Blaska Policy Werkes

What did they find at Mar-a-Lago?

Posted on August 9, 2022 by David Blaska

Before we rush to judgment?

In reaction to the FBI search conducted Monday 08-08-22 at Mar-a-Lago, some Republicans are stamping their Always Trump cards by invoking banana republic justice.

Andrew McCarthy in National Review breaks it down:

The ostensible justification for the search of Donald Trump’s compound is his potentially unlawful retention of government records and mishandling of classified information. The real reason is the Capitol riot. …

This was not a raid, in the sense of a lawless break-in. The FBI conducted a court-authorized search. For the FBI to have a search warrant, a federal prosecutor first had to write a search-warrant application, sworn to by an FBI agent, which convinced a federal judge that (a) one or more crimes probably occurred and (b) it was probable that evidence of those crimes would be found in the place the Justice Department was asking to search. …

President Trump’s departure from the White House was chaotic. … Trump was not planning to leave. When he agreed to do so, over a dozen boxes were haphazardly packed and shipped from the White House (in particular, the residence) to the Trump estate in Florida. It has long been reported that some of these boxes contained classified information.

The former president’s apparent violations of government records and classified information laws gave the DOJ the pretext it needed.

If Trump … were to be charged, the DOJ would in effect be saying that the evidence is overwhelming that Trump and his underlings knew the “stolen election” claims they were so aggressively pushing had absolutely no basis in fact or law — i.e., at some vague point, this “stop the steal” enterprise evolved from being just a bad legal theory into an actionable criminal fraud.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Too many Republicans are jumping like lemmings to a hasty judgment that Donald Trump could not possibly be guilty of a crime — his presidency was so successful. (Which it was). That’s like saying Bill Cosby’s comedy was so family friendly he couldn’t possibly have raped so many women. How about we suspend judgment until we get more facts? That’s the Werkes did until the guilty verdicts started rolling in after the January 6 insurrection and none of them blamed Antifa!

Can we at least wait a few days?

Posted in Donald Trump, election challenges | Tagged FBI raid, Mar-a-Lago | 2 Comments

Madison progressives still resist police protection

Posted on August 9, 2022 by David Blaska

Students remain unprotected

Fair usage excerpts from former Madison mayor Dave Cieslewicz at his most excellent blog:

In the last school year Madison police were called 640 times to Madison’s four high schools. That’s an average of about 3.5 times a day or almost once per day to each school. According to a story in this morning’s Wisconsin State Journal the breakdown is 220 calls to East, 158 to La Follette, 170 to Memorial and 92 to West.

In addition to the raw numbers there were several serious and dangerous incidents. … All this happened in the first full in-person school year without school resource [police] officers …

Now, Police Chief Shon Barnes has proposed assigning a neighborhood officer to the areas around each of the schools. They would not be stationed inside of the schools, which was the objection offered so aggressively by the radical activist group Freedom, Inc.

In a sane world you’d think that the Superintendent, the Board, the Mayor and the City Council would rush to support Barnes’ proposal. But this is Madison, so you’d be wrong about that. …

More here.

Posted in Cops in schools, Madison schools, War on Police | 1 Comment

Today’s primary elections results PREDICTED!

Posted on August 9, 2022 by David Blaska

We think it’s Becky.

The gray labcoats here at the Policy Werkes ripped the tarp off Ol’ Sparky, our Eisenhower-era mainframe computer. After a good power-washing using Duz detergent soap, Sparky shorted out. Replaced the ceramic fuse with a Lincoln penny and the venerable machine roared back to life, ready to predict the winners on the Republican side of today’s Wisconsin primary election.

One factor that lesser pundits have not considered: The Senate race on the Democrats’ side has defaulted to (the lesser) Mandela Barnes. No other races of consequence. Incentive for adventurous Democrats to ask for a Republican ballot. (You can do that in Wisconsin, Deep State conspiracy dupes.) Cause a little mischief. How that would play is anyone’s guess (we sure as hell don’t know). Could help Tim Ramthun as the unelectable opponent to Gov. Tony Evers — but not even Democrats think the Stolen Election un-Truther will come anywhere close. Might help Becky if Democrats think Michels’ millions is the more formidable. Or Michels if they want to run against Trump in the general election.

What’s going on out there?

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Either way, the national press will judge tonight’s results as a referendum on Donald Trump, he having backed Michels while Mike Pence is in Kleefisch’s corner.

Governor
Rebecca Kleefisch ✔︎	46%
Tim Michels	44%
Tim Ramthun	9%
Lt. Governor
Patrick Testin ✔︎	30%
Roger Roth	28%
Cindy Werner	22%
the other five	20%
Attorney General
Eric Toney ✔︎	43%
Adam Jarchow	42%
Karen Mueller	15%
Secretary of State
Amy Loudenbeck ✔︎	55%
Jay Schroeder	40%
State Treasurer
Orlando Owens ✔︎	70%
John Lieber	30%
Congress
Charity Barry ✔︎	70%
Erik Olson	30%

Speaker’s Assembly Seat
Robin Vos ✔︎	65%
Adam Steen	35%

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If Michels loses, will he cry ‘Stolen Election’?
Will the FBI raid his Connecticut home?

Posted in Election 2022, Republicans, Tony Evers, Uncategorized | Tagged Rebecca Kleefisch, Robin Vos, Tim Michels | 4 Comments

Is Tim Michels already blaming Republicans?

Posted on August 8, 2022 by David Blaska

Poll shows Becky Kleefisch winning
and Michels is crying foul!

And he hasn’t even lost, yet. If the Republican candidate for governor loses, he’s going to blame some of the people in this room. They’re “Never Trumpers” because they didn’t check his name on the ballot. They’re “RINOs,” Donald Trump’s term of disparagement for anyone who hasn’t drank his Kool Aid. Like his bitter sponsor, Tim Michels is pointing fingers and taking names because a big poll out over the weekend says he loses to Rebecca Kleefisch tomorrow.

Today, the day before Tuesday’s 08-09-22 primary election, Michels’ campaign threw this rotten egg over the transom:

“Never Trumpers are at it again — trying to divide conservatives to elect a special-interest insider.”

It’s the G-damndest voter appeal this old political warhorse has ever heard! Has it not occurred to Michels that his divisive message is a turn-off to many fellow Republicans who got off the Trump train on January 6? (And how is it possible that a multi-millionaire construction magnate has no special interests of his own? What might be the special interests of his opponent for the Republican nomination, Rebecca Kleefish, he never specifies. Nor does he make the case why her might be worse than his.) Michels blasted this e-mail today to Republican voters:

If we don’t get Trump supporters to the polls to vote for Tim Michels on Tuesday, the Never Trumpers will win like they did in 2020 when they encouraged Wisconsin conservatives to vote for anyone except Trump — a pro-life candidate, a Constitutional Party candidate or the Libertarian Party candidate.”

The Werkes would think Michels might want pro-life, constitutionalists, and libertarians to vote his way. Instead of persuasion, he bullies. Michels continues:

The Never Trumpers knew none of those candidates could win — only take votes away from President Trump which they did. 48,896 voted for one of these other conservatives so that Joe Biden could claim Wisconsin with less than 50% of the vote. A new poll shows it is working again. Emerson College reported that 49% support a pro-Trump candidate, but because their vote is divided between four candidates, Madison insider Rebecca Kleefisch wins with just 36% of the vote.

WI Republicans not that into Trump

Tim Michels just admitted that Kleefisch beats him even among Trump supporters! Are you sure you want to admit that, Tim? Actually, Michels misstates the Emerson poll, conducted August 3-5.

Emerson says that 11% of Republican primary voters are less likely to support a candidate Trump endorsed; 49% say it makes no difference, only 39% are more likely.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Tim Michels made his bed at Mar-a-Lago. Now he’s a porter on Trump’s bitter revenge tour, carrying his master’s baggage, relitigating the past and nursing his grievances. But Michels is doing it before he loses, not after!

If Michels loses, will he blame Hugo Chavez?

Posted in Election 2022, Governor's race, Uncategorized | Tagged Emerson Poll, Rebecca Kleefisch, Tim Michels | 15 Comments

Bernie Sanders backer doesn’t like Kleefisch

Posted on August 7, 2022 by David Blaska

Stop the presses!

***A bumbling* attempt *to clear the way for Evers.***

Blaska’s Rule #23 of political discourse suggests that if you’re going to accuse your political opponents of cynicism don’t practice the trait yourself.

Rebecca Kleefisch and Mike Pence are “a pair of GOP cynics,” John Nichols writes in the Sunday paper. O.K., that’s an opinion, but one curdled in its own cynicism. It suggests that the candidate for governor and the former vice president are not real conservatives, they’re just in it for the votes — an implicit recognition that conservatism is a vote-getter.

Cynical? Rebecca Kleefisch campaigning with her two children.

“Kleefisch is a cynical political careerist who will never hesitate to sacrifice the public interest on the altar of her political ambition,” Nichols sputters. He criticizes former governor Scott Walker and his lieutenant governor’s signature Act 10 as “an assault on working people and their [labor] unions.” At least WEAC is no longer soaking school property taxpayers with their no-bid contracts to profit their wholly owned and obscenely profitable insurance subsidiary. Saved working people tax dollars in the billions.

“Political careerist” is a verbal tic John uses to describe his political enemies, never mind that Becky was a working journalist in her first career. In any event, he never levels that opprobrium against Tammy Baldwin or his socialist idol, Bernie Sanders. (“Bernie Sanders lost; but he won!“)

Nichols strains credulity. Kleefisch and Pence are “without a conscience.” The two Republicans are “bumbling,” and “incompetent” — terms increasingly applied to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris but never before heard applied to Kleefisch and Pence. Kleefisch is “downright crooked” —not Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton, according to The Capital Times associate editor. At this point, Blaska invokes Rule #24: the more absurd the hyperbole, the weaker your case.

Some bumbling!

John veers into Alex Jones territory when he says Trump and “his bumbling sidekick” Pence were “overwhelmingly rejected [by] a majority of Wisconsinites” in 2020. A stupid, easily disproved lie. Actually, the Pence ticket lost by a fraction of one percent — 48.82% to Biden/Harris at 49.45%. Nichols keeps the spittle flying: Pence is “a willing accomplice to the high crimes and misdemeanors of Trump’s presidency.” Why Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin never thought to impeach the vice president, Nichols does not disclose.

Pence “has refused to testify before the bipartisan congressional committee,” Nichols charges. Bill Barr said it best: “B*** S***.” The committee is still considering whether to invite Pence. Notably, Pence’s former chief of staff and legal counsel HAVE testified, and very publicly so.

Nichols discounts Pence’s heroic role in upholding the Constitution and braving the Hang Mike Pence insurrectionists on January 6, 2021 as “a one-day deviation from pattern.” Easy to type those words into your laptop from the progressive bosom of your favorite coffee shop in downtown Madison, John. Try it when the howling mob is chasing you with a hangman’s rope.

Nichols turned his blunderbuss away from Tim Michels, a homophobe, and the seditious Donald Trump — easier targets — these two days before the Tuesday 08-09-22 primary election. For the same reason Democrats backed a Trump stolen election un-truther to beat Peter Meijer in New York, a Republican who voted to impeach. Comrade Nichols recognizes that Rebecca Kleefisch is the front-runner who is better poised to defeat incumbent governor Tony Evers. Time to take her down with invective rather than fact.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Now THAT is cynical!

What’s YOUR opinion?

Posted in Election 2022, Governor's race, Uncategorized | Tagged John Nichols, Mike Pence, Rebecca Kleefisch | 16 Comments

The truth … is barefoot

Posted on August 5, 2022 by David Blaska

Would you say it under oath?

One of our great freedoms as Americans is the right to be wrong. Totalitarian regimes demand adherence to every jot and tittle of the one-party dogma. Any deviation is punished with banishment to the Gulag or worse. Conservatives on college campuses know that all too well.

The proprietor of the Werkes makes his living off the First Amendment. Just the same, we recognize the limits of free speech: fire in a crowded theater, incitement to riot, and libel being not protected. The latter is hard to prove. New York Times v. Sullivan survived the recent session of the U.S. Supreme Court. Still must prove the speech was false, the liar knew it was false, and that he lied with malicious intent. Must prove actual damages. Even then, if you’re a public figure, you’re pretty much fair game. Which is how the Wisconsin State Journal could get away with smearing Ald. Paul Skidmore even though the forensic audio specialist hired by the City of Madison cleared the alder of uttering the infamous C word.

Nor is perjury protected speech.

Cruel but not unusual

Which takes us to Alex Jones. Make no mistake, the man would float in a toilet bowl. What kind of scorched soul could make it his mission in life to pile misery atop the grieving parents of the murdered children at Sandy Hook elementary school by lying that the tragedy never happened? (The Atlantic calls Jones “the nation’s second-most prominent conspiracy theorist.”) The parents are not public figures. I hope they soak the bastard. Even so, how are they damaged?

That aside, and more troubling, there is a thriving market for such bull schittery. We read that his InfoWars pulls in something like $70 million a year.

Mark Twain (or was it Jonathan Swift?) said a lie could circumnavigate the globe while truth was putting on its shoes. That was before the internet! P.T. Barnum said something about fools being born every minute. Every one of them is posting on Facebook!

SNL "Yeah, that's the ticket!"

Gresham’s Law of information

Bad information drives out good information. There remain sandal and stocking-wearing octogenarians convinced that Alger Hiss was framed as a Russian spy. True un-believers swear that Spielberg faked the moon landing. LBJ and his Texas oil buddies offed JFK. 9/11 was a controlled demolition. The Holocaust never occurred. The 2020 election was stolen. The Gandhi of Trump Towers preached “march peacefully and patriotically” but the FBI staged a false flag operation at Nancy Pelosi’s direction using paid Antifa actors to discredit him.

They started it! Democrats and the news media lied about “Russian collusion.” State Department experts vowed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was classic Russian disinformation. Education reporter Elizabeth Beyer says Wisconsin K-12 schools do not teach critical race theory. BLM lies that police go hunting for black people to fill their jails. Global winter/warming/climate change is melting Greenland, which was warm enough for Europeans to colonize up to about the year 1400.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: The slacker philosopher George Costanza postulated that “it’s not a lie if you really believe it.” Is the truth relative, for sale to the highest bidder? A personality named Demi Lovato identifies as a woman this week, pronouns to follow. It’s for the rest of us to blow the vuvuzela of truth on the BS-ers. The news media could help the cause of credibility by being more even-handed and alternative media consumers less gullible. Ultimately, the citizenry is the only jury.