I'm saying that not to predict it, exactly, but more to underscore what's on the line here, if Prosser is defeated.

It won't be pretty.

Abrahamson proselytizes for the legal school of thought known as “new federalism,” which encourages state supreme courts to interpret their state constitutions independently of the Supreme Court — that is to say, more broadly....

And to exclude more evidence in murder trials.

Abrahamson’s most notorious opinion, perhaps, was Ferdon v. Wisconsin Patient Comp. Fund, in which she struck down the state’s cap on medical-malpractice rewards. The legislature had capped the amount juries could award for noneconomic damages at $350,000, but the chief found the limit in violation of “equal protection.”

She held there that dividing people between merely injured and severely injured (and imposing a cap for noneconomic harm -- that is, pain and suffering) on the merely injured was somehow a violation of the equal protection clause. You know, the old racial prejudice against the lightly injured.

Update: If this horrible thing can pervert the equal protection doctrine to protect trial lawyers, you best believe she can make up some equally insipid crap to claim that unions have a right to everything they want.

Over the years, Abrahamson scored points for the Left, opposing school choice and citing foreign law to achieve her purposes. For her reliable jurisprudence, liberal activists rewarded her handsomely. The list of her campaign donors reads like the Democratic party’s roll call: The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; Services Employee International Union; Planned Parenthood; the American Federation of Teachers. Between 1989 and 2009, labor unions gave Abrahamson over $190,000 in campaign donations — more than they gave to the other six justices combined.

...

When an electoral opponent accuses her of being a liberal, she plays dumb. “I don’t know what these labels mean,” she told Isthmus in 2009.

The woman running against Prosser is Abrahamson's former intern. So I think you know which way she's voting, eh?

If Prosser loses, this lawless leftist becomes the Chief Justice.

Volunteer and vote, and drag ten people out to vote with you. It matters.

And you can still donate to Wisconsin Club for Growth, organizing on behalf of Prosser.

Not to bring you down but Prosser is polling evenly with his opponent which is always bad for an incumbent and plus you have a ferocious intensity among the left -- I don't see that on the right. I feel like we, pardon my french, blew our wad in November and now are sort of chillaxin' as the left comes roaring back.

Incidentally: A commenter mentions frustration at the Wisconsin Republicans. I guess he means about not re-passing the Budget Repair Bill.

I think they're not doing that yet because they don't want another left-base-enraging media circus until after this election.

But if Prosser loses, and this Abrahamson woman becomes the new Chief Justice -- don't think that re-passing the bill will save it. She'll come up with some new way to invalidate it completely.

Correction: Abrahamson is already the Chief Justice -- she's just outnumbered 4-3. A Prosser loss wouldn't make her Chief Justice, but would make her the senior vote in a 4-3 liberal majority.

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 AM | Comments (120)
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He merely asked that Reid reaffirm Obama's own words in a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" resolution:

To make his point, Paul quoted, in the legislative language, from Obama’s 2007 remarks on the subject: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” According to Paul’s office, “the measure aims to put the Senate on record affirming Congress as the body with constitutional authority on matters of war.”

Reid didn't even want Democrats to have to vote to table this motion, so he adjourned the Senate.

See if you can follow Dick Durbin's logic here:

[D]uring a testy floor exchange Wednesday with Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), the Kentucky freshman argued that his amendment deserves a vote, and fast. “In Afghanistan and Iraq, with all the complaints from many people on these wars that we were involved in, President Bush did come and ask for the authorization of force,” he said. “We’ve had two to three weeks of this issue. They had time to go to the U.N. They had time to go to the Arab League. They had time to go to everyone. I think you should be insulted the way I am insulted they never came to Congress.”

Durbin fired back that Bush, by coming to Congress, actually “broke precedent.” Paul looked on, bemused.

What? Bush "broke precedent" by following the Constitution?

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (260)
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Great ad. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (74)
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Michael Scheuer was a former director of the CIA's anti-bin-Ladin unit. He wrote a book called Imperial Hubris in 2004, sharply critical of the Bush Administration's interventionist policy (and making the Ron Paul-type case that we need to abandon Israel). Because he hadn't cleared that book per the CIA's rules, he got fired. Correction: No he didn't. I misremembered. He did in fact get the book cleared. He quit the agency soon after publishing the book.

Well, if you remember, the media couldn't get enough of Scheuer's basic schtick in 2004-2008. Every dollop of wisdom he offered -- that we have no business fighting in Muslim countries, that we're always blundering about making new enemies and minting fresh terrorists -- was eaten up by a media consumed with War on Bush fever.

Well, it's now after January 2009 and the world has changed, and by "world" I mean "president."

And while Scheuer is saying the exact same things he said from 2004-2008, now the media is arguing with him.

Because now Obama is intervening in a "War of Choice" in a Muslim country. And that's... different. Because it's Obama.

Posted by: Ace at 07:41 AM | Comments (132)
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BLS released the March unemployment rate data this morning. Another delicate decline of 0.1% - we're now at 8.8% for the U-3 data (U-6 is down to 15.7%). Most of the numbers didn't change much from last month. One bright note: the Household survey data tells us that we added 291,000 jobs last month!! But here's the dampener: 290,000 of them were part-time jobs.

Here is The Chart. What is striking to me (as I mentioned last month) is how the data is following the shape of the "no recovery plan" curve. It's almost like the job market is following its own natural recovery trajectory, regardless of the stimulus money spent in such a pointless and profligate fashion. Naw - couldn't be.

Posted by: Geoff at 06:25 AM | Comments (126)
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Public-sector union members in New Hampshire are taking some bad state budget news with the grace and understanding we've come to expect from those folks.

Kern County, California: Boned. Part 1. Part 2. (Via PensionTsunami.)

Fullterton, CA: Boned.

What do a Japanese fishing-cooperative, a Libyan bank, the Bank of Scotland, and the Bank of China all have in common? They all cadged some money off of Ben Bernanke, with a promise to pay it back real soon. But, um, don't tell the plebes about this, because it might look awkward: you know, American taxpayer money being used to bail out foreign banks. No telling! Pinkie swear!

Ireland's bailout bill: $142 Billion. Ireland's GDP? About $230 Billion. Projected GDP growth rate? About a half a percent. Unemployment rate? About 14%. Verdict: boned.

“None of it came as a big surprise,” Ralph Silva, a strategist at London-based Silva Research Network, said after the results yesterday. “They put a stress test out there that shows the banking industry in Ireland is dead.”

“People may stop worrying about banks and senior haircuts,” Ivan Zubo, a banking analyst at BNP Paribas in London, said in an interview. “But they may start worrying about the sustainability of the sovereign.”

Aw. Teh Krugman has a headache, and the GOP is causing it. Here's the part that really fuzzles his noggin:

Now, liquidationism isnÂ’t the only argument the G.O.P. report advances to support the claim that reducing employment actually creates jobs. It also invokes the confidence fairy; that is, it suggests that cuts in public spending will stimulate private spending by raising consumer and business confidence, leading to economic expansion.

Are Germans finally getting fed up with bankrolling the Euro project? If they step away, can the currency survive?

[W]hat is clear is that monetary union is fast approaching the outer limits of the politically possible. Germany will go no further, despite the fact that its economy is for the moment doing rather well from the single currency (itÂ’s about the only one that is). Voters will not be persuaded to put more money into subsidising the profligate fringe. But the austerity that the absence of a transfer union imposes on the periphery is also testing democratic acceptability to destruction. The immovable object is meeting the irresistible force. On top of everything else, EuropeÂ’s beleaguered fringe economies will soon have to cope with the ECBÂ’s determination to put up interest rates.

A Nation of Takers, Not Makers. A little taste:

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Aaaah. The smell of hot DOOM! There's nothing else in the world that smells like that. Breathe deep!
more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:11 AM | Comments (209)
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time and someone is gonna get shot.

Who's the greater fool - the fool, or the fool who follows him?

The March fool with another month added to his folly.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:55 AM | Comments (103)
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