I had written earlier about the immensely important race for the open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The top-two primary took place on Tuesday, and the two highest vote-getters were reasonable judicial moderate-to-liberal Janett Protasiewicz, and MAGA John Kelly. Kelly is supported by every anti-abortion group, and the Far Right powerful Uhlein family, which pours dark money into Wisconsin politics.
Protasiewicz actually received more votes than the two far Right candidates combined. However, Ben Wikler, the great strategist and organizer for Democrats in Wisconsin, points out that in the last major race for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, the liberal candidate led by nine points in internal polls of both candidates, but that a flood of dark money came in, and the conservative won by over 5,000 votes. That is the insidious power of dark money, running ads lying about the other candidate, and pouring them onto the airwaves, with no one able to know who funded them, or to even accuse them of lying.
We all know that the Citizens United case was one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history, and may well have caused most of the bad things that we see in our country, if one follows the cause-and-effect skein. It is absolutely essential that Protasiewicz, win, or abortion will be virtually illegal in Wisconsin, based on an 1849 law. Wisconsin is just about the most gerrymandered state in the country, and that will continue. And it is not inconceivable that the Far Right Wisconsin state legislature will find ways to keep a Democratic victory in Wisconsin’s vote for President to not be certified,. All this is really at stake, so we must do what we can to help this from not happening. The election is on April 4. American democracy is literally on the ballot.
Did you all see Emily Kohrs on television? She was the foreperson of the grand jury that was called to investigate the allegations that former president Trump tried to interfere with the election in 2020, by demanding that the secretary of state of Georgia invent 12,000 or so ballots for him that did not exist.
Ms. Kohrs essentially had appointed herself as foreperson of the grand jury, because she was the only one who wanted the position. She admits that she did not vote in the elections of 2016 and 2020, but now said, in the long interview which she gave on TV, that she thought it was important to be the foreperson, and now to tell everyone her thoughts on the hearings. And she did, in a very weird interview, where she laughed, made strange faces, and acted as if she should never have been anywhere near this matter, much less the only person who has talked about the actual hearings.
She said that she loved Lindsey Graham, she thought that Rudy Giuliani was great, and Pat Cippoloni was wonderful. She said that there would be about a dozen indictments, some of famous people, some of not-so-famous. No one can absolutely decipher her actual intentions here. but there seem to be only two possibilities. She either is a fool, or she is trying to discredit the grand jury, and thus make it easy for the cases filed to be thrown out. Republicans are already on that path. Kohrs looks so much like another right-wing set-up, that it is hard to think that she is just weird. Things like this keep happening every time there is a hearing about a Supreme Court nominee, or an effort to sentence a Trump ally.
If one wanted to spend fifteen minutes being depressed, one could try to decide who would be a more awful and dangerous president, Trump or DeSantis. We’ve seen Trump; and a second term, where he would not have to worry about being re-elected, would be worse. DeSantis seems to me like the absolute model of an American fascist, yelling about “woke mobs,” and “woke agenda” which is somehow causing violence, which is going to be his major issue, the classic fascist attempt to gain power. I certainly cannot root for either of them to win the nomination, with the logic that the other would be even worse. Cyanide and strychnine. Good political ad, there!
As to President Biden, I think he will run, but the media is having fun with “what if he doesn’t run?”? scenarios. I would be quite upset to see him not run, because I don’t see a Democratic candidate who would get as many votes. Republicans’ best “skill” is derogating and smearing any new Democratic candidate. And they’ve got the trillions of dollars to do it.
Kevin McCarthy giving Tucker Carlson 41,000 hours of Capitol insurrection film, is almost incomprehensible, except that nothing is for Republicans. The Speaker of the House, which is a position supposed to represent the country, not a political cult, just gave those films only to a Far Right person on a Far Right station which now has essentially admitted that it makes up facts, and lies, to do with them what he wanted. I won’t bother to suggest what he will do with the films, except to try to doctor them, reframe them, try to create a narrative which has nothing to do with the reality of what happened on January 6, 2021.
The forces which exist, are far more than a battle between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. It is democracy vs. totalitarianism. Truth against lies. Reality vs. constructed illusion. Good vs. evil. Light vs. dark. Could it be viewed in any other way?
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The Confluence 