The U.S. Survived A Civil War, World Wars, Depressions, Assassinations... But Will It Survive Donald Trump? Case: Wisconsin

On Wednesday, Wisconsin reported 291 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing state state's total to 10,902-- and 3 new deaths, boringly that total to 421. Is that a lot, a little? Well, there are 1,872 cases per million, which isn't good-- and that's been increasing. On Wednesday there were another 373 new cases confirmed, bringing the total to 11,275 and, worse, the cases per million to 1,936.

Nearly 100 of those cases came when the Republican-dominated legislature, backed by the same Republican-dominated Supreme Court overturned Governor Tony Evers' order to postpone the state primary, thereby forcing Wisconsinites to vote in person. Dozens of poll workers and voters began being diagnosed with COVID.

Voters defeated one of those right-wing extremist judges who was on the ballot, Daniel Kelly, replacing him with Democrat Jill Karofsky. But this week, Kelly was still on the court and got his revenge on the state, as the key vote to overturn Evers' extension of his stay at home order until May 26, again, at the request of the right-wing extremists in the state legislature. NY Times reporter Neil Vigdor wrote that the court ruled that "Wisconsin’s top health official had not followed the proper process in setting the strict limits for residents. Although the opinion centered on the technical method by which the limits had been set, several conservative justices conveyed their dismay at the restrictions themselves. 'This comprehensive claim to control virtually every aspect of a person’s life is something we normally associate with a prison, not a free society governed by the rule of law,' Justice Daniel Kelly wrote in a concurring opinion.

The ruling, Mr. Evers’s office said, appears to immediately end statewide provisions that have required many Wisconsin residents to stay home. Within hours of the ruling, some taverns were making plans for reopening, the governor’s office said.





“This turns the state to chaos,” Mr. Evers said in an interview. “People will get sick. And the Republicans own the chaos.”

...There have been legal challenges to stay-at-home orders in Michigan, California, Kentucky and Illinois, but none of those were successful in persuading a court to fully strike down the order, as the plaintiffs in the Wisconsin case were.

Wisconsin’s stay-at-home order took effect on March 25 and was extended by the governor on April 16, leading to a protest at the State Capitol.

During a 90-minute hearing about the order that was conducted over video chat last week, some justices asked tough questions of the lawyer defending the state’s top health official, Andrea Palm. “Isn’t it the very definition of tyranny for one person to order people to be imprisoned for going to work, among other ordinarily lawful activities?” Justice Rebecca Bradley asked.

In their majority opinion on Wednesday, the justices ruled that Ms. Palm did not follow the proper procedure for setting stay-at-home limits, and should have followed a rule-making process that permits members of the Legislature to provide input.

“We do not conclude that Palm was without any power to act in the face of this pandemic,” the justices wrote. “However, Palm must follow the law that is applicable to state-wide emergencies.”

The ruling appears to leave Mr. Evers and Republican leaders of the State Legislature in a position of negotiating any next steps for limits on businesses amid the pandemic. But their work relations have been extraordinarily tense, and many observers said the possibility of fruitful negotiation seemed remote.

Mr. Evers, who has already announced plans for a gradual reopening of businesses, said that he hoped to work with Republican lawmakers on next steps, but that in the meantime, he hoped that Wisconsin residents would remain safe, and at home.

“We are in a very perilous place,” he said.

Scott Fitzgerald, the leader of the Republican majority in the Wisconsin Senate, said lawmakers had long been seeking a voice in the conversation about how to respond to the pandemic, but that the governor’s office had, until now, kept them out of the process. “We’re more than willing to sit down with the governor,” he said.

For the moment, Mr. Fitzgerald said, residents would use their own judgment. “People understand, if you don’t want to go to church, you don’t go to church,” he said. “If you don’t want to go to work, you don’t go.”

Wisconsin is considered a swing state in November’s presidential election, and for much of the last decade it has been riven by an intense partisan battle.

When Mr. Evers was elected governor in 2018, it set off a sharp battle over the state’s direction on all sorts of policies. Republicans had full control of the state before that, during a period in which they curtailed bargaining rights for many public labor unions and moved the state sharply to the right.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, while officially nonpartisan, has long been sharply divided along conservative-liberal lines that are well understood by the state’s voters. As partisan fights boiled over in the State Legislature, they emerged on the court as well, once leading to claims of a physical altercation between justices on opposing sides. Conservatives hold a majority on the court, and they will even after a new justice-- a liberal challenger who upset Justice Kelly this spring-- is seated in August.

This week’s court ruling did not provide a mechanism for a stay so that Republicans and Democrats could reach a compromise on reopening Wisconsin, which the dissenting justices wrote could endanger residents.

“The lack of a stay would be particularly breathtaking given the testimony yesterday before Congress by one of our nation’s top infectious disease experts, Dr. Anthony Fauci,” Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote. “He warned against lifting too quickly stay-at-home orders.”

Around the state, groups were trying to determine how the opinion would now affect life. A poll of Wisconsin residents released this week by Marquette University Law School found that 69 percent of those surveyed supported the state’s move to close schools and businesses and restrict public gatherings.

“Public health experts have been clear that prematurely lifting social distancing measures will have serious and deadly consequences, especially for vulnerable communities,” Chris Ott, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Wisconsin, said in a statement. He added, “Emergency orders can be necessary during crises like a pandemic, as long as they are grounded in science and consistent with the need to protect the health, safety, and civil liberties of us all.”

In 2018, Democrats won the big statewide races in Wisconsin. Senator Tammy Baldwin was reelected, beating top tier Republican Leah Vukmir 1,472,914 (55.4%) to 1,184,885 (44.6%); Tony Evers denied Scott Walker another term as governor, defeating him 1,324,307 (49.6%) to 1,295,080 (48.5%); and Rebecca Dallet beat neo-fascist Republican Michael Screnock for the open Supreme Court seat 55,848 (55.7%) to 440,808 (44.2%).

Unfortunately for Evers-- and the people of Wisconsin as it turns out-- the state legislative districts are so partisanly gerrymandered that even with the big Democratic wins statewide, the GOP maintained its hold on both houses of the legislature-- a 19-14 majority in the state Senate (down from a 20-13 majority) and a massive GOP majority in the Assembly, 63-36, los down slightly from 64-35.

Writing yesterday for Axios, where he is editor-in-chief, Nick Johnson noted that "Eight weeks into this nation's greatest crisis since World War II, we seem no closer to a national strategy to reopen the nation, rebuild the economy and defeat the coronavirus. America's ongoing cultural wars over everything have weakened our ability to respond to this pandemic. We may be our worst enemy. The response is being hobbled by the same trends that have impacted so much of our lives: growing income inequality, the rise of misinformation, lack of trust in institutions, the rural/urban divide and hyper-partisanship. We're not even seeing the same threat from the virus. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to be worried about getting seriously ill, while Republicans-- including the president-- are more likely to think the death counts are too high. Without even a basic agreement on the danger of the pandemic and its toll, here's how we see the national response unfold:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the crown jewel of the globe's public health infrastructure, has been sidelined, its recommendations dismissed by the White House.
• President Trump declares the U.S. has "prevailed on testing" at a time when health experts say we still need far more daily tests before the country can reopen safely.
• Distribution of the promising coronavirus drug remdesivir was initially botched because of miscommunication between government agencies.
• More than two thirds of Americans say it's unlikely they would use a cell phone-based contact tracing program established by the federal government, a key component of a testing regime to control the virus.
• The second phase of a program to aid small businesses isn't fully allocated because firms are either concerned about its changing rules, confused about how to access it, or find the structure won't help them stay in business.
• With the unemployment rate at a post-Depression record last month, and expected to go higher, there is no meaningful discussion between the parties in Congress on aid to the out-of-work.
• States and local governments are facing billions in losses without a strategy for assistance.
• The virus is literally inside the White House. Aides have tested positive for coronavirus, leading to quarantines for some of the nation's top public health officials and a new daily testing regime for White House staff and reporters who enter the West Wing.
• The No. 1 book on Amazon for a time was a book by an anti-vaxxer whose conspiracy-minded video about the pandemic spread widely across social media, leading to takedowns by platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

The bottom line: An existential threat-- like war or natural disaster-- usually brings people together to set a course of action in response. Somehow, we've let this one drive us apart." Somehow? This is how:

3 Governors Who Want To Kill Their Own Citizens

There are three governors who have been judged so dangerously incompetent that none can be singled out as the worst pandemic governor in America and all three share the spot: Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Brian Kemp of Georgia. Because all have opposed sane social distancing policies, thousands of their states' citizens have been infected. California now has 865 confirmed COVID-19 cases per one million in the population. South Dakota-- compliments of Noem-- has 2,031 cases per million (up from 1,950 yesterday). Florida has 1,335 cases/million (up from 1,314 yesterday) and Georgia has 1,931 cases per million (up from 1,884). The governors of these three states have implemented policies that will absolutely steepen the curve instead of flatten it. It's as if Noem, DeSantis and Kemp were all homicidal maniacs intent on causing their own populations to become infected.

As Georgia hurtles towards the 20,000 cases mark-- another 482 confirmed infections and 24 more deaths yesterday-- Kemp has decided to re-open restaurants, movie theaters, hair salons, barber shops, tattoo parlors and gyms as well as other businesses in his state. He's using Georgians as an experiment in curve-steepening (and as a test of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" law).




Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told ABC News that she's "extremely concerned about the announcement the governor made. I hope that he's right and I'm wrong because if he's wrong then more people will die." Watch her short interview above with CNN's Chris Cuomo yesterday. Cuomo mentioned that the curve seems to be starting to flatten in Atlanta. She noted that "If we're in a better position, it's because we have been aggressive in asking people to stay home... As I look at the data and as I talk with our public health officials, I don't see that it's based on anything logical."

Even the crazy right-wing senator next door, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), is hissing that Kemp is opening up too much and too soon, worried that the contagion from Georgia will engulf his ownstate.

Nabilah Islam, the hands down best of the dozen candidates running for the open 7th congressional district seat in the suburbs north of Atlanta, wasn't exactly thrilled with Kemp's latest stunt. "For someone who claims to be pro-life," she told me last night, "Kemp's decision to begin to reopening Georgia after only recently finding out that asymptomatic people can spread the novel Coronavirus is anything but. Governor Kemp was one of the last to issue a shelter in place and is one of the first to open. To no one's surprise, the businesses he's choosing to open first are traditionally minority-owned businesses-- barbershops, nail salons being predominantly owned by populations of the electorate that voted against him in 2018. He has no desire to protect lives. His only desire is profit as with the rest of the Republican Party. Putting people first is not on their list of prerogatives."

Fiends of mine in Texas have asked me not to leave out their state, where the Governor is a complete dolt. True, but the Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick, has more power and is an even bigger dolt. He was on Fox's Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday babbling away like an imbecile that "there are more important things than living." Money.





In at least one state, though, an increase in infections can't be blamed on the governor. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, though hampered by a legislature firmly controlled by the Republican Party Death Cult, moved to flatten the curve with regulations and tried to prevent in-person voting. The legislature took the case in favor of infecting the citizens of the state to the state and national Supreme Court-- each controlled by the Republican Party Death Cult-- and each court, by narrow party-line votes, ruled in favor of the pandemic.

The April 7 primary was on a day when infections were dropping because of social distancing policies (138 new cases that day, down from 173 new cases the day before). The governor's executive order helped bring the rate of infection down to just 87 new cases on April 12. A week after the forced in-person election, the infection rate began spiking-- back up to 166 per day. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik has said that so far 7 new cases in the city have been traced to the forced election-- six voters and one poll worker.

"As you recall, there were people that were in line for a very long time to get their vote in, so if you figure out around a range of time when someone was there or in the polling sites or in the line, connect to someone who was an actual case, that's when we would do notifications," she said.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said about 3,500 voters came to each of the city's five voting sites and dozens of workers were there as well.

"This will tell you why we were so adamant about trying to not have this occur," he said, referring calls to cancel in-person voting.

Yesterday, the Washington Post released a new poll it did in conjunction with the University of Maryland. Scott Clement and Dan Balz reported that the poll shows governors winning "praise across the political spectrum for their leadership, which has sometimes put them sharply at odds with Trump and his administration."

I wish it broke that praise down by state. It's hard to imagine that incompetents like Kemp, Noem and DeSantis could be winning much praise for their pandemic skills. This seemed to be borne out by most Americans-- 54%-- giving Señor Trumpanzee negative marks for his handling of the pandemic. By contrast, 72 percent of Americans give positive ratings to the governors of their states for the way they have dealt with the crisis.

Personal health concerns are widespread, with 57 percent saying they are “very” or “somewhat” worried about becoming infected and seriously ill from the coronavirus, including at least 40 percent of people in every major demographic and political group. For those most concerned, the fear was enough to override partisanship when it comes to the safety of public gatherings, particularly for Republicans.

...[I]n contrast with that overt pressure to reopen the country, the poll finds a clear majority of Americans expect social distancing practices will be necessary until at least the beginning of the summer.

Asked when people expect the outbreak to be controlled enough that people can safely attend gatherings of 10 or more people, just 10 percent predict such gatherings would be safe by the end of April or earlier, while another 21 percent expect them to be safe by the end of May. More than twice as many-- 65 percent-- say it may take until June or later for people to safely gather in groups of 10 or more.

Partisans divide on this question, with 77 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying they expect public gatherings will not be safe until June or later, compared with 51 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners who say the same. Yet Republicans split depending on personal health concerns.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are less worried about becoming infected and seriously ill from the coronavirus, 60 percent expect public gatherings will be safe by the end of May or earlier. But among Republicans who are at least somewhat concerned about becoming seriously sick, 66 percent say this will take until June, not far from the share of all Democrats who anticipate such a delay.

Americans are also pessimistic about how quickly the economy will recover after the outbreak is under control. A 63 percent majority expect the economy will recover slowly, while 37 percent think it will recover quickly. Trump has predicted a rapid recovery once businesses reopen, and his optimism is shared by 55 percent of Republicans. Most independents and Democrats expect a slow recovery.

In the meantime, Americans are actively taking part in measures meant to stem the spread of the virus. Most-- 65 percent-- report wearing a mask or a face covering when leaving home in the past week. Another 17 percent say they did not leave home at all. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they had worn a mask or not left home at all.

The Republican Party-- even at a grassroots level-- is a death cult and is driven towards steepening the curve. If 82% of Americans say they wear a mask in public or don't leave their houses at all, that still leaves almost 20% of the population willing to risk death, risk infecting their loved ones, risk keeping the pandemic growing. They are a real danger. I was happy this week to see Louisiana psychopath-pastor Tony Spell arrested again. Hopefully this time they'll throw away the key instead of letting him out like they did last time. Unlike earlier reports that said he was arrested for encouraging large gatherings at his church so he could continue to fleece his flock, the money-hungry right-wing pastor was actually arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for attempting to back a bus into a protester.

Republicans Insist Churches Are Essential Businesses-- Even As Congregations Become Hot-Beds Of COVID-19 Infection

Failure by Nancy Ohanian

Since the shutdown here in L.A., gun shops have been busier than usual, sometimes with long lines snaking down the street in front of them. A friend of mine who has never owned one before, bought one, a shotgun. Are people worried marauders looking for pasta and toilet paper could be a danger to their families? Another exception-- primarily, but not exclusively, in Southern states-- is even crazier: churches. I recall in early December, when I was flying back to the U.S. from Seoul (on a Korean airline) there was whispering about a strange new deadly disease sweeping through a religious sect centered around the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu. What started as a few dozen cases clustered around a few churches with bizarre and unhealthy practices has led to over 10,000 cases across the county.

Many Southern governors have excepted churches from shelter-in-place orders. Florida is the worst of them but church services are also going full blast in Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Delaware, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas. Most of these states have the largest proportion of elderly citizens (and Trump supporters). Ron DeSantis, widely considered the governor who has handled pandemic the worst in the nation, said "I don’t think the government has the authority to close a church. I’m certainly not going to do that. In Easter season, people are going to want to have access to religious services."

Most of the religious facilities still operating are non-mainstream cults and sects. The Mormons have suspended services as have Catholics, mainstream Jews and Muslims. Even the mainstream evangelical churches have decided to suspend services. Snake-handling services are still going strong and, of course, ultra orthodox Hasidic Jews are ignoring the pandemic entirely-- although Hasidic communities are being ravaged by COVID-19.

There's a battle raging in Wisconsin over religious gatherings right now. The governor, Tony Evers, is a Democrat, but both houses of the legislature are controlled by backward fanatical Republicans who are demanding that churches not be forced to close down. So far Evers is ignoring them, well aware that in-person gatherings during this pandemic are extremely risky and need to be avoided."

Wisconsin' crackpot Assembly speaker Robin Vos wrote to Evers: "It is more important than ever that we allow Wisconsinites to observe their individual faiths. To that end, we ask that you work with Wisconsin churches and temples to allow them to hold Easter or Passover services, even if it’s outside.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett reminded the nuts that "This disease does not have a religious exemption. As much as I would love this disease to have a religious exemption, a family exemption, a voting exemption, it does not. And and it’s not just the people who would attend these services, but it would be the people that they would infect."

No doubt, there are people thinking that if a bunch of moron Trumpers want to risk their lives, let them... and some might even think it would be best for the national gene pool. But that is the wrong attitude.

It’s not just church members potentially infecting themselves; it’s that they may later infect people in their families or people they cross paths with at a grocery store.

“Religious freedom” isn’t the issue here. The only issue is public safety. Republicans just don’t give a damn. They’d rather see more people suffer than do something difficult that helps everyone in the state.

Plenty of religious leaders have already found a way around this. They’re live-streaming their sermons and they’ll still celebrate the holidays, even if the method is far from their preferred option. But guess what? That’s what we’re all doing, whether we’re students, teachers, or parents.

It’s not pastors making this demand of Evers; it’s the GOP trying to curry favor with those pastors by acting like defenders of faith. Republicans are the problem, not the religious leaders. If only Wisconsin residents understood that enough that they stopped voting for the GOP.

Anyway, if your pastor insists that you attend an in-person service right now, then you’re part of a death cult and you need to get the hell out. Apparently we can say the same about the Republican Party.

Last week, the CBS TV channel in Sacramento reported that about a third of all "confirmed coronavirus cases in Sacramento County is being linked to church-related gatherings." Over the weekend, a team of Washington Post reporters wrote about an open church there that drew 7 congregants-- including the pastor-- for Palm Sunday. "For the religious," they wrote. "one of the crueler elements of the coronavirus and its potent contagiousness is that places where people go in times of fear, in search of solace in faith and in friends, are closed in many states to stop the spread of the disease. Churches, temples and other places of worship nationwide — where congregants sit close, take Communion, share hugs and handshakes and pecks on the cheek — have served as hothouses for the virus, with religious gatherings exacerbating outbreaks in New Rochelle, N.Y.; Washington, D.C.; Glenville, Ill.; and Sacramento, among others... The in-person gatherings in some cases go against many stay-at-home orders and bans on assemblies of more than 10 people, which President Trump has endorsed. Eight states do not have such orders, but there have been arguments within the White House that a national regulation should be put in place as infections accelerate."

[S]ome houses of worship and gatherings of religious leaders have proved particularly dangerous in areas where the virus has been prevalent.

Following the outbreak in Sacramento, Mayor Darrell Steinberg (D) made clear that disregard for the prohibition on church gatherings could prompt police intervention. Steinberg’s wife serves as cantor at the city’s largest synagogue, which now streams its services online.

“This is a time when people are coming to church for hope and meaning, and in that way, faith has never been more important,” said Steinberg, a member of Congregation B’nai Israel, one of the oldest west of the Mississippi. “I believe passionately in the free exercise of religion, but I must say I am outraged that anyone would use the free exercise of religion to justify gathering together at this time.”

“To claim that the free exercise of religion is absolute and outweighs the obvious life-and-death risk of praying together right now,” Steinberg continued, “well, it’s blasphemy itself.”

Sacramento police have been advised that in some cases, it might be permissible to disperse a congregation. Steinberg said those acts would happen only when there is a “blatant disregard” for the prohibition.

“We’re not going to use arresting people as the way to address this,” the mayor said. “Social pressure is much more appropriate, and that social pressure includes making it clear that these are legal orders being defied.”

The concern extends nationally, given the reach of the virus, from megacities to small towns.

In late February, six people who attended an Episcopal church conference at the Omni Hotel in downtown Louisville tested positive for the coronavirus. North Carolina public health officials say “multiple cases” of the virus are linked to a March event held by the Faith Assembly Christian Center at the Millennium Hotel Durham, despite a ban on gatherings of more than 100 people at the time.

Rural Minnesota has reported at least nine coronavirus cases traced to a church. And 43 fell ill, one fatally, after attending a March 15 service at the Life Church of Glenview, in Glenview, Ill., a Chicago suburb. At least 10 members tested positive for the coronavirus. The service was held several days before the Illinois governor imposed a stay-at-home order.

There are other cases. But none has reached the scope of the tragedy at the Bethany Slavic Missionary Church, a 3,500-member congregation that occupies a fenced compound here in southeast Sacramento.

Public health officials say 71 congregants of the church, a major gathering place for the city’s large Eastern European immigrant community, have been infected by the coronavirus. As of Saturday, that infection number accounts for 18 percent of Sacramento County’s total cases. Ten people have died in the county.

The church is now closed, its high gates locked to outsiders and a police car parked outside the main sanctuary. Signs posted are in English and Russian, one in large print on the front door announcing: “No Any Services.”

Among the sick is senior pastor Adam Bondaruk, who has been at the church for three decades. The church administrator, Viktor Lyulkin, said by phone that Bondaruk, a Ukrainian immigrant, has been hospitalized and is in stable condition.

...A poll released this week of Protestant pastors found that the number of churches holding services dropped from 99 percent on March 1 to 64 percent by March 15, and then to 7 percent by March 29, according to Lifeway Christian Resources. Lifeway is the publishing division of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Polls also have shown that those who lean conservative politically are more skeptical of the virus’s seriousness and danger. Until early March, Trump falsely claimed the coronavirus cases were decreasing and said the disease would disappear “like a miracle.”

Those who attend church more frequently are much more likely to identify as or lean Republican, polls also show. Forty-four percent of the GOP leaners go to religious services at least weekly, compared with 29 percent of Democrats.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) declared last week that religious services are essential to the lives of Texans. Pastor Jason Sides used Facebook Live to tell his flock he was determined to open Christian World Ministries in San Antonio.

Sides had held a prayer service on Wednesday, and 75 people came into the 1,000-person sanctuary for the first time in weeks.

“If church is as essential to you as a trip to the pharmacy or Walmart, the doors will be open,” Sides said Wednesday. “We will be trusting God to take care of us.”

But by the weekend, Sides had had second thoughts.

San Antonio city leaders pleaded with churches Friday to use remote services. Sides said he struggled with the decision, keeping in mind the dozens of calls from members telling him their homes were not safe, their marriages were falling apart, their jobs lost.

“We hear a lot about the external, the import of washing hands and not touching the face,” Sides said. “But what of the internal?”

...The Rev. Tony Spell, pastor of the megachurch Life Tabernacle outside Baton Rouge, has been defying an emergency order by the governor banning gatherings of more than 50 people. Police on Tuesday issued a misdemeanor summons to Spell, who says that he had 1,000 people in his church Sunday and that he was planning to hold services again this Sunday.

“We feel we are being persecuted for our faith by being told to close our doors and not gather,” he said. He noted that some stores are open, including clinics that perform abortions. “You’re saying religion isn’t essential, but Target is.”

Tomorrow Is Election Day In Wisconsin-- And What A Mess!

The situation is fluid in a state with an extreme right-wing legislature and an overly tepid Democratic governor at odds over tomorrow's election. Today the governor, Tony Evers finally called off in-person voting and postponed the election until June 9th because of the pandemic. The Republicans screamed bloody murder and the rightist state Supreme Court sided with them and ordered the in-person voting to go forward ruling that Evers doesn't have the authority to do any such thing. In March Evers had ordered a stay-at-home order for the state, which has 2,267 confirmed cases and 80 deaths.

There are no other states that haven't cancelled in-person voting for the month of April. Virtually all Democrats are in agreement with this, except Biden who-- as usual-- is on the same page as the GOP. One of the most important races in the state is the runoff for Milwaukee County executive, a job that often leads to the governor's mansion. Blue America has endorsed progressive state Senator Chris Larson for the job. This afternoon, Larson sent this out-- before the state Supreme Court ruled against Evers-- to his supporters:

It seems impossible to stay up to date on all the latest news around COVID, the election, and what is and isn’t happening. One very real and likely possibility is that the election will still happen tomorrow and the loosening of when absentee ballots are accepted may again be tightened.

My priority, first and foremost, is the health of each of our neighbors.

For the sake of public safety, I do hope the election is delayed and efforts are made to have every eligible voter vote by absentee ballot in the safest way possible. That’s what I’ve been advocating for from the beginning. But you and I have very limited control over what is actually going to happen. So, we should hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Sadly, I’m writing to say we should plan for the worst. Although Governor Evers did the right thing in calling for a delay in the election, that is likely to be overturned before 7 am tomorrow. Given the uncertainty surrounding the election, many may not vote at all. That said, the most certain way to have your vote counted is to vote on your absentee ballot, have it properly witnessed, and then turn it in directly to your clerk as soon as possible.

If you have not received an absentee ballot, you should make a plan to vote in-person tomorrow. In addition to bringing your ID, I recommend giving yourself plenty of time, wearing a mask, keep six feet of distance between people, and bringing your own black pen to fill out the ballot.

Your election location almost certainly changed. Please check your new location here.

For weeks, I have championed changes to open up access to the ballot box, including sending an absentee ballot to each registered voter as well as extending the deadline for when those ballots will be accepted. Those bills have not sadly not advanced and the legislature continues to fail to convene.

We're actively monitoring the quickly changing situation around the dates and rules surrounding this election. We want to ensure every voter has the opportunity to cast a ballot in a way that is equitable and safe. If there are definitive changes made by the US Supreme Court, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Wisconsin Election Commission, the state legislature, or a state agency, we will send a follow-up email.

Again-- given the uncertainty around the election, I encourage voters to take steps to get their absentee ballots in as quickly as possible by in-person drop-off. Check with your local municipality to confirm your designated drop-off site. If you do not have an absentee ballot, make a plan to vote safely tomorrow, April 7th.

Lastly, please continue to look after you and your neighbor’s health. If you don’t think you can go and vote safely please stay home. I would rather have you as my neighbor moving forward as we begin the important work of rebuilding Milwaukee County together than have you risk your health to cast a ballot for me. Yes, this election matters but you matter more. Do what you think is best-- no judgment.

Some say the presidential primary part of this election could be-- I hope not-- Bernie's last stand. In 2016 he thoroughly beat the status quo candidate but polls now show Status Quo Joe leading. There have been rumors that if Bernie doesn't win tomorrow the case for him staying in the race will weaken considerably. The 2016 primary saw him beat Hillary 567,936 (56.6%) to 432,767 (43.1%). Of the state's 72 counties, Hillary only won one-- Milwaukee. Hillary harbored so much animus towards the state for her crushing defeat that she didn't bother campaigning there and ceded it to Trump, one of the top factors that brought him to the White House. If Bernie wins tomorrow, he'll be the come-back kid and would have a shot at turning the race for the nomination around. This doesn't look good-- but it also doesn't look impossible. A lot has happened in the last month and little of it has made Biden look like a viable candidate.

Earlier this evening Bernie sent this message to his supporters in Wisconsin: "It's outrageous that the Republican legislative leaders and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court in Wisconsin are willing to risk the health and safety of many thousands of Wisconsin voters tomorrow for their own political gain. Let's be clear: holding this election amid the coronavirus outbreak is dangerous, disregards the guidance of public health experts, and may very well prove deadly. For that reason, our campaign will not be engaged in any traditional GOTV efforts."

Remember Those Anti-Democracy Lame Duck Sessions Republicans Pulled? In Wisconsin, The Beat Goes On

Someone gave Wisconsin's new governor, Tony Evers, some great advice. Instead of suing the GOP legislature for the anti-democracy bills they rushed through in the lame duck session, he's decided on a strategy to letting them sue him. Wednesday he said he'll be ignoring their bad-faith bullshit."I’m anticipating most of the provisions will be challenged and I’m guessing I will be a defendant rather than a plaintiff."

Patrick Marley reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Evers' "stance changes the dynamic in the fight over the lame-duck legislation by prodding Republicans into initiating litigation instead of doing so himself."

In the interview, Evers also provided glimpses of the budget he will introduce in the coming months, saying he would look to expand health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act; allow illegal immigrants to qualify for driver’s cards; give immigrants who came to the state illegally as children the chance to pay in-state tuition; and allow property taxes to rise by more than they have in the past.

  In addition, Evers is considering letting local government increase sales taxes.

Evers, who will be sworn in Monday, said he remains bothered by lame-duck legislation lawmakers and departing Gov. Scott Walker approved in the weeks after Evers narrowly defeated Walker.

He suggested he wouldn’t go along with parts of those wide-ranging measures but wouldn’t specify which ones. The new laws limit his authority over state rules, require him to get permission from lawmakers to adjust public benefits programs and diminish his say over the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

Evers likened the situation to attempts by Walker and GOP lawmakers to chip into his authority over state rules as the state schools superintendent. Allies of Evers sued and won before the state Supreme Court the first time Republicans tried to diminish his powers. A second lawsuit over the issue-- this one brought by Evers’ opponents-- is now before the state’s high court.

“Having gone through this in my previous job as state superintendent, I think it’s more likely that I will be sued because I’m now the chief executive of the state,” Evers said of a potential legal fight over the lame-duck legislation “Same thing happened when I was state superintendent-- I was sued. So that’s where I anticipate most of the action to be.”

...“I thought the lame duck session was an effort to kind of disenfranchise the people that voted in the last election," he said. "So, is that wrong? Yes, absolutely it’s wrong. So I will continue to have that stand, but at the end of the day I also know I have to work with the legislators to get things accomplished.”

“I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can be annoyed and against what they did, but by gosh, we have to solve some major problems. Education, transportation and health care was what I ran and won on. That’s what we’re going to be focused on.”

Litigation over the lame-duck legislation has already started. Two groups in December asked a federal judge to strike down limits on early voting included in the legislation. But so far no one has challenged other aspects of the new laws.

...Republicans who control the Legislature have said they plan to reject Evers’ budget and work off the existing one as they develop a two-year spending plan they hope to send Evers for final approval this summer.

Evers can rewrite whatever they send him using his broad veto powers, and Evers on Wednesday told The Associated Press he would not rule out vetoing a GOP budget in its entirety.

Some of Evers' budget plans are fiercely opposed by Republicans. He wants to provide schools an additional $1.4 billion over two years and greatly scale back a tax break for manufacturers and farmers so he can cut income taxes for the middle class by 10 percent.

Evers said he can’t stop Republicans from setting his budget aside but would hold events around the state to promote his plan as a way to try to get lawmakers to adopt key parts of it.

“Once our budget is baked, we will be taking it directly out to the people of Wisconsin and getting their input on it,” he said.

Evers told the Wisconsin State Journal his budget would raise the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour-- another idea likely to face GOP opposition. Evers didn't say how much of an increase he would seek.

Evers campaigned on expanding the state’s BadgerCare Plus health-care program to tens of thousands of more people using federal money available through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The plan would free up about $280 million the state could use for other purposes, according to initial estimates.

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interview, Evers said he would include the plan in his budget and use some of the additional money to increase the rates paid to doctors and hospitals who provide care for people through BadgerCare and other Medicaid programs.

Republican lawmakers have resisted the effort to take the federal money, with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester saying in October there was “no way” the state would do so on his watch. But they also want to give providers better rates for caring for Medicaid patients.

By providing a rate increase, Evers hopes to entice lawmakers to go along with his plans.

Evers is pursuing other budget plans that will have little chance in a GOP-dominated Legislature. One provision would allow illegal immigrants to secure driving credentials if they passed a driving test and paid a fee. Backers say it would make Wisconsin’s roads safer and make it easier for immigrants to get to work. Opponents say it would reward illegal immigrants and encourage them to come to Wisconsin.

Evers also wants to charge in-state tuition to those living in Wisconsin known as Dreamers-- immigrants who came to the United States illegally when they were young. Walker and lawmakers ended a similar program in 2011 for immigrants who graduated from a Wisconsin high school.

...In addition, Evers said the state may need to spend more than the $80 million it has committed to establishing new juvenile lockups to replace the troubled Lincoln Hills School for Boys by 2021.

Evers told Wisconsin Public Radio on Wednesday that he was sticking by a campaign promise to visit Lincoln Hills next week. Walker never visited any correctional facilities during his eight years in office.

Evers said he hopes to find more money for roads in his budget but hasn’t made final decisions. He said during the campaign he was open to increasing the gas tax or imposing tolls.

Some GOP senators have resisted raising the gas tax and raised concerns about Evers’ decision to appoint Craig Thompson to run the Department of Transportation. Thompson is the executive director of the Transportation Development Association, a trade group that has called for increased road funding in recent years-- a stance some Republicans saw as an attack on Walker.

Evers said he believes senators will ultimately confirm Thompson, whom he said he hired because of his ability to bring people together on the issue.

“To reject a talented person because a handful of members may disapprove of his stance in the past, that seems-- that seems small in my opinion,” he said.

UPDATE

If I implied that Tony Evers is on the path of becoming an actual hero of the Revolution, let me dispel that as fast as in humanly possible. The dull, tepid, centrist governor quickly reverted to form. Yesterday he told reporters he has "no intention of breaking the law."

The incoming Democratic governor said he believed he would be sued not by detractors trying to force him to follow the laws passed in a lame-duck session, but by supporters who want to get him out from under the laws. Provisions of those laws will limit his ability to write state rules and oversee economic development.

"I personally have reviewed (the new laws) and reviewed them with attorneys and other legal staff," Evers said. "We haven’t decided what to do personally. It’s just that in my experience that when this happens, it likely will happen from the outside."

Fucking loser!

Hopefully Randy Bryce will jump into the special election for the Kenosha state Assembly seat being given up by Peter Barca as he shuffles off to Evers' office. Needed: Men and women with a bit of courageousness and heart.

What The Wisconsin Republicans Did This Morning Will Backfire-- Bigly!

Call me crazy but I think Wisconsin Republicans made a big strategic boo-boo last night and this morning. The Republican legislators worked all night and into this morning in their lame duck session and, despite protests, internal disagreement and Democratic opposition both Houses of the state legislature passed a package of proposals designed to fuck Democratic voters and empower the GOP-controlled Legislature at the expense of the incoming all-Democratic executive branch. Governor-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul warned them that the ensuing lawsuits will tie the state up in gridlock. (Keep in mind that in the popular vote in legislative elections last month in Wisconsin, Democrats won 53-45% but, entirely because of Republican gerrymandering, Democrats only won 36% of the seats in the Assembly-- 53% of the vote but 36% of the seats.)

Just after midnight, the Assembly enacted a venal Medicaid work requirement that would prevent Evers from withdrawing a federal waiver request to implement the work requirement and require new legislative oversight of gubernatorial waiver requests related to health care. In the Senate, backroom deal making led to this morning's vote to weaken the governor’s power to put administrative rules enacting state laws in place. The legislature, not the governor, would have the majority of appointments on the state’s economic development agency that Evers has said he wants to dismantle. The Republican bill also restricts early voting to no more than two weeks before an election and gives the legislature-- not the attorney general-- the power to withdraw Wisconsin from the Texas lawsuit challenging the federal health care law that protects people with pre-existing conditions.

The state Senate passed this package of steaming shit 17-16, all Democrats plus one Republican, Rob Cowles of Green Bay, voting against it. Democratic state Senator Chris Larson, who represents a suburban district south of Milwaukee told me just moments ago that "This morning, fresh off an election defeat, the Republican-controlled legislature voted to subvert the will of the people. The effects of this vote will be felt for years to come. Never before in Wisconsin’s 170 year history has an extraordinary session been used in such a cold, calculated way in order to usurp the power of duly elected constitutional officers. It is particularly disturbing that legislative Republicans would chose to poison the well of bipartisanship before duly elected officials are allowed to take office."

Larson-- like DWT-- sees the potential damage these moves will do not just to the state, but to the Republican Party itself, where independent voters are looking at it in disgust. "What the Republicans have done is terribly short-sighted and will leave a permanent stain on their and our state’s legacy," he continued. "It is unfortunate, that by refusing to recognize the voice of the people, they have broken Wisconsin Government. It will be all of our neighbors who suffer for years to come. Wisconsinites went to the polls in record midterm numbers and voted for change on November 6th. They responded to the people by essentially appointing the losing side as Attorney General. Now unelected, unaccountable private lawyers can potentially usurp any federal case from the duly elected Attorney General. We have a rich American history of peaceful transfer of power for the good of the people. This morning, Republicans instead decided to burn the house down on their way out the door."

Ari Berman, writing for Mother Jones, put the Republican Party racist assault on voting rights into a cohesive national context.

The 2018 election saw historic victories for voting rights. Seven states passed ballot initiatives that will make it easier to vote and harder to gerrymander. And some of the biggest cheerleaders for restricting access to the ballot, such as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, lost their gubernatorial races.

But now Republicans in four key swing states-- Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina-- are undertaking unprecedented efforts in lame-duck legislative sessions to strip newly elected Democratic officials of their power to oversee state voting laws and rushing to pass new laws that will make it harder to vote.

...Currently, Wisconsin counties can decide when to begin the early voting period. Democratic cities like Madison and Milwaukee began early voting six weeks before the election in 2018 and saw record turnout. The new bill would limit the early voting period to just two weeks across Wisconsin.

The new effort to cut early voting is similar to a previous law that was struck down by a federal court. In 2014, Wisconsin’s Legislature cut early voting from 30 days to 12, reduced early voting hours on nights and weekends, and restricted early voting to one location per municipality, hampering voters in large urban areas. A federal judge ruled in 2016 that the early voting cuts “intentionally discriminate on the basis of race” and had been passed “to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African Americans.”

After the law was overturned, jurisdictions in Wisconsin, particularly in places like Madison and Milwaukee, expanded early voting locations and hours, leading to record turnout in 2016 and 2018. Democrats have pledged to sue if the new law is passed by the Legislature on Tuesday.

The new bill would also prevent Evers from making the state’s voter ID law less restrictive by barring him from expanding the types of IDs Wisconsinites can use to vote. The law, which first went into effect in 2016, led to a sharp decrease in black voter turnout in the last presidential election. A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that the ID requirement kept as many as 23,000 people from voting in two of the state’s most Democratic counties, Milwaukee County and Madison’s Dane County, with African Americans more than three times as likely as whites to be deterred from voting. President Donald Trump won the state by that very margin. “It is very probable,” Milwaukee’s top election official, Neil Albrecht, told Mother Jones last year, that “enough people were prevented from voting to have changed the outcome of the presidential election in Wisconsin.”

The GOP bill would also move the state’s 2020 presidential primary from April to March, while keeping the state Supreme Court election in April. A lower turnout in the court race would likely benefit Republicans and help them keep their majority on the court.

...Republican efforts to strip Democrats of power during lame-duck legislative sessions originated in North Carolina in 2016. Following the election of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in 2016, the Republican-led Legislature passed a series of bills to reduce his power, which included preventing the governor from appointing a majority of members to the state board of elections and 100 county boards of elections.

Now the North Carolina Legislature is at it again. It originally passed a voter ID law in 2013 that the federal courts said targeted black voters “with almost surgical precision.” After that law was struck down in court, the Republican Legislature put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2018 requiring government-issued photo ID to vote. It passed with 60 percent support on Election Day, but because Republicans lost their legislative supermajority in 2018, they’re rushing to pass a bill implementing the amendment in the lame-duck session so Cooper will be unable to veto it.

Republicans in all four of these states owe their majorities partly to extreme partisan gerrymandering. Ohio Republicans barely got 50 percent of the vote in last month’s elections, but hold a supermajority in the Legislature, while Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina got a minority of votes but control a majority of seats. Now, by stripping power from Democratic officials who won a majority of votes and enacting laws making it harder to vote, they are further enshrining minority rule.

Just back from Berniepalooza, Randy Bryce was busy all day and all night yesterday. This morning, he told me that he "had the opportunity to testify in opposition to the power grab. First words out of my mouth was that this isn’t a bill, it’s a coup. The Republicans need to answer one very simple question. If this was so badly needed, why did they wait until after the election to write it? We are witnessing a very sad time in our state’s history. They are literally doing this in the middle of the night."