Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

This fight is for everything.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

After roe, women are no longer free.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

He really is that stupid.

In my day, never was longer.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Let there be snark.

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125Comments

  2. 2.

    joe from Lowell

    So that’s twice now, that the Republicans have been caught admitting that the “union thugs” are so peaceful, restrained, and non-violent that it is necessary to stage bogus events in order to portray them as threatening.

  4. 4.

    Scott

    @joe from Lowell: On the bright side, that means whenever one of them finally stages a fake attack, there’ll be more than enough paper trail to get at least some reporters to question whether it’s legit…

  5. 5.

    geg6

    @joe from Lowell:

    Yeah, I’m thinking it’s pretty bad when your rat fuckers are stupider and more incompetent than Liddy, Hunt, and their Plumbers. Sadly, the MSM does not seem to notice rat fuckers any more.

  6. 6.

    J

    These people are ineffably loathsome. The world they are trying to make will be worse for more than 90% of the population. They are not interested in compromises. They play for keeps. What will it take for the electorate to wake up to these facts, which are as plain as day?

  7. 7.

    Incoherent Dennis SGMM

    @joe from Lowell:
    Maybe the good news in this is that the Republicans seem to moving closer and closer to doing something for which they can be prosecuted. They don’t seem to be backing off as yet.

  8. 8.

    Montysano

    Carlos Lam, the prosecutor who resigned, worked in Johnson County, Indiana. I was born and raised in Franklin, the county seat. I tell people that although I now live in the Deep South, the only place I’ve ever seen robed Klansmen was on the courthouse square in Franklin. That area, and areas to the south and west (e.g. Martinsville) have long been hotbeds of racism and white supremacist activity. I actually went to school just up the road in Whiteland, and yeah… they meant it.

  10. 10.

    Ija

    I have a feeling that the University will not fight this out of fear that their budget would be cut. The search terms they requested seem overly broad. Union? Union does not refer only to labor union. If some student is talking to the prof about the Student Union (the place, not the organization), he might get caught up in the request.

  14. 14.

    jibeaux

    I can’t believe two separate Indiana prosecutors have lost their jobs for advocating, in writing, violence against nonviolent protesters in Wisconsin.

    I personally don’t advocate violence, but I’m not above hoping they stay out of work for a good while.

  15. 15.

    Judas Escargot (aka "your liberal-interventionist pal, who's fun to be with")

    @Incoherent Dennis SGMM:

    Maybe the good news in this is that the Republicans seem to moving closer and closer to doing something for which they can be prosecuted.

    Who will prosecute them?

    In most of these states, the GOP has packed the courts and occupies the AG’s office. MSM certainly isn’t going to help spread these facts around, either.

    If the Feds do it, the Vurlizer will spin it as “Obama Admin. Unfairly Going After Poor Little GOP.”

    They seem to want violence. Sadly, I think they’re going to get it. Soon.

  16. 16.

    Cat Lady

    Jeebus, I’m wicked glad I live in Massachusetts. Even Sen. McTrucknutz has decided that his bread is not buttered with wingnut butter and has come out against defunding Planned Parenthood, and our Secretary of State came right out and said how he thought it was great that the census is showing that Massachusetts’ population is less white and more diverse, to the sound of angry white male heads exploding. It’s ugly out there.

  17. 17.

    Jay C

    And this is really such a surprise? From the sort of people who probably think Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keeffe are courageous crusaders for “truth” in “journalism”?

    But put me in the “skeptical” column that this nonsense will get much, if any, play in the “MSM”. Short of an actual “false-flag” assault – complete with unshakeable forensic evidence and a verifiable paper/video trail – this kind of sh!t will most likely be shrugged off as mere “tough campaigning” (since G0d forbid anyone in the media should ever criticize Republicans!).

    Besides, some union thug boss saboteur member probably called Scott Walker a bad name on a blogpost somewhere, so it all evens out….

  18. 18.

    Corner Stone

    @Ija:

    I have a feeling that the University will not fight this out of fear that their budget would be cut.

    Have they learned absolutely nothing? Their budget will be cut either way.

  19. 19.

    Walker

    @cleek:

    Really? I grew up in eastern NC (Kinston, Wilmington) and I have never seen the klan anywhere in the area. That stuff was always too crass for the tidewater aristocracy form of racism.

    Now, in Tennessee — where the other side of my family lives — it is a different matter. Appalachian is full of that stuff.

  22. 22.

    Redshirt

    And gosh! If anything remotely similar – even close – were to have come from any Democratic organization, who wouldn’t bet it would be front page news, for weeks?

    This game is rigged.

  23. 23.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    what part of “work email” doesn’t this professor understand?

    yeah yeah, academic freedom and all that. blah blah, unpopular speech and all that, blah blah, seems to me, professors want more and more to be paid like they would if they work in the real world, but they want to retain the notion that they live in some utopian academia where their thoughts and activities are so precious, that they aren’t at all accountable.

    if he was writting to people or saying things that aren’t work related, he shouldn’t have used the work email..

    and there wasn’t this fallows fellow, or cronon or anyone crying because arkansas boosters used the open records law to get access to cell phone records of their football coach and published reports of an affair he was having, in order to get him to step down…

    sorry no sympathy on that whole “how dare they” invasion of imaginary privacy, sanctity of academia thing, but the cause of course, i support, and cronon, as a supporter has to be smarter about that….

    its the way of the world, and you can cheer for what it yields in one case, then bitch about it in another.

  24. 24.

    Cermet

    What that scum bag was proposing is criminal – since he is a lawyer, he should, at a minimum, be dis-barred.

  26. 26.

    cleek

    @Walker:
    i’ve only been here since 97, and that was the only time i’ve seen them around. and, i think (from the signs) that many of them were out-of-towners.

  27. 27.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    what part of “work email” doesn’t this professor understand?

    yeah yeah, academic freedom and all that. blah blah, unpopular speech and all that, blah blah, seems to me, professors want more and more to be paid like they would if they work in the real world, but they want to retain the notion that they live in some utopian academia where their thoughts and activities are so precious, that they aren’t at all accountable.

    if he was writing to people or saying things that aren’t work related, he shouldn’t have used the work email..

    and there wasn’t this fallows fellow, or cronon or anyone crying because arkansas boosters used the open records law to get access to cell phone records of their football coach and published reports of an affair he was having, in order to get him to step down…

    sorry no sympathy on that whole “how dare they” invasion of imaginary privacy, sanctity of academia thing, but the cause of course, i support, and cronon, as a supporter has to be smarter about that….

    its the way of the world, and you can cheer for what it yields in one case, then bitch about it in another.

  29. 29.

    Chyron HR

    Lam: “We should get somebody to dress up as a unionist and have him shoot at you.”
    Walker: “Great idea! He would miss, right?”
    Lam: “…yeah, sure. That could work.”

  30. 30.

    EconWatcher

    I think the Wisconsin GOP picked a fight with the wrong guy. In his dignified and professorial way, Prof. Cronon really stuck a shiv in them with his blog response.

    And, whatever else you might say about the average American joe or jane, they don’t like people being bullied for exercising free speech. That’s ingrained pretty deeply in our culture. I think the WI GOP will come to regret this stunt.

  32. 32.

    Redshirt

    I’ll believe there are consequences for these types of actions when they are consequences. Otherwise, IOKIYAR seems the default rule for any and all despicable behavior.

  33. 33.

    danimal

    Meta-question: Is the GOP writing off the midwest with all this dickishness? WI, OH, MI and IN are all considered swing states, and this kind of brutish idiocy appears to be lighting a fire under the Dems.

    Are they so stupid they don’t know they are encouraging their political rivals to fight like cornered wolverines (or badgers…)?

    How’s the recall going in WI, btw?

  34. 34.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Comrade DougJ: That is quite true, and appalling. Is there a way to force their hand? Liberal media my aging ample ass.

  35. 35.

    JAHILL10

    To be fair the Wisconsin Republicans have to take out their anger at being outed in the national media on their union-hating ways on SOMEBODY. All their plans to take revenge on the Democrats who left the state have fallen flat. One of the schemes they cooked up and then abandoned was to deny the 14 one year of their retirement, or something like that. Why don’t they just go over to their houses and call their spouses ugly or kick the dog? Petty mo-fos.

  36. 36.

    Culture of Truth

    “If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.

    “Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest.”

    This is obviously crazy, but this is how right-wing conservatives think. Convinced, (or lying, take your pick) of media bias and shadowy non-conspiracies involving the DNC and various fictional Soros-funded groups, seeing themselves as besieged on all fronts, they justify any manner of outrageous acts as justified in self-defense against their imagined enemies.

  37. 37.

    JAHILL10

    @danimal: Last I read the recall people have more than half the signatures they need and slightly more than half of the sixty days allotted to get the rest. They are claiming they will be able to take back the state senate by the summer. Here’s hoping.

  38. 38.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @cleek:

    as i read it, his concern is that he is appalled at the assault on academic freedom. which sounds to me an awful lot like he wants to be treated like a delicate flower on one hand, and paid like he lives in the real world on the other…

    foia is a two edged sword. you can’t cheer for it being used for political purposes in one story. and complain about people getting caught up in it, in another.

  39. 39.

    Chyron HR

    @JAHILL10:

    Why don’t they just go over to their houses and call their spouses ugly or kick the dog?

    Gov. Walker can’t find the keys to the tank.

  40. 40.

    Culture of Truth

    Why don’t they just go over to their houses and call their spouses ugly

    E-mail is faster.

  42. 42.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: As I read it, the professor is pretty well aware of his employer’s university email policy and confident that he has complied with it. But I admit freely that my bias is toward both the FOIA, and its use for its intended purpose as opposed to naked political intimidation.

    As for Indiana, a commenter during the (former) AAG Cox episode noted that the state is rather a northern Alabama with a professional (explicitly, unlike the Crimson Tide) football team.

  43. 43.

    gnomedad

    It’s gone beyond IOKIYAR. The Holy Cause is everything. Bad is good, black is white, up is down, lies are truth.

  46. 46.

    Jay C

    @EconWatcher:

    And, whatever else you might say about the average American joe or jane, they don’t like people being bullied for exercising free speech. That’s ingrained pretty deeply in our culture. I think the WI GOP will come to regret this stunt.

    Heh. Don’t we all wish…

    Painful as it is to have to write, I would have to disagree with your fundamental point. While traditional American regard for “freedom of speech” has always been a rather nice and admirable ideal to try to live up to, in practice John and Jane Q. Public have always been willing to ignore (where not actively encouraging) “bullying” for the purpose of suppressing “free speech” they don’t like. Or rather, in most cases “free speech” they have been told they shouldn’t like; mainly by politicians and/or the media.
    The “anticommunist” hysteria of the 1950s is a prime example that comes to mind; but similar situations (like support for civil rights/equal treatment for Black Americans at almost any time) can be found at any point in our history.

    I think the only mistake the Midwest GOP is making nowadays is failing to properly “otherize” the targets of their union-busting jihad: simply dismissing cops and firefighters (still less linemen and librarians) as “thugs” hasn’t (thank G0d) worked. This time.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before but … Republicans never think of themselves as being part of the government even when they’re running the government.

    So they don’t see this as government intimidation at all. In fact, they see this as an evil government employee (aka a professor) trying to oppress them by using his governmental powers, and they’re just defending themselves by … using their governmental powers.

    It’s just so strange to me that they can be running every fucking thing and yet somehow still think of themselves as outsiders being oppressed by “the government.” And they seem to genuinely believe it!

  48. 48.

    BC

    They seem to want violence.

    That’s been what Beck, Limbaugh, etc., have been trying to get since Obama was elected. That’s why the rhetoric has been so over the top – to get someone, anyone, to try to assassinate the president. Now since none of the followers will do it, it’s just up to them to gin it up, even if it means hiring one of their own.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @Sly:
    I thought the signs saying that a project was funded by ARRA were a condition of receiving the funding. If that’s correct, making it illegal to put up the signs could also prevent the state from receiving the money. Deliberate ploy or simple stupidity?

  50. 50.

    martha

    @General Stuck: I’m glad you posted this link, I was going to as I just finished reading everything.

    This is really big, but in a quiet way. Bill Cronon, is an incredibly well respected history professor here. He’s a moderate Independent. And they’re going after him. I thought his editorial in the NYT a few days ago was spot-on from a historical perspective. Josh’s editorial at TPM lays it out really well and the link to the Professor’s piece explaining everything is a must-read. Fallows is on the case too.

  51. 51.

    wenchacha

    How embarrassing for anyone associated with Lam!

    He’s caught with his ratfucking and he denies it, hiding behind family activities. If he’s so certain unions are being propped up by the DNC and other nefarious sources, (as if!) why doesn’t he cop to his email? He should be proud of his efforts, not running from them.

    Not only is he a weasel (no offense, weasels,) also a coward.

  52. 52.

    martha

    @EconWatcher: I agree. Cronon states pretty clearly that he uses two email accounts. One for work business and one for personal business and he uses personal computers, not UW-paid computers. Given that he’s a historian and what’s been going on here the past three months, how could he not talk about it, even in the context of work? (she asks rhetorically)

  53. 53.

    Culture of Truth

    Lam: we could set fire to the legislative building and claim the unionists did it

    Walker: wow where do you get your awesome ideas?

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    For once, I vote simple stupidity. They keep playing games like this and being astounded every time that they lose the funding. See also, Walker’s decision to kill the high-speed rail project and his indignation that the state had to give the money back instead of getting to spend it on what he wanted.

    The only reason I don’t say “deliberate ploy” is that it doesn’t make them look good to anyone, even people on their own side, to keep losing money for the state, so I don’t know what the ploy would even be.

  57. 57.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    the law is the law, i think we blew past the point where we consider “intent” a long time ago.

    naked political intimidation on one hand, the gotcha we applaud in indiana on the other.

    in the world the rest of us live in, you cover your ass, especially if you are going to cause a little shit. i just don’t buy the academic freedom thing, smells like executive privelege. about the time the students became an inconvenience is around the time everyone should have realized they were mostly just doing business.

  59. 59.

    Bill Section 147

    The email investigation is purely intended to screw the prof and frighten dissenters. This is simply government intimidation.

    Those who cannot see that, and claim the law is on the side of the thugs, are trying to squeeze a Red Team Rules! version of reality. Trying to hide as if they are law-abiding while avoiding the truth.

    It’s like a bad movie in which a citizen speaks out against corruption at a town hall. Then the Police follows him around stopping him for every minor infraction. The building inspector revisits his home addition. The county assessor reviews all of his records… just to be sure.

    All of the government officials are just doing their job and if that citizen were innocent… well then… he has nothing to fear.

    The equivocation of the FOIA by people who at every turn are railing against Government Intrusion into their lives would be funny if it were not frightening.

    Why can’t they just pass a law that allows Listening Trucks to drive around the streets. If it is legal then they are OK with it. And if you are innocent… well then… you have nothing to fear.

  60. 60.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @JimF:

    and i am sorry his feelings got hurt. but yes i read it, thanks for being a condescending twat though, that is always refreshing.

    my point is two fold, you can’t cry about overreach of foia on one hand, because some professor is getting some flak, and then applaud its use to expose a nut in indiana?

    second is, its work email, they are going to be looking, because they can.

  62. 62.

    Xenos

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Ok, it is work email, but at the same time, has anyone ever successfully filed an FOIA against a professor to demand his email? Of course the good Prof. is tenured and so his career is relatively protected, so the matter is really the scope of the FOIA in Wisconsin law. Anybody run across any real reporting on Wisconsin law?

  63. 63.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    Lam, the dude in Indiana, concludes his message encouraging an elected head of state to fabricate an attack on his person with the closing greeting, “God Bless.”

    Isn’t the Ninth Commandment “Bear No False Witness,” Or are my Aramaic translation skills rusty?

  65. 65.

    Cermet

    People here really pretend to care about equal treatment – not. Just stupid arguments based on hot air.

    These two cases are not the same in any respect – not even close. A law enforcement employee who is also the principle officer of a court of criminal law – the very person who decides if a crime has been committed and in fact, represents the State AND decides all deals/crimes/charges and even whether the State will seek the death penalty sends an e-mail telling someone to frame the ‘Union Supporters” (read US citizens that he has sworn an oath to protect) by a massively criminal action is caught red-handed and this is somehow equal to a school professor – someone simply a teacher employed by the State to teach who sent no illegal e-mail nor suggested any illegal action – also, the prosecutor did not have the State take formal legal action to take all his past e-mails and investigate him?

    Only stupid can justify people who equate these two cases – except for e-mail, they have zero else in common. The shear serious of what that asswipe, shit head prosecutor did in trying to get someone to commit a serious and highly illegal action is beyond the pale and that typical asswipe thug should, himself, he prosecuted.

  66. 66.

    Valdivia

    As someone in the Prof’s post in his site said–FOIA is to keep the GOVERMENT transparent and to promote good governance. What the GOP has done with this is to use FOIA to intimidate a critic, a citizen. Really? This is now acceptable?

  67. 67.

    Sentient Puddle

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:

    the law is the law

    …and by that measure, it’s still ambiguous as to whether or not he should actually comply with this request. As he notes:

    A number of the emails caught in the net of Mr. Thompson’s open records request are messages between myself and my students. … The Buckley Amendment makes it illegal for colleges or universities to release student records without the permission of those students, and is thus in direct conflict with the Wisconsin Open Records Law and Mr. Thompson’s request on behalf of the Wisconsin Republican Party.

    So even if this were a simple case of having to comply with any request (and I would be rather surprised if it were, though I’m not particularly familiar with Wisconsin’s freedom of information laws), there’d still be legal issues that would need to be resolved.

  69. 69.

    Silver

    If I was a dick, I’d file the same FOIA request for every single business professor at the school-with a request for the following terms to be included in the search: unions, socialism, capitalism, taxes, marginal, public, sector, Walker, etc…you get the idea.

  70. 70.

    historian

    “what part of “work email” doesn’t this professor understand?”

    Did you read Cronon’s post? He put all his personal e-mail on his personal computers. They can’t get anything on him.

    He’s the president of the American Historical Association and worried about academic liberty and the violation of student rights if student e-mails are released. In his e-mail he has commented on unpublished manuscripts in which authors assume privacy. In any case — he’s a really big name. He could get a new job at an Ivy with more money in about two seconds.

    http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/24/open-records-attack-on-academic-freedom/

  71. 71.

    mds

    @Cat Lady:

    Even Sen. McTrucknutz has decided that his bread is not buttered with wingnut butter and has come out against defunding Planned Parenthood

    After voting in favor of a budget that contained that selfsame Title X defunding. Please don’t stay deluded, Massachusetts.

    @Valdivia:

    As someone in the Prof’s post in his site said—FOIA is to keep the GOVERMENT transparent and to promote good governance.

    Oh, heavens no. [Ostentatiously reaches for smelling salts] Obviously, the party that controls the legislature and executive of Wisconsin targeting a critic is exactly like every other use of FOIA ever, especially when used by private citizens to uncover government misbehavior. Sheesh. It’s like the false-equivalence shitstains aren’t even trying any more.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods:

    Isn’t the Ninth Commandment “Bear No False Witness,” Or are my Aramaic translation skills rusty?

    Your Aramaic doesn’t matter for anything in the Torah, since that’s all written in Hebrew. The Aramaic is all in the New Testament. And what constitutes the Ninth Commandment depends on who you’re asking. Catholics and Lutherans would say that the part about not bearing false witness is the Eighth Commandment, since they split the part about not coveting your neighbor’s wife into a separate commandment from the part about not coveting the rest of his stuff. Orthodox, Protestants, and Jews agree that the not bearing false witness is in the Ninth Commandment, though they disagree about exactly how to parse the first two. One more reason that the government shouldn’t go around posting the 10 Commandments; you can’t do it without taking sides in a religious debate.

  74. 74.

    celticdragonchick

    @Walker:

    I live in Greensboro. That kind of shit doesn’t fly here anymore either. But then again, Greensboro is a librul college town…

  75. 75.

    bemused

    @cleek:
    We have close family in the Raleigh area so I almost flipped out until I realized this wasn’t recent. What year did this rally happen and have those creeps tried to have once since?

  76. 76.

    Poopyman

    @Sentient Puddle: Well jeepers! If it were decided that his emails are fair game, then theoretically anyone could drum up a reason to have any Wisconsin prof’s emails released. Like, say, a certain UW law prof. Hmmmmmm.

  77. 77.

    Valdivia

    @mds:

    Exactly! The Governor and a prosecutor conspiring to do a false flag op is exactly the same as a Professor asking questions–in his non state email at that–about who is pushing anti union bills. Doncha know? ;)

  78. 78.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @Cermet:

    um, the cases are different, but cronon is arguing for the principle that no one has a right to look. in lam’s case we are spared the burdensome question of whether or not there is a right to peek, because some one already did. the reporter was merely sifting through that which had already been gathered. you are asserting that the professor never said or did anything illegal or unethical in his emails, confident only in that nothing has been reported or confessed, we have yet to reach that stage. you have to move lam’s story back to where the requests were being made, before we knew whether or not he did anything illegal, to see the parallel.

    houston nutt was run out of u arkansas because they foia’d his cell phone, email, anything else, i wonder where the impassioned defenses of his academic freedom was, before the requests were fulfilled?

    pick your poison, is it wrong to sift through these persons usage of government communications tools, to find dirt, or isn’t it?

    being a professor, prosecutor, or football coach shouldn’t alter the equation.

    my view is, its all fair game.

  79. 79.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Mnemosyne: You’re dealing with monarchists.

    No Democratic administration is a legitimate administration, so long as there is no king on the throne. No Democrat is a loyal citizen, because their loyalty is not to the person of the king loyalty.

    A royalist party in a parliament has no interest in cooperating with the small-r republican parties in governing. Their purpose for being is bring about the Restoration, period.

    When the King comes into his own again, Parliament will go back to its proper role as the King’s lapdog, voting thanks to his royal Person, and voting money for his wars. And its members will go back to jockeying for place and preferment, royal monopolies, subventions and governorships, like good courtiers.

    The weirdest transformation of political terminology hasn’t been what happened to the word ‘liberal’ since John Stuart Mill — it’s what happened to the word ‘republican’.

  80. 80.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Poopyman: Hell, I’d be askeered to see what Our Lady of the Everlasting Box o’Franzia(TM) writes on her dot edu email. Though I’d love to be told, of course. ::snickers::

  81. 81.

    bemused

    @wenchacha:
    I really doubt that anyone associated with Lam is embarrassed. I don’t think it’s in the DNA. Pissed off that he wasn’t smart enough to cover his tracks better, yes. Embarrassed, not likely.

  83. 83.

    Sentient Puddle

    @Xenos: For those of us who aren’t as big of law nerds, is there anything in that PDF that acts as a case summary?

  84. 84.

    Xenos

    For the sake of the non-COD legal types, that decision holds that private messages on state email accounts are not state business, and so are outside the scope of the FOIA.

    ¶142 The contents of the personal e-mails that the Teachers
    created and maintained on government-owned computers pursuant to
    the government employer’s permission for occasional personal use
    of the government e-mail account and computer are not “records”
    under Wis. Stat. § 19.32(2). The personal contents of these emails are not subject to release to a record requester merely
    because they are sent or received using the government
    employers’ e-mail systems and then stored and maintained on
    those systems. Because we conclude that the contents of the
    Teachers’ personal e-mails are not “records” under the Public
    Records Law, we need not reach the question of balancing the
    public interest favoring disclosure with any other public
    interest.

  86. 86.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Xenos: But that doesn’t really address Cronon’s essential point, which is that this perusal of his work emails from the wisc dot edu account in this instance would/should be against public policy because it is clearly intended to chill academic freedom. His point is that in this case the balancing must go in favor of not looking at any records within the meaning of the statute.
    Though that’s a great opinion finding personal email on a work account don’t count as records.

    The danger of inviting law nerds to look…

  88. 88.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: In Lam’s case, Scott Walker’s work email was searched, not Lam’s work email. Lam used his personal email (hotmail account) to send Walker his suggestions. The FOIA search was not on Lam’s work or personal emails. I’m still not sure what your point is. That the GOP is free to perform fishing expeditions on opponents’ emails even if those expeditions ultimately violate FERPA laws?

  89. 89.

    Xenos

    In short, Cronon can tell the Republicans to go screw. Since the FOIA law does not put a specific time limit on his response, he can take his sweet time about it.

  90. 90.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @Valdivia:

    um, where is the conspiracy now? that is like saying i have conspired to enlarge my penis or regrow hair…

    nothing but a nut sending another nut an email, proof of the nuttiness in the first part, is that the nuttiness in the second part, never, as far as we know, responded to, nor acted upon, that email.

  91. 91.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Culture of Truth:

    This is obviously crazy, but this is how right-wing conservatives think. Convinced, (or lying, take your pick) of media bias and shadowy non-conspiracies involving the DNC and various fictional Soros-funded groups, seeing themselves as besieged on all fronts, they justify any manner of outrageous acts as justified in self-defense against their imagined enemies.

    I’ve seen several wingnuts with serious boners for Civil War II, constantly talking about when it’s gonna break out and how awesome it’s gonna be, but they always couch it in terms of “Oh, no no no no, I don’t want this Civil War II I keep fantasizing about…I’ve just got an itchy trigger finger is all, and you liberals are making me want to scratch that itch.” They absolutely see their Civil War II fantasies as justified self-defense, and a false-flag attempt like this one would clearly serve as a “liberals have declared Civil War II!” moment for such deranged assholes.

  92. 92.

    WaterGirl

    @danimal: I live in Illinois, and i received an email notice earlier this week from the teacher’s union stating that there is talk about trying to pull together a bill to eliminate collective bargaining in IL. So add another state to your list.

  93. 93.

    Xenos

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Some FOIA laws (Indiana, for example) exclude academic research from the scope of the statute. For a historian, just about anything relating to human beings living or dead can be construed as research. I don’t know if Wisconsin law has any exemptions or if you have to go through a balancing test every.damn.time someone files a request.

  94. 94.

    Triassic Sands

    Cronon writes:

    By releasing emails to demonstrate this, they’re hoping they can embarrass me enough to silence me as a critic.

    Wow, Professor Cronon is one extremely naive individual. To think that all Thompson and his fellow thugs want is to silence Cronon misses the whole thrust of Republican politics over the past thirty to forty years.

    They don’t want to silence him; at least that isn’t all they want. They want to see him fired.

    Now, that may be unrealistic, and even if Cronon violated the university’s email policy in the most egregious manner, it seems unlikely that such impropriety would be sufficient to result in his termination (I’m assuming he’s a tenured professor.) But Republicans are rarely satisfied with reasonably proportional responses to anything they deem to be a challenge or slight aimed at them. After all, in their current culture of victimization in which, in their own minds, they are constantly being battered by the most horrendous injustices and mistreatment, ruining Cronon’s life is the minimum response he deserves for his crimes. And what better way to ruin his life than to have him lose his job?

    Cronon notes that he isn’t a member of either party and maybe he thinks the appearance of impartiality will be of some use as a defense again rabid Republicans out for their ton of flesh (remember, no proportionality), but if so, he may be in for a huge surprise. The Modern Republican Party doesn’t operate that way. They don’t look at the big picture, weigh all the evidence, and act accordingly. Instead, they focus on what happened most recently and react as though they are the targets of a vicious assault. In truth, they are laughable clowns, but they are playing for keeps, and that turns their buffoonery into a life and death struggle.

    In the recent NPR kerfluffle two people lost their jobs when neither should have. Every time something like that happens — and lefties allow it to happen with painful consistency — it makes it more likely that Republicans will see disproportionate responses as the norm and the least they can accept to soothe their hurt feelings.

  95. 95.

    Cris

    @EconWatcher: In his dignified and professorial way, Prof. Cronon really stuck a shiv in them with his blog response.

    I wish that were true. I earnestly want to live in a world where long, thoughtful responses are more effective than noisy rabbit punches, but I think it’s usually the other way around.

    @Cermet: The shear serious of what that asswipe, shit head prosecutor did in trying to get someone to commit a serious and highly illegal action is beyond the pale and that typical asswipe thug should, himself, he prosecuted.

    I think that’s overblown. I don’t doubt that Lam is a jerkwad and I’m glad he stepped down when called on it, but the mere mention of a false flag in an email doesn’t constitute conspiracy in my IANAL mind.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    @Valdivia: Perhaps we should take a page from their playbook and start using FOIA to request email to and from any Rethug on the state payroll in any way. just when you think it can’t get any worse, these people find a new way to make my blood boil.

  99. 99.

    Cermet

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Your point on what is in the proff e-mail and that some may be illegal is correct if it turns out that some of what he wrote is illeagl(almost impossible by our legal system since he can say things similar to the asswipe prosecutor and it won’t be criminal) – Any prosecutor for the State has a far higher level of behavior to follow – what that asswipe prosecutor said in his e-mail was illegal for the very simple reason that he took a legal oath to uphold and enforce the law. There I am correct and you are off base since the two cases are utterly different and the asswipe illegal behavior is far and away beyond the pale..

  100. 100.

    celticdragonchick

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    You mention the raging boner some far right wing types have the next race war ahem…Second Civil War?

    Asshat fired deputy DA Carlos Lam featured in the headline here wrote a glowing review for this race war POS book written by a former merc who fought in Rhodesia and in the Croat militia during the Balkans War. (Scroll half way down)

    They really get their chubs throbbing over the thought of shooting at black gangstas and Mexicans, don’t they?

  101. 101.

    Stillwater

    @Culture of Truth:

    Lam: we could set fire to the legislative building and claim the unionists did it
    __
    Walker: wow where do you get your awesome ideas?

    Lulz. It’s just about that blatant, isn’t it? And the perennial question – how is it we’re losing to these guys? – needs to be updated to: How is it that so many Americans have casually embraced the fascicization (practice it, it rolls) of our politics?

  103. 103.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Please see DougJ’s new thread about the GOP using the FOIA as an intimidation tool against academics they don’t like. I understand what you’re saying but you’re missing the point in equating a state university professor with a state prosecutor sworn to uphold the law. With tenure, Cronon is not likely to get fired for anything they find but he could be embarrassed and made to shut up about future actions of the Republicans in Wisconsin which is precisely the Wisconsin GOP’s intent (and students and colleagues might think twice about what they email a professor who is subject to this kind of witch hunt). The intention here is to chill free speech. I don’t think that was the goal of the FOIA laws.

  104. 104.

    kideni

    There may well have been false-flag operations. I’m thinking of the threatening e-mail that Scott Fitzgerald pointed to that had apparently been sent to all the Republican senators. The sender of the e-mail was id’d really quickly and law enforcement spoke to her, and since then we haven’t heard much about the case. Considering how close the Wisconsin attorney general is to FitzWalker, I’m sure that if she’d actually been a lefty or union supporter that details would have leaked out. There’s also the odd case of several piles of bullets found around the Capitol grounds and one of the state office buildings at the time things first got tense (when they put the Capitol on lock-down). Again, we got initial reports, but nothing seems to have panned out. I did see a follow-up with the Dane County DA (I think), and they’d determined that there was no threat, but they couldn’t figure out who dropped the ammo or why. At the time, it really just seemed to be a ploy to make the protesters look bad, and that’s still what it seems to be.

  105. 105.

    celticdragonchick

    @Stillwater:

    Lulz. It’s just about that blatant, isn’t it? And the perennial question – how is it we’re losing to these guys? – needs to be updated to: How is it that so many Americans have casually embraced the fascicization (practice it, it rolls) of our politics?

    Indeed.

    There has been a significant strain of authoritarianism in the American polity for generations, but it has been reinforced by the paranoia of 9/11 and the state of permanent war. We are losing to them because they are appealing to instinctual hatreds and fears that are not easily countered by reason. It is instructive that education is one of the things the GOP is especially intent on attacking. If we are to have a Reichstag Fire event, then Krystalnacht cannot be far behind. I wonder who the targets will be this time.

  106. 106.

    Mnemosyne

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:

    Just out of sheer curiosity, do you think that anyone employed by the government should be able to be the subject of a FOIA investigation by the legislature? Should a janitor at UW be able to have his e-mails made public because the legislature wants to expose the union activities he’s been up to?

    Do you really think that the only possible way the legislature of the state of Wisconsin can investigate a state employee is by filing a FOIA request?

  109. 109.

    shortstop

    Cronon’s work, which I first read in grad school, is phenomenal. How discouraging to see his name in this context, having to have this ridiculous fucking conversation.

  110. 110.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @celticdragonchick:

    Wow…that book sounds like a compendium of all the winger blog posts agitating for Civil War II while pretending that they’re just talking about “being prepared.”

  111. 111.

    Cris

    @celticdragonchick: They really get their chubs throbbing over the thought of shooting at black gangstas and Mexicans, don’t they?

    We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces
    Singing “whiskey for my men, beer for my horses”

  112. 112.

    celticdragonchick

    @Cris:

    We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces
    Singing “whiskey for my men, beer for my horses”

    LOL Damn. Sounds like something lifted from a Jerry Pournelle novel…where the righteous American white folks in the future are singing some fucked up old timey war song to themselves as they lay waiting to start shooting at the black gangstas.

  113. 113.

    Kilkee

    @Bubblegum Tate: I can’t recall where, but one of the other blogs includes a screen-capture of a comment by Lam in which he clearly contemplates a coming civil war which is — no surprise — based upon racial lines, what with them troublesome brown and black people taking away from us hard working white folk.

    Edit: Oops, I see Celticdragon chick (100) is on teh case…

  114. 114.

    Yutsano

    @Kilkee: You know, there was another person who came up with ideas among these exact same lines who tried to enact a race war as well. His name was Charles Manson.

  116. 116.

    Xenos

    @celticdragonchick:

    Fuck off. I don’t want any Goddamn GOP fishing expedition going through my email exchanges with my profs.

    Even if there is not explicit exemption for that sort of communication I am pretty confident that any sort of balancing test would not force you give up those emails. Still, the harm is not in their winning the case, it is also filing the frivolous and harassing FOIA demand in the first place.

  117. 117.

    Judas Escargot (aka "your liberal-interventionist pal, who's fun to be with")

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    They absolutely see their Civil War II fantasies as justified self-defense, and a false-flag attempt like this one would clearly serve as a “liberals have declared Civil War II!” moment for such deranged assholes.

    Yes. This is what I meant by my “they seem to want violence” comment above.

    The slightest hint of violence from the left would give them the excuse they need to live out their sick little fantasies.

  118. 118.

    lou

    To put it simply, one email was acquired because it was correspondence with an elected official. All correspondence with elected officials, who represent us, the citizens, should be public. Full stop.

    The other was a professor who conducts research. he has no oversight over any government entity.

  119. 119.

    Triassic Sands

    @Valdivia:

    Really? This is now acceptable?

    It is if you’re a Republican. (Not you, Valdivia, but the perpetrator.)

    IOKIYAR is now the law of the land.

  122. 122.

    geg6

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:

    I’m not so sure you’re right under WI law. A 2010 WI Supreme Court decision:

    http://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=52285

    Here is what I think may be relevant, even though the professor didn’t use a university computer or his university email:

    ¶142 The contents of the personal e-mails that the Teachers created and maintained on government-owned computers pursuant to the government employer’s permission for occasional personal use of the government e-mail account and computer are not “records” under Wis. Stat. § 19.32(2). The personal contents of these emails are not subject to release to a record requester merely because they are sent or received using the government employers’ e-mail systems and then stored and maintained on those systems. Because we conclude that the contents of the
    Teachers’ personal e-mails are not “records” under the Public Records Law, we need not reach the question of balancing the public interest favoring disclosure with any other public interest.
    ¶143 For the reasons set forth, we reverse the order of the
    circuit court and remand the cause to the circuit court to
    enjoin the School District from releasing the contents of the Teachers personal e-mails.

  123. 123.

    BruinKid

    So I was just talking to a history professor at UCLA about this, and the first thing he asked was if Bill Cronon is related to Edmund David Cronon. Turns out, Bill’s his son. The elder Cronon was one of the most respected history professors around, and did seminal work examining the slave trade.

    Y’all should tell any history professors you know, “They’re attacking E. David Cronon’s son!”

  125. 125.

    gex

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Walker’s email was searched on the issue because HE cited that the emails were heavily in favor of the union busting. I don’t recall the process that got those emails viewed, but it wasn’t a witch hunt against Lam.

    Walker was lying, and this is exactly what FOIA should be for. But go ahead and act as though Lam were targeted just like Cronon.

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