VoteKansas.org

At the end of last week, with just a few days to go before the recall elections of Governor Scott Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, people across Wisconsin complained of receiving ominous postcards, described by the Janesville Gazette as follows:

The mailing includes a note to “Dear Registered Voter” which says, in part: “Look at the list below: Are there neighbors on this list you know? Call them or knock on their door before Election Day, and ask them to go vote on Tuesday, June 5. After the June 5th election, public records will tell everyone who voted and who didn’t. Do your civic duty—vote and remind your neighbors to vote.”

The mailing goes on to list the recipient’s name, address and whether he or she voted in November 2008 and November 2010. The same information is provided for 12 neighbors.

The information does not say—and could not say—how those people voted, of course.

(Emphases mine.)  This came from a union group, of course – specifically, the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund.  A somewhat less ominous, but more blatantly partisan version of the card says, “Scott Walker won in 2010 because too many people stayed home! Two years ago, more than half a million Wisconsinites who supported Obama (in 2008) failed to vote in the 2010 election. And that’s how Gov. Scott Walker got elected.”  Since President Obama decided not to risk his political capital by campaigning against Walker in the state, this is the closed the unions could come to swiping a little of his faded presidential glamour for their effort.

The information used to compile these sinister little “insufficiently motivated citizen” lists is available for sale by the state to anyone who ponies up $12,500.  In theory, the purpose of the list is to allow the public to review it, and if they find “someone who has died or is under Department of Corrections supervision after being convicted of a felony, they could alert authorities of the voting fraud,” as the Gazette puts it.

I’m from Florida, where a simple attempt to verify the legitimacy of 2,600 suspicious voters has been blown up into a national civil-rights crisis, so you’ll have to excuse me for a moment while I laugh myself sick.  Any organization that tried to use those $12,500 voter registration lists for the high-minded purpose described by the Gazette would be hounded unto the ends of the Earth and destroyed.

But union-allied political groups can put such information to Orwellian use with veiled “we know where you live” threats, and it’s just fine.  A spokesman for the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board described it as “just a little over the top,” and the Gazette interviewed a local resident who complained that the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund “went and published my personal information to people I don’t know without my permission,” but there hasn’t been anything like the national outcry that would erupt if a private organization made a serious effort to combat voter fraud by checking a list of registered voters for suspicious names.

There’s something deeply offensive about the idea of enlisting door-knocking vigilantes to guilt-trip people into voting.  Free people have the right to withhold their vote.  It’s one thing to issue public calls to civic responsibility, but quite another to deliver personalized demands door-to-door.

David Frum says New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be commended for seeking to ban the sale of oversized containers of soda.

David Frum says New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be commended for seeking to ban the sale of oversized containers of soda.

Paul Joseph Watson | FT writer Rachman outlined plan for global UN dictatorship.

Cert. grant today: Bailey v. United States, SCOTUSBlog here, opinion below here.

Issue: Whether, pursuant to Michigan v. Summers, police officers may detain an individual incident to the execution of a search warrant when the individual has left the immediate vicinity of the premises before the warrant is executed.

Kurt Nimmo | Thuggish political behavior has plenty of historical antecedents.

The Duke of Edinburgh misses the Diamond Jubilee concert after being taken to hospital with a bladder infection.

The Duke of Edinburgh is missing the Diamond Jubilee concert after being taken to hospital with a bladder infection.

Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue and Sir Paul McCartney are among the many performers at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert outside Buckingham Palace in London.

Robbie Williams gets the Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert under way outside Buckingham Palace.

Reichle v. Howards, 11–262 (June 4, 2012). SCOTUSBlog here. From the Syllabus:

Petitioners are entitled to qualified immunity because, at the time of Howards’ arrest, it was not clearly established that an arrest supported by probable cause could give rise to a First Amendment violation. Pp. 5−12.

(a) Courts may grant qualified immunity on the ground that a purported right was not clearly established” by prior case law. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 236. To be clearly established, a right must be sufficiently clear “that every ‘reasonable official would [have understood] that what he is doing violates that right.’” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U. S. ___, ___. Pp. 5−6.

(b) The “clearly established” standard is not satisfied here. This Court has never recognized a First Amendment right to be free from a retaliatory arrest that is supported by probable cause; nor was such a right otherwise clearly established at the time of Howards’ arrest. P. 6.

(c) At that time, Hartman’s impact on the Tenth Circuit’s precedent was far from clear. Although Hartman’s facts involved only a retaliatory prosecution, reasonable law enforcement officers could have questioned whether its rule also applied to arrests. First, Hartman was decided against a legal backdrop that treated retaliatory arrest claims and retaliatory prosecution claims similarly. It resolved a Circuit split concerning the impact of probable cause on retaliatory prosecution claims, but some of the conflicting cases involved both retaliatory prosecution and retaliatory arrest claims and made no distinction between the two when considering the relevance of probable cause. Second, a reasonable official could have interpreted Hartman’s rationale to apply to retaliatory arrests. Like in retaliatory prosecution cases, evidence of the presence or absence of probable cause for the arrest will be available in virtually all retaliatory arrest cases, and the causal link between the defendant’s alleged retaliatory animus and the plaintiff’s injury may be tenuous. Finally, decisions from other Circuits in the wake of Hartman support the conclusion that, for qualified immunity purposes, it was at least arguable at the time of Howards' arrest that Hartman extended to retaliatory arrests. Pp. 7−12.

NYTimes.com: Bloomberg Backs Plan to Limit Arrests for Marijuana by Thomas Kaplan:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Monday that he would support a proposal by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to significantly curb the number of people who could be arrested for marijuana possession as a result of police stops.

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Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was hospitalized in Britain with a bladder infection and missed part of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebration.

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was hospitalized in Britain Monday with a bladder infection and will miss part of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebration, Buckingham Palace said.

A victory for Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday would give Republicans a major boost in efforts to make Wisconsin a battleground state in the presidential election.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican hero for austerity measures that stripped collective bargaining rights from most public unions, spent a final day campaigning before Tuesday's recall election that brought lots of outside interest and money to the state.

Jersey Journal | "In an effort to improve public safety..." surveillance cameras are being installed that can read "a guy's license plate from three blocks."

Nigeria's president says there will never be a repeat of Sunday's Lagos plane crash, which killed at least 153 people, promising improvements to air safety.

Nigeria's president says there will never be a repeat of Sunday's Lagos plane crash, which killed at least 153 people, promising improvements to air safety.