Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 94. Sunrise is 6:15, and sunset is 7:36, for 13h 23m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 37.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
On this day in 1878, Christopher Latham Sholes patents the typewriter:
The idea for this invention began at Kleinsteuber’s Machine Shop in Milwaukee in the late 1860s. A mechanical engineer by training, Sholes, along with associates Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé, spent hours tinkering with the idea. They mounted the key of an old telegraph instrument on a base and tapped down on it to hit carbon & paper against a glass plate. This idea was simple, but in 1868 the mere idea that type striking against paper might produce an image was a novelty. Sholes proceeded to construct a machine to reproduce the entire alphabet. The prototype was sent to Washington as the required Patent Model. This original model still exists at the Smithsonian. Investor James Densmore provided the marketing impetus that eventually brought the machine to the Remington Arms Company. Although Remington mass-marketed his typewriter beginning in 1874, it was not an instant success. A few years later, improvements made by Remington engineers gave the machine its market appeal and sales skyrocketed. [Source: Wisconsin Lore and Legends, p.41]
Last week, advocates for the Green Party expressed alarm that the Wisconsin Supreme Court asked that political party to file briefs in a lawsuit from the Wisconsin Democrats aimed at keeping the Greens off the November ballot. Wisconsin’s high court gave the Greens a tight deadline, leading the party to contend it was being treated unfairly.
Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed the suit aimed at keeping the Greens off the ballot. The Greens misunderstood the purpose of the tight deadline to file briefs. Henry Redman reports that
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit from the Democratic National Committee challenging Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s placement on the ballot in November.
With just one day before the Wisconsin Elections Commission decides which candidates will be allowed on the ballot this fall, the Court moved quickly in the case, asking parties late last week to file briefs in response to the Democrats’ petition to the Court before the Green Party of Wisconsin even had a lawyer.
The Democrats had previously filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) against the Green Party’s candidate for president, Jill Stein, alleging she should not be placed on the state’s presidential ballot because the Green Party of Wisconsin does not have official state officers who can serve as presidential electors.
The WEC denied the Democrats’ complaint on a technicality, prompting the party to bring the lawsuit to the Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, the WEC voted to allow the Green Party onto the ballot because it got at least 1% of the vote in a statewide election in 2022.
(Emphasis added.)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court set an accelerated briefing deadline not to burden the Greens but to dispose of the complaint against them before the Elections Commission meeting.
Admittedly, there’s something laughable about an established political party (Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has been running for president, while simping for Putin, for years) whose Wisconsin Party officials whine that
According to Michael J. White, co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party, his party had no legal representation in Wisconsin when he was notified of the court order.
“That just strikes me as a little bit unreasonable,” he told WPR on Thursday afternoon.
Pete Karas, the state Green Party’s elections chair, said they found a lawyer “around midnight” after “a zillion phone calls.” That lawyer is Milwaukee-area attorney Michael Dean.
The next morning, the party sent out a mass email to its followers asking for donations.
“Lawyers are expensive, and we need your help today to ensure we can pay for these much-needed legal fees,” the mailer said.
Funny that the Green Party didn’t have a Wisconsin lawyer beforehand. One would have expected a better level of preparation from a 2024 vote-siphoning operation.
It’s Pete Karas, quoted in the article. I just thought that you, as a self-proclaimed libertarian, should know, that if the Democrats had won this lawsuit against the Green Party in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Libertarian and Constitution parties would also have been thrown off the ballot. Read the legal briefs.
Also, as someone who appears to consider themselves a free-thinker, please do not fall for the Democratic propaganda about Jill and Russia. It’s been debunked by almost everyone, including a US Senate Committee.
Lastly, the Greens have no Wisconsin lawyers on retainer as we do not accept corporate money, unlike the Dems, GOP, or Libertarians. Our souls cannot be bought.
PS: vote Chester Todd for Congress – http://www.chestertodd.org – He does not accept corporate money either.
Welcome.
Funny about the law — it is not I but you and your ilk who lack a legal understanding. The point of this post was that your party wasn’t about to be thrown off the ballot. There is no competent attorney in this state who would have expected otherwise. Wisconsin’s high court acted to preserve your party’s rights before a WEC decision. The Democrats trolled you and had your party in an uproar. Quite embarrassing, really. The hotter the temperature, the colder the person.
Other parties have grassroots fundraising, allowing them to afford representation (alternatively, they can readily find pro bono representation). It’s not corporate money or bust. It wouldn’t have been hard to find a lawyer if that lawyer saw a worthy client and cause in your party. You should have had one all along if only there’d been the slightest foresight among you.
In any event, Stein herself is worth millions. How feckless that Dr. Stein didn’t arrange representation earlier.
Every last Wisconsin voter who casts their ballot for the Greens or any other third party will have foregone the chance to cast a meaningful vote for the only campaign that stands in Mr. Trump’s way:
Harris-Walz.
To you and your party, I offer the words a great man once delivered upon parting with one of his guests:
Adieu. Aufwiedersehen. Gesundheit. Farewell.