"You are a drama queen," said the cop to the man he'd just thrown to floor.

Or... what just happened here?



"Wisconsin Capitol Police have been arresting people in the Capitol for singing their grievances against the Scott Walker Administration without a permit for the last two weeks. [On August 5] during one of the multiple arrests, Officer Michael J. Syphard grabbed videographer Arthur Kohl-Riggs and threw him to the ground without any kind of warning or request to move."

What happened in that video?
	The cop justifiably moved an intrusive man aside and the man took a drama-queen dive.
	The cop brutalized a man who was exercising his rights as a citizen.
	The cop was abrupt and the man chose to go all the way down to express his objection to being moved.
	2 men with different agendas intersected in an unfortunate way, but neither did anything bad.
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Click the tag Arthur Kohl-Riggs to see his previous appearances on this blog. [ADDED: 2 videos from March 23, 2011 show Kohl-Riggs moving in on Meade at a protest. Kohl-Riggs's intrusive, get-in-your-face method can be seen in the first video, as he seems to be trying to scare Meade.]

Dressing like Abe Lincoln and kissing a baby — it's Scott Walker's challenger for the Republican slot in the recall election.

It's Arthur Kohl-Riggs, whom we encountered at yesterday's Tax Day rally:



You may recognize him from many of the videos Meade and I made during last year's protests, though I didn't identify him by name back then. Here are 2. Here's an article about how he got on the primary ballot and why he's doing it:

Arthur Kohl-Riggs, a scruffy-haired 23-year-old political activist who used to serve pizza at the Children’s Museum in Madison until a few weeks ago, says he is not a "fake Republican."...

He describes himself as a “progressive Republican,” following the political lines of former Wisconsin Sen. Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette and Abraham Lincoln....

And the reason Kohl-Riggs wants his name on the GOP ballot is because he wants to force Republicans to vote for Gov. Scott Walker in the primary instead of meddling in the Democratic primary, he said.

I find it hard to believe that Walker has to win a primary and become a party nominee. I would have thought he'd be on the recall election ballot as the incumbent. I can see in the state constitution (PDF) that the incumbent is "deemed to have filed for the recall election," and:

For any partisan office, a recall primary shall be held for each political party which is by law entitled to a separate ballot and from which more than one candidate competes for the party’s nomination in the recall election. The person receiving the highest number of votes in the recall primary for each political party shall be that party’s candidate in the recall election. Independent candidates and candidates representing political parties not entitled by law to a separate ballot shall be shown on the ballot for the recall election only.

Here's the relevant statute (PDF):

(e) For any partisan office, a recall primary shall be held for each political party which is entitled to a separate ballot under s. 5.62 (1) (b) or (2) and from which more than one candidate competes for the party’s nomination in the recall election. The primary ballot shall be prepared in accordance with s. 5.62, insofar as applicable. The person receiving the highest number of votes in the recall primary for each political party shall be that party’s candidate in the recall election. Independent candidates shall be shown on the ballot for the recall election only.

I think it's bizarre and maddening that the people of Wisconsin, having voted Walker into a 4-year term of office now must vote again, not just once, but twice. I understand the concern that Walker supporters might try to skew the Democratic primary — though it's not easy to see which way they'd want to skew it — but I think a lot of people are really sick of having to keep voting and revoting to keep what we've already voted for (and sick of having to pay for all of it).

The newest Wisconsin protest jackassery: a "flotilla" disrupts Tonette Walker's lakeside garden party.

Jessica Opoien reports:

After learning that Wisconsin's first lady Tonette Walker would host a garden party on Saturday, July 2, a group of nearly a dozen people formed a flotilla that set sail to the shore of Lake Mendota off the governor's Maple Bluff executive residence.

... The flotilla consisted of two kayaks, two canoes and a paddleboat.

"Saturday was kind of a test drive," [Arthur] Kohl-Riggs says. He has since created a Facebook event called "A Summer Full of #wiflotilla" to organize future lake shore protests. Flotilla protesters are also organizing with the Twitter hashtag #wiflotilla.

He would like to see a more consistent presence on Lake Mendota and is in the process of trying to schedule a weekly flotilla. He also hopes people will start flotilla protests in their hometowns throughout the state. Social media will play a significant role in organizing and publicizing the events.

Do you think social media might play a significant role in teaching the social graces? Why would you  harass a politician's wife in her backyard? And brag about it? And envision a burgeoning movement of like-minded louts... in boats?

You know we're always struggling with runoff into Lake Mendota. Must the politics drain into there too?

"Wisconsin has a lot of waterways," Kohl-Riggs says. "We're trying to let Walker and his administration know that there's an active resistance to him on every waterway in the state."

You know we have a big problem with invasive species in the Wisconsin rivers and lacks. Let's not introduce homo politicus.

IN THE COMMENTS: Robert G. said"

I was at my parents' house in Madison this weekend and got to witness this first hand! In fact, I also used the term "jackasses" in my tweet I posted at the time (http://goo.gl/aNfam). The article doesn't mention the first round when it was just one motorboat and they were using a loudspeaker to chant "recall Walker" and such. That lasted about an hour, then they left and about an hour later this goofy flotilla arrived. At one point one of the Governor's lakeside neighbors got in her canoe and joined the flotilla.

Wisconsin protesters branch out into picketing M&I Bank... and some of them seem suspicious of Meade.

Yesterday, while I was in class, around 4 p.m., Meade went down to the Capitol Square to see what was going on. The main thing was this picket circle in front of M&I Bank. The protesters have some theory justifying dragging the bank into the protests, but I don't think you can figure it out from the signs. They're using the same chants they used against the government, notably "This is what democracy looks like." Democracy against a bank? But they are so passionate. Especially that one guy.



But what's really interesting here is the attention some of them give Meade. Watch for the lawyer with the Walker-as-Marie-Antoinette sign. Remember him from the graffiti-on-the-Civil-War-monument video? Watch for him to step out of the line and talk to some other guy, who then takes a picture of Meade. And then there are those 2 other guys who are suddenly up in Meade's face, who follow Meade as he leaves to go into the Capitol. Are they going to intimidate Meade?

This is edited video, and I've left out what happens when they get into the rotunda. Standing in the center of the rotunda, the 3 men converse/argue about freedom of speech. I've uploaded the 14-minute video separately and unedited. If you have the patience to watch that, it's funny to some extent, particularly because the young men are so fervent about their cause that they can't hear how bad some of the things they say are. They persist for a while, but they can't shake Meade and they can't answer the questions he asks. In the end, they walk away. And there's Meade standing alone in the center of the rotunda.