"If prosecuting politically unpopular speech becomes the 'new normal,' you can bet this tactic will be embraced by both parties."

"Left-wing individuals and groups are at least as guilty of coordinating their expenditures and efforts with Democrats as conservatives are with Republicans," writes Larry Kaufmann at Isthmus.

If the Supreme Court does not unambiguously repudiate the basis for the current John Doe probe, the GOP is empowered to launch similar investigations into left-leaning organizations in 2016 and beyond. The next group at the business end of a John Doe battering ram could be One Wisconsin Now rather than the Club for Growth.

You would think every commentary on John Doe would recognize this danger, but you would be wrong...

"For your master's degree: Name 5 conservative professors at UW-Madison."

Says David Blaska, linking to "The Closing of the Campus Mind" at The Weekly Standard.

I see that, in the comments, a couple people name me and that Larry Kaufmann says: "I'm not sure Ann Althouse qualifies." I agree with Larry. There's no way the University of Wisconsin deserves credit for having "conservatives" by having me. I support abortion rights and gay rights (and have for the entire 30 years I've been on campus). I've never denounced affirmative action. I've written articles in the feminist genre. What is supposed to be conservative about me other than that I have a blog where I take conservative arguments seriously and put them up for discussion and don't kick out the right wingers in the comments but only needle them with questions? To count me as a UW conservative would be to further acknowledge the dominance of the left: I irk them, so I must be what they don't like.

At the Madison mayoral debate, the crowd chanted "Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail, the whole damn system is guilty as hell."

"Thursday night's mayoral debate between incumbent Paul Soglin and challenger Scott Resnick was marked by sharp hostility -- both between the candidates, and the candidates and the crowd," Isthmus reports.

When Resnick said "We need to come together in this community," there was laughter.

Soglin tried: "I find it very, very difficult to address this subject in the context of a mayoral debate, of the context of some of the anger in this room.... The larger concern in the community, where parents are concerned about well-being of children, we're all concerned about our neighbors."

The crowd shouted him down — "What about Tony?" — and Soglin sat down without finishing.

I don't know who to vote for in the mayoral election. How does one decide between Resnick and Soglin? Some people are deciding based on their different positions on — of all things — Uber, as Larry Kaufmann explains here:

Leading the charge is Mayor Paul Soglin, who treats Uber as if it were the spawn of Satan, or at least the Koch brothers. The Paul Soglin for Mayor website describes Uber as a "company headed by a devotee of Ayn Rand" that makes "conscious decisions to destroy full-time jobs." The mayor likens Uber to a "new form of serfdom," which might be accurate if medieval serfs used smartphone apps and complex, back-end routing algorithms to find rides to their masters' fields.

His mayoral challenger, Scott Resnick, takes a different view. The first item on his campaign's site declares that Uber, Lfyt and other ridesharing firms "are here and they are not going away." Resnick believes cutting-edge ridesharing technology can help "devise innovative solutions that meet our city's transportation needs." Nevertheless, he wishes to load a number of regulations onto Uber and similar firms that currently apply to taxis, including licensing by the city, background checks on drivers, insurance requirements and restrictions on "surge" pricing during high-demand times.

Keep Uber out or let it in but regulate the hell out of it.  That's the choice in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm thinking of protest-voting, writing in the name Mike Koval.

"They don't have a candidate, but Democrats increasingly have a message for the 2014 gubernatorial race..."

"... Wisconsin is falling behind Minnesota, and it's Scott Walker's fault."

Just minutes after learning of better economic news in Minnesota than Wisconsin in 2012, progressives took to their keyboards and began blaming "extremist" policies enacted in our state in the last two years, in prose so purple it could have been on a Vikings football jersey.

There is one big problem with this argument: Wisconsin has been falling behind Minnesota for a long, long time....

Is Eric Hovde the new Ron Johnson?

Larry Kaufman on the GOP Senate primary in Wisconsin.

But Ron Johnson did not have to fight off Tommy Thompson, the former governor who chose not to go for a Senate seat when it required ousting an incumbent. It's an easier seat to get in the general election because the incumbent is retiring, but that makes the primary more contentious.

Is Thompson up for that fight? Or is he just assuming we know him and like him? So far...

... Thompson is a no-show for debates and often "phones in" speeches at the events he does attend. There's a growing sense that Thompson is acting like he's entitled to the job...

When is the Senate primary anyway? It's August 14, after the recall elections, which are June 5th. Kaufman tries to predict the post-recall political climate:

If Gov. Scott Walker loses, dispirited GOP voters will be far more likely to hunker down and cast a "safe" vote for Thompson to take on Democratic challenger Tammy Baldwin. 

Really? Wow. GOP folk go completely beta? Gotta win something.

But in the more likely case where Walker wins, the surge in Republican confidence would favor candidates like Hovde running on a stronger and more forthright fiscal conservatism. Wisconsin's open primary could also favor Hovde, since he's a fresh face with more crossover appeal than his opponents.

Why wouldn't they cross over and vote for whoever is the weakest candidate to face Baldwin? These open primaries are a bitch.

IN THE COMMENTS: Original Mike said:

Thompson clearly doesn't have it in him anymore. He should step aside. 

If the GOP had a brain, all the other candidates would step down and endorse Hovde. Don't you think? There's only one declared candidate on the Democratic side, the primary isn't until August, and it's an open primary.

The House of Fallen Timbers...

... a small log cabin that David Lottes built from the dead trees that were cluttering up his 4-acree wood.

The blog-saga begins here.

ADDED: 2 good quotes in that blog's sidebar:

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” — John Steinbeck

"The secret of being a bore is to tell everything." - Voltaire

The Steinbeck quote reminds me of this essay by Larry Kaufmann: "The Occupy movement has it all wrong: Income mobility proves that the American dream is still alive." ("No one can change the past, so it's pointless to worry about what others have earned (or saved and turned into wealth) in previous years.")

The Voltaire quote seems like the theory behind Nina Camic's blog. She's in Paris now, after her pilgrimage to Warsaw. ("I’ve stopped speaking Polish for good... I became an immigrant without at least initially intending to be that....")

AND: Thinking of tiny houses and OWS encampments and prompted by Sofa King in the comments — Does he have all the permits for building that? — I went looking for this:

However, if one designs to construct a dwelling-house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary.

School choice — it's choice! — how can it be bad?

It might be good.

[T]he appeal of school choice cannot be reduced to simple power politics. In fact, the people most resistant to expanding choice are often suburban voters who vote Republican and (sometimes mistakenly) believe their schools are providing quality education. Inner-city minority parents are frequently the most vocal choice proponents because they experience sub-par education firsthand. Republicans who support school choice are actually taking political risks that run counter to raw political calculations.