From Overlawyered:

“The mother of a teen killed by a drunken driver was standing at his casket during his wake when lawyers Robert D’Amico and Jimmy Burchfield sidled up next to her and offered their services.

Kathleen Gemma filed a complaint with the Supreme Court’s attorney disciplinary board, saying the two should have left her alone while she was saying her last goodbyes to her son Anthony Gemma. Gemma said one of the lawyers talked about his billboard.”

Ironically, the website for their law firm contains this slogan:

We’ll Take Care of You Like Family Would

(Providence WPRI, February 26)

So it’s official: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and that Frenchie that won Best Actress will be coming to Wisconsin to film the movie “Public Enemies.” This shouldn’t be all that important, but it does seem pretty cool – especially since I have an inexplicable man-crush on Christian Bale.

Anyway, let’s hope this is a sign of things to come for big-time movies in Wisconsin. In fact, this afternoon, there’s another big Wisconsin project that has been announced:

Finding Nemo 2: Nemo Closes Wolski’s

As we get closer to the general election, a lot of names are being thrown around as John McCain’s possible running mate. This includes Wisconsin’s own dreamy Paul Ryan, who was named as a contender by columnist Bob Novak on “Meet the Press.”

Conventional wisdom says that McCain has to pick someone strong on the economy, young, and from the Midwest – which is where he needs to shore up his support. This is why Ryan is such an attractive choice.

Another possibility is Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a young Republican in a blue state. But after seeing him on the Sunday morning shows last weekend, it occurred to me that I can’t possibly support the candidacy of anyone with a mullet like this:

I mean, I realize it’s Minnesota and all, but are we picking a Vice President of the United States or the Grand Marshall at the State Fair? It appears in this picture that Pawlenty is doing his famous “You might be a Vice Presidential candidate if…” comedy routine.

Another favorite seems to Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who endorsed McCain during the Florida campaign. I was reading up on Crist in the Almanac of American Politics, and came across this crazy passage, related to his initial run for governor in 2006:

Below the surface of the campaign, and perhaps driving its themes, were persistent rumors that Crist is gay. A bachelor, Crist was divorced in the early 1980s after a seven-month marriage. At several public events, Crist was asked if he was gay and denied it; the issue did not get much attention in the newspapers, despite determined public efforts by the Reform Party candidate. [...] The sleazy disclosures didn’t stop there. Shortly before the September primary, Crist had to confront an 18-year-old paternity claim after sealed records were anonymously faxed and emailed to various reporters; Crist had denied the claim at the time and had relinquished any parental rights to the child, who was put up for adoption. Thus the 2006 Republican primary election will go down in the annals of dirty politics: here a candidate was attacked both for being gay and for fathering a child out of wedlock.

Ah, yes… Florida. Where a candidate can be “attacked” for being gay. Perhaps they objected to his plans to raise revenue through a statewide Oscar pool.

Given that this presidential election is all about racial, gender, and ethnic classifications, McCain should take these factors into account when picking a VP – especially if he’s looking to win Wisconsin. The message from this campaign is that people are much more likely to vote for a candidate with their own ethnic background. Fair enough.

The Almanac mentions that Wisconsin is of 29.9% German ancestry, with the next highest being Polish at 6.5%. As a result, I fully expect this ticket come November:

I hate to beat a dead horse (see previous post), but come on, Wisconsin State Journal.

Here’s yesterday’s headline with regard to the State Supreme Court race:

Gableman Won’t Retract Letters

The dust-up is about a letter sent by Judge Mike Gableman that references a vote cast by Justice Louis Butler to free a convicted sex offender. Butler claims the charge is unfair, since the individual was never freed. Gableman counters that the fact the offender was never released had nothing to do with Butler’s vote – in fact, the sex offender was retained in spite of Butler’s vote, not because of it.

Either way, it’s pretty clear what the State Journal thinks about the dispute. Naturally, it’s incumbent on Gableman to “retract” the letters, since the paper likely thinks they’re so unfair. The presumption of wrongdoing is always with the conservative candidate, who then must “retract” whatever point they were trying to make. The headline could have easily been written thusly:

“Butler Defends Vote to Release Sex Offender”

Fat chance of that. Anyway, lest this become just another conservative sour-grapes screed about the “liberal media,” (too late, I know), there is a broader point to all this.

The State Journal has been breathlessly editorializing about how Wisconsin should do away with elected judges, and go to a “merit based” system, with judges being picked by some “impartial” board. (Perhaps as “impartial” as the State Bar.) They believe that the political process is clearly much too crude to pick “qualified” judges, despite not being able to offer a single example of how any sitting justice isn’t “qualified.” Say what you will about the jurisprudence of Louis Butler and Annette Ziegler, but they are both most certainly qualified to be on the high court.

The irony here is, when given a chance to actually cover a Supreme Court race, the State Journal does nothing but cover the most political of issues in the campaign. In a sense, they are themselves contributing to the disinformation that they so fervently decry. We can’t elect judges because they get such bad information during a campaign, but they get such bad information during a campaign because that’s all they’re willing to cover.

Where are the stories analyzing Mike Gableman’s philosophy as a judge? Where are the stories analyzing Louis Butler’s reasoning in lead paint lawsuits? It’s not like there’s not an extensive paper trail on both these guys that might serve as a blueprint for their future jurisprudence. Instead, it’s easier to sit back and wait for their press releases to hit your inbox.

In a sense, the State Journal is right – the public does get slanted, ill-informed facts during a judicial campaign. Only it’s not the candidates and interest groups that are spreading the misinformation.

This cold weather has been tough on all of us. But I just realized how hard the cold has been for those who don’t have a voice. The ones who cry in silence. Namely, the plants in my house.

My wife was going around watering the plants on Saturday. They’re all wilted and pathetic looking. I told her how cruel it was of her to just barely keep them alive throughout the winter. Basically, it’s akin to waterboarding them. My house is now officially the Abu Ghraib of spider plants:

Not surprising at all to see Barry Alvarez chicken out of a game with the all-powerful Virginia Tech Hokies. Too bad the Badgers aren’t man enough to play a perennial top-10 team. That late season game against a Division II team will be a big draw in December. Sadly, I won’t ever get my chance to wear my maroon and orange to Camp Randall.

FEAR THE HOKIES, SUCKA!

It wasn’t until Saturday that I realized there was a newspaper sitting in my driveway. This concerned me, since I do not subscribe to a newspaper. It turned out that it was Friday’s Wisconsin State Journal.

This has happened before – a paper just shows up in my driveway, unsolicited. I asked my wife how that is any different than littering. If I didn’t ask for it, how can paper companies just show up and throw stuff at my house? Maybe I should show up at the State Journal offices and dump off an old couch I’ve been trying to get rid of. My wife said it’s not any different than getting junk mail, but I objected to that comparison. For one, the postman doesn’t show up and throw your junk mail all over your front yard.

Anyway.

As I opened this interloping newspaper, I noticed a big headline on the front page:

“Gableman’s Appointment Questioned”

Wow, that must be pretty big news with a headline that prominent. I wonder what neutral, independent, well-respected third party is questioning Judge Mike Gableman’s appointment to the Burnett County Circuit Court?

In fairness, the article does point out that it is the “left-leaning” Greater Wisconsin Committee that has made this accusation. (To say the GWC “leans” liberal is like saying Richard Nixon “leans” dead.)

But the damage is done with the headline alone. The chances of this headline ending up in a television ad down the road now stands at 95 percent. The only thing that would prevent this headline from showing up on your TV screen at home would be if a picture surfaced of Gableman dressed in traditional Somali garb.

This is one of the reasons nobody should really be all that choked up about the Capital Times newspaper ostensibly going under. The only purpose that paper served was as a headline factory for left-wing campaigns. Of course, nobody in Milwaukee or Amery or Wausau knows what the Capital Times is, so when a clipping of one of their headlines showed up in a TV ad, people statewide falsely assumed it had a modicum of credibility. Wisconsinites may recall Governor Jim Doyle’s bogus ad accusing Mark Green of “corruption.” One of the headlines featured was one from the Capital Times that read “Mark Green’s Lawlessness.”

The true irony of the article lies with the Wisconsin State Journal’s breathless cheerleading for campaign finance reform. In editorial after editorial, the State Journal urges limits on what outside groups can spend on campaigns. Yet, the only thing that really makes this story newsworthy is the amount of money the GWC is spending on spreading it around. Thus, by reporting this story, the State Journal is carrying water for an evil third party, who it believes shouldn’t otherwise be able to speak during a campaign. If the Wisconsin Restaurant Workers Association were to issue a statement that accused Justice Louis Butler of being a bad tipper, it probably wouldn’t be covered. However, if they spent $200,000 on an ad buy saying the same thing, it may sneak its way into the paper. (It would also mean that we’re all probably tipping too much.) And thus, the cycle is complete.

So congratulations to the Greater Wisconsin Committee on this big victory. You paid a lot of money for that headline, make sure you enjoy it.

An evil corporate industry jacks its prices up – in some cases to four times their previous levels – to take advtange of a natural disaster/stretch of unforseen severe weather/attack on America and soak the people of Wisconsin.

Behold, the next enemy of the left…BIG SALT!!

Surely by Monday morning, Jim Doyle and Russ Decker will finally find something they can agree on and form a special committee to immediately investiagte price “gouging” by the evil purveyors of America’s most popular food seasoning.

Or maybe, just maybe, they will take a deep breath and dispaly a rudimentary understanding of the basic laws of supply and demand that every kid is taught (or at least used to be taught) in their high school economics class.

What? Stop laughing! It could happen. Maybe when hell freezes over, which given the surrent state of weather in Madison could happen some time next week.

**UPDATE** The morphing of BIG SALT into liberal menace #1 continues. Today, they are ruining the environment. How long before they’re blaming salt for so-called golobal warming?

This Winter’s Wisconsin Interest magazine has hit newsstands, and it contains some outstanding essays. To see them all, go here.

Or, you can read each of the essays separately via the links below:

A Conservative Campus Pushback? Don’t Look Now, But There are Conservatives on Those Campuses - Charles J. Sykes

Making Wisconsin the Health Care Migration Capital- Rick Esenberg

Milwaukee’s Children Deserve a Chance to Do Better- George Lightbourn

Wisconsin’s “Subprime” Budget Planning- Christian Schneider

Wisconsin’s Schools – Only Pretty Good- Sunny Schubert

Health Care Reform in Wisconsin: How We Got Here, What We Should or Shouldn’t Do - Leah Vukmir

Young Republicans: Are There Any Left?- Steven R. Pigeon

Potatoes Au Gratin:

What’s In It: Scalloped potatoes, cheese, cream and butter

Recommended By: Mayor Quimby (“Ah. Au gratin potatoes. That’s a quality side.”)

Potatoes O’Brien:

What’s In It: Cubed potatoes, onions, peppers and spices

Recommended By: Oreida

Potatoes O’Bama:

I implore you to immediately stop working (unless you happen to be performing head cancer surgery on someone) and check out “Stuff White People Like.” It is absolutely hysterical.

It is kind of hard to navigate around, so I’ll provide a handy list of links:

1-6 “Coffee,” “Farmers’ Markets”
7-16 “Having Black Friends,” “Wes Anderson Movies,” “Making you feel bad about not going outside,” “Non-profit organizations”
17-26 “Awareness,” “Microbreweries”
27-36 “Marathons,” “Not Having a TV,” “The Daily Show/Colbert Report”
37-46 “Netflix,” “Public Radio,” “The New York Times”
47-52 “Sarah Silverman,” “Irony,” “Living by water,” “Whole Foods”
53-61 “Apologies,” “Lawyers,” “Juno,” “Toyota Prius”
61-71 “Knowing what’s best for poor people,” “Expensive sandwiches,” “Recycling,” “Being the only white person around”

I almost coughed up a lung reading through that.

Now that the New York Times has supposedly uncovered John McCain’s declaration that he’s down with OPP, I have some thoughts:

In a subconscious way, I kind of saw this coming. In McCain’s Wisconsin victory speech Tuesday, he slid this line in near the end:

“I have been an imperfect servant of my country for many years.”

When he said that, my ears perked up a little. Generally, politicians don’t readily concede their faults unless they’re trying to beat someone else to it. So while he wasn’t specific about allegations that he was a “booty enthusiast,” it did seem like he was paving the way for something. I’m sure he knew this story was coming.

Of course, one of the rules of trying to look smart is to actually point this stuff out before it happens. Mental note for next time.

As everyone else seems to have pointed out, the evidence that McCain actually had an improper relationship with this other woman seems pretty thin. Now, if stories begin to leak that McCain also spent a lot of time with the lobbyist for Viagra, then the puzzle pieces may start to come together.

As for the Times story, it shows how desperate things are for the Gray Lady when they’re spooked into running a semi-story just because The New Republic was going to run with it first – and these are the two entities fingered for horrific plagiarism scandals; now it’s seemingly a race to see which one can examine their own rectums, head-first.

After hearing the news, I flipped to CNN, only to hear Bay Buchanan savaging McCain for being such an alleged dirtbag. Of course, she didn’t have any more information than the New York Times did – but had no problem ripping McCain a new one for not being “straight” with GOP primary voters (she had worked for the Romney campaign.) I honestly have no idea why any members of the Buchanan family are allowed on television. Plus, the sight of Bay Buchanan in high definition scared me to death. If you’re a wife trying to dissuade your husband from dropping $2K on a new HDTV, just use Bay Buchanan as an example. It should send him sprinting out of Best Buy.

I’ve heard some people speculate as to whether we’ll be hearing more from the mainstream media about Barack Obama’s Tony Rezko problem. I’ve been pretty consistent on this – I have a pretty high bar for proving “corruption” by elected officials. There are a lot of sleazeballs from both parties that contribute heavily to campaigns, which is their right. And certainly people have a right to criticize it if they don’t like it. But until that elected official takes some government action to pay back those favors, I think we have to hold our nose and take it. Unless, of course, the money sitting in their campaign account was raised illegally, as may be the case with Rezko. But Obama’s plans to socialize health care in the U.S. scare me enough – I still have an open mind on the “corruption” charges.

So, as it turns out, this presidential campaign will likely boil down to “cocaine vs. ho’s.” We should just elect Tony Montana and be done with it.

I’m getting sick, so I’ll just throw out a couple lazy and moderately considered thoughts about American Idol this year:

Most of the white girls are total junk. Especially that pasty Irish illegal immigrant. I might vote against John McCain if his plan gives her amnesty. And if the “Rock and Roll Nurse” were singing in my basement, I wouldn’t get off the couch to go see her.

It is impossible to watch a 2-hour Idol without TiVo. Paula Abdul should go to prison for stealing time from millions of peoples’ lives that they will never get back. In the time she wastes, the nation could be learning things like “how raising taxes on gas companies will make gas more expensive.” For example.

The guys weren’t much better, except for the dreadlocked Italian. The same week one Castro steps down, another steps up. He was pretty good.

Speaking of hair, this guy can dye it and style it any way he wants, but he can’t hide the fact that it is fleeing his cranium. And I thought PBS had exclusive rights to Big Bird – how did Fox pull that off?

I really like Asia’h, but I’m getting a little tired of her whole “my dad died two days before my audition” schtick. Every time she mentions it, she justifies her going on to the audition by saying that he would have wanted her to keep singing. I’m not really comfortable with people channeling the wishes of dead people, so let me make this abundantly clear – in the event of my untimely death, I want everyone I know to stop whatever the hell it is they’re doing for three straight days and mourn the hell out of my death. I don’t want anyone to do a damn thing. Now that you’ve read this, you have legally entered a binding agreement. Sorry.

I have to admit, I am sooooo jealous of Danny Noriega. I bet he gets all the chicks.

By the way, what are the the chances American Idol would have two contestants named Castro and Noriega? Somewhere in America, there’s some failed contestant named Pinochet who’s pretty pissed right now. In order to restore the balance of the universe, perhaps we need to support a murderous South American dictator named Chikeze.

Early favorites: Hippy Brooke, Syesha, and this guy. That Australian man candy will be out in the third round – bet on it.

While everyone still seems to be excited about a woman running for President of the US, an even more groundbreaking development has occurred in the world of Islamic terrorism – the terrorists have chosen Sharon Stone as their leader:

Extremist Islamic Terrorists Hail Their New Queen, Sharon Stone

After giving an anti-war interview to Middle Eastern newspaper Al Hayat, Sharon Stone is finally getting rave reviews. Sadly, they’re not from the trades; they’re from the terrorists. After visiting the region on a very Angelina Jolie-esque “fact-finding mission,” Stone told the paper she feels “great pain” thinking about the war in Iraq, prompting extremist leaders like Muhammed Abel Al to get downright gushy with praise: “This lady is smelling and seeing the dangers for the future of America.” It’s not quite the same as getting a plucky pullquote from Jeffrey Lyons, but it’ll do.

TERRORIST LEADERS APPLAUD SHARON STONE’S ANTI-WAR REMARKS