconsin the prosecution has used a secret probe and selective leaks to make legal fund-raising appear illegal.”
Prosecutors pursuing Mr. Walker have been pushing a theory of campaign-finance law that the state’s own campaign finance regulator, the Government Accountability Board, has admitted is unconstitutional under Supreme Court precedent. The theory has also been rejected by the Seventh Circuit and by two judges in the Walker probe.
You’d never guess any of this from reading the anti-Walker press. Legal activity is made to look nefarious with loose references to terms like “coordination” that have precise definitions for what qualifies as political advocacy under the law. Read the rest of this entry »
Tiny Houses: Big Idea to End Homelessness
Posted: February 27, 2014 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, U.S. News | Tags: California, Gregory Kloehn, Homelessness, Kloehn, Oakland, United States, Utah, Wisconsin 3 Comments
Advocates tackling the nation’s homeless problem are thinking small
Linda Federico-O’Murchu reports: In Austin, Texas, a village of 200 tiny houses is being built for the homeless. In upstate New York, Rochester Greenovation has designed a prototype for small-scale individualized shelters. “Homeless No More Survival Pods” have been built in Utah, micro-pods in Florida, miniature homes in Wisconsin and mini mobile houses in California.
“I think this is a solution for now…Our first house cost $5,000 to make, and we did it without asking for government help.”
The “Tiny House Movement,” once an architectural component to a downsized life, is now becoming something much bigger: an escape from chronic homelessness.
A woman is seen in a shelter built by California artist Gregory Kloehn in Oakland. Brian J. Reynolds
“This is a plan that could revolutionize the housing movement in the United States,” declares Alan Graham, 58, a Texas activist who says his self-founded organization, Community First, has already lifted 100 homeless people off the streets.
“Now, I can roll my house down the street. Now the police don’t give me a hard time. I keep my house clean and I have no problems.”
Beware That College Brochure: Colleges Use Photoshop to Paint Faux Diversity
Posted: December 31, 2013 Filed under: Education, U.S. News | Tags: African American, Augsburg College, National Park Service, NPR, Shabazz, TaxProf Blog, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin 1 CommentNPR, A Campus More Colorful Than Reality: Beware That College Brochure:
Paul Caron‘s TaxProf Blog turns up this, from NPR: Diallo Shabazz was a student at the University of Wisconsin in 2000 when he stopped by the admissions office. “One of the admissions counselors walked up to me, and said, ‘Diallo, did you see yourself in the admissions booklet? Actually, you’re on the cover this year,’ ” Shabazz says.
The photo was a shot of students at a football game — but Shabazz had never been to a football game. “So I flipped back, and that’s when I saw my head cut off and kind of pasted onto the front cover of the admissions booklet,” he says.
This Photoshopped image went viral and became a classic example of how colleges miss the mark on diversity. Wisconsin stressed that it was just one person’s bad choice, but Shabazz sees it as part of a bigger problem.
Obamacare’s Pajama Boy: ‘I am a liberal f***’
Posted: December 27, 2013 Filed under: Education, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Badger Herald, Krupp, Madison Misnomer, Organizing for Action, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, The Daily Caller, Wisconsin, wordpress 6 Comments
Patrick Howley writes: Ethan Krupp, the little man who played “Pajama Boy” in a widely mocked Obamacare ad, once characterized himself as a “liberal f**k.”
Krupp, an Organizing for Action (OFA) content writer who became the face of progressive America while wearing a onesie pajama suit, also remarked that gays “are all liberal fucks” and criticized a “conservative gay prick” on his now-deleted WordPress blog, entitled “Not Being Creative.”
“I am a Liberal F**k,” Krupp wrote in one post. “A Liberal F**k is not a Democrat, but rather someone who combines political data and theory, extreme leftist views and sarcasm to win any argument while make the opponents feel terrible about themselves. I won every argument but one.”
Krupp then detailed the only political argument he claimed her ever lost, a drunken encounter he had with a “conservative gay prick.”
“I sat in a pizza joint, chomping on meat-heavy pizza and slamming whisky sours with gay guys on Pride Parade day in Columbus, Ohio; My gay roommate and friends loved to ironically ‘bro-out.’ I love gays because they are all liberal fucks too,” Krupp wrote.
“Someone mentions politics and everyone perks up, distracted from the whisky. Equal rights get first dibs, followed by education and then sassy comments about closeted Republicans. Feeding off the energy, I introduce abortion: ‘Old men controlling women’s bodies.’ The guy who’s stayed silent, Chip, joins the conversation,” Krupp wrote.
Krupp claimed that he at first told Chip, a conservative on the abortion issue, that his “ignorant views come from his biological disregard toward pregnancy,” prompting Chip to explain a procedure by which fetuses can be removed from the womb, grown elsewhere, then given up for adoption.
“The whisky yelled at Chip for being a terrible gay man. Chip smirked, knowing full well he won the argument,” Krupp wrote. “To this day, I haven’t fact checked Chip’s scientific report. Beyond the women’s rights implications, I’m afraid it would be the ultimate surrender if I knew the truth. No matter, the liberal fuck lost to the conservative gay prick that day; one rode off into the sunset, the other ordered another whisky.”
Krupp’s parents, an accountant and an attorney, are “Chicago Machine Democrats,” according to a source.
As The Daily Caller reported, Krupp was accused of racism and anti-Semitism during his college-aged stint as the editor of the Madison, Wisconsin comedy newspaper the “Madison Misnomer.”
[BOOKS] George F. Will on Scott Walker’s ‘Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge’
Posted: November 30, 2013 Filed under: Politics, Reading Room | Tags: 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Mitt Romney, Scott Walker, Walker, Wisconsin 1 Comment
They spat on Republican legislators and urinated on Walker’s office door. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Milwaukee — In 2011, tens of thousands of government employees and others, enraged by Governor Scott Walker’s determination to break the ruinously expensive and paralyzing grip that government workers’ unions had on Wisconsin, took over the capitol building in Madison. With chanting, screaming and singing supplemented by bullhorns, bagpipes and drum circles, their cacophony shook the building that the squalor of their occupation made malodorous. They spat on Republican legislators and urinated on Walker’s office door. They shouted, “This is what democracy looks like!”
When they and Democratic legislators failed to prevent passage of Act 10, they tried to defeat — with a scurrilous smear campaign that backfired — an elected state Supreme Court justice. They hoped that changing the court’s composition would get Walker’s reforms overturned. When this failed, they tried to capture the state Senate by recalling six Republican senators. When this failed, they tried to recall Walker. On the night that failed — he won with a larger margin than he had received when elected 19 months earlier — he resisted the temptation to proclaim, “This is what democracy looks like!”
Walker recounts these events in Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge. Most books by incumbent politicians are not worth the paper they never should have been written on. If, however, enough voters read Walker’s nonfiction thriller, it will make him a — perhaps the — leading candidate for his party’s 2016 presidential nomination.
Intimidation: Homes Raided, Subpoenas Issued Targeting Conservative Groups and Allies of Scott Walker
Posted: November 19, 2013 Filed under: Censorship, Law & Justice, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: American Crossroads, District Attorney, John Doe, Republican Party of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce 3 Comments
Joe Schoffstall writes: In Wisconsin, dozens of conservative groups and allies of Gov. Scott Walker are undergoing political intimidation from the left at the hands of a special prosecutor.
Subpoenas have been issued demanding correspondence and donor information of right-leaning organizations and individuals and raids have been conducted resulting in law enforcement officers taking computers and files in a secret investigation, according to reports.
“In recent weeks, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz has hit dozens of conservative groups with subpoenas demanding documents related to the 2011 and 2012 campaigns to recall Governor Walker and state legislative leaders,” the Wall Street Journal writes.
It continues, “Copies of two subpoenas we’ve seen demand ‘all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications’ both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees. The groups include the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Americans for Prosperity—Wisconsin, American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, Friends of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.”
The WSJ says the latest actions are taking place under Wisconsin’s John Doe law, which makes it difficult for the groups involved to defend themselves publicly. Read the rest of this entry »
Bill Ayers public appearance canceled due to a lack of public interest
Posted: October 20, 2013 Filed under: Education, Mediasphere | Tags: Ayers, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Corner, Madison Public Library, Public Enemy, United States, Weather Underground, Wisconsin 3 Comments
from The College Fix:
Former Weather Underground terrorist and Obama associate Bill Ayers is having trouble with his book tour, it seems. Local news sources in Wisconsin report that his latest public appearance has been canceled due to a lack of public interest.
The Madison Public Library, which had organized the hour-long event, said they “didn’t have the kind of interest” they had anticipated.
Ayers has been touring the country in support of his new book, Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident.
via The Corner
Google actually does something patriotic
Posted: May 24, 2013 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere | Tags: Brady, Daily Caller, Doodle 4 Google, Google, High school, Iraq, Sparta, Wisconsin Leave a commentThis has to be some sort of mistake.
Wisconsin high schooler Sabrina Brady’s best day ever was when her father returned home from an 18-month deployment in Iraq. Now, the country can share that moment with her, when Brady’s doodle is featured on the search giant’s homepage this Thursday.
After 130,000 submissions and millions of votes, Sparta, Wisc., resident Brady today was named the 2013 U.S. Doodle 4 Google National Winner.
Her image, titled “Coming Home,” tells the emotional story of her family reunion — the black-and-white journey of a child running toward her soldier father, ending in a colorful hug that will leave even the hard-hearted tearing up.
She’s not scared of him?
She’s not spitting on him?
And Google picked it anyway?
Weird.
(Hat tip: Andy at AoSHQ)
via The Daily Caller
pundit from another planet 