Unions made Justice Prosser put his hands around Justice Bradley’s neck! John Hayward writes for Human Events —
It seems the Wisconsin Supreme Court provides a tense working environment, with no love lost between the liberal bloc headed by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and the more conservative justices. Prosser has accused Abrahamson and Bradley of being “masters at deliberately goading people into perhaps incautious statements,†and claims she successfully goaded him into calling her a “total bitch†on at least one occasion.
It’s disheartening to learn that a state Supreme Court is full of goading and bitching, instead of wisdom and scholarship, but as we have seen over the past year, Big Labor politics does not create a solemn environment for statecraft, especially when Big Labor is losing.
I’ve been withholding judgment on exactly what happened between the justices, but whenever any man says a woman made him assault her, verbally or physically, I am inclined to think he’s an abusive SOB who thinks he is entitled to shove women around.
Elsewhere — Michele Bachmann confuses John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy, but refuses to forgive Chris Wallace for asking her if she is a flake.
Sarah Palin is sniffing around in Iowa, pretending to be low key. I’m wondering if she’s trying to arrange to be declared a candidate by popular acclamation.
How is it physically possible to goad someone into saying something they would not be adept at saying already?
The guy is not representing his side very well (but quite likely he is representing his side too honestly).
Matt Taibbi has a superb article about Michele Bachmann in the latest Rolling Stone. MUST reading:
Michele Bachmann’s Holy War
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622
He sees her as a real threat. I do too. He dismisses Sarah Palin as a not serious candidate, and he may be right, but I wouldn’t count her out. She may in the end cut a deal with Michele Bachmann not to run, in exchange for something (Secretary of State Sarah Palin, daughter Bristol in charge of the abstinence-only sex education program).
Interesting times we live in.
Great article title (lede?). Perhaps the people of Wisconsin will begin to realize what kind of (insert nickname for Richard here), they have for a Supreme Court justice for the next 10 years.
Bachman is always beating her chest with her claim of having 23 foster children. I suspect the only reason for her to have so many foster children was so that she could collect a paycheck from the state for warehousing them. She probably a “Mommy Dearest” who’s gaming the system with her farm subsidies and foster children payments.
Anybody who has had a child or two knows that children need to be nurtured and have time devoted to them individually to develop into an emotionally secure adult. When you’re got 23 kids plus however many of her own brood, it’s impossible to provide the element that a child needs most. I’m sure Bachmann had no problems slopping a bowl of gruel for these 23 kids and outfitting them at a second hand store, but if she thinks she’s been the good Christian mom and ace child rearer.. She’s mistaken..It’s not quantity, it’s quality….and quality can’t be provided when you are a career women raising maybe 28 kids to boot…I’m not impressed with her numbers because I know the amount of devotion required to properly raise a child.
Man, just give a drunk a bullhorn!
The level of frustration in the Republican party must be at the critical point.
Its like Jerry Springer meets Marilyn Manson.
Reach out and touch faith!
Someone to hear your prayers
someone who cares…..
A combination of repressed sexual tension and authoritarian ideals.
This could get interesting.
I, for one, can’t wait until Bachmann appears in NY and tells me about her favorite NYer – Ted Bundy Roosevelt.
Prosser’s “defense” does call up the world view of the classic abusive male, with a smattering of Borderline Personality Disorder, but I am not a psychologist. It also calls up the kind mentality that is “goaded” into impropriety and violence when someone simply disagrees. Some just cannot tolerate having their authority or beliefs questioned or put in question.
Of course, any Wal-Martyr, teacher, service employee, and worker would be dismissed immediately for violent behavior like Prosser’s. I guess rising to political power gives you a little more “wiggle room”.
I am too lazy to find the article, but, I don’t think Michele Bachmann ever had 23 foster children at one time. I think she probably had them serially, and may have had custody of some of the 23 for a very short period of time. Foster kids get passed around a lot. If I stumble across the article again I’ll link to it.
The comments following the article at “Human Events” are truly amazing. We live in two different worlds that are mirror images. One of them is Bizarroworld for sure. (It makes me want to see some of the “Human Events” commenter’s passports or long form birth certificates. I bet they are written in some strange sort of heiroglyphics.) Evidently in one reality, it is not only perfectly conceivable that a man is forced to put his hands around a woman’s neck, but it is the inevitable outcome of liberal aggression. Also it is possible to have your hands around someone’s neck to limit their movement, for defensive purposes only, of course, and not “exert and pressure”. Wasn’t that on one of those old “Star Trek” episodes?
I am ending this comment so I can google “expatriate communities”. Anybody want to buy a few goats?
Alas, I have no where to put them.
Just a nicer way of saying, “Bitch made me do it”.
And also too, there was at least from the Human Events commentator, no denial that it had taken place. God, when will WI get off of the front pages?
I hope he gets charged with assault.
Bachmann scares the bejeezes out of me. I realize that comparing anyone to Hitler can be a cop-out but listening to Bachmann and recalling the Saturday afternoon news reels at the local movie palace of Hitler speaking to the multitude of adoring Germans comes up for me every time I see/hear Bachmann.
She’s definitely picked up on Goebbels who said that propaganda had only to be believable – true or false were beside the point, speaking of which Politifact has
Bachmann in its sights and she’s coming up mainly either wrong on her facts or barely true/mostly false. But, if they’re believable, they’ll fly as truths. Our only hope is a voting public willing to doubt. We’ll see.
John Hayward just blew my mind. It’s nice to know wingnuts are still capable of doing that. To me, Prosser’s “goading” defense is absurd and childish on its face, but Hayward just takes his word for it! Unbelievable. Of course I’m used to reading liberal blogs, where that first paragraph would have been followed by merciless ridicule, but instead Hayward just shakes his head and wonders, sadly, yet again, why liberal women are all such bitches.
The bizarro headline would read something like “Liberal Feminist Trade Unionist Assaults Real American’s Hands with Neck.”
Actually, the question of whether Prosser’s hands went around her neck is very much in dispute. He claims she charged him, and that he merely put his hands up defensively and made incidental contact with her neck. She apparently shouted “he choked me” or something like that, and another justice standing next to her said, no he did not. There also seems to be corroboration of the point that she got up and charged at him – he apparantly was not the aggressor.
But all of you seem to take it as a complete given that he aggressed her, and he put his hands around her neck? Why do you make that assumption? Is it beyond belief that a saintly woman could actually be mean-spirited, aggressive, and manipulative – and not tell the truth? Even when the testimony of others in the room seem to indicate that?
If you could read (you’re a rightie, I assume, so reading probably isn’t a strong suit) — you would have noticed that I wrote this:
Now I will re-explain for you what I wrote above. I said I had made no assumptions about what happend. The news stories all say there are witnesses who were in the room who corroborate Justice Bradley’s accusation (which you have decided to ignore, or possibly overlooked because of your substandard reading skills) and other witnesses who corroborate Justice Prosser’s explanation. I wasn’t there and I assume you weren’t either, so you don’t know any more than I do. Maybe Prosser put his hands around Bradley’s neck, and maybe he didn’t.
However, Prosser’s statements are exactly the sort of thing violently abusive men say about the women they assault. It’s classic; read up on the psychological traits of abusive men sometime. A man who is not violently abusive, in the circumstance you assume, would simply have apologized and said he is sorry his actions were misunderstood. More than anything else, Prosser’s own words — and past history — make him look guilty, and I hope law enforcement follows up on this and at least seeks an indictment. I acknowledge he could be innocent. But if he is innocent, he still needs anger management lessons.
And frankly, if Bradley really had asked Prosser to get out of her office, he should have just left. Immediately.
My bet is that Bachmann will follow a similar trajectory to Sarah Palin. Palin made a pretty big splash at first, too, and when McCain announced her as his running mate he temporarily took the lead over Obama in the polls. I was worried for a little while. Then she couldn’t name any magazines or newspapers that she reads (even though she reads all of them) and the next thing you knew she was the most popular character on Saturday Night Live. Outside of the frothing wingnuts, the more people knew about Sarah Palin, the less they liked her.
At any rate, whatever you can say about Michele Bachmann right now has to be qualified by a reminder that most Americans still don’t know how loony she is.
He claims she charged him, and that he merely put his hands up defensively and made incidental contact with her neck.
Yeah, Justice Bradley looks so freakin’ scary in her photos. I’ll bet Justice Prosser has nightmares about being assaulted by Betty White, too.
Hey, I bet Betty White could take him.
Greater is he that ruleth his own spirit than he who taketh a city. 🙂
Prosser needs to get some help..Whether he knows it or not he’s got some issues that need to be delt with. The signs are all in place!