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MDX, John and Gordy in the morning.
Wow.
So many things are going on today.
It's just ridiculous.
I mean, you know, the state passed their budget.
We have Hakeem Jeffries.
Just out there on the floor of the house, wasting a lot of time making people shift in their seats, wondering what's going to happen next.
If this passes, then a lot of really bad things are going to happen in this country.
And
Yeah, yes absolutely allowing abortions in this state and and these are laws that were passed by mostly Scott Walker and the administration at that time putting limitations in and requirements that were unnecessary medically unnecessary but because of those laws
it kind of did away with the constitutional amendment banning abortions because we kept adding new laws on it which supersede and that's what the Supreme Court decided in the end was well we have new laws that deal with this and we're gonna go with those.
Yeah.
So we'll talk to Jim Santel a little bit later on
We'll have a special surprise guest a little bit later on today and This portion of the show brought to you by Verlo mattress wake up and sleep better on a Verlo mattress a lot has changed since 1958 when they opened their doors But some things have remained constant throughout Verlo's history.
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We've got sunshine today highs in the mid 80s this afternoon.
Looks like it's going to be hot through the holiday weekend.
So if you're heading out there.
plan accordingly.
Okay.
All right, now we're going to get to Justice Rebecca Bradley's reaction to the abortion law by the liberal justices in just a few moments.
I just have to add this first because this is insane, right?
You know, they're trying to pass this big bad bill now in the house again.
But according to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments that Trump made recently to a bunch of Republicans at a certain meeting, apparently he is unaware that Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are being tampered with.
They were kind of surprised and shocked.
At one point, one of the Republicans in attendance piped up and reminded Trump,
We're touching Medicaid in this bill.
He didn't know that.
Well, that's what they're saying.
He didn't know that, really?
He doesn't know that.
He
boy.
And by
Oh, boy.
But
Justice Rebecca Bradley is running for reelection next year.
And she came out very strongly against the decision to allow abortion in Wisconsin.
She called the majority opinion, setting aside the 1849 abortion law, a parody of progressive politics, which doesn't sound very legal to me.
It sounded a little more.
political, I think.
What do you think?
Is it parody of political what?
a parody of progressive politics.
But it is an unhinged political rant, basically.
And it's devoid of substance.
So why don't we just check out what she has said here.
This is, in her opinion, the liberal majority not only does violence to a single statute, it defies the people's sovereignty.
What?
And what does that mean exactly?
Yeah.
And remember, again, in 1849 women didn't have the right to vote at that time.
And now because of the new laws, the 20-week cutoff point, and all the other things that Scott Walker decided to throw in that weren't medically necessary, because of that, it made the 1849 law obsolete.
So that's what the liberal justices decided.
So, challenge.
Let's try and find out if there's any legal opinion, any of what Justice Bradley is saying here, okay?
Chief Justice Jill Karofsky rewrites history, erases and insults women by referring to mothers as pregnant people.
You know, again, that's not a political opinion.
That's her point of view.
Slander's proponents of the pro-life perspective.
Well, that's not a legal opinion either.
That's a pro-life group.
that has nothing to do with this, and broadcasts dangerously false narratives about laws restricting abortion, laden with emotion, steeped in myth, and light on law, the concurrence reads as a parody of progressive politics rather than the opinion of a jurist.
My goodness sakes.
What?
Can you imagine what you must have thought when the justices at the national Supreme Court level gave Trump immunity?
Out of the clear blue sky, right?
It's not in it's not in the Constitution,
decided to do that anyway Okay, so justice candidate and appeals court judge Chris Taylor who's running against her notice that we're She said this Rebecca Bradley's dissent can
constitutes an unhinged political rant devoid of reasoned legal analysis, using politically charged language unsuited for any judge, let alone a Supreme Court justice.
Rebecca Bradley continues to be more concerned with forcing her own right-wing agenda onto the people of our state than protecting our most basic constitutional rights and freedoms.
Yeah, it's a strong, strong
Normally she wouldn't have said that.
She's a circuit appeals court judge, Chris Taylor.
She used to be in the legislature as well.
So I want to give you a little history of Rebecca Bradley.
Again, you heard her comments as I read them.
No legal opinion whatsoever.
Let's listen to her appearance way back when when she was running for the Supreme Court
Mike Goucher's upfront program and this is this is her being interviewed with by Mike Goucher listen
But your critics take note of the fact that you were once a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association And if you go to their website you see them talk about
the goal of advancing Republican ideals.
And quoting from their website, it says, the RNLA further builds the Republican Party's goals and ideals through a nationwide network of supportive lawyers who understand and directly support Republican policy agendas and candidates.
So you say you're going to be free of political agendas, but you've belonged at one time to a group that promotes a political agenda.
How can you tell people that you will be impartial given that?
Well, when I became a judge, I set aside all of my political inclinations, and that was in the past.
As a jurist, I do not belong to any political party.
And the principles that I apply to the laws that I have to apply and in my decision making are the same principles, whether it's a Democratic legislature or a Republican legislature that hasn't acted the law.
And I'm very able to set aside, again, my personal beliefs and my...
political inclinations.
We all have them, but the job of a judge, the duty of a judge is to set all of that aside and I have a record of doing
Which reads in part that all people have certain inherent rights
Among these are the right to direct your attention to Article 1, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution, which reads in part that all people have certain inherent rights.
Among these are liberty.
To secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed.
My question for you is where in the Constitution did the people of Wisconsin confer authority on a single unelected cabinet secretary to compel almost six million people to stay at home and close their businesses and face imprisonment if they don't comply with no input from the legislature without the consent of the people?
Isn't it the very definition of tyranny for one person
to order people to be imprisoned for going to work, among other ordinarily lawful activities.
Where does the Constitution say that's permissible counsel?
The Constitution provides that the legislature may enact statutes to protect the public health.
And that is exactly what the legislature has done in chapter 2502 sub three, four and six.
So I think that expression of legislative intent that grants DHS the power
to do whatever is necessary to combat a novel, deadly, communicable disease like the one we're facing today is where we find that consent.
I'll direct your attention to another time in history in the Kormatsu decision where the court said the need for action was great and time was short and that justified, and I'm quoting, assembling together and placing under guard all those of Japanese ancestry in assembly centers during World War II.
Could the secretary under this broad delegation of legislative power or legislative-like power order people out of their homes into centers where they are properly socially distanced in order to combat the pandemic?
Your honor, Korematsu was an equal protection challenge to the action that the government took to address the crisis.
This is not a substantive constitutional challenge to what DHS has
That is not a good comparison, right?
I mean, we're talking about the Department of Health making a decision to protect human life in this country or in this state in this particular instance, and it had nothing to do with, you know, rounding up Japanese people and putting them in camps.
See, she made that
comparison in some weird way and it should never have happened.
So then we had a recent election for the Supreme Court Justice and Justice Crawford got elected in and Justice Bradley decided to chime in and say some really nasty things that had nothing to do with the law or any legal issues.
Listen to this.
I'm really personally and professionally disappointed that Judge Shema lost to Judge Crawford.
I think it's going to result in terrible consequences for the state of Wisconsin and for the state of the judiciary.
My four colleagues have politicized our court in a terrible manner.
They make political decisions all the time.
They rule 100 percent for the Democratic Party.
In every case that's presented to them, we have an opportunity to return the court to what it should be, which is deciding cases under the law.
What it should be we're simply going to see more politicization of the judiciary I also think the way judge Crawford ran her race was disgusting.
She slandered a good man.
Judge Schimmel.
We saw this last time
against
Justice Kelly It's really sickening and I hope next time the people will see through the lies that are Misportray good people in these ads.
You know, the court should have been under the jurisdiction of conservatives.
I mean, they're the ones who should be running the court, apparently, according to at least Rebecca Bradley, who is the worst, by the way, the worst justice we've ever had on our Supreme Court ever.
In your opinion.
No.
I know
I'm right
passed.
Coming right back with John and Gordy in the morning.
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Lots of sunshine through the day.
Highs in the mid 80s.
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All
Well, we were talking about Rebecca Bradley, and we got a text here from Donna out in the forest saying, Judge Becky B sounds like she needs a calm, relaxing retirement ASAP.
Yeah, you know, maybe it's time.
If she, if she hates working with these liberals on the court, why not just retire her?
I mean, why, why, why be a part of it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rebecca Bradley was, you know, bringing up the whole COVID thing.
What was her position on, uh,
had to, had to imprison Typhoid Mary because she refused to, because she was spreading typhus at that point in time.
Yes, it was horrible that she had to be isolated from the community, but that was a way to protect the community.
And that's what the COVID restrictions were doing.
And for her talking about Kromatsu, that, uh, and the internment of the Japanese.
That was, that was horrible.
But I don't hear her out there howling about Donald Trump.
setting up his alligator alcatraz.
So I haven't heard her screaming about that and how horrible that is because she's not going to do it because those are disgusting brown people that she thinks should be, you know, I don't think I have any rights at all.
I mean, these are persons under the law.
I don't hear her complain about all these, the snatching up of people off the streets to clear without warrant, which is clearly a violation of the constitution that, um,
warrant is required to seize any person.
I mean, it's pure and simple in there.
And what do you say?
Well, they're not persons because they're not citizens.
Although the Constitution says person doesn't make that distinction.
We've got to
We've got a big event coming up next year.
And Trump is talking about, by the way, ICE agents aren't elected either.
You know, that whole department isn't elected.
Yeah.
So, and they're making decisions to deport people.
Yeah.
So, okay.
All right, Rebecca, explain that one.
All right.
Anyway, this is a big event.
It's called the Big 250.
250 years.
It celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and Trump is expecting to make big plans for that.
This is from NPR.
Check it out.
So some of our listeners might recall the bicentennial celebrating the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and America's putting its party hat on again for the 250th anniversary.
The organisers are planning something ambitious.
The most inspiring celebration this country has ever seen and perhaps the world has ever seen.
But there's also now a White House planning group, is that right?
Yes, so Rosie Rios's group, that's the America 250 Commission.
there's something called Task Force 250.
Now, the commission has been doing a bunch of its own programming for the past couple of years.
But right now, its website seems to be prioritizing events led by the White House over its own tentpole initiatives.
For example, there's the America 250 kickoff celebration you mentioned, where Trump is expected to announce plans for a great America State Fair in 2026 and a federally backed Patriot Games highlighting American
Well, every state and many cities.
are going to organise events over the next year.
Some very local programming is going to happen.
For example, in Idaho, there's this display of giant fabric potatoes dressed up like revolutionary war figures.
What?
Yeah.
So lots of American quirkiness.
OK.
Yeah.
But at the national level, there are ongoing initiatives
like, for
example, America's Field Trip.
150 school kids are part of this.
They get to go on these all-expenses-paid visits to famous landmarks.
Also, there's Trump's National Garden of America.
heroes.
That's a proposed sculpture park.
There's going to be 250 statues of American figures like George Washington, Babe Ruth, and Martin Luther
I should also note that at the national level, plans are in flux.
For
example, an online portal for a big project launched two years ago called America's Invitation, which was inviting the public to upload messages expressing their hopes and dreams for the future of the country.
whole project seems to have vanished from the America 250 website
happened
a few
weeks ago.
America 250 Commission Press team and they.
told NPR, the initiative is now, quote, taking a backseat to other
things.
Chloe, the whole time you've been talking, I've been thinking about an administration that says it wants to cut funding.
So how is this big American party being funded?
It's a big spag.
The organizers are seeking $150 million from Congress.
They've secured sponsorships from Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin and other corporations.
Plus, the White House has redirected thousands of federal grants previously awarded to arts and humanities.
to 250th celebration projects, for example, the National Garden of American Heroes.
Yes.
a
Seeing a lot of sunshine this morning it'll stick with us through most of the day the high near 86 by late this afternoon.
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Right, we got a voice
OK.
John and Gordy should keep their yaps shut and join the manosphere.
is Jim Santel, Amicus Law Review.
You can listen to the program on Saturday mornings between nine and 11 o'clock, and man, you have been awful busy, Jim.
A lot of stuff trying to explain, and you know, there's so many court decisions, but let's get to the one that's more local from the state Supreme Court in regards to the abortion ban that was in place for a while.
Explain the decision from the Supreme Court.
Liberals of the Supreme Court justice as Rebecca Bradley would refer to a boy.
She's pretty bad.
You know, I explained that she is the worst justice we have on the court.
But you know, Michael Gabelman was pretty bad too, who lost his license, didn't he?
Didn't
All right, so you've got this 1849 law and the Supreme Court says basically it's so old that many other things have happened in the interim.
Here's what the majority says, comprehensive legislation in this area with respect to reproductive rights and abortion.
Over the last 50 years, regulating in detail the who, what, where, when, and how abortion so thoroughly covers the entire subject that it was meant as a substitute
for the 19th century near total ban.
Basically, so many things have happened legislatively that time.
It's no longer law.
Goes on to say that the court has historically set a very high bar for those implied repeal.
But in this case, the legislature had met that bar by reversing state law and abortion.
Goes on to say these statutes specify often an extraordinary detail.
This is Rebecca Dallett writing on behalf of the majority, the answer to nearly every conceivable question.
Who may perform abortions only doctors?
Where may abortions be performed within 30 miles of a hospital where the doctor is admitting privileges?
When may abortions be performed prior to viability or 20 weeks of pregnancy and goes on and on?
Bottom line is so much specificity in so much legislation since 1849 that it's, she doesn't say it's laughable, but that notion that somehow the 1849 law is still in effect.
Painly been superseded, overcome, overtaken by everything since then.
Absolutely.
To the extent that any legislature, legislator, again, since 1849 has been a part of this, going down that road implicitly, if not explicitly saying, hey, the 1849 law, not good anymore.
And frankly, this doesn't happen all the time.
But as you know, legislatures, state legislature, the federal legislature routinely comes in and updates the law.
Why?
because the world changes, does it not?
And life changes and the world in which we live needs to reflect that.
That's a good judiciary.
That's not not so-called wild activist judges.
Those are people who are interpreting the Constitution as it should in contemporary common sense understandings.
And at least one conservative justice voted with liberals.
So that kind of worked out well.
for us anyway, and now we have this standard in place.
And now we can move on to other things, including decision to ban national injunctions, essentially.
I can't even understand how this is even possible.
Look, you know, we're the United States, right?
If you break something in the Constitution, it should be called out and it should be stopped nationwide.
Am I crazy?
What's going on?
And you are in the good company of people like Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan and Kenji Brown Jackson who looked at this and predicted an awful lot of bad things.
when it comes to the courts.
It is a bit wonky, I understand that, but that's the notion.
You've pointed out exactly how this plays out.
If there is something that's happening, whether it's in Western Wisconsin, where you are in Madison, Eastern Wisconsin, or any district around the country, I come in and I say something about, for example, let's pick something other than birthright citizenship.
Let's talk, for example, about First Amendment rights.
Suppose somebody comes in and says,
A president comes in and says, I'm going to ban, I'm going to ban the exercise of religion or specific religion in America.
Or for example, go to the Second Amendment.
I'm going to ban all guns in America.
Well, we know that those things are apparently unconstitutional.
What the Supreme Court says, you can't do that anymore.
What you need to do is you need to go to an individual judge in your district.
and get your specific right in that venue vindicated, the judge will probably say it's unconstitutional, but that notion that it would apply across the board in a plainly, plainly applicable way, that's what the Supreme Court majority, again, Amy Coney Barrett, writing this opinion.
And that's what they said.
What I was hoping that they would do, this is what came out of the oral argument.
She was talking about a rule that basically says, yeah, there may be those things that are regional, that are local, that apply just to the
three or four of us, that sort of thing.
And you enjoy that playing that continues and maybe even broader than that as to a particular district.
But there are these big ticket items that perhaps we can, in fact, embrace.
They're subject to appeal and dividing a rule, a rule for the lower district court judges about what kinds of topics big ticket items can, in fact, be nationally enjoined and which ones are more regional.
She decided not to do that instead just said, we're done with that.
horrific consequences, not just for birthright citizenship, but for many other things you can imagine happening not only for this presidency, but if again, assuming we have future presidents that future presidents may also do of all sides of the aisle, right?
I
Jim, you know, all of this stuff, it seems like.
The Supreme Court can't make a decision about anything.
They put on hold abortion laws in Texas and it allowed people to go out and turn people in that they suspect to have had an abortion or is planning an abortion.
They create more chaos with their decisions than anything else.
And so let's get back to birthright citizenship is where this started.
How wonderful it would be.
If a majority, frankly, if all of our Supreme Court justices had simply said, you know what?
When the 14th Amendment was passed, 1869, it meant what it said and said what it meant.
If you're born here geographically, you're a citizen.
You may not like that, but that's what the Constitution says.
Yes.
And it's applied across the Supreme Court has said that, frankly, in a major case coming out of the Ninth Circuit a number of years ago, but how clean that would have been.
Just say that, right?
And say the president's directive this order is wrong and move on.
And we don't get all this collateral stuff that mucks up the way that things happen and that provide us with lack of clarity on the underlying issue.
That's the challenge.
It's all about prevention.
It's in the Affordable Care Act, and basically, again, to get a bit in the weeds,
The Affordable Care Act establishes some task forces, their staff by who, people who know what they're talking about, medical doctors and health care professionals, all kinds of folks, and they look at the kinds of preventive health care that makes sense.
So for example, diabetes screening.
cancer screening, all kinds of things that keep you from getting ill, right?
And if indeed those are adopted as being appropriate preventive cares that can be provided, they are covered and they're covered for insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act.
The Supreme Court looked at that and said, yes, had to do with whether or not the task force members are properly appointed when they've got the authority to do what they're doing.
In the end, thankfully,
This Supreme Court said, yes, indeed, by a vote of six to three, a different combination of six to three, they can stand.
So the Affordable Care Act does survive this term of the Supreme Court as it has done in previous years.
It's a big one just because the first thing for the immediate issue, but for the consequences of all this comes out of Maryland.
Again, lots of facts here, lots of history here, but Maryland School District basically had said and provided parents with a mechanism.
for parents to opt out if, based upon their religious beliefs, they did not want their school-aged children to be exposed to storybooks that talked about somebody having two dads and LGBT issues and those kinds of things.
In the end, the school district said, this is way too difficult to administer, too much craziness and all this.
And so they said, no more opting out.
Supreme Court said, you can't do that.
You've got to permit parents to opt out.
That's down the law in Maryland and presumably in other areas.
And so the concern there is I wake up in the morning and see my religion tells me that, oh, I don't want my child exposed to a situation where a mother would would be working in the workplace.
Can I opt out for that?
All sorts of consequences from that process.
Well, the consequences will find out how that all plays out in the future.
in future cases as well.
Jim, we got to take a break here and we got to say goodbye.
We've got a special guest coming up in our next break.
So appreciate your input on this and we'll have you back next week.
Thank
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Well kids, there it
This
We have a special
I'm not that big a deal.
Why would you promote me just stopping in the studio like I do every day?
I'm not special.
You have Sam Davison?
Hey, everybody.
Where are you and what are you?
You're at camp, right?
I'm a little north of Ryan Lander, Wisconsin at Tosoma Scout Camp right now.
Wow.
Stop it.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing, John.
No.
Well, what I'm doing this summer, we've got a new building that kind of combined our camp store and like the
business and technology center, so I'm running that building.
I'm slinging slushy to the kids as they got to get their sugar high.
Cool.
A lot of fun stuff happening up here.
when the kids are asleep?
You'd like that wouldn't you?
I think you would like it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
Give me a little break here.
Remember being in camp when I was a kid and going to sleep and waking up about five seconds later I remember the feeling of all that fresh air and all the activity and you put us down in our tents and then You're awake again.
Yeah, I
like a light and then
serious the
next day already.
Yeah, how many kids are up there with you?
Yeah Well, the reason I didn't call you last week is because it was our biggest one of the summer and I was just so tired but this one is our smallest of the summer actually we've got
something around 200 people
here how many counselors
how many counselors there's I don't know probably 200
year
70
oh okay
yeah but that's that's spread across like this camp and then there's one at the south end of the lake for for little kids but during the week they help us out they just have stuff going on on the weekends
that's a lot of kids to wrangle
I they're not actually I gotta start start getting lanyards together
of
these
Yeah Well, I'm probably eating better than I was living on
own But a lot of it is like food that kids would like like corn dogs and chicken nuggets and stuff like that so
Uh, I'm warming up to it.
Let's say that.
Yeah.
When I was a Girl Scout, once again, Bunsen Burners making my own meals in camp.
my God.
Bunsen Burners.
Yes, Bunsen's.
Yes.
What?
Cooking my own damn food over a Bunsen burner.
No, yes, it was a thing.
Yeah, there's I'm sitting right in front of the lake right now today was sort of my morning off But I got up early ish anyway to call you guys.
I'm sitting in front of the lake There's I don't know there's a field the kids get run around in Did you bring your styrofoam boat
up there with you?
What's the name of the lake again
It's Crystal Lake.
Oh, sure.
What's the name of the boat?
That's the name.
Oh, yeah,
do you have a name for the boat?
It
don't.
You can stencil something on the back of that styrofoam.
I don't know.
If I, like, christen it and try and hit it with a wine bottle, I'll just put a dent in it or break it.
And
You know when I first got up here, they were kind of bad, but I think I've gotten acclimated to them at this point.
We've come to terms So
This is week two of seven and then we got a little bit of cleanup after that I'll be I'll be back in every mid-August sometime And
in on Sunday, Monday.
Well,
They come in Sunday, Sunday afternoon and they leave Saturday morning.
Wow.
how am I doing?
How am I doing, Sam?
That's a good
question.
OK, I'm not going to lie.
Well, I texted you probably like a month ago now when I went to go get this pinball machine.
That was the last time I actually listened to the show before this
But I listened to all of our two thus far today, and you're doing great, though.
Oh, man, Sam, it's due to you.
I appreciate you saying it.
Good
training.
Appreciate it.
Good training.
Well, good deal, Sam.
need
All right.
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