Last week was a big one.
The US Supreme Court overturned Colorado’s ruling to remove Trump from its ballot, and Biden gave a strong state of the union address whilst many of Trump’s cult in Congress, including Wisconsin’s Derrick Van Orden, behaved deplorably.
The result of Colorado’s case stymied our lawsuit to remove Trump from Wisconsin’s ballot. Within hours of the decision on Monday, Dane County Judge Remington dismissed our case because SCOTUS ruled that only Congress, not individual states, could remove federal candidates for insurrection.
I believe this decision was deeply flawed, but I am merely a brewer, not a lawyer. Here is what a few lawyers had to say:
Fred Melms, who courageously took on the task of suing Trump in Wisconsin, told me something last week that stuck in my craw. He said that this SCOTUS ruling means that out of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, all enacted during the Civil War era, ONLY article 3 of the 14th amendment now requires enabling legislation by Congress to be enforced.
“It’s preposterous to think that after passing the 13th amendment which abolished slavery, the actual process to free slaves would require a second act of Congress. It makes no sense in this instance, and it shouldn’t with ANY of these Civil War era laws.”
Another lawyer, George Conway-- yes THAT guy who was married to Trump’s ridiculous advisor Kellyanne Conway—wrote something that made a lot of sense to me in a recent Atlantic article:
“…It was too much to expect this Court, at this time, in this political context, to apply the Constitution the way the Court normally should: by dispassionately looking at the constitutional text, and the historical context, and letting the chips fall where they may.”
It seems to me that for every courageous judge or politician who is willing to risk his/her career to DO THE RIGHT THING as it relates to holding Trump and his many accomplices accountable, there are seemingly more judges or politicians without that same grit, who weigh the potential negative impacts to their careers for doing the right thing more heavily than actually doing the right thing.
That’s why Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Colorado's Supreme Court will be among the many heroes our grandchildren will read about in America's future history books. These people harmed their careers to do their duty as Americans.
You know who our grandchildren won’t read about? Our current US Supreme Court, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Mitch McConnell, Wisconsin's Attorney General Josh Kaul, and every politician and judge in America and Wisconsin who amplified Trump’s lies or slow-walked justice during the most tempestuous time in America’s history since the Civil War.
Our institutions are only as strong as those who serve in them, and as we have learned time and time again since January 6th, they won’t save America in 2024.
Only we, the voters, will.
And to tell you the honest truth, I’m pretty sick and tired of the average voter, which includes me, being asked to save American Democracy every two years because our leaders and judges don’t have the courage to do their jobs.
But what I do know, because I’ve seen it firsthand in my own brewery taproom, is that there are thousands of salt-of-the-earth Wisconsinites who were forever scarred by watching the attack on our capital on January 6th, and who are just as stubborn as I am to do whatever it takes to never let that happen again.
And for these stubborn, clear-eyed, stoic Wisconsinites who are currently weary of constantly bailing out Wisconsin and America, here's a quote from one of our greatest American presidents, Teddy Roosevelt:
“Courage is not having the strength to go on: It is going on when you don’t have the strength.”
Now that we know that SCOTUS and Attorney General Josh Kaul will be of absolutely NO USE to America and Wisconsin, respectively, before the 2024 presidential election, it’s time for us to go back to work in our ever-important swing state.
I encourage everyone to start engaging with your county Democratic Party. I believe in Ben Wikler, our state's Democratic Party leader, and I know that he and the Biden campaign are beefing up their ranks of community organizers to herd all of us cats to help the effort.
As far as the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC is concerned, our first effort is to put up a bunch of billboards in Oshkosh, Wausau, Superior, and Washington County--that remind voters that Wisconsin’s Republicans leaders were part of Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election.
Why those places?
Oshkosh is the home of Senator Ron Johnson, whose text messages to Jim Troupis and Ken Chesebro, the leaders of the fraudulent elector scheme, clearly show he was neck-deep in the attempted presidential coup and is actively lying about his involvement to the American people. We hope Johnson will be indicted and forced to testify under oath about the role he played on January 6
Wausau and Superior are the largest cities in Wisconsin’s deeply red 7thCongressional District, whose Congressman is “Toxic” Tom Tiffany.
This guy was the only Wisconsin Congressman to side with Texas in their baseless lawsuit to throw out Wisconsin’s ballots-- the very same ballots that got him elected. He is arguably Wisconsin’s biggest MAGA shill, willing to parrot any lie or conspiracy theory to curry favor with his emperor.
This sign is in Washington County near Germantown, part of the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington) surrounding Milwaukee that have started becoming more progressive as suburban women reject the party that took their reproductive rights away. Parts of this area are in Scott Fitzgerald's district. He arranged for the fraudulent electors to be able to gain access to the locked capitol building and reserved a room for them to commit their crime.
We sued all three of these men in 2022, using the same 14th amendment clause that was used to kick Trump off of Colorado's ballot, only to have that case dismissed by Judge Edelman in Milwaukee's Eastern District because he said Wisconsin voters didn't have the "standing" to sue.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Donald Trump loses the presidential race in 2024, making it impossible for him to pardon himself or all of his co-conspirators, that Ron Johnson, Tom Tiffany, and Scott Fitzgerald will finally be held accountable for their roles in the insurrection...
...And as long as we can keep raising enough money to put these signs up, I’ll be damned we don't keep constantly reminding Wisconsin voters that our state's leading Republican's were directly linked to Trump's attack on our country, up and until the election on November 5, 2024.
We’ve raised about $15K already to put these signs up, am I'm hoping you'll help chip in to raise another $15K to keep these up for a few more months.
We've also earmarked a sign location in Eau Claire, MAGA Congressman Derrick Van Orden's district, that we'll buy if we can raise a total of $20K after today's email.
Here’s the link to contribute to this effort.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting the Minocqua Brewing Company. Together, let's make Wisconsin Great Again by grabbing the ankles of Wisconsin's Republican insurrectionists and never letting go until they are held accountable.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC