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Jim Mueller has been working for weeks to get charges dismissed for people arrested for holding signs in the public gallery of the Capital.

From Face Book Today

Jim asked me to let people know that all of the citations for which he was representing clients with the initial appearance dates of Nov 4 and Nov 18 have been dismissed. Congratulations!

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Trying to change the system from within.

Leonard Cohen

Leonard describes the way I feel when I watch or attend legislative committee meetings like the Wisconsin Assembly Committee for Election Reform hearing last Summer in Madison. My hat and a good share of my whole upper torso go off to people who demonstrate the patience and integrity when sitting before assembled body politic.

Gotta Love People like Jim Mueller

!972 McGovern volunteer,
1972 Democratic ticket filler for Clerk of Courts, Winnebago County
1973-Dec 1975 Completed 3 year Law School degree
1974 Campaign worker for Dem. Gary Goyke in his Senate victory
1975-March 1976 Senate Administrative Assistant
1976 Dem. Assembly Candidate in heavily Rep Dist. received 46.7%
1978 Dem. Assembly Candidate, received 49%
1979 Chair for Goyke’s 6th Cong. seat election, 49%
1979-80 Senate Committee Clerk
1980-1996 Raised family and had a career in Employee Benefits at a Trust Company
1996 Elected Town Supervisor
1998 Re-elected Town Supervisor and ran for Gov. on Lib. ticket.
1999-2005 Administrator/Clerk and in 2004 Treas. Tn of Middleton
2006-Feb 11, 2011 Att., Mun. Consultant, Realtor, Mortgage Broker,
Feb 11, 2011 to date Full-time political activist.

So here is Jim “trying to change the system form within” in face of clueless members of the committee elected to State Assembly like Democrat Frederick Kessler
12th Assembly District and Republican Kathleen Bernier 68th Assembly District.

Things like this shouldn’t be happening in Wisconsin.

Way back in April when Kathy Nickolaus found the 14,000 votes in Brookfield more than 10,000 people signed a petition within hours demanding an investigation of the Waukesha County vote tabulation. Five long months have past…

The man pictured right as the fantasy wizard of the investigation Kevin Kennedy, Director of the Government Accountability Bureau (GAB), who launched an investigation into Waukesha just days after the election.

“Come Back Tomorrow”

Just as Dorthy brought the broom from the wicked witch to the great wizard expecting answers, the “Dorthy’s” the Election Integrity group on Face book who observed the recount of the Spring Supreme Court Election, brought wizard Kennedy evidence of fraud including ripped and torn bags, a poll tape dated days before the election, and countless documented breaks in the chain of custody of the vote. They laid them at Wizard Kennedy’s feet and just as the scene in the “Wizard of Oz” he said, “Come back tomorrow”.

Well, he actually released a statement saying that the GAB could not acknowledge whether there was an on going investigation since JoAnne Kloppenburg campaign had issued a formal complaint, thus all details of any investigation were restricted under confidentiality statutes of state law.
Reid Magney, spokesman for the board, said that because a formal complaint was filed with the board by the JoAnne Kloppenburg campaign, accusing Nickolaus of election law violations, new confidentiality restrictions apply under state law.

And we waited and waited in front of the puffing smoke and fire of the GAB. Then one day we were told by the Great Wizard that an attorney had been assigned to the case! Read- Waukesha Investigation- News At Last! “Melissa Mulliken, manager for the Kloppenburg campaign, said Wednesday she had recently been notified by attorney Tim Verhoff that he was following up on the complaint she filed with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.

Tim Verhoff (pictured as “Man behind the curtain” left) was appointed to “look into” the Waukesha Supreme Court election recount in the middle of July. Finally, we might expect some answers.

But Tim’s investigation seems to echo another puff of smoke and blast of fire as we hear the amplified voice of Wizard Kennedy echo through the halls of Oz, “Come back tomorrow!”.

Instead of stepping up and prioritizing the investigation before the Recall Elections to prevent the kind of vote reporting problems that occurred in Waukesha County on, yet another, election night, we have heard nothing.

Toto where are you?

Are we waiting for Toto to bite at the hem of the curtain to reveal the hidden workings and levers that Tim Verhoff and Kevin Kennedy cannot or refuse to find?

10,000 people signed a petition for an investigation, Representative Tammy Baldwin sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding a investigation, evidence has been collected documenting a host of anomalies that have never been addressed.

I don’t think we are in Wisconsin anymore. Toto where are you?

Not so long ago, I would go to my face book page and read posts about new babies, a friend’s favorite music but only an occasional mention of the politics of the Wisconsin. That was before Walker, Fitzgerald, and the GOP control of the legislature. Yes. That was before. Why was I so unaware of the first rumblings of the massive quake about to devastate a pattern of fair play, compromise, and respect that I had grown up with in my home State of Wisconsin? The media and the polls began to suggest that Feingold and Barrett were in trouble and this news was reinforced by an inordinate number of green “Johnson for Senate” signs along the highways and by ways of my travels. Somehow, I could not or would not believe it. Would Wisconsin really give up a leader like Russ Feingold? Would this pale, uneducated, candidate for Governor ever get more votes than Barrett? No. I would not believe it.

So, the people went over the loses, as after a poor round of golf, checking the score card of their district and State. We all had lost Russ Feingold to a barrage of attacks that, we thought surely, no one would believe. Some districts did fair better than others: Ron Kind over Kapanke was the saving grace of my little world. We all had to face the loss of Barrett to Walker and met the facts with attitude; we would grin and bear it. We had survived Thompson and other Governors. This would pass. We would be more watchful, and surely this would pass.

Then it got scary. The refusal to accept the federal funding for rapid rail, and stoppage of the clean burning incineration project could almost be expected. Then came the unimaginable. The slap in the face of all that was Wisconsin; Walker’s budget repair bill that would hinge on the curtailing the collective bargaining rights for most public employees; a threat which came with a icy authoritarian stab of calling out the National Guard to curtail any public protest. At first, it was like a punch in the gut taking the wind right out of the air itself. A shock was followed by a moment of quiet disbelief. After the quiet, came the storm of unity, solidarity and protest that rocked the State.

And no words can capture a manifestation of human truth, although we may come close from time to time, yet the scientific expression of eternity is not a digit but a looped, bow-tie symbol. Some called it “The Awakening of a Sleeping Giant” or defined the unity of spirit with slogans; “We Are Wisconsin”, “This is What Democracy Looks Like”. New worlds were created, “Fitzwalkerstan” and “Walkerville” where palm trees flourished as fire fighter’s bag pipes, and a contentious circle of drums declared the new boundaries for a longing for freedom that stretched all the way to Egypt. All I know is that times such as these, these moments, open a portal of light and hope when it is a gift to be alive.

I was so anxious get behind Joanne Kloppenburg in the first election since Walker, that I miss spelled her name in my first post. The goal was set high; to defeat a long time incumbent Supreme Court Justice. Finally, the solidarity and new activism could be put to a unified purpose to win an election against all odds… and the election was won, but only for hours, before an off hand prediction of Walker, “Votes found out of the blue”, came to pass. An apologetic County Clerk from Waukesha, found 1400 votes…somehow. The “somehow” raised the eye brows of the national press and sparked a state-wide recount. The discovery of ripped and torn vote bags, gaping breaks in the chain of custody, and impossible comparative voter turn out numbers left questions, suspicions, and anomalies that remain unanswered to this day. The air of fraud and incompetence surrounding the Waukesha vote count seemed to trip into another dark dimension of a hidden cloak room of the Government Accountability Board, and hand to hand violence in the chambers of the highest court. Now an Attorney for Kathy Nickolaus and a Special Prosecutor for Prosser have been appointed. And it remains to be reckoned with on another day.

By some secret stroke of irony the “open meetings – collective bargaining ruling” of July came after a violent encounter behind closed doors in the Supreme Court Chambers, that we would only hear of days later. Even as Walker signed his bill into law, any celebration of victory was hushed. It was a hollow fantasy of words on paper, having won the battle but lost the war, and the trumpet sounded to carry the theme of fantasy forward, before the ink had dried on paper. Dr. Seuss might have written the script. Let’s have a fake election! We will get fake GOP’s to run as fake Dems or fake candidates in a fake election. The whole fake idea failed when each Dem Candidate beat each fake in each district in every case to the tune of a wasted a non-fake $400,000. Now the real history is upon us. The real 1st in the long story of Democracy. There is no precedent for the decision of August 9. The greatest number of state legislators ever to face recall on a single ballot was two, we look at six Statewide!

Secret, on-going, “investigations” no longer serve the people in today’s information sharing network

.

Official investigations are a dinosaur of the 6 o’clock news, and Daily paper. New rules need to be imposed in favor of transparency, lest they only serve to protect the privileged.

Two Cases in Point. Two major “investigations” are on-going in Wisconsin.

Investigation of Kathy Nickolaus

The Government Accountability Board announced an investigation of Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus back in early April, after she found the 14000 votes two days after the Spring Supreme Court Election. A report of the findings was promised by the end of June. It is now the end of July and the only information about the investigation is that an attorney has been appointed to look into the vote tabulation practices of Kathy Nickolaus.

Investigation of Prosser’s “Choking Incident” of June 13th

The Wisconsin Judicial Commission proclaimed an investigation of the incident on June 24 and a day later the Dane County Sheriff’s Office opened another separate “investigation”.

The language of the Sheriff’s “investigation” speaks to the point of this article:

“The Dane County Sheriff’s Office recognizes the significance and sensitive nature of this investigation. Beginning today, detectives will work diligently to conduct a thorough and timely investigation. Because this case is in the very early stages, no further information is available at this time. Read more about the incident and investigations.

The nature, scope, and duration of an investigation need specific parameters.
If you or I were to hit someone while driving drunk…how much “disclosure protection” would we get? Would the specifics of the incident be held back from the people and the press for a month or more?

But a judge who chokes a fellow Justice or a County Clerk that manipulates an election….NOT a word.

If anyone were to physically attack another person in your work place, would you keep your job? If a child physically attacks another at school or on the playground, would they expect to be suspended? Would the specifics of such incidents be held in secret from the press and the public for weeks and months?

The specifics of incidents of manipulation of votes or the physical attack of one Justice on another are have been kept in secret for weeks and months.
NOT a word.

The privileged and powerful are protected and play by different rules than the citizens they serve.

The GAB, Sheriff’s Department, or Judicial Commission need only announce that they are conducting an “investigation” and the suspects are off the hook. Any inquiries, or questions for detail are simply met with a “no comment the matter is under investigation”. This secrecy would not be held if you attacked someone in your work place, or if your child were caught cheating on a test. Why are the privileged and powerful granted a special privilege of secrecy that you or I would never get?

The unfair, special privilege for the powerful is inherited from the days before face book, twitter, and the internet. It is the same hold on information that kept authoritarian rulers in place in Egypt and Syria. Today, we are able to demand specific information, discuss the actions of the privileged and powerful, and launch actions to loosen the information of the privileged out of their secretive and powerful grasp.

We no longer need to accept an investigation without specific parameters.
Of course, there is a need for secrecy in the conduct of an investigation, but that is underscored by a reasonable duty for a specific time line and release of information. The days of sheltering the privileged and allowing them special rules are over.

We demand the GAB to report on the progress of the investigation of Kathy Nickolaus.

We demand the Sheriff’s Department and the Judicial Commission to report on the incident of violence that occurred in the chambers of the highest court.

More people in America know that they should call a physician if an erection lasts more than four hours, than know all three branches of government.

Why do I raise this issue? Stiffen this point? Project and penetrate the comparison?

Because “we the people” are being screwed by our own laws, politicians, and the 24 hour news cycle. We stand erect with conviction, determination, and emotional outrage when the viagral news breaks. Our hearts throb with the blood of patriotism and we stand ready to launch into the very depths of the injustice and breach of laws to uncover and reveal the treasures of truth that lurk in the darkness. No. Nothing will stop us from this mission. The drive for truth and justice is a pumping, throbbing, political projectile with a mind of its own.

Then…

We hear the word: investigation.

Ah, sweet investigation. It has come. And we roll over and reach for a cigarette, or swig of bottled water, and all is well with the world. We remember the doctor’s warning. We check the clock. Ah, it’s only been three hours since the news broke on twitter, face book, and the blogs. We are safe. No need for alarm, and soon we are off to a deep and sound sleep.

Remember back in April when the viagral news broke that Kathy Nickolaus had “found” the 14000 votes in the City of Bookfield? That was the “viagra moment”. You can google any word from the first sentence and find a host of links to the “breaking viagaral news” about Kathy Nickolaus. Then came the news of…investigation.

Just over a week ago came some viagral news about Prosser choking Justice Bradley and, oh, there came the flow of videos, photo shop jpegs, and postings, tweets, and links galore!

Then came the news of ….investigation.

As Freud smiles down on these words, off we go to the next “breaking news viagral moment”…oh dear, limp and dejected friends of face book, do not fear – for it is coming, it is coming!

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asks the question “Was it worth it?” about the Wisconsin Supreme Court recount in the following editorial:

This is scary – how can a professional news organization just not “get it”?

They prove they just don’t “get it” in their own words; “nothing will change in the election for state Supreme Court.” Where do they live in a cave? READ MY LIPS – Plenty has changed in the election for the Supreme Court!

They just don’t “get it” because they are stuck in the box of “candidates as winners or losers”. Many of the rest of us are way outside that box. We are looking at “voters as winners or loser”. Do you get the difference?

It is no longer about which candidate wins. It is bigger, better, and exponentially more dangerous than that. Honoring Prosser as a Supreme Court Judge is far and away more palatable than losing faith, confidence, or trust in our election process itself and doubting that the votes cast in the State of Wisconsin are being counted fairly and accurately. This is what has “changed in the election for the Supreme Court”, and what’s more alarming is that you missed it! How dare you?

You are so myopically focused on casting the players as winners and whiners that you completely missed the game. Yes. Things have changed. Anomalies have been investigated, photographed, photocopied, and video taped. It makes little difference which party backs you or which office you are running for if the votes show up in ripped, open, and unlabeled bags. There is no winner in an election where the votes cast have a broken “chain of custody” and cannot be legitimately assigned to any candidate.

So you are challenged to finally “get it”. Conduct a poll of your readers. Ask the question, as I did on face book: “Do you believe that your vote is likely to be fairly counted?” The friends who responded to my little question were from all political leanings and not one responded with a firm “yes” answer. I am willing to wager that you will find the same, and be willing to admit that plenty has already changed in the election for the Supreme Court.

Below is a partial response to the editorial from JoAnne Kloppenburg. Please read the whole response.

Some of my face book friends know each other, some do not. Do you think it would be spooky if they all met one another?

(Top left to right)Joan Afton, Bridget M. H. Buell
(Bottom left to right) John Mossman, David Petrashek, font floyd, Floyd Font

Meet Your Playful Self

Some of my face book friends know each other, some do not. Do you think it would be spooky if they all met one another?

(Top left to right)Hannah Thorn, Larry Madeo, Joe Fodor
(Bottom left to right) Pepper Stebbins, Peter Kern, Ron Bieganski

Meet Your Playful Self

Some of my face book friends know each other, some do not. Do you think it would be spooky if they all met one another?

(Top left to right) Dawn Potaracke, Jim Krupski, Melanie Olson
(Bottom left to right) Johnathan Zarov, Todd Hanson, Bob Schmidt, Aaron Rasch)

Meet Your Playful Self