Journalism Question Looms Large At Washington Post Over Years Of Failure In Not Reporting Justice Samuel Alito’s Upside-Down Flag Story

A news story erupted Saturday catching me off-guard and James too, as I shouted the lead paragraph to him while sitting in my office. Last week, many of us learned from The New York Times that an upside-down American flag had been temporarily raised over the Samuel Alito household in the days after January 6, 2021.  For those of us who come from homes where respect for the flag is almost hereditary and as adults, we follow the traditions of flag flying from our parents and grandparents, the news story was troubling.  Especially since the person at the heart of the story was a sitting justice on the United States Supreme Court. During the following days, the news about the flag was made into pointed, and correctly so, editorial cartoons blasting his lack of patriotism and making it clear that blaming one’s wife, as Alito did, was slimy.

Justice Sam Alito tried to claim in his awkward attempt at rationalization that the whole matter was simply a response to a dispute with neighbors.  How demeaning oneself and looking like a complete idiot across the entire nation ‘showed the neighbor’ is not something I have yet been able to compute.  But then I do not live in a conspiracy bubble of insanity. I was opposed to the insurrection by the angry white mob who stormed the Capitol on January 6^th, 2021.

With that as a backdrop comes the news report on Saturday that the Washington Post did not learn about the flag on May 16 from that Times report.  Rather the newsroom knew of the shameful Alito story since the day it happened. Like anyone who wishes to drop an embarrassment and have some cover, the Post dropped the news in the middle of this Memorial Day weekend.  More than a week after the Times’s report.

I want you to know that I feel compelled to set my own record in clear view and be upfront before continuing this article. For the record, this home has subscribed to the digital edition of the Washington Post since the campaign season in 2016. We feel it is important to support newspapers, (Wisconsin State Journal, New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times) but also strongly feel that having updated news along with views and perspectives about this perilous time where autocrats and fascists are posing direct threats to our democracy. Being solid news consumers is something every citizen needs to undertake. Being informed of facts is essential in any age, but more so now than ever. I do not shy away from standing alongside sound journalistic standards or the straight talk required when those standards are not upheld. Just because I have a subscription to a newspaper and respect the overall product published each day does not mean I will be quiet when their newsroom fails to meet the required standards. Being a subscriber seems to make it incumbent that I speak out. Let me then be blunt. I am simply aghast that the Washington Post scuttled this story about Alito for years.

On Jan. 20, 2021 — the day of Biden’s inauguration, which the Alitos did not attend — Barnes went to their home to follow up on the tip about the flag. He encountered the couple coming out of the house. Martha-Ann Alito was visibly upset by his presence, demanding that he “get off my property.”

As he described the information he was seeking, she yelled, “It’s an international signal of distress!”

Alito intervened and directed his wife into a car parked in their driveway, where they had been headed on their way out of the neighborhood. The justice denied the flag was hung upside down as a political protest, saying it stemmed from a neighborhood dispute and indicating that his wife had raised it.

Martha-Ann Alito then got out of the car and shouted in apparent reference to the neighbors: “Ask them what they did!” She said yard signs about the couple had been placed in the neighborhood. After getting back in the car, she exited again and then brought out from their residence a novelty flag, the type that would typically decorate a garden. She hoisted it up the flagpole. “There! Is that better?” she yelled.

I cannot afford the Post any praise for reporting their account of the story this weekend. Yes, there was that first-hand account of confronting the Alito family at their home, and it underscores (again) the white and angry mentality that is so ripe among their kind. “Feel our pain’ from the resentment-prone and heavily weighted grievance crowd makes the rest of us want to vomit.  But so does the lean and half-hearted and surely hours-long struggle of how to explain the paper’s lack of reporting this story in a timely fashion. What resulted felt like an iron-deficient hospital patient needing another blood transfusion.

The Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors, a Post spokeswoman said. It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics, the spokeswoman said.

“At the time” they decided “not to report” the Alito story. But what about during the many months of court chaos that unfolded where the very fabric of objectivity had been torn asunder with bribes provided to Clarence Thomas for luxury travels and his wife was reported to be neck deep in far right-wing activism and outright lunacy? And of course, Alito himself was in the muck, too. I am sure he undertakes Catholic finger play before dinner but that does not give him license for what was at the heart of a New York Times story. They reported a conservative activist knew the ruling in 2014’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby after donors of the right-winger had dinner with the justice.  Alito surely needed a confessional session by then, and yet in recalling that story during the past three years, the Post saw no need to report the flag events of 2021 to their readers. They could not see the long chain of events and draw any conclusions?

The integrity of the Supreme Court is a major story that plays out almost weekly with news articles and court cases that strike at the very heart of our conscience as a democracy. Yes, the Post sat on the flag story.  A story that showcases the weak foundation of a fragile white conservative male justice who willingly tossed his country and his wife off the flagpole at his home.

The Post had the PRIME moment to report the flag story when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision barring Trump from that state’s primary ballot.  The Court stated Colorado couldn’t make the decision, but also shockingly set forth additional rules for how Section 3 can be applied….and equally important not applied. But hear me now, the ruling was a bare five-justice majority that issued that harmful decision for our democracy. Oh….yes…let us not forget……Justice Alito provided that powerful essential fifth vote that cratered the Fourteenth Amendment’s bar to insurrectionists’ holding office.

The Washington Post has a great deal to explain.  Not only to loyal newspaper subscribers who rely on information but also to a nation that faces a severe test about the very foundations of this nation.

The Other Lesson To Learn From Andrew Hitt

Michael Corleone is one of my favorite film characters. His storyline in The Godfather motion pictures is gripping, and demanding our attention. What always strikes me in the first film is the clear path he had set for his life.  He was enrolled in college as WWII broke out and quickly signed up for military duty.  When returning home from overseas he still wants to live a life outside of the ‘family business’.  There was a clear choice before him, but as we know Mario Puzo wrote the story which takes Michael down the wrong path in life.  I thought of this famed character while I watched 60 Minutes Sunday night as the fake elector story in the Badger State following the 2020 presidential election was told through the eyes of Andrew Hitt, the former chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. If people could only rewrite their personal script of life, how fewer messy headlines there would be.

The absolute absurdity by the Trump base from the Oval Office to the preposterous lawyers who made outrageous claims on the sidewalks outside a courthouse but never dared to recite the lines in front of a judge, to the various states involved with concocting ludicrous schemes at overturning the results of the 2020 balloting that elected Democratic nominee Joe Biden to the White House has been reported and dissected from every possible perspective. No matter how that slice of history is reviewed the devious acts, insurrection, seditious activity, and unconstitutional behavior are vile and loathsome. No one can say there was not a serious and willful strike upon our democracy, or question why going forward all need to be mindful of what can happen, even in the United States.

There will be national and state columns written about the CBS program and lessons we should draw about our political culture and the depths that tribal politics takes some party followers. There might even be a few reporters who will try again to have Senator Ron Johnson add a dose of honesty about his role with Wisconsin’s fake elector’s paperwork after it arrived in Washington. There is plenty of fodder for the political writers this week. But, as for me, I want to tack in a different direction. After all, before we get to the political chicanery and illegal behavior there is a question begging to be addressed about the character of the people who somehow found themselves willing to do literally anything for Donald Trump.

As I write this evening my thoughts include a young boy I came to know in the Big Brothers program. It was at the UW-Madison Arboretum where he stood and looked up high into the branches that towered over his head. Kids often ask the most impossible questions, and he was no different than his peers. He wondered how many kids his size it would take to get to the very top of the tree he stood under. While math is never my friend, his question I recall, opened up an opportunity to impart a bit of wisdom that the program was designed to provide. I told him there was a way to approximate how far the roots of the tree extended away from the trunk and that while trees must have strong healthy roots, so do people. Our roots are called character and the way we act both in public and in private matters. We sat for a bit under that tall tree and talked about several things until his energy level demanded we strike out for a new sight to see.

Moral values are not only for kids to learn but they must be employed throughout life. As I listened to Hitt being interviewed by Anderson Cooper it would have been easy to become angry over the absurdity of what people in the Trump orbit actually fell for, even though they were educated and likely good people in their local communities. What I found enveloping me, however, as I concluded the 60 Minutes segment was just sadness. Hitt had lost his compass heading at some point and drifted so he was no longer even able to publically declare his educated decision about an election that was not stolen, if we are to believe his words, due to fears for his family and his own life should the angry Trump base deem him somehow responsible for a final outcome they may find objectionable.

Somewhere in my past, probably when I was about the age of that young boy looking up into the tall tree at the Arboretum, my grandmother first said to me, ‘Walk with wise people and you will be wise, too’. Those were words she also wrote to me in a card at the time of my high school graduation. The words proved true. The reverse of that line is also true. That is the other lesson we learned Sunday night from Andrew Hitt on 60 Minutes.

Forcing Election Deniers To Face Reality, Journalism’s Role On Behalf Of Democracy

If it’s Sunday, as the saying goes, it’s Meet The Press. It is also This Week and Face The Nation. Three solid choices for newsmaker interviews and analysis of events shaping our world and nation. Over my lifetime I can recall many a weekend where the shows were somewhat sleepy affairs, but over the recent years, oh, how things have changed. Chaos and utter moronic words and actions from the Donald Trump White House, the attempted coup against the voters on January 6^th, the 91 felony charges against a former holder of the Oval Office, the nearly complete dysfunction in the GOP House, and two wars raging in the world that demand American resolve.  In other words, plenty of reasons to tune in and pour cups of coffee as Sunday morning gets underway.

One interview stood out this past weekend as George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week asked a very easy-to-answer question about the final resolution of the 2020 election. Congressman Steve Scalise, however, simply could not break himself from the half-baked base of his discredited political party and answer it. If you ask how broken is the GOP, here is an answer with more proof as seen on national television. It was simply absurd.

This week one of your former — colleagues, Congressman Ken Buck, a Republican of Colorado, said he was leaving, retiring from Congress. And here’s what he said on his way out.

REP. KEN BUCK (R-CO): Our nation is on a collision course with reality. And a steadfast commitment to truth, even uncomfortable truths, is the only way forward. Too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: He said that you’re one of those leaders who has been unequivocal in saying it was a clean election, that Joe Biden did not steal the election.

Your response?

SCALISE: Well, Ken, I’ve worked with, on a number of issues, including getting spending under control, getting our economy back on track. He’s talked about that 2020 election as well. You and I have, I think, have talked about that too. At the end of the day, getting our country back on track is our focus…………

STEPHANOPOULOS: Can you say unequivocally the 2020 election was not stolen?

SCALISE: What I’ve told you, there are states that didn’t follow their laws. That is what the state constitution – the U.S. Constitution requires. You know, I’ve seen in my own state where we had to send our elections commissioner to jail years ago for fraud and corruption. And we cleaned up our act in our state. Every state ought to follow the laws that are on their books. That’s what the U.S. Constitution says.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s not what I asked. I said, can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?

SCALISE: Look, Joe Biden’s president. I know you and others want to talk about 2020. We’re focused on the future. We’ve talked about 2020 a lot………

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman, I know that Joe Biden is president. I’m asking you a different question. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?

SCALISE: What I’ve told you, and you’ve — you’ve seen this — there are states that didn’t follow the laws that are on their books, which is what the U.S. Constitution says they have to do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you — so you just refuse to say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?

SCALISE: So, you want to keep rehashing 2020. We’re talking about the future of (INAUDIBLE) threats this country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?

SCALISE: We’ve asked – look, we’ve talked about this before. But, again, will you acknowledge that there were states that didn’t follow the actual state legislative enacted laws on their book, which the U.S. Constitution says they’re supposed to do? Do you know that?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I know that every single – I know that every court that looked at whether the election was stolen said it wasn’t, rejected those claims. And I asked you a very, very simple question. Now I’ve asked it, I think, the fifth time that you can’t appear to answer. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?

SCALISE: I told you – I told you there were a handful – there were a handful of – there were a handful of states that didn’t follow their laws. The rest did. The rest followed. And, again, states that Trump won, States that Biden won that did follow their laws, there were a handful of states that didn’t follow the laws that were on the books. They went to secretaries of state to change the rules of the game and then the voters didn’t know what the rules were because ultimately the state laws weren’t followed in those states. That’s not what the U.S. Constitution says. At some point, we should go back to following the Constitution, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The courts have all followed the Constitution. They all rejected the claims you just made. And I just want to say, again, for the record, you cannot say — you cannot say that the 2020 election was not stolen?

SCALISE: Or they said there was no standard. They’re – some of them they didn’t reject some of those (INAUDIBLE) standing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes or no, was the 2020 election stolen?

SCALISE: What I’ve told you is Joe Biden’s the president of the United States…..

Election deniers play to the under-educated part of the Republican Party. We have witnessed what happens when elected party members, who play such dangerous partisan games, pretend they are not aware of the facts, and push lies to further bind the base to them.  Such reckless disregard for democratic norms has turned much of the conservative base of the GOP into doubting the rationale for the grand jury system, the Justice Department, the credibility of the FBI, and a bevy of other institutions and norms in our society. So, it is incumbent on the ones who are tethered to facts and a strong sense of the underpinnings of our democracy to press down and not relent, as in the case of a journalist not giving an inch with Scalise.

It was most evident that Scalise was trying to squirm his way out of addressing the direct question, as he knew the truth that President Biden did win a fair and free election in 2020. (His squirming and trying to add other topics was painful to watch, and as it did not address the directly posed question is not included in the above transcript.) It was also most apparent, that Stephanopoulos was never going to move on to another topic until Scalise answered the unambiguous question, which proved sadly impossible for the shameless congressman.

Reporters and journalists nationwide have a duty to hold true to our democratic foundations and ideas. Not relenting on a fundamental question as to the 2020 election not having been stolen goes to the very essence of who we are as a nation. If officeholders can not and will not lift themselves up to the level of honesty and credibility demanded of those who sit in power, then reporters have a professional duty to show the nation the partisan absurdity.

I grew up (starting at age 12 when we had a television in our home) with Walter Cronkite. He not only had the voice and demeanor of a newsman but also, as I was to discover over the years as I read books about him, and explored the nature of news in our country, that he spoke a fundamental truth.

Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.

George Stephanopoulos was doing the very work that Cronkite championed. America says thanks. Even though the result from the Republican election denier was painful to watch.

Informed Citizenry Vital To Democracy: Fox News Lied About Voter Fraud Rupert Murdoch Says Under Oath

Sean Hannity and the loser of the 2020 presidential election

This weekend President Joe Biden was interviewed by ABC News and a large portion of it aired on This Week Sunday morning.   While there was much interest in international affairs the part that struck me was the comments made about news coverage in the United States.  It is, after all, a topic that resonates at this desk as democracy and the dangers it faces have become a focal point since the summer of 2015. The continued repetition of lies from one television network and the lack of a fully factual accounting of national and world events is of great concern to those who hold tight to the ideals of liberal democracy.

“Everything is in the negative. We’re also finding out now that one of the outlets has decided that they would put things on that they know to be false in order to increase their ratings”, the president said. He is correct, as court documents prove.

I had, over the years, and thankfully so, several truly wonderful history teachers. They loved and understood the topics at hand; never the part-time football coach who needed more of an income so offered to teach what was not remotely understood in the textbook. My favorite and most consequential teacher was Marge Glad who left Europe in WWII and brought a worldview that resonated with me year after year.  I took every elective of hers I could fit into my schedule.

It was her repeated themes that were imprinted upon me about history, politics, and world matters that started me on a lifelong quest to know more.  She so admired Thomas Jefferson and spent one entire class lecturing about how his style of writing was to match the needs of the time with his intended audience. Both in the Founding Father family, more importantly to the colonies at large.  So, she would know the power of his meaning in relation to the threat to democracy from a segment of the populace that is adrift from facts about news events.

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” Being well-informed is a vital component of a strong functioning democracy.  Or republic. But being misinformed for purely partisan reasons would be a complete repudiation of what Jefferson and his colleagues desired for this nation.

This memory of a grand educator–and why facts matter–came to mind as the news was reported Monday that Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the election in 2020 was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

“They endorsed,” Mr. Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems said.  

Mr. Murdoch’s remarks, which he made last month as part of the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox by Dominion, added to the evidence that Dominion has accumulated in an attempt to prove its central allegation: The people running the country’s most popular news network knew Trump’s claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election were false but broadcast them anyway.

Where conservatives lose further credibility can be proven by their close attachment to Trump, the one they were supposed to be covering with objective distance. I am old enough to recall the resentment registered by conservatives in the years following the Kennedy administration where it was stated reporters were chummy with JFK insiders, where even one reporter (Hugh Sidey) was able to swim in the White House pool with the president. Swim trunks, or no? But when it came to Fox News and Donald Trump all those journalistic ponderings about objectivity from right-wingers were tossed aside like a second marriage.

Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary to Donald Trump, remembers the challenges that came from so many Fox News hosts having the direct number to reach Trump in the White House residence.

“There were times the president would come down the next morning and say, ‘Well, Sean thinks we should do this,’ or, ‘Judge Jeanine thinks we should do this,’ ” said Grisham, referring to Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro, both of whom host prime-time Fox News shows.

Grisham said West Wing staffers would simply roll their eyes in frustration as they scrambled to respond to the influence of the network’s hosts, who weighed in on everything from personnel to messaging strategy.

Lies spread by Fox News could constitute each day of blogging if one were so inclined. A separate and lengthy post could be written about Fox News employees being vaccinated even though the fact-free on-air hosts continued to deny science and professional medically-driven data to their viewers. Why report on science when the base of nitwit viewers could be drooling over anti-vaccine Senator Ron Johnson, someone very chromosome-counting close to being an ear of corn?

Consider the following from our history, and frame it within the context of white men now slumped back into the sofa watching a continuous conservative loop of misinformation on Fox News. When did they last read a daily newspaper to be actually informed on the news of the day?

In 1791, Madison remarked that Congress had an obligation to improve the “circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people”. He helped champion the Post Office Act of 1792. The act included a provision for the delivery of newspapers by the Post Office at extremely low rates for delivery of newspapers. For the century following the passage of the Post Office Act, newspapers often accounted for more than 95% of the weight of mail transported by the post office, but never made up for more than 15% of the revenue. The result of this large indirect subsidy of the fledgling industry was enormous. In 1790, before the passage of the act there was less than one newspaper produced for every 5 citizens. By 1840 there were almost three papers printed per person.

Too many Americans in the 21st century gave up reading a newspaper and slipped further into intellectual decay by believing Fox is a newsgathering operation. It is not. Real reporters and journalists have been replaced by echo chambers of far-right lingo that further prove Fox is not in any way a legitimate news-gathering and reporting operation.

Rupert Murdock confirmed that fact under oath.

A fact that has been dangerous to our democracy.

Wisconsin Man Continues To Cultivate Anger Over Trump Loss in 2020 Election

Four words stuck out of the news story about Harry Wait, the Racine, Wisconsin man who seems desirous of not moving past the 2020 presidential election.  The words used by Patrick Marley for the Washington Post this weekend to describe why some people are simply not able to accept the election outcome is due to the ‘the strategy of cultivating anger’.

By now most are aware of what Wait did in the summer of 2022 that garnered attention, both in the headlines and the courts.

“Wait discovered that a state website would allow him to request someone else’s absentee ballot and have it sent to any address. Election officials, who designed the site to make it easy for out-of-town voters to obtain ballots, have maintained that the site does nothing to diminish election integrity, saying anyone who attempted voter fraud would be quickly caught.

But Wait saw the potential for something nefarious and set out to prove a point. He ordered ballots under the names of two officials with whom he has long clashed — one Republican, one Democrat — and asked that the ballots be delivered to his address.“

The point of this post is not to give oxygen to conspiracy theories about supposedly fraudulent elections, as we are well aware that if such chicanery as Wait undertook were to take place anywhere from Ashland to Lake Geneva election officials would become aware of it, and take the appropriate actions to correct the problem.  Rather, what I again pondered while reading the news story is the length and breadth that election deniers will go to continue their quest for something that never can be attained.  It would be as impossible to fall off the side of the earth when traveling to Australia in a ship as for Wait to find the election fraud that he and his fellow conspiracists seek.

While Wait uses his time and resources on such fallacies it needs to be understood that others who want to believe Trump was foiled in his pursuit of another term by rampant election fraud, follow such personalities and buy into every word that is uttered.  The damage this does to our political institutions and the foundations of our democracy is real.

When I come across someone who tries to scam me over the internet via email I often think about what meaningful project might be attained if that person applied themself with something that was logical and above board.  While there are many like Wait who seem at some level to care about the nation, would it not make more sense to foster a commitment to some goal that would actually be able to show a benefit and garner public applause, rather than continual and justified rebukes.

It can be noted too often among a segment of Donald Trump’s base that resentment and anger are driving forces regarding a variety of issues. The election victory of Joe Biden has allowed for some to disregard all the guardrails of common sense and reason. With their ‘strategy of cultivating anger’, the same ingredients used by Trump and his inner circle after the 2020 election which started this absurdity, the cycle of ungrounded accusations has taken on a life of its own. 

Speaker Robin Vos Should Want To Do As He Stated, “Guarantee Public Faith In Elections”, Could Be a Win-Win

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos was most willing to appropriate more than a million dollars to a former Supreme Court justice so to ferret out alleged nefarious and illegal voting behavior following the defeat of Donald Trump in the state’s 2020 presidential election. Rather than admitting the Republican Party had a seriously flawed candidate, Vos stood by as Michael Gableman threatened to jail the mayors of major Wisconsin cities such as Madison, Green Bay, and Racine if they didn’t comply with subpoenas to sit for private interviews as part of the investigation. Following the August endorsement of Vos’s primary opponent by Gableman, the Speaker terminated the contract to further spend taxpayer’s dollars on an investigation that had no serious purpose.

What was widely reported in the state, and in national political columns was that this summer while the investigation was underway Vos stated he had taken a phone call from Donald Trump, who told the Speaker of his desire to see the results of the 2020 balloting overturned.  It comes as no surprise that the January 6th committee follows such developments as that phone conversation, and is attuned to the developments which are aimed at undermining our democratic institutions and eroding the faith of the citizenry in our electoral process.  Therefore, the committee is, of course, mighty interested in Vos’ testimony and information he can add to the larger understanding of a seditious conspiracy plotted by Donald Trump, and aided by a number of close aids and confidants.

After the anticipated legal protection that Vos grabbed for after the panel handed him a subpoena, the panel canceled Monday’s deposition deadline, but noted their desire to have his compliance and know the matter is pending upon the ruling from a judge.  This reluctance from Vos, however, to honestly testifying is troubling for two reasons.

First, the desire of the Committee is straightforward. They simply requested in their subpoena for Vos to give a deposition about his call with Trump and the surrounding circumstances. The fact is our democracy came under violent attack on Jan. 6th. Many attempts at undoing the election outcome, though impossible to achieve, have been made in the months following as Trump furthers an absurd theory in several states.  Wisconsin was one of those playgrounds which have used tax dollars, and as such, there is a need to know what pressures were placed on the Speaker by Trump to thwart the will of the voters.

Secondly, if Vos is true to his words and intentions then he would very much desire a full accounting of what occurred with the Trump phone call.  During the period following the 2020 election, he stated Wisconsin needs to “look forward” to guarantee public faith in elections. He said he believes “half of the state or more,” thinks there were “serious problems with the way the election was conducted”.  I can state that equal numbers of our fellow Wisconsinites are much concerned about the shape of our democracy and worry about the fate of our political and electoral processes.

As such, Vos would well serve our state by being forthcoming to the Jan. 6th Committee about his stated desire of securing the public faith in our elections….while at the same time giving a boost to our overall democracy. It could be a win-win.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos Should Remove Janel Brandtjen As Chair Of Elections Committee

Parents know how often small children will do just about anything to get attention. The whole nation was reminded of those types of antics when the Stuart skit on Saturday Night Live would make us laugh with “look what I can do’. Now that same type of behavior is being exhibited by a member of the Republican Assembly caucus.

Representative Janel Brandtjen, the chair of the Wisconsin Assembly’s elections committee, has called for invalidating President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the state.

While the display is laughable, it is not charming like the performances of the little rascals at home aiming for the limelight with their parents. In fact, it is just sad, dangerous to the nation, and another reminder of how removed from reason and logic a portion of the unhinged element of the Republican Party strives to remain.

Readers do not require my writing this sentence to know that constitutional scholars from across the state and nation, along with even the conservative Republican legislative leaders in Madison have called such outbursts legally impossible. Most Wisconsinites would label Brandtjen’s desire as patently absurd.

I realize that Brandtjen was very busy ginning up this headline-making idea and so did not have the time to review the facts about a number of recounts, along with a slew of court rulings that upheld the victory Biden scored in the state.  Even a legislative audit from the very statehouse where she works showed there was no widespread fraud in the voting outcome.  On top of that, even the outcome by a very conservative group demonstrated there was no out-of-control fraud taking place in Wisconsin.

While I do not carry a stick so to poke at the bears at the zoo, I have to admit it would be more than amusing to allow Brandtjen sixty seconds of uninterrupted time on a newscast so she could explain why she thought decertification was possible.  Since Wisconsin is known as a state that loves alcohol, perhaps a drinking game could be arranged for every ahhh…and umm…as she seeks a way to round the square. Folks living above Highway 29 might even wish to play the video a second time.

I have faulted Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for his desire to play too close to the fire when it comes to the ludicrous base of his party as it relates to the Big Lie.  Prolonging the oxygen in the state for the conspiracy crowd and the danger that this creates for the foundation of our democracy is not something any rational leader should court.

If Vos was seeking what was best for the state and country he would remove, at once, Janel Brandtjen as the chair of the Elections Committee. She has proven to be at odds with facts, and logic, and as such should not remain in such a pivotal place. The seriousness and credibility that comes with being a committee chair are diminished when the actions of Brandtjen are allowed to stand. What she has done casts a shadow on the entire Republican caucus. And the state.

Such a move would show Vos had the leadership skills to speak and act for the higher interest of Wisconsin. Even though it would roil the waters for the conspiracy-prone, the mature members of the state GOP would be assured that a reasoned person was at the helm. Acting impotently, however, will only feed the ongoing narrative that the GOP is an out-of-control clown car.

It is no wonder why many deride the far-right wing of the Republican Party. It is no mystery why conservatives are the butt of jokes for late-night talk show monologues. What the GOP requires are elected officials who will step up and clearly demonstrate a willingness to align with sanity.

Cue Speaker Vos to look into the camera with the red light on and start speaking.

Now that would be a headline in the Milwaukee Journal the state would applaud.

What Might Founding Fathers Say About Trump’s Seditious Conspiracy?

Those who lived in the 1970s surely felt that Watergate was the granddaddy of all political scandals. After all, a vast array of illegal activity that led back to the White House and into the Oval Office resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Many people after following the 2-plus years of news reporting and committee hearings about Watergate understandably felt there was no way a more sinister and underhanded person could be president.

Over the past week, large segments of the nation have been watching the January 6th House Committee hearings. What we are witnessing being fleshed out with testimony and facts is nothing short of stunning. After all that we have endured over the past six years, it might seem impossible to be confronted with anything that sets one further back on their heels. Even though the framework of illegal and unconstitutional actions by Donald Trump and those around him has long been known, having a congressional committee detail the actions was still very hard to stomach.

The nation is learning about the insidious and seemingly ever-sprawling plot to commit a seditious conspiracy against the United States. A duly elected president was to be tossed aside like a burger wrapper and Trump was to be installed as an illegal one. James Patterson could not plot a more devastating drama.

But what struck me to my core was learning Trump was so desperate to retain power and authority that he stated Vice President Mike Pence deserved to be murdered by the bloodthirsty mob at our nation’s Capitol. The reason Trump felt that way, of course, was that Pence refused to go along with sedition.

There is no doubt when it comes to political chicanery and illegal activities Nixon was a mere piker compared to the outlandish and outrageous actions plotted and undertaken by Trump. It seems almost unfair to place Nixon and Trump into the same editorial cartoons, such as those now being published as we near the 50th anniversary of the famed break-in.

From the night of the November 2020 election, Trump knew that his hold on power was ebbing away, and when the final count from several states, including Wisconsin, was reported no question remained he had lost his bid for reelection.

But rather than accept the election returns from the balloting by his fellow citizens he instead chose to become the first president in the history of our country to dishonor the peaceful transfer of power.

I want to stay on that point for a minute. I wonder what the Founding Fathers would say if they could be made aware of these events and able to be interviewed?

What might President George Washington, a former general who relinquished his military command, and stepped away from an office he was twice elected to so a civilian could take the reins of power have to say? What might James Madison, who history calls the Father of the Constitution, have to say about the blatant power grab and attempted usurpation of what we know as Madisonian democracy?

Ben Franklin, a journalist and newspaper owner, would surely have another line of inquiry.

On the day of a Jan. 6th committee hearing, with much of the nation following events, Fox News spent 45 minutes detailing a surgical procedure for Ozzy Osborne. The dismantling of the very fabric of our democracy was being detailed by members of congress and a major news outlet felt there was no need to inform their viewers as to the dangers faced by the nation.

Franklin, doubtless with a pithy tone, would demand to know why a news operation would willingly deflect from a story that cuts to the essence of our democracy?

Much of our nation is discussing the damning headlines about the plots and attacks on the very foundation of our constitutional government. It is easy to get inundated with the latest breaking news about this story. As such, I would hope that at some point we can, as a nation, reflect on the ideals the Founders sought for the nation. It is glaringly clear why our constitutional guardrails can no longer just be taken for granted.