It’s often the case that bad goes to worse, and that’s true for the WISGOP. The Fifth Congressional District, now represented by Thurston Howell III F. James Sensenbrenner, a gerrymandered, septuagenarian multi-millionaire who votes with Trump almost all the time, may have a new and worse Republican congressman. State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, who in 2016…
Law
America, Federal Government, Law, Trump
Hear or Read the Whistleblower Complaint
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
America, Congress, Impeachment, Law, Trump
Right & Necessary
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Education, Law, Open Government, Public Records, School District, Wisconsin
School Board Applicants’ Letters of Interest
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Last week, I posted on the applicant interviews with the Whitewater Unified School Board for a vacancy (following the resignation of board member Jean Linos). See School Board, 9.16.19: Applicant Interviews and Reporting. Seeing that the agenda for the meeting lacked key information, and a local newspaper’s reporting (Gazette; Beleckis) was deficient, I submitted a…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Ethics, Law
‘Keeping Harvey Weinstein’s Secrets’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Harvey Weinstein is responsible – directly and personally – for his actions. Others, however, assisted him in concealing his violent coercion. Astonishingly, as the New York Times reports, some of those who aided Weinstein were – of all people – attorneys who made public careers as victims’ rights advocates. The two podcasts embedded below detail…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Law
Unbelievable
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In December 2015, T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project published An Unbelievable Story of Rape, about a woman (her middle name is Marie) who was raped, pressured to recant her account, and later found herself charged with a misdemeanor offense. In fact, she was raped, her attacker was later…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Education, Ethics, Law, Marketing, Misconduct, Negligence, Nepotism, Official Misconduct, Sexual Harassment, University
For UW-Whitewater’s Administration, Talking Points Won’t Be Enough
by JOHN ADAMS • • 9 Comments
Yesterday, I posted on The Marketing of Misinformation: UW-Whitewater’s Use of a Counterfeit ‘Campus Safety’ Study. Today, here is a look at some of the university administration’s talking points in response to long-standing acts of sexual harassment and assault on campus. (They’re from the new university chancellor’s recorded interview with a local newspaper.) From the video…
ACLU, Asylum, City, Immigration, Law, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Migrants
Derechos de los Inmigrantes — Immigrants’ Rights
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Posted originally on 7.14.19, now updated with additional information from the Spanish-language section linked below. Independientemente de su estatus migratorio, usted tiene derechos garantizados por la Constitución. Aprende más aquí sobre sus derechos como inmigrante y cómo expresarlos. …. Agentes policiales pregunta sobre mi estatus migratorio Cómo reducir el riesgo para usted mismo Mantener la…
Bigotry, Courts, Law, Race
Jim Crow’s Last Stand
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The legacy of Jim Crow continues to loom large in the United States. But nowhere is it arguably more evident than in Louisiana. In 1898, a constitutional convention successfully codified a slew of Jim Crow laws in a flagrant effort to disenfranchise black voters and otherwise infringe on their rights. “Our mission was to establish the supremacy of the…
Asylum, Bigotry, Cruelty, Immigration, Law, Liberty, Migrants, Politics, Trump
Who Are the Law Breakers?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Law, Open Government, Public Records 2, Wisconsin
A New Embrace That Should Have Been an Old Embrace
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads that, in rejection of a prior administration’s approach, [Wisconsin Attorney General] Kaul Embraces Opens Records Policy: Wisconsin’s open records law applies to all records requests, big or small. But under former Attorney General Brad Schimel, the Wisconsin Department of Justice implemented a restrictive policy that limited access based on the number of potentially…
America, Courts, Elections, Federal Government, Law
Major Supreme Court Decisions (And Where to Find Them)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There were two major United States Supreme Court decisions handed down today, on partisan gerrymandering and on a possible citizenship question for the 2020 census form. There will be significant commentary – some informed, some not – about these decisions, but it’s worth reading them in full. Like most decisions, they’re lengthy, yet always worth…
Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Open Government, Public Records 2, School District
Closed Government is Expensive Government
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Small communities – by definition places with small populations – have fewer people from whom residents can choose officials, elected or appointed. The rational response for these communities would be to be as open as possible, to make best use of their full populations, and to encourage newcomers. Pride, however, stands in the way of…
Blogging, Law, Liberty, Litigation, Newspapers, Press, Public Records 2, Wisconsin
Public Records Requests as Pre-Litigation Actions
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Wisconsinites submitting public records requests under the law (Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31 et seq.) may do so for any number of reasons (and need not declare a motivation of any sort). Not everyone will have the same aims in mind. For someone who’s a publisher (newspaper, magazine, blogger), however, a sensible way to look at…