9/9/23

 Saturday, September 9, 2023

Dad's 103rd birthday

In bed at 9:30, awake at 6 and up at 6:10 after many pss and 1 brr,  54°, clear skies all day, high of 70° and AQI of 47, wind NNW at 7 mph, 3-7/13, DPs in the 50s.  Sunrise at 6:24, sunset at 7:12, 12+48.

Happy Birthday, Pop.  I miss you, wish you were here.

Sunrise is at 82°ENE, at 6:50, over PandelHaus kitchen., a vector I had thought of as due E., but probably the sun has simply slipped from 82 to 90ish degrees between 6:24 and 6:50, heading to its meridian position (180° due South) at 12:49 p.m., and sunset vector at 278° at 7:12 p.m.  Lilly emerged from Geri's bedroom at 7:05 to be let out.  If Geri were to come out now, we'd be closing the venetian blinds again, with her preferred spot on the sofa in direct and bright sunlight.

Former 'neighbor', Cleta Mitchell.  We lived in our condo in the Knickerbocker Hotel for 5 years or so.  Around the corner from us was the beautiful home of the Bradley Foundation, the premier financier of right-wing conservative philanthropic causes in the United States.  It was founded in 1985 when the Allen-Bradley Corporation was sold to Rockwell Corporation for  $1, 650,000,000 with almost $300,000,000 poured into the Foundation.  The Foundation is anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-tax or, as it puts it on its website: "The Bradley brothers also believed that the good society is a free society. Only in an environment of political and economic freedom could individuals fully develop their talents, skills and intellects and contribute to the improvement of the human condition. The Bradley brothers were committed to preserving and defending the traditions of representative government and private enterprise that enabled America to flourish intellectually and economically."

Cleta Mitchell is a member of the Board of Directors of the Bradley Foundation and is its corporate secretary.  She was for years a partner in the Milwaukee-based mega-law firm of Foley & Lardner.  She is a right-wing reactionary activist and was one of the people on Donald Trump's infamous 'perfect' call to Brad Raffensperger telling Raffensperger "I just want to find 11,780 votes", enough to switch Georgia from a Biden win to a Trump win.  The Georgia Special Grand Jury issued a report to to Fulton County D.A. Fani Willia that recommended nine criminal counts against Mitchell for allegedly influencing a witness’s testimony, making false statements, soliciting election fraud and interfering with election duties.

Cleta Mitchell is licensed to practice law, I suspect, in multiple jurisdictions including Oklahoma, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and perhaps Massachusetts.  One wonders how secure her law license is in each of those jurisdictions.  In March of 2022, the 65 Project filed a 15-page complaint against Mitchell with the Board of Professional Responsibility of the D.C. Court of Appeals.  I can't find the status of that case anywhere.  She is a VERY powerful figure in the MAGA world and right-wing politics and I will not be surprised if nothing comes of it.

Small world.  Kenneth Chesebro, a native of Wisconsin Rapids who, unlike Cleta Mitchell was indicted for the election conspiracy re the Georgia election, did some appellate work with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a right-wing think tank and public interest litigation firm with offices in my former law firm's office building, Plaza East.  WILL is led by former Marquette U. Law School professor and right-wing zealot Rick Esenberg and is funded, at least in part, by the Bradley Foundation.  I note that on their website they include among their "Policy Team" Shannon Whitworth, their "Bradley Freedom Fellow."  Michael Grebe, former president of the Bradley Foundation is one of WILL's five-member board of directors.

Another stab at Camille

Chalk outline, midpoint axis, no other grid lines

palette knife, red/blue/purple

Stuck on the red dress and parchment collar

Dean Kearney's regular letter at the start of the Fall Semester arrived in today's mail.  It is a thorough update on new additions to the faculty, administration, and staff of the law school, and on continuing programs.  The letter is, as always, chockfull of goodies but it makes me grateful that I am no longer a part of that academic life.  Joe's letter always prompts me to think back to September 1967 when I began my many years at the school, first as a student, and then a faculty member.  The school was located in the old venerable Sensenbrenner Hall aat 1103 W. Wisconsin, not the new modern Ekstein Hall.  There were only 3 classrooms prosaically designated A, B, and C.  The administration consisted of 3 people, Dean Robert F. Boen, Assistant Dean Charles Mentkowskki, and Librarian Mary Alice Hohman.  The full-time faculty consisted of Jim Ghiardi, Ray Aiken, Leo Leary, Reynolds Seitz, Wally MacBain, Mike Hogan, Ray Klitzkeand Frank DeGuire.  The Law Library and the Grimmelsman Reading Room were on the 3rd floor of the building, "the stacks" being essentially the building's attic.  Our student desks were individual old-fashioned movable wooden ones.  The classes were uniformly 50 minutes long, and uniformly delivered in the pseudo-Socratic Q&A form.  Tuition was $575 per semester.  Tuition this year is $49,710, books another $1,008.  The students study in relatively luxurious circumstances; the faculty and administrators have vastly increased in number and compensation, the basic skill and comprehension training is essentially the same and the graduates are stuck with enormous debt.  It's called Progress.  Cui bono?