We Won't Be Intimidated

No Intimidation Allowed at Polls

Private Militias are Illegal.

 

I have worked as a poll worker in the Town of Barton and Village of Kewaskum. Before that I served as the county election protection supervisor for the Democratic party for every election from 2007 through 2017. I have closely followed election security issues locally, throughout Wisconsin and across the nation for many years. Even with questions about the integrity of electronic voting machines and network security in how votes are tallied and transmitted, I remain confident that our system for accepting and counting ballots leaves no doubt that all legitimate votes are counted and those few fraudulent ones are discarded. This view is generally accepted by election experts in and out of government and in both major political parties. 

 

Notwithstanding these views, there are a few extremists on the right and left ends of the political spectrum who continue to predict that the outcome of the upcoming election will not be legitimate and, for some, a reason for armed insurrection against the government formed after the vote tallies are announced.

 

Recent studies by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and Center for Strategic Studies all indicate that alt-right white supremacist groups are responsible for most of the recent terrorist plots and violence. Homeland Security officials see white supremacists as the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.”

 

Some fear that these groups, emboldened by comments from certain national leaders, will appear in armed cadres at polling locations to intimidate voters seeking to suppress or change their votes. 

 

Wisconsin has a long history of so-called militia groups who have tried to influence politics through fear and intimidation. The Posse Commitatus was active in the 1970s, until law enforcement cracked down and their public leaders were incarcerated on various charges.

 

Wisconsin is among five states noted to be at the highest risk of increased militia activity before and after the election, depending on the outcome. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), which receives government funding, indicates the trends they identify “raise significant concerns for the security of the election period, how seriously the election results will be taken and the response to whichever winner is selected.”

 

The militia type groups identified as most problematic here and across the country include Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, Boogaloo Bois and Three Percenters. 

 

The fascinating aspect of most of these groups is their claim to legitimacy under the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to bear arms and the First Amendment’s protection of the right to Free Speech and Assembly. Unfortunately, the courts and most legal scholars and analysts disagree. 

 

The US Constitution affords no protection to private armed militia groups that are unconnected to or outside the authority of the government.  All fifty states prohibit and restrict private militia activity with different kinds of laws, including provisions in state constitutions. 

 

The United States Supreme Court has directly ruled in two different cases, District of Columbia v. Heller and Presser v. Illinois, that while the Second Amendment protects an individuals’ right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, it does not protect militia-type activity or prohibit state restrictions on it. 

 

The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law School released an analysis of Wisconsin anti-militia laws. It concluded that a private militia that attempts to activate itself for duty is illegal. Wisconsin’s constitution forbids private military units from operating outside state authority in Article 1, Section 20. Wisconsin statutes prohibit falsely assuming functions of a public officer with felony penalties. Wis. Stat. §946.69.

 

Notwithstanding these provisions, we saw militia type activities in the plot to kidnap and try Michigan Governor, Gretchen Witmer, that involved para-military training in rural Cambria, Wisconsin and in the para-military actions in Kenosha during the unrest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake that resulted in the deaths of two protesters at the hands of Kyle Rittenhouse.

 

With Tuesday’s election looming, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has also warned those who might try to influence the outcome through an armed presence at polling locations that they will face prosecution and incarceration under Wisconsin election protection laws as well. There is no First Amendment right to strike fear in others to influence the exercise of the franchise.

 

Citizens must be allowed to cast their votes for candidates of their own choosing without intimidation from armed para-military groups or individuals. If militias or armed individuals are allowed to invade our polling locations, then the results will indeed not be legitimate.

  

Smaller Government

 Smaller Government is Not the Answer

 

Republicans usually believe in smaller government and less governmental intrusion into people’s lives. Unfortunately, that philosophy has taken the GOP controlled Wisconsin legislature to an extremely unproductive and dangerous place. Wisconsin’s legislature is now considered the least active full-time state legislature in the nation since the Covid-19 pandemic started and Wisconsin has become one of the worst states in the nation for virus spread.

 

A review by WisPolitics, a Wisconsin based news service that covers state politics, shows that our legislators have met 18 times less frequently that the other states with full time legislatures since March 12 when Gov. Evers declared the first public health emergency. 

 

With Covid cases increasing at rates faster than most other states, our hospital intensive care beds being filled to capacity and virus deaths topping 1500, our legislature has refused calls to convene in extra ordinary session to address the pandemic. 

 

Gov. Evers has tried to stem the spread of the virus with mandates for Wisconsinites to mask up and orders limiting capacity in public places where people gather only to find legislative leaders and representatives of the Tavern League take his orders to court challenging his authority. He has had to set up a large field hospital at State Fair Park to ease the burden on state hospital intensive care wards. 

 

Assembly Leader Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald have ignored the governor’s call to work with him to formulate a plan to deal with the virus and hospital system overloads. They have continued to assert that only the legislature has the power to approve public health emergency orders without doing so or offering any other alternative plans to deal with the crisis. They reject the need for state wide uniform action, leaving the decisions to local health departments and county units of government. 

 

This legislative abdication of responsibility has led to a hodgepodge of local orders limited to city or county boundaries. We now have cities with mask mandates and public space limitations right next door to other municipalities with none. Literally, we find streets where masks are required on one side, but not the other. Unfortunately, the virus does not honor geopolitical boundaries.

 

Washington county has been hit especially hard. Our health department notes that our communities are carrying a very high burden of virus case increases with an upward trending trajectory for new cases and a very high case status. All these point to more cases, hospitalizations and deaths in our future. Our county leadership counts itself among the GOP far right where decisions about wearing masks, gathering in large groups with little physical distancing and other precautionary measures are matters of “individual responsibility” even when the numbers show far too many do not take that “responsibility” seriously, if at all. 

 

When the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Evers’ first order in response to the legislature’s lawsuit, lawmakers claimed in their arguments to the Court that they were “ready willing, and able to work with DHS and at the same time craft legislation (which it is drafting even now) to respond to the pandemic in a comprehensive and balanced fashion and guided by federal recommendations.” Since that was submitted to the Court back in April, nothing of the sort has emerged from the Legislature.

 

Clearly, calls for people to voluntarily follow federal CDC and local health department recommendations have not worked to slow the spread of this deadly virus. Legislative inaction and court intervention have certainly contributed to virus spread and more deaths. 

 

It is time for new leadership that takes the current pandemic for what it is, an indiscriminate killer, and responds with what the epidemiologists and other infectious disease experts tell us are the steps necessary to get it under control. Only when these measures are required and enforced at every level will we see the economy start to rebound, schools open safely for children and staff and the health of the nation recover. 

 

We’ve done it before and can do it again. It just takes courage.

 

Trump's Very Bad Week

Trump’s Very Bad Week

There were two very notable revelations about Donald Trump this week that should lead decent people who support him to reconsider and withdraw that support for his re-election. 

 

One came during the raucous presidential candidate debate on Tuesday night watched by over 73 million Americans. Even if you put Trump’s bullying interruptions and personal attacks aside, his repeated refusal to condemn white supremacists exposed what many have long thought. Donald Trump is a full blown racist and depends upon white nationalist racists to secure his re-election. This man clearly does not understand, much less embrace, that we are a pluralistic society with a legal commitment to racial equality that is enshrined in the constitution. 

 

Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacy was compounded by his instructions to the fascist and violent Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Proud Boy leadership immediately seized upon Trump’s instructions vowing to mobilize and to wait for further instruction from their leader. Reports following the debate show Proud Boy membership increasing as more flock to their banners of hate and violent extremism. Trump’s words were almost immediately turned into a shoulder patch for their body armor.

 

Trump tried to deflect the discussion about violence to “Antifa” as he repeated unfounded claims that those who identify as anti-fascist are more violent than alt-right white supremacists. Trump does not understand that we fought a world war against fascism where many of our relatives paid the ultimate price to secure our liberty. We, as a nation, are committed anti-fascists and will go to war again should it become more than a fringe element of our society. People of good conscience are anti-fascist. 

 

Trump’s reliance on this large part of his political base is even causing staunch congressional GOP supporters to distance themselves from Trump. Perhaps they are beginning to see that after the upcoming election what remains of the Republican party will be blowing tattered in the wind and they need to create some plausible deniability if they want to survive politically.

 

The other revelation that should give those pause who continue supporting Trump is the reporting by the New York Times about their review of Trump’s federal income tax data. The review finally exposes Trump for the con man he is. For many years, his businesses lost substantial amounts of money and he was only rescued by his earnings from the unreality TV show, The Apprentice, and loans which he personally guaranteed. His casinos, golf courses, office buildings and many other endeavors are a falling house of cards. Instead of the successful billionaire business tycoon he claims to be, we now know Trump is hanging on by a thread supported by what amounts to taxpayer bailouts as the secret service follows him to Trump owned properties, renting space and golf carts to protect him.

 

The disclosure of outstanding loans of more than $400 million dollars that Trump personally guaranteed raise serious national security concerns. It appears that most of those loans will come due while Trump is president should he be re-elected to a second four-year term. It is suspected, given the bragging by his sons Eric and Don Jr., that much of that debt is held by Russian banks or individuals. Should that be the case, Trump will be very vulnerable to conditions on deferred repayment agreements by a hostile foreign government. 

 

The tax data exposed many questionable, if not outright illegal, tax avoidance schemes such as his payments to his daughter, Ivanka, of over $600,000 for consulting services all while she was also his employee. The Times reported that the IRS is looking into a multi-million-dollar refund Trump received by advancing claims of business losses. For many of the years covered by the tax data, Trump paid not one cent in federal income taxes through his creative accounting. In 2016 and 2017, he paid just $750 in each of those years in federal income taxes. Those reading this probably paid significantly more than Trump did in federal taxes. I know I did.

 

Trump denies the Times’ reporting, claiming it is just more “fake news.” He claims to have paid millions in federal taxes. All he has to do to show the Times was wrong is to disclose the signature pages of his Forms 1040 that show the amounts of taxes paid in each of the years he filed. I bet he will not produce even those single pages to prove the Times wrong.

 

Nobody likes paying taxes. We do so to support government services determined by our elected representatives to be in the overall public interest. We know that the tax code is weighted in favor of the wealthy and Trump’s tax cuts have put the thumb on that scale pushing it even further in that direction. Even with its imperfections, most of us want a tax code where everyone pays their fair share of the tax burden. Trump’s tax revelations show he took tax avoidance to a whole new level. He has played us all for suckers and losers. There will be some to come to his defense, praising his business acumen in avoiding taxes, but that will not include millions who pay their taxes because it is the right thing to do.

 

I hope that the Commission on Presidential Debates modifies its rules to give the next moderator a mute button so we can have a serious discussion of each candidate’s vision for the future of America without bullying and interruptions. Maybe then Donald Trump will be fully exposed as the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain who just blows smoke.