March 26, 2011

David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg square off over judging (and running for judge) in Wisconsin.



We watched the whole debate last night, and those snippets give you the flavor of it. The ad Prosser asks Kloppenburg to ask her supporters to take down is the one we were discussing yesterday under the title "Mother Of All Negative Ads."

43 comments:

garage mahal said...

Prosser still hasn't told us what he objects to in the ad.

Chennaul said...

Well it's probably helpful to add this from Talking Points Memo itself:

*******

Meanwhile, the GWC ad is making quite an impact, as you'd probably expect. Already the group has been slammed by a victim of the priest Prosser is accused of protecting in the spot, who says that the ad is "offensive, inaccurate and out of context." In 2008, the victim was one of Prosser's critics. But now, with his case dragged into the latest battle between left and right in Wisconsin, he tells the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he'd just as soon keep the sex abuse stuff out of the labor war.

"I'm so sick and tired of dirty politics," he said.

*******

rhhardin said...

I wonder why seeing good in your opponent hasn't been tried as a strategy.

Then if you don't win, you still have a soul.

PaulV said...

Garage, do you support heaping more abuse on victims of sex crime? If so, why?

Carol_Herman said...

"Loophole Louie" Gableman was sent packing off the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Seems people in Wisconsin pay attention.

Kloppenberg, it seems to me, had to much Botox stuck into her face. So, now her face is as "flat" as Nancy Pelosi's. But then I'm negatively sensative to this Botox crap. It really doesn't make a woman look better. She's just trying to lie about the aging process. (But that's just me. After watching the embedded video.)

Hope David Prosser wins.

Did before. Do now.

Uncle Frank said...

Sorry, JoAnne, but you don't need to hear the arguments, read the briefs or know the facts to determine the standard of review. The standard of review is dictated by the procedural posture that brought the case to your court.

Any appellate judge who does that to determine the standard of review will decide the case based on which side he or she thinks should prevail.

Good luck, Wisconsin!

Anonymous said...

The open meeting law issue got my curiosity. Is there any history behind the use of the law that might be relevant?

I was reading up on a Kloppenburg case when I saw this. http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/29502329.html

"That action resulted in opponents of the restaurant filing an open meeting law complaint against the city" Who or why is not clear there.

Kloppenburg was also involved in this similar DNR case; but no mention of open meeting challenges there.

http://www3.jsonline.com/news/ozwash/jun03/150347.asp

""It's a terrible and tragic situation, a good example of government run amok," said Donald Murn, the Helnores' lawyer."

The history of fighting over the open meeting law gets interesting here.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/29278234.html

""What's wrong with that?" Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson asked.

"It's not government's business," Cieslewicz said.

"But what if the court says it is?" Abrahamson countered."

I wonder Abrahamson meant by that? Since, this was about developing a Walmart?

And application of the open meeting law gets even more interesting here.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/79572237.html

"students who filed the request, said they were pleased Van Hollen recognized "the need to bring sunshine" to student governments."

Is the open meeting law the go to partisan legal tool? Or just a good active law? It should be interesting to see what comes next.

Simon said...

I don't know how anyone can watch this mess and still support the election of judges. The states should move to the federal model of executive nomination and legislative confirmation.

The Crack Emcee said...

I think Kloppenberg's answer to Prosser, regarding the ad, was ruthless and wrong:

She didn't deny the ad was a lie or unfair - or that Prosser wasn't a man of his word when he said he would act in her favor if she were treated that way - but did say she'll allow the ad to run any.

That shows an extreme lack of integrity, and a brutal callousness, that is insufficient in someone seeking such an important position of trust. Prosser was practically begging her - for mere decency - and she cruelly revealed she has none. She doesn't deserve to be on the judicial bench, but to be benched from politics altogether - she clearly shouldn't be further rewarded, no matter what her abilities:

She was "nice" about it, but she's not a good person.

The Crack Emcee said...

Garage Mahal,

Prosser still hasn't told us what he objects to in the ad.

Why do you, too, insist on revealing yourself as not a good person as well? Why can't you see what he'd object to, yourself, and know to say "that's wrong"? Why are you not asking Kloppenberg, and whatever group made it, to take it down?

Why is decency someone else's job?

chickelit said...

Garage, do you support heaping more abuse on victims of sex crime? If so, why?

Garage, like Mr. Ut, doesn't give a flying fuck about those victims. They just want to see Kloppenburg win to undo Walker's legislation because they approve of legislating from the bench.

We can speak clearly without hiding behind peripheral issues.

chickelit said...

And garage, just to pre-empt your comeback of "show me what Kloppenburg has said about the issue" let me just add that it is your expectation that she will rule against it.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I thought libruls wanted to ban ads paid for by these special interest,shadowy groups .

Go Butler!

garage mahal said...

Garage, like Mr. Ut, doesn't give a flying fuck about those victims. They just want to see Kloppenburg win to undo Walker's legislation because they approve of legislating from the bench.

You may want to direct your ire at the Catholic Church, and the many that looked the other way after it happened so many times. Like Prosser.

chickelit said...

OMG Garage quit hiding behind a smoke screen. Did you even know or care about this issue last week?

Admit it: all you care about is that Kloppenburg wins-by whatever means necessary.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Remember when no one cared about who was judge? That changed, perhaps forever, when Ted Kennedy & Joe Biden savaged Judge Bork's nomination.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Progressives like garage mahal used to claim they believed that every one is entitled to due process, even child molestors and terrorists, but like everything else they claim to believe, it goes under the bus when elections are at stake.

Gabriel Hanna said...

In Washington State dozens of people had their lives ruined when they were prosecuted for belonging to a Satanic sex ring for no evidence, other than the word of the victims, existed.

The same thing happened all over the nation, notably in the McMartin preschool case.

When prosecutors do not have enough evidence, they have a duty not to prosecute. Even if the guy might be guilty. Even if the guy's victims are children who swear it really happened. I don't doubt that in this case it did, but in the US due process requires enough evidence to convince a jury there is no reasonable doubt.

If instead of a priest it was a black man accused of rape on a woman's word, and Prosser got him the chair, garage mahal and the other lefty trolls would have a totally diffeerent tune on this.

garage mahal said...

Chickelit
You are pretty hysterical tonight. So what in the ad are you objecting to again?

David said...

garage mahal said...
Chickelit
You are pretty hysterical tonight.


Good one, Garage. The old hysterical woman ploy.

foxtrot said...

garage mahal says:

"Prosser still hasn't told us what he objects to in the ad."

Ummm...well...that it was a tasteless attempt to make JoAnn plain and tall look like somebody. The left loves finding and exploiting victims to make its cause look good.

JoAnn is the perfect absent-minded light-weight thinker that the left can brainwash (and already has) into doing whatever it wants.

She is good for repeating the same talking points time and time again. She gave me no impression whatsoever of a substantive thought process.

chickelit said...

garage mahal said...
Chickelit
You are pretty hysterical tonight.


I'm glad you think I'm funny.

Chip S. said...

So, contrary to the impression given by Jeremi Suri and William Cronon, Wisconsin's lefties do in fact understand the true nature of McCarthyism quite well.

Anyone who reads the open letter published by the victim in the case under discussion will recognize that the Kloppenburg ad is the quintessence of McCarthyism. Relying on the general public's ignorance of the case, it stretches one fact and twists it into a pretzel of slander. It is disgusting, as is GM's attempt to channel Roy Cohn in this thread.

Simon said...

Gabriel Hanna said...
"When prosecutors do not have enough evidence, they have a duty not to prosecute. Even if the guy might be guilty. Even if the guy's victims are children who swear it really happened. I don't doubt that in this case it did, but in the US due process requires enough evidence to convince a jury there is no reasonable doubt."

That's an astute point, and it points to something that is often forgotten by critics of the way the sex abuse scandal has been handled by the Church and the authorities. We find it very difficult as a species to constrain ex ante evaluations of events to facts that were known at the time. As a result, the failure of the French to prevent the remilitarization of the Rhineland looks stupid—but it wasn't. It only looks stupid now because we know how it turned out; we have information that was not available to any actor at the time. Examples could be multiplied. And the same problem arises in the context of the abuse scandal. Prosser's failure to prosecute looks dumb now—but it wasn't judged by the information known at the time. No one knew in 1979 how widespread the problem was; nor did they know that this particular priest would continue being a problem. Nor had our understanding of child abuse yet matured; it was not something that was talked about or researched or understood, and to the extent it was, it was written off as something treatable. The upshot is that to blame the cops (or the priest's ordinary) for not acting with greater alacrity is revisionism.

To be sure, there are limits to that point; as the 1980s wore on, as we moved into the 1990s, the trickle of cases should have been enough to prompt more robust action. As more information came to light, more should have been done. The Church should have acted faster. But to fault them for not doing so is to make the same mistake! Our analysis today is infected with our knowledge of what was actually going on; separating that knowledge, and judging the conduct if victims and authorities secular and ecclesiastical on the basis of the information available to them is hard. Only as we move into the late 1990s and the last decade can we fairly say that the scale of the crisis was sufficient that reasonable people ought to have known. Prosser could be faulted if he had failed to prosecute in 1999—but not 1979.

Paco Wové said...

For what is a man profited, if he shall retain collective bargaining, and lose his own soul?

madAsHell said...

man.....the woman has a comb-over.

Why do people think that a comb-over will fool people. I don't trust people that are hair-centric.

Ya....Trump is a fucking moron.

Either you do the issues, or you do hair.

Unknown said...

I've seen the add a couple of times now. It looks like a real hail Mary play, just like Barrett did in the Governor's race saying Walker was against medical science (because we all know that embryonic stem cells are going to make Christopher Reeves walk again).

Liberals will simply stop at nothing. Its McCarthyism. No wonder the left hated McCarthy, he was acting like a lefty.

garage mahal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
garage mahal said...

I'm glad you think I'm funny.

Just really incoherent when it comes to Prosser/Kloppenberg. I find it also curious that you seem to feel if the conservative majority prevails in the WI Supreme Court that Walker's legislation is safe. Tainted and legally challenged as it is.

rcocean said...

Love the Democracy in action. Judges need to held accountable, good thing Wisconsin has these elections.

Anonymous said...

"I wonder why seeing good in your opponent hasn't been tried as a strategy. Then if you don't win, you still have a soul."

Yes, but you would have to assume they had a soul to start with.

They don't.

Anonymous said...

" ...do you support heaping more abuse on victims of sex crime?"

I know I don't and that's why Judge Prosser should be tossed out.

He heaped more abuse on innocent victims by allowing a raping priest to continue his crimes against society.

Prosecuting child rapists is NOT "heaping more abuse" on the victims. The victims are certainly to be pitied but not to the point where we allow the rapists to go free to rape more kids.

And it should be pointed out that at the time, both of those teenagers were perfectly willing to testify against the pedophile priest who had raped them, but Prosser wouldn't prosecute him. instead, Prosser put pressure on the parents to drop the matter to avoid undue scandal in the church.

He has no business in public office.

Run. Him. Out. On. A. Rail.

Anonymous said...

"Ut, doesn't give a flying fuck about those victims. They just want to see Kloppenburg win to undo Walker's legislation "

I support Walker's legislation. And I ant to see all public employee unions outlawed. It is a crime against humanity and unconstitutional that government officials have been in the past allowed to organize themselves into unions to vote themselves huge pay raises and unpayable pensions.

I support everything Walker has done so far and encourage him to even go further.

Having said that, Prosser should be run out of town on a fucking rail for his reprehensible lack of proper prosecutorial judgement.

He's a bad, bad person and a danger to society. He let a rapist go free to rape more kids.

We can't have men like that in our political party. Or in our courthouses judging others.

Fire him.

North Dallas Thirty said...

I support Walker's legislation. And I ant to see all public employee unions outlawed. It is a crime against humanity and unconstitutional that government officials have been in the past allowed to organize themselves into unions to vote themselves huge pay raises and unpayable pensions.


Liar. You support Kloppenberg and her lies, and you want this law repealed.

The really repulsive thing is that Kloppenberg supports and refuses to speak out against people who threaten to murder Republicans and their families and bomb public buildings. As a judge, she has proven that she will support murderers and vandals who kill innocent people over politics.

That shows what a repulsive woman she is. You blabber on and spread lies about Prosser while you support and endorse Kloppenberg, who endorses and supports criminal acts, violence, and murder by union thugs.

North Dallas Thirty said...

Ut, you claim to care about children.

Why do you support Kloppenberg, who advocates that children and their parents should be murdered for the crime of being Republicans or for being in a building when the bombs set by union thugs go off?

Amazing. You pretend you care about children, but you support their murder and you support candidates like Kloppenberg who use their position of power to protect murderers of children.

WineSlob said...

The Lefties Want to Elect
The Wicked Witch of the West
To the Wisconsin Supreme Court
So the Wench Can Contort
All the Laws to the Union's Behest

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Ut:

There was no evidence of any crime but the word of the victims.

As the McMartin Preschool case, the Wenatchee "sex ring", and all the other victims of the "convict first worry about the lack of evidence later" school should prove to any one reasonable, believing the children is not enough.

People like you had their way for twenty years and innocent people are STILL in prison because of it.

Anonymous said...

"There was no evidence of any crime but the word of the victims."

That is true in many types of cases. That's why we have trials. So juries can listen to the testimony and decide who is telling the truth.

But when prosecutors like Judge Prosser refuse to do their jobs ... our system of justice fails.

Once the pedophile priest that Prosser protected was actually put on trial by a different, better prosecutor ... he was easily found guilty on only the word of the victims.

So, saying that the only evidence was the testimony of the victim is hardly exculpatory.

Prosser was irresponsible. He met with the church officials - who agreed to remove the priest from the diocese and then pressured the mother to drop the case. (So, Prosser KNEW the pedophile priest was guilty and he could have used the church's willingness to remove him as evidence of his guilt).

Prosser in 1979 was doing what many prosecutors did at the time: trying to protect the church and its hierarchy instead of the innocent sexual abuse victims of that church.

Wisconsin voters have a right to this information and they should use it to decide whether someone who has such horrible prosecutorial judgment should be a sitting judge.

I think they should fire him and Republicans should think twice before running candidates who have this sort of prosecutorial misconduct in their past.

If Republicans would put up better candidates ... we wouldn't be here debating this.

The Republican Party is GOING to change. Or it's going to end.

Get it?

Anonymous said...

"Why do you support Kloppenberg."

I don't.

I think Judge Prosser should resign for the good of the party and allow a different Republican candidate to face Kloppenberg. Prosser is going to lose ... so his resigning would actually mean Republicans would have a better chance at the seat.

I would support any other reasonable Republican against Kloppenberg.

But not one who let a pedophile rapist go on to commit more rapes.

Anonymous said...

"Why do you support Kloppenberg?"

Remember Mark Foley? I wrote passionately that he should be removed from the Republican Party. The reason is that I found it difficult to believe that the Palm Beach Republican party couldn't find a Republican without Foley's clearly pedophilic background.

Remember Larry Craig? Again ... the mere fact that he was a Republican did not deter me from my opinion that he should have been removed from the Senate and prosecuted.

There are some bad apples in the Republican Party and we need to just dump those fuckers and find other candidates.

And we're going to do that.

We've also got some Republicans who are voting for NPR funding. And funding of gnat fart studies that keep the liberal colleges and university professors employed. And that keep the Smithsonian putting crosses in glasses of piss and calling it art.

Some Republicans keep voting to raise the debt ceiling when it's pretty clear that we can't borrow ourselves out of the economic mess Democrats created. Republicans need to be GUTTING the federal government ... not borrowing to keep it afloat.

We're going to get rid of those Republicans too ... just like we're going to get rid of Judge Prosser.

And when we're finished ... America will be a better place. It will be a place where you'll be proud to raise your children and you'll have a good job and a bright future.

People like Judge Prosser are not indispensable. If Kloppenberg wins, that will be unfortunate and we'll just have to work harder with better people next time.

Won't stop what's coming though.

chickelit said...

This thread smells like the anal products of Ut and I refuse to remain here any longer.

Anonymous said...

Just a few screen captures of JoAnne Kloppenburg appearng at the debate:

1 - http://oi54.tinypic.com/344s9yq.jpg
2 - http://oi52.tinypic.com/2z8dtac.jpg
3 - http://oi53.tinypic.com/16ln12a.jpg
4 - http://oi53.tinypic.com/16b0igy.jpg
5 - http://oi51.tinypic.com/2i9towh.jpg

.

I'm Full of Soup said...

For me there is one thing I find hard to believe about the church sex abuse cases. That is:

If there were so so many of these cases, why were there almost no revenge-fueled murders of the deviate priests by a victim's father or relatives? So I really have doubts the number of cases is as high as it is claimed.