Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Month: April 2016

Obama Weighs in on Active Case

Again. That’s twice this week that the president has made his opinion known on issues that are currently being handled by his agencies in an “impartial” manner. It is inappropriate for The Boss to weigh in on these things when they are in process. It unduly influences the outcome – especially when the outcome is being determined by people appointed by said Boss.

But I digress. It’s a suit, and they have a right to sue. And the U.S. Soccer Federation, which they are suing, has a right to defend itself before the EEOC, a bipartisan, independent agency that is supposed to be beyond the influence of crass politicians like the president.

The same president who said Tuesday:

Equal pay for equal work should be a fundamental principle of our economy.  It’s the idea that whether you’re a high school teacher, a business executive, or a professional soccer player or tennis player, your work should be equally valued and rewarded, whether you are a man or a woman.

Uh oh. Just threw that soccer stuff in, I guess. Just like, for example.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest gets that there’s a problem, and so he was trying to spin away the president’s clear suggestion about how the EEOC should rule:

I think the point of the President’s remarks today was just to acknowledge the facts of that specific situation.  What sort of ruling is handed down by the EEOC is something that the commissioners there will have to conclude on their own.  I think the President is just sort of acknowledging the paid disparity that exists in a variety of professions, including when it comes to the best soccer players in the world.

Now that’s some good spinnin’. In reality, Obama’s point of view on the case is clear.

So, you’re on the EEOC. The EEOC, though independent and bipartisan, is appointed by the president. What do you think you should do now?

Driver Crashes into House

So this happened on Monday.

16-13284 – Individual crashes vehicle into garage.

On Monday at 6:10 pm, a 37-year-old North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin man was eastbound on STH 33 in the 4700 block when he left the roadway and entered the south ditch line. The vehicle continued to travel for about 200 yards before striking an attached garage of a home. Witnesses estimated the driver hit the building at approximately 40 mph, and they did not see any brake lights on the vehicle prior to the collision. The property owner came outside and observed the vehicle imbedded in the garage and tried to break the rear window of the van with an axe in an effort to reach the driver. The property owner eventually pushed through the debris in the garage and noticed the driver was completely unresponsive. Upon deputies arrival, the driver was still unresponsive and the vehicle was still in drive with the front tires spinning. The driver still had his foot on the accelerator. The deputy was able to make verbal contact with the driver who shut the vehicle off and crawled out. The driver was transported to Froedtert St. Joseph’s Hospital and his condition began to improve greatly. Medical staff advised it appeared the driver suffered a seizure which was consistent with the deputy’s observations that drugs and alcohol did not appear to be a contributing factor. Damage was estimated at about $50,000. The driver only suffered minor injuries as a result of the collision. Enforcement action, including a Driver Condition Report, is pending since the medical problem was pre-existing and the driver acknowledged not taking his prescription for 2 days.

It will be interesting to see how the legal case on this works out. If I am the guy’s car insurance company, I wouldn’t want to pay for the damages because he caused it by his own negligence. He has a preexisting condition that was presumably treatable, refused treatment, and drove a car. It is reckless negligence, plain and simple. But then where does that leave the homeowner? Hopefully he has home insurance, but they might be uneasy about paying too. This was, after all, not an Act of God. It was caused by someone else’s negligence.

I’m glad that nobody was seriously injured. This could have gone a lot worse. But the driver needs to be held accountable for risking everyone’s life and property by Driving Unmedicated.

Obama Succeeds in Bankrupting Coal

The War on Coal has claimed a major victim.

The company said it will continue to operate while in bankruptcy, while working to reduce debt and improve cash flow.

“Peabody has a new management team, outstanding workforce, unmatched asset base and strong underlying operational performance that represent a key driver in the company’s future success,” CEO Glenn Kellow said in a statement announcing the Chapter 11 filing.

In addition to plummeting coal prices, the company cited weakness in China’s economy, overproduction of domestic shale gas and ongoing regulatory challenges as reasons for its declining prospects.

Appeals Court Could Approve Narrow Exceptions from Voter ID

These are very narrow exceptions. It’s reasonable as long as the burden of proof that an exempted condition exists falls on the voter and not the state.

But the groups pressed the suit, saying that some people face special obstacles to obtain the ID they need to vote under the law.  The appeals panel on Tuesday told U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to consider those arguments and to address ways for voting among certain groups:

  • Voters unable to obtain acceptable photo identification because of errors on birth certificates or other documentation.
  • Voters who need a credential from a government agency that won’t issue one until the state Department of Motor Vehicles first issues photo identification, which the DMV won’t do until the first credential has been obtained.
  • Voters who need a document that no longer exists, such as a birth certificate issued by an agency whose records have been lost in a fire.

The appeals panel also noted that in another state with voter ID, Indiana, voters “unable to obtain a com­plying photo ID for financial or religious reasons may file an affidavit to that effect” and have their vote counted on a provisional basis.

Johnny Koremonos, a spokesman for the state Department of Justice, said the ruling affirms the constitutionality of the voter ID law and affects only a “narrow” group of people: those who cannot obtain a free ID through the state Department of Transportation after “reasonable efforts.”

Boko Haram’s Girls

“They came to us to pick us,” Fati recalls. “They would ask, ‘Who wants to be a suicide bomber?’ The girls would shout, ‘me, me, me.’ They were fighting to do the suicide bombings.”
Young girls fighting to strap on a bomb, not because they were brainwashed by their captors’ violent indoctrination methods but because the relentless hunger and sexual abuse — coupled with the constant shelling — became too much to bear.
They wanted a way out, she says. They wanted an escape.
Fati, 16, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, pauses and grabs the three gold bracelets around her wrist. They’re a gift from her mother, her only connection to home after she became one of hundreds of girls kidnapped by the world’s deadliest terror group, which forced them to marry its fighters.
“It was just because they want to run away from Boko Haram,” she said. “If they give them a suicide bomb, then maybe they would meet soldiers, tell them, ‘I have a bomb on me’ and they could remove the bomb. They can run away.”

Dane Power

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here you go:

It has become so routine that it seems normal, but it is not — a Dane County judge has once again issued a daft ruling deeming a newly passed law to be unconstitutional. In an era when Democrats have been frustrated at the ballot box and relegated to the minority in the Legislature, they have turned to the court system to try to thwart the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives.

The pattern has become predictable. The Republican Legislature and Republican governor enact a law they support. The liberal Democrats, unable to prevail in the Legislature, sue on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional. As the seat of state government, the first step in the legal process is in the Dane County Circuit Courts, where virtually every judge is liberal and rules that the law is unconstitutional. Then, after a lot of time and money is spent appealing the ruling, the Dane County judge’s ruling is overruled and the law stands. It happened with Act 10. It happened with Voter ID. And now it is happening with right-to-work.

Wisconsin’s right-to-work law was passed earlier this year, making Wisconsin the nation’s 25th state to pass such a law. The concept of right-to-work is simple and rooted in our natural right to freely associate with whom we please, or not. Under the previous law, people were forced to pay dues to a union, a private organization, as a consequence of working in a unionized shop. The people had to pay those dues even if they did not support or agree with the union. Wisconsin’s right-to-work law simply allows people to not belong to, or pay dues to, a union if they do not want to.

Of course, unions have been a bastion for the Democratic Party for decades and those dues are used to fund campaigns for Democrats, so right-to-work threatens the Democratic Party’s power structure — so the Democrats resorted to the courts.

Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust gave his fellow liberals the ruling they wanted. The ruling is so devoid of lucidity that it will definitely be overruled on appeal, but the rationale used is worth knowing as it reveals something of the liberal mindset. Foust’s reasoning is that since the right-to-work law allows employees to not pay union dues, it erodes the money given to the unions. And since the unions are obligated to negotiate on behalf of all employees even if they do not pay dues, the law violates the constitutional provision prohibiting the government from taking property without fair compensation.

Got that? In other words, by virtue of the fact that private organizations — the unions — choose to negotiate on behalf of workers, those workers must be forced to pay for that private organization. Never mind that it is not the government denying dues, it is free people choosing to not pay dues. Never mind that the unions do not have to negotiate for anyone if they do not want to. In Foust’s mind and in the minds of his fellow travelers, the money does not belong to the individual to do with what they choose. It belongs to the collective and the role of government is to force the individual to give it to the collective.

Thankfully there is little doubt that Foust’s ruling will be overruled, but this incessant cycle of irrational judicial challenge initiated by sore losers must be mitigated. Part of the problem is that Dane County is far more liberal than the rest of the state. This is a county where more than 100,000 people voted for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders last week. That’s almost 50 percent more votes than all of the Republican votes combined. It is a liberal county that elects liberal judges.

Republicans tried to reform this in 2011 when they passed a law allowing the plaintiffs in cases challenging state laws to choose venues other than Dane County, but that reform simply allows the plaintiffs to shop for a favorable venue. Liberals will sue in Dane County and conservatives will sue in Washington County.

Instead of allowing plaintiffs to choose a venue or having all lawsuits take place in Dane County, Wisconsin should enact a lottery system for lawsuits challenging state laws. There are 249 circuit court judges in Wisconsin who are elected by their respective county’s voters, each perfectly capable of adjudicating a lawsuit. The judges in Dane County do not have any special powers or abilities that make them superior to a judge in, say, Superior.

There will be some cost associated with such a system. Since the state government is in Madison, virtually all of the resources needed to defend such a lawsuit reside near the seat of government. There will be cost in transporting those resources to other counties to defend the state, but in an age of videoconferencing and telecommuting, those costs could be easily allayed if the court chooses.

Dane County circuit judges have had too much power in the function of state government for far too long. It is time to inject some judicial diversity into the process by allowing judges elected in other parts of the state to participate.

Trump’s Oral Diarrhea Mentions Walker

Whatever.

“I like Walker actually in a lot of ways,” Trump told the newspaper. “I hit him very hard. … But I’ve always liked him. There are people I like, but I don’t think they like me because I have hit them hard.”

Asked Monday in Madison about the comments, Walker wouldn’t rule out being Trump’s vice presidential pick, instead saying he was focused on being governor. He said he laughed when he read Trump’s comments.

“It’s kind of interesting to hear that after the things that were said about me a couple weeks ago,” Walker said. “It’s almost breathtaking that I was listed in the first place.”

North Korean Colonel Defects

Welcome!

Seoul, South Korea (CNN)A senior intelligence officer with the North Korean military has defected to South Korea, officials in Seoul said Monday.

The defector was a senior colonel with the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau, which is in charge of espionage operations against South Korea, according to South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun and Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee.
Speaking in separate news conferences Monday, the ministry spokesmen confirmed that reports on the defection by South Korea’s semiofficial Yonhap News Agency were accurate but said they could give no further details.

Madison School Facing Reality

Apparently they are looking their previous mismanagement in the face.

Faced with another tough budget, Madison School District administrators are again asking the School Board to consider making employees contribute to their health insurance premiums.

Many Wisconsin school districts have taken that step to avoid cuts, but there’s been little appetite among Madison School Board members to seriously consider the idea.

That could be changing. With budgets flat and revenue growth negligible, the board may have little choice but to confront the difficult topic, said James Howard, board president.

but…

The result is that the district needs to find about $1.95 million to cover the projected increase. All of the proposals to be discussed Monday would cover that amount.

To offset some of the sting, the administration is proposing salary increases that would result in a “positive net compensation” for “all employee groups,” even with an employee premium contribution.

If it ends up being a new increase, then it really isn’t saving the taxpayers anything, is it?

The Madison School Board has made the decision for years to prioritize even modest changes in benefits for employees above most other things – including adding more staff, classroom supplies, building maintenance, property tax relief, and everything else. To them, all of those things are less important than making their employees pay a small percentage of the cost of their health insurance premiums like virtually everyone else in our society.

Navy Officer Charged with Espionage

It’s nice to see that our nation is still willing to prosecute people who share national secrets with foreigners.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told AFP the sailor is Lieutenant Commander Edward Chieh-Liang Lin, who has been in the Navy since 1999 and has won several awards including two Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medals.

The Navy declined to confirm his identity, but provided a heavily redacted copy of a charge sheet that outlined four charges against an officer of Lin’s rank.

According to that document, the suspect communicated “secret information relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.”

The US official said Lin is accused of handing secret information over to China and Taiwan, adding it was possible the investigation could also uncover ties to other countries.

[…]

The United States also suspects Beijing is conducting cyber attacks on US interests and passing this information to the private sector for commercial gain.

Act 10’s Impact on Liberal Interest Groups

What an odd story to be on the front page of JSOnline.

The Greater Wisconsin Committee, the liberal group backing Kloppenburg, spent less than half of what it did on her behalf in her unsuccessful 2011 bid for a court seat, with opponents spending several times more in this race. Greater Wisconsin put up its TV ads only eight days before the election won by Justice Rebecca Bradley, while an independent group started running ads on Bradley’s behalf just over two months before the election.

Is that a sign that the left in Wisconsin is losing its financial resources? For years, Democrats have been predicting that Gov. Scott Walker’s repeal of most collective bargaining for public sector workers would dry up some labor funding for liberal candidates.

The answer is maybe, maybe not, say players on both sides of the state’s polarized political divide.

The story goes on to say… nothing. Essentially, they are private groups that seem to have plenty of money to spend on political races but chose not to spend as much on Kloppenburg. It never really says why, but I suspect it is because Kloppenburg already lost once and is a bad candidate. But the story doesn’t say. So what was the point of the story?

The most interesting part of it comes at the end.

Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, also said this election isn’t as simple as groups on the left not having resources. Partly, his side now thinks that pouring money into such races may never have been the best answer, he said.

The union leader pointed to other races Tuesday such as Racine School Board seats where union-backed candidates did well by putting in time at the local level. That local organizing could eventually yield fruit in state races by providing candidates, voter lists and volunteers for those campaigns, he said.

Remember that in Racine we saw the teachers union circulating candidate lists and propaganda on school grounds. If this is the new model for liberal activists, the conservative activists need to match it.

Wisconsin’s Conservative Operation

Sounds about right.

Cruz and Bradley benefited from a Republican and conservative political infrastructure that is remarkably battle-tested, said Matt Batzel, the Wisconsin-based director of American Majority, a national group that trains conservative candidates and activists.

Recall elections after the passage of the Act 10 collective bargaining law and the sharply contested 2014 election have molded what Fraley described as “a turn-key operation” of Republicans and conservatives ready to campaign.
“In Wisconsin, your average activist has had to step up to the plate time and time again,” Batzel said.

Man Gets Stuck After Proposing

She may want to rethink her answer.

A US man aimed high when he decided to propose to his girlfriend – climbing a steep cliff face to pop the question via a video-app on his phone.

Only Michael Bank’s romantic gesture hit the rocks after he became stuck on his way down and had to be rescued.

The drama unfolded on the 600ft (180m) high Morro Rock off California’s Central Coast.

The good news, his girlfriend said yes. The bad news, he now faces a hefty bill for his rescue.

A helicopter had to be called to help bring the 27-year-old back down to earth.

Bernie Wins Wyoming

So he wins by 11 points and they each get 7 delegates? Socialism works!

(CNN)Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming Democratic caucuses Saturday, providing his campaign with one more jolt of momentum before the race against Hillary Clinton heads east.

The Vermont senator was favored going into the caucuses. Wyoming is similar to other places he’s won with big margins: rural, Western and overwhelmingly white. The victory is Sanders’ eighth win out of the last nine contests — including a contest that counted the votes of Democrats living abroad — and a big morale booster heading into the crucial New York primary on April 19.
Sanders, speaking at a rally in Queens, New York, when the state’s results were projected, announced the victory to his supporters after his wife, Jane, joined him on stage to say they had won.
“News bulletin: We just won Wyoming,” Sanders said as the room exploded into cheers.
Sanders won 55.7% of the vote to Clinton’s 44.3%, giving each candidate seven delegates. That helps Clinton maintain her pledged delegate lead over Sanders, 1,304 to 1,075.

Racine Teachers Union Campaigns On Campus

I wonder if other groups can do this too.

RACINE — Ahead of Tuesday’s elections, members of the Racine Education Association reportedly distributed a card in schools endorsing nine candidates for the Racine Unified School Board.

It’s a practice which the school does not prohibit under its rules, but that the Government Accountability Board advises against.

The “palm cards” were specifically for REA members, according to Naomi Baden, executive director of union’s coordinating body the Racine Education UniServ Council, noting that the cards distributed by building representatives were not intended for students or non-REA staff.

“(The REA) asked reps to provide that personally, one on one, to people, not by mail,” Baden said. She noted that REA members, who are teachers, passed out the cards during lunch breaks or off-duty time.

The cards list nine union-backed candidates for the School Board — eight of whom ultimately won seats — saying that “Racine-area educators, students and parents recommend the following pro-public education candidates for the School Board. Take this card with you to the polls.” It also gives instructions on early voting on and how to find a polling place.

Blank Won’t Layoff Tenured Faculty

That’s a bit of a blanket statement.

UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank said Friday that the university won’t lay off tenured faculty so long as it remains a leading research school.

“Top-ranked universities always take care of their tenured faculty,” Blank said in a blog post. “As long as this university is a top-ranked institution we will behave like other top-ranked universities. That means we don’t layoff tenured faculty. Period.”

Blank published the post after a monthslong battle over the future of tenure at the state’s flagship institution came to a close Friday when the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved a new policy for faculty layoffs on the campus.

Nowhere in that statement did she mention educating kids. That is no longer a priority at UW Madison. That’s OK, but it’s important to remember their priority when debating policy and the taxpayers’ obligations to it.

Even as it is, the commitment to never layoff tenured faculty is far too absolute to be good management. What that statement means is that she is willing to watch the university burn to the ground around her before she lays off a single tenured faculty member – to hell with all of the other stakeholders.

Let’s hope that Chancellor Blank is just engaging in a bit of hyperbole to soothe a skittish staff and that she doesn’t actually mean what she said.

“Majoritarian Exercise”

Yes, we have learned how the Left defines “bipartisanship.”

But even if we look past Obama’s hypocrisy, his prediction of doom rings hollow. When he says that the refusal of conservatives to confirm a liberal judge may reduce the nomination process to being, “just a majoritarian exercise in the Senate of who controls the presidency and who controls the Senate,” we are forced to ask what is so bad about that? Moreover, what is the alternative that he is proposing that will enable us to transcend partisanship?

The alternative to that “majoritarian exercise” that he offers the GOP is simple: surrender. Republicans are told that they must allow a shaky 5-4 conservative majority in which a swing vote cast by an unpredictable Justice Anthony Kennedy determines close cases to become a solid 5-4 liberal majority enabled by Garland’s confirmation. They must do so, Obama says, because it is good for democracy for us to transcend partisanship. But in order for that argument to work, then both sides must do so.

Democrats Sue Over Redistricting

And in another case of liberals suing over Republican legislation.

A Democratic suit filed in federal court to repeal the Republican re-districting of the Wisconsin Assembly is set for trial May 24, with hearings judges say should last no longer than four days.

A three-judge panel this week rejected the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss the suit. The plaintiffs (Democrats) in the case will have to prove that Republicans acted with discriminatory intent when they drew the maps. The judges on the panel are Kenneth Ripple, Barbara Crabb and William Griesbach.

Democrats filed the suit in July, calling the new redistricting map unconstitutional and “one of the worse partisan gerrymanders in modern American history.”

They are asking the court to strike down the maps and draw new ones.

Bear in mind that redistricting has been done for half a decade now. We have had several elections with the new maps already. And they will be redrawn again in five years after the 2020 census. Yet here we are… in court again because the Democrats feel aggrieved. Perhaps they should focus their energies on actually winning elections so that they can be at the helm when the districts are redrawn next time.

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