The conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday told the new liberal majority in a scathing email that they had staged a “coup” and conducted an “illegal experiment” when they voted to weaken her powers and fire the director of state courts.

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, in two emails obtained by The Associated Press, said that firing and hiring a new state court director was illegal and ordered interim state court director Audrey Skwierawski to stop signing orders without her knowledge or approval.

  • Odelay42@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Conservatives are working together to normalize the language of sedition ahead of Trump’s trails and the election.

    They want us to stop paying attention to words like coup.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The way conservatives choose to use the word coup makes it clear that they don’t know what that word means. Given their opposition to education, their lack of literacy is no surprise.

    • frozengriever@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s a deliberate campaign to muddle the meaning of words. Look at what conservatives have done to “fake news” or “woke” to see how they’re building a parallel Newspeak language

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        Ever since I read that book I can’t see Fox news prime time as anything other than our “two minutes hate.” It’s disgusting that it’s real.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      They don’t know what a lot of words mean, but in this case I think she’s just following the advice of Goebbels and accusing the other side of what she’s doing.

    • JdW@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Of course they do. It’s a common and effective propaganda instrument to lessen the effectiveness of the word so people take it less seriously when it’s used in the correct context. By underestimating their intelligence and cunning you are actually playing right into their hands.

    • StarServal@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      They always do this. They always weaponize words with powerful meanings without understanding or caring about the meanings. They just know the elicit a strong negative emotional response and that’s all they care about.

      • cynar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s worse than that. They both get the advantage of its venomous effect, and dilute its effect in the future. A coup used to be a major thing. Now, the word is thrown around all over the place. It’s only if you actually pay attention, you realise that one side is using it legitimately, while the other makes no sense. All most people hear is the newest buzz word insult, and tune it out.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They want to water it down, just like Trump did with “Fake News.”

      Around the time of the 2016 election, there was lots of coverage around literally-fake online news sites targeting voters on social media. So Trump’s team adopted the 'Fake News" catchphrase to dilute the term and make people think it was a “both sides” issue.

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    1 year ago

    The Democrats should sue over this, you can’t have a judge screaming “coup” every time they get outvoted. I’m sure a room full of judges can figure out what kind of law this is breaking, almost certainly there’s some kind of “incitement” law on the books.

  • milkjug@lemmy.wildfyre.dev
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    1 year ago

    Reading through the reported exchange, it sounds like someone wants to be Queen Bee, but was taken down a peg or two.

    Boo hoo.

  • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I hope people can admit that regardless of which political “side” judges are supporting, a judge allowing their political ideology to influence their decisions is a violation of their station. Judges are supposed to use their knowledge, expertise, and experience to rule on how our existing laws should be enforced, based on their original intent, sometimes in the context of circumstances their original authors didn’t take into account. Obviously, the influence of one’s political inclinations cannot be completely eliminated, but I feel like we’ve reached a point where judges—particularly those in our highest courts—are abusing their positions of power to advance their own political views. Sometimes, old laws do not make room for new circumstances, and new laws must be passed by legislative bodies instead of simply reinterpreting old laws for the convenience of modern times.

    If our judges don’t hold to these limitations and instead allow their political views to dictate their rulings, legal precedent ceases to have any meaning, and our laws will become nothing more than pendulums, the meaning of which will always depend on the justices in power at the time. This is not what the founders of our government intended and is no basis for a stable legal system regardless of their intent. This has to stop. If it continues, our legal system is steadily going to lose more and more credibility, and that is a surefire road to the disintegration of society into anarchy and war. This is exactly what our national enemies want.

    • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This is exactly what our national enemies want.

      Divide and conquer on steroids because of social media and LLMs.

  • roguetrick@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Parliamentary style rules for courts were always ridiculous and weakened trust in the judicial system, but they were ridiculous when she was elected chief justice in the first fucking place.