JB Van Hollen Insists Act 10 is in effect

Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen says the recently passed Budget Repair Bill, now referred to as Act 10 by State officials, is in full effect after publication Friday on the Legislative Fiscal Bureau's Web site. The publication of the new law via the LFB was deemed permissable by the Department of Justice because the Legislative Fiscal Bureau was not named in the suit that was filed in Dane County Circuit Court by District Attorney Ismael Ozanne last week. The DOJ believes that the LRB has full power to implement the collective bargaining restrictions in the new law due to State Statute35.095(3(a) that says the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has a ministerial duty to publish laws signed by the Governor within 10 days of passage. As a result, the Department of Justice, and particularly Van Hollen, has issued an appeal with the District 4 Appellate Court in Madison to vacate the temporary injunction issued by Judge Mary Sumi last week that kept the Secretary of State from putting the Act into law.

"These motions argue that the requested relief is appropriate because Act 10 is now in force due to its publication by the Legislative Reference Bureau on March 25, 2011. The Legislative Reference Bureau was not named as a party in the Ozanne case and was not bound by any order issued by the Dane County Circuit Court. Because the law is in force, the appeal, which was based on the harm caused by enjoining the legislative process, is moot. The briefs explain that the Secretary of State made a good faith attempt to comply with the temporary restraining order and did not cause the publication of Act 10," said Bill Cosh in a press release from the Department of Justice.

The appeal was issued yesterday and was not directed to the State Supreme Court as the Supreme Court has not officially accepted the case involving the original injunction and therefore has not yet become a conduit for settling the conflict. The DOJ's insistence on the LRB measure adds even more intrigue to a debate that runs on both sides of the aisle, with the Democrats, including LaFollette himself maintaining that the Secretary of State's Office has the sole authority to publish the law and Republicans maintaining that the Department of Justice is correct in its assessment of Statute 35.095. Legal scholars are divided in their opinions as well.

“It’s now my legal responsibility to begin enactment of the law," said Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch during a Monday afternoon conference call. “It’s clear that for as many attorneys as you wish to ask you are going to get an opinion on this particular law and the status of it,” “We have looked at the statutes and are defining them as clearly as we can as it states in the statute as to the requirements that must be met.”

Meanwhile, Madison Judge Mary Sumi has convened the first hearing this morning on the injunction and has gone ahead with testimony regarding the lawsuit. Ozanne filed papers yesterday to motion Sumi to declare the LRB publication of Act 10 as not being an act of public law and include LRB in the injunction.

Legislative Reference Bureau Chief Stephen Miller today said he believes his agency has a distinct duty to publish new laws within 10 working days of their signature by the governor. But he also does not believe that LRB action alone implements the law.

"I did not think that this act of the LRB made the law effective," Miller said today during testimony in the injunction case.

The Department of Justice argued against Sumi proceeding with the injunction hearing. Assistant Attorney General Maria Lazar argued the court may not assert itself in the legislative process and that since Republican lawmakers in the suit have not been served and are not in the courtroom, their due process rights are being violated.

Huebsch says that all of the changes made the State Payroll program to implement the 5.8% contribution to pensions and 12.6% contribution toward health care insurance premiums and that the first set of checks to be printed with the changes will be on April 21st. However, if a State Court orders otherwise, the changes can be quickly undone.

OBAMA ADMININSTRATION GETS A CLUE ABOUT MIRANDA RIGHTS FOR TERRORISTS?

It seems reality has slapped Attorney General Eric Holder alongside the head. In response to the foiled Times Square bombing plot, Holder earlier this week stated that the Obama Administration was looking in to modifying its previous stance regarding the use of Miranda rights for suspected terrorists. Apparently, there's something about a couple of near-disastrous terror strikes on the US homeland that can persuade even the most terrorist-coddling commander-in-chief and his trusty judicial branch sidekick that giving Al-Qaeda/Taliban-trained operatives the option to "clam up" while being arrested for suspected or attempted acts of homeland Jihad may not be the most effective way to deter and combat terrorism on both US soil and abroad.

According to the Politico from May 10:

“I think we also want to look and determine whether we have the necessary flexibility — whether we have a system that deals with situations that agents now confront. … We’re now dealing with international terrorism,” Holder said.


“I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public-safety exception [to the Miranda requirements]. And that’s one of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress… to come up with a proposal that is both constitutional, but that is also relevant to our times and the threats that we now face.”

So the cabal government officials who have threatened to practically expose everything the CIA has done with water boarding, extolled the virtues of giving citizen's rights to non-citizen Al-Qaeda killers and treating them like ordinary criminals, repeatedly apologized for America in European and Middle Eastern countries, and offered to talk to Iranian President Ahmadinejad without preconditions may have finally realized that hamstringing potential terrorist investigations by cutting off the interrogation, may not be such a great thing. It's funny what happens when a President and members of his cabinet who approach the War on Terror with anti-American, Marxist ideals and things happen in the real theatre of that War that totally and completely disprove and discount the elitist idealism.

“The [Miranda] system we have in place has proven to be effective,” said Holder, who has drawn criticism for administering the self-incrimination warning to Shahzad, a recently naturalized American.


He told the Senate Judiciary Committee in April that “the giving of Miranda warnings does not necessarily mean that the information flow stops. I think quite the contrary. What we have seen over this past year with regard to Zazi, Abdullah Mutallab, Headley, all of whom were given Miranda warnings. The information flow was substantial. "

Oh really? If Miranda warnings were so darned effective, then how did suspected bomber Faisal Shahzad come so close to hatching the plot in the first place and how did he come so close to leaving the country after it was foiled? The entire theory that Shahzad acted alone was quickly thrown out the window soon after his arrest when it was "discovered" that the Taliban in Pakistan, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, were fully behind the planning and attempted implementation of the plot.

Again, the Politico:

Eric Holder, making his first Sunday show appearance as Attorney General, told ABC’s Jake Tapper on “This Week” that investigators have “now developed evidence that show that the Pakistani Taliban was behind” last weekend’s attempted bombing of Times Square.

If the investigations were going so well and the Miranda warnings were effective, then A) Why did the Administration not fully realize the threat from the Pakistani Taliban? B) Why change the edict in the first place?

What it looks like to me is that a group of acting cast members led by Obama and Holder fully embraced the notion that if we just play "nice" with the terrorists and show the World how "just" we are by keeping their best "constitutional" interests in mind that we'd completely placate radical Islam's and therefore, the Muslim world's, unjustified hatred of us and their insatiable thirst for violence against us. And now after a couple of near-scares and the possibility of this philosophy putting them on the receiving end of anger and blame in the event of a successful terror attack, they are scurrying to loosen the shackles in which they've handcuffed themselves. I call it "foot-in-mouth governing"; the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants change on-the-fly executive-ship that occurs after the notion sets in that, "oops, we got lucky" and "we'd better fix this or else we won't be so lucky next time,"; the lessons learned by a naive administration.

Now if only they all could have the same revelation about their philosophy of trying terrorists in civilian courts instead of Military tribunals.