"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.