iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

FALSE IN WISCONSIN. WI Statutes sec. 7.37(4): "2 inspectors shall be assigned to take charge of the official ballots. They shall write their initials on the back of each ballot and deliver to each elector as he or she enters the voting booth one ballot properly endorsed by each of them."

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

When you have lost Judge Stadtmueller…

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Dan Shafer @danshafer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Republicans don't actually want Milwaukee to succeed. They want to deprive it of resources, deprive it of funding, and then point their fingers and blame the city for the challenges they've chiefly caused. They don't want a thriving city. They want a political punching bag.

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Like half the Tiffany ads are "local taxes in Milwaukee County went up while Crowley was exec" and yes, that was the grand bargain with the GOP-controlled state legislature to put MKE city and county on firmer financial footing

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I think 20 yo me would first be bewildered. We could only get to an answer after I explained that life is the side trip that happens while you are planning other things. And I suspect the answer would be some of both

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Progress!! Today's game of find-a-plumber-who-can-deal-with-a-house-drain-clog-before-next-week is now a game of wait-for-the-plumber. L'shana tova to me!

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Cait (spooky edition 🦇) @caitesq.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Free poli sci dissertation idea: The three spirits in A Christmas Carol represent three modes of persuasion—reminding people of their history and values, accepting them with joy and love, and scaring them about the future. It takes the conjunction of the three to change Scrooge.

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Barb McQuade @barbmcquade.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

First trip across the Gordie Howe Bridge today. It is glorious. Thank you, Canada.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I just saw something advertised as organic cotton candy. Why would anyone care if cotton candy was healthy?

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Note to AlaskaHawaiian Airlines: Your staff was very sweet today but life would be much easier for the hard of hearing if you would use 1,2,3… instead of A,B,C… groups. I can’t distinguish consonants well over a loudspeaker.

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RoseMarie @rosesbloom24.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

David Crowley did not “beat the polls” so much as he won the part of the electorate that the news coverage treated as background noise. That news media error was not only mathematical. It was narrative. www.milwaukeeindependent.com/articles/dav...

milwaukeeindependent.com

How David Crowley won the undecided voters that Wisconsin media pundits treated as an afterthought | Milwaukee Independent

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Saralegal @saralegal.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

The Wisconsin gubernatorial primary is a sad clusterfuck circus, but I will back whichever clown emerges victorious 100% because the alternative is being ruled by Pennywise. This is not complicated.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Sitting in my car in a parking lot until it stops bucketing rain.

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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Everyone coming on my feed and explaining to me that all is lost, I note what I have noted before, that there are no Negro Spirituals entitled, “Welp, I Guess It All Sucks and I Am Giving Up.”

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This Wisconsin Democrat feels as though she is in the middle of a bad soap opera. I vote early n-person because I work the polls, but I won't do that until the last minute. (Don't do mail voting because my mail service is a bit erratic.) I hate all this.

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Saralegal @saralegal.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Being assured by three witches that you'll be king hereafter is heady stuff if you've never read the rest of the damn play.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Text from 15 yo today: [Mom] told me that i'm supposed to say happy birthday. So, "happy birthday". Laughing and shaking my head: “Thank you, my cute, funny, and obnoxious grandson.” Teenagers!!!

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I did administrative law before I ever did criminal law. I am not shocked at today’s decisions (because being a PD made me cynical) but I feel as though there has been an earthquake.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Let's make up a new procedure to make it harder to get real justice because pretend justice should be sufficient. (Or is it "let's make up a new procedure to make it harder to enforce the constitution?" Or maybe it's two for the price of one.)

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

It isn't about who is deserving. It's about whether civilized societies permit the the government to carry out premeditated killings (they do not), and whether the government is capable of doing so fairly, justly, and under equal protection of the law (there is zero evidence that it is).

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

I am starting the day well. I had to go to the DMV to renew my license because you can only renew in-person when you are more than 64 years old. I made an appointment (new thing) and it took only 15 minutes. Unheard of!

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Kara Karlson @karakarlson.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Happy pride! For those "can't change biology" types:

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I think, just maybe, I am beginning to feel alive again. Is this “the with feathers that perches in the soul?”

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Wisconsin's incarceration rate is out of control--and the state refuses to pay full rate for it.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Being sick on vacation sucks

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

This is not good—said in the way a midwesterner uses “not good” (IYKYK)

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

I am married to a man who makes an art form of "dinking around." Oh, well, at least he is almost never bored.

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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 30/04/2026

What do conservatives always say when liberals criticize a Supreme Court decision? "Get Congress to pass a law," right? That is EXACTLY what happened here. In 1982, Congress explicitly overruled a Court case that narrowly interpreted the VRA. Today, Sam Alito said, nope, we were right all along.

In 1982, when Congress passed a series of amendments strengthening the Voting Rights Act of 1965, lawmakers wanted to make one thing very clear: that minority voters seeking to prove violations of the Voting Rights Act do not have to prove that lawmakers intentionally discriminated against them based on race. Instead, under a provision of the law known as Section 2, Congress said, it is enough for voters to show that a given policy—a redistricting plan, for example—has the effect of making it more difficult for them to actually participate in democracy.

At the time, Congress had good reason to be specific. Two years earlier, the Supreme Court in City of Mobile v. Bolden had held that a facially neutral electoral map did not violate the Voting Rights Act, even though it had the practical effect of reducing Black voting strength. In the 1982 amendments, Congress explicitly overruled Bolden; in its final report on the bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee affirmed that requiring challengers to prove discriminatory intent would impose an “inordinately difficult burden,” and would make it too easy for racist lawmakers to disguise their true motivations by leaving a “false trail” of non-discriminatory justifications.

In Louisiana v. Callais, which the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday, the six conservative justices took it upon themselves to reimpose the “inordinately difficult burden” Congress lifted five decades ago. In his opinion for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito strains to present Callais as faithful to the law passed by Congress: His opinion, he says, merely “updates” the tests that courts use to evaluate Section 2 claims, and “realigns” that framework with the text of the Voting Rights Act.

In reality, what Alito and the majority have done is make it functionally impossible for voters to prove that a given map is an illegal racial gerrymander, no matter how discriminatory the map’s real-world impact. Their opinion in Callais preserves only a husk of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, leaving intact the ability of minority voters to cast ballots while simultaneously guaranteeing lawmakers’ power to ensure that those ballots are meaningless. Going forward, the same racist lawmakers whom Congress sought to bind in 1982 will be freer than ever to draw lines that gerrymander their Black and brown constituents out of electoral existence.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

I just closed my last case and am now fully retired.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

I survived playing in a piano recital yesterday (despite a pinched nerve in my neck and a partially numb hand.)

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

I wish this information shocked me but I suspected it

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

And the tornado sirens are again going off. So, as a distraction while I am in the basement, ask me anything.

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

More unsung NASA heroes: 11 deaf people

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Happy to report that the basement futon is far more comfortable for sleeping on that its age says it should be but I still will need a nap today. #TornadoWarning #NightSirens

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Don Zeko @donzeko.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

One of the most consistently infuriating things about the criminal legal system is how little anyone in a position of authority cares about determining what does and does not work.

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Ellie Margolis @elliemargolis.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Testimony is evidence. Testimony is evidence. Testimony is evidence. (Seems like some people need this reminder)

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Not everyone gets to relive their childhood by watching splashdown. Still as cool as ever. #Artemis2

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Ellen Henak @ehenak.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I love registering first-time voters.

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