Originally published at: 2026 Will See a Major Wisconsin Supreme Court Race. Yes, Another One - TPM – Talking Points Memo
When is Wisconsin not electing a Supreme Court justice?, weary voters may ask. The seemingly rapid-fire judicial elections have captured national attention since at least 2020, when liberal Jill Karofsky upset Trump-endorsed incumbent Dan Kelly and reduced the court’s conservative majority to a bare 4-3. Three years later, Janet Protasiewicz beat the returning Kelly again,…
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Wisconsin approved cat gif…
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To its credit, the cat is much more attractive, and interesting, with a cheese on its head than Elmo is.
I believe I would also find its thought more engaging.
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I’m so old, I can remember when Wisconsin was a progressive beacon and a hub of innovation in government and education. Sadly, the voters killed that when they decided to give Republicans a chance, for a change. Talk about your camel sticking its nose in the tent. Then entering and tearing the entire thing down.
These signs of hard-won progress should inspire the rest of the nation. Look forward to 2026 with hope and plans to resist and win.
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As if the insane tariff policies have not created sufficient uncertainty to depress US growth, there is a second ugly trend emerging. In plain vanilla autocracies like Russia and China, taking the fixed physical assets of foreign investors is quite straightforward. Russia, for example, took over car manufacturing plants, petrochemical plants, and other stranded businesses in the post-invasion period in 2022, leaving many investors to regret their failure to exit the market earlier. For the few that have not been taken over and still have a special relationship with the regime, the blowback in their home countries is quite intense. The overall result is that Russia has shifted to lower-quality substitutes, e.g. Indian or Chinese, where possible.
Globally, with the exceptions of Latin America and a few countries in Asia, the trend away from investment, especially “greenfield” investment in new facilities, has been down. Indeed, it appears that most of what Trump got for his tariffs were promises to invest at some point. Nobody showed up with the $22 trillion Trump said was incoming.
A case in point is the ongoing assaults on the wind industry. Rather than simply nationalize, the stranded assets go to rich friends. They can be American, Saudi or Emirati, or something else, as long as they invest Trumpishly. Marc Rowan, who interviewed for Bessent’s job (he still could get it), runs Apollo Global Capital. Shaken by the hanky-panky surrounding the $4 billion Revolution Wind Project off Rhode Island, Orsted today sold off a 50% stake in the Hornsea offshore wind project off the Yorkshire coast in the UK. Good for me, but not for thee.
While attacking renewable energy with one hand, the insatiable energy maw of AI is being fed by warping the playing field. It’s an interesting approach to taking over capital assets. Looking at Russia, however, it is clear that foreign investors tire of this game quite quickly. The reason they are there in the first place is because they have technological sophistication not found locally. Stealing stuff, unless you have a remarkable reverse engineering capability, is a fool’s game. Russia seized European assets under Putin’s 442 decree in 2024. Foreign direct investment (FDI) flowing into Russia today is essentially zero, even with the Chinese declaring their unending support. It is really hard to get people to take risks when it is apparent that larger hands are manipulating the game. The US has long consistently been the top global destination for FDI precisely because it avoided the mistakes of Putin and Xi, keeping grabbing hands at bay with legal systems that protect property of all market participants, not just friends of the autocrat.
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“Talk about your camel sticking its nose in the tent. Then entering and tearing the entire thing down.”
More like taking a dump!
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If Taylor wins the election, liberals will almost certainly hold the court until at least 2030.
By then, they can make a law that only liberals can serve on the court.
Liberalism – honest information, everyone votes, the majority rules.
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That ain’t “liberal.” Liberalism is the dare that, if everyone weighs in, the results will be relatively wise and smart. Yeah, it’s a real risk. They were aware of this back in 1789.
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The enshitification of knowledge and discourse for the masses by the insatiable internet has made anyone and everyone “wise and smart” about pretty much everything. The sheeple enslaved to the feed are easily manipulated and it all falls apart at the behest of the highest bidder. I remember Soglin getting high at Madison block parties, then the Reagan years darkened the skies, the R’s got redder and redder and the state was swamped. A couple of generations of MAGA are now the backbone of the R’s, both in WI and elsewhere, and they’re not really getting wiser or smarter at all.
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Political chaos, turmoil, and division is damned exhausting. But, that is the tactic of the far right: to tire their opponents, to create total cynicism and self-suppression of those who dissent.
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Wisconsin’s always been complicated to pigeonhole. All you say is true, but it’s also the home state of Senator Tailgunner Joe. But recent developments have been encouraging, to be sure.
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The courts are the way to claw back power from a corrupted GOP.
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Indeed. We’re peculiar like that. Knock wood, SCOWIS will also knock down Gov. Scott Walker’s signature anti-union law, 2010 Act 10, which reduced public employee unions to only being able to ask for token wage increases. It was all supposedly in the name of “lowering property taxes” and reducing government spending, but it was really about building his power base and stripping Dems of power and advantage.
My favorite from Melon Husk’s blatant bribery was a giant block of cheddar cheese that righteously crushed a Cybertruck. In fact, here it is!
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Don’t count Wisconsin out on this one. Really. Don’t.
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Damn, just damn
Tatiana Schlossberg, Daughter of Caroline Kennedy, Dies at 35
Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of the late President John F Kennedy, has died at 35
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Fuck cancer
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How sad. Sucks for young kids to lose their mom.
Daily, the obituaries disappoint.
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Caroline has lost too much in her life–her father, her uncle, her mother, her brother, and her daughter. And now, her father’s name is besmirched at the Kennedy Center.
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