Prohibiting Employees From Signing Petitions Should be a Crime

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The November 27, 2011 Janesville Gazette print newspaper contained an editorial titled "Sacrificing some rights come with the territory," where the editor went on to explain that the company's policy forbids them from signing the recall petition.

JG editorial excerpt:
More important, we're professionals who leave our politics at the door when we come to work. That said, several newsroom employees asked me if our ethics policy prohibited them from signing the recall petition.

Without hesitation, I answered yes.

Here's what our policy says about political activities: Staffers may not be involved in political campaigns or activities. Avoid outward demonstrations of support for candidates or causes, such as yard signs or buttons.

Okay, I'm going to stray here for a bit. "We're professionals who leave our politics at the door when we come to work," BUT can they pick up their politics off the coat hanger when they walk out the door? Apparently not.

Though the editor thinks his journalists can set their politics aside, his biggest worry seems to come from concerns over us dumb clucks in the public and our obviously wrong perception of media bias. I mean, my God. What would the world think if someone found out that Janesville Gazette employees signed the Recall Walker petition?

The editorial finishes...

JG editorial excerpt:
Our credibility is our most cherished asset and we need to protect it with every decision we make.

Whoa! THAT coming from a newspaper that proudly published political endorsements of McCain/Palin, Scott Walker, Ron Johnson, Paul Ryan, JB Van Hollen, Tyler August, Evan Wynn, Amy Loudenbeck and David Prosser AND whose boss is on the board of directors of the WMC. In addition, immediately to the right of this particular "concern over credibility" editorial in the newsprint copy was the paper's twice-a-week "Sound off" column of politically charged statements, claims and rants, all vetted to be officially "anonymous."

And, he's worried about the perception of media bias and credibility?

But far more important is the idea that if a media company is within their legal rights to forbid their employees from signing petitions, any company can do the same. This is a democratic republic right? Land of the free, home of the brave and all that jazz. Oh never mind.

Of equal interest now is a bill authored by Rep. Evan Wynn that would make it a felony to induce someone to sign a recall petition by offering anything of value in exchange for a signature. "Mind-boggling is the only word to describe this legalized bribery," Wynn writes.

What about inducements not to sign? How about when a private entity, business or individual, either by written policy or verbal command, prohibits a person against their own free will from signing a petition by holding something of value like their job, paycheck or the fear of a written reprimand in the employment record over their heads? That too is mind-boggling and legalized blackmail. It is un-American.

WMC Aiming To Get Their Money's Worth

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In what probably is one of the most obscene proposals ever to be submitted to the state's high court, the morally bankrupt group known as the WMC is requesting that...

Daily Press Excerpt:
...judges would not be required to step aside from cases involving groups or individuals no matter how much they spent to help their campaigns.

Daily Press Excerpt:
"Individuals and organizations spend money to help elect a judicial candidate precisely because they want that candidate to be a judge — that is, to preside over cases, including their own," WMC attorney Mike Wittenwyler said in the petition. "There is nothing corrupt about that. That is democracy."

That's not democracy - that's bold-faced corruption. In that case, why bother with campaign contributions? Why not just pay the judges directly for each court case?

Obviously, the high court should strike their proposal down. But does that mean if the WMC or other special interests can't buy judges, they will no longer contribute to their election campaigns? Yeeeeaaah!

WMC AWOL In Bidding War For GM Auto Plant

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Capital Times Excerpt: (Ed Garvey)
Where do you suppose Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was while the governor fought to keep the Janesville plant open? We hear from WMC on just about every issue from taxes to elections, but heard nothing on this one. Why not, Jim Haney? Don't you care about Wisconsin and the 1,200 families in Janesville?

Like a coward soldier going AWOL during wartime, the WMC should be stripped of the “Manufacturers and Commerce” title within their name. And remove "Wisconsin" too - they are an embarrassment to the state.

Another Bogus WMC Claim

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Capital Times Excerpt:
For the past few years, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state's largest business lobby, has made reforming the state's legal system one of its top priorities -- proclaiming that excessive litigation "is costing businesses and individuals billions of dollars, and is affecting our international competitiveness."

Not true, says a new study published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Law School that aims to "examine some of the persistent myths" about civil litigation.

McCain’s State Campaign Co-chair Files Suit

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John McCain’s state campaign co-chair sued the state Government Accountability Board Wednesday, saying it must crosscheck voter names with driver’s license records for some voters who registered to vote or changed their addresses since Jan. 1, 2006.

Critics accused McCain’s state co-chair — a Republican serving as Wisconsin's State Attorney General — of filing the suit for partisan gain.

Van Hollen Wisconsin’s Katherine Harris

Excerpt:
It is within this context and pattern of behavior that we now find J.B. Van Hollen filing what is yet another partisan politically motivated lawsuit. What makes this one so much worse is that he is doing it with taxpayer money while at the same time threatening many of those same taxpayer’s right to vote.

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At The Bottom Of Wisconsin's Business Climate

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Thursday’s Janesville Gazette ran the Buchen/WMC written offensive against American values and free speech rights on their opinion page. The article was no different than the one posted in the Capital Times and almost lost my attention except for one small detail. You see, the Gazette opinion page print copy posts a category title at the very top of each written perspective. For instance, their own newspaper editorials are categorized as “Our Views” and letters to the editor are titled “Your Views,” syndicated columnists and others as “Other Views.” Instead of listing the perspective written by the private citizen Buchen under something like “Lobbyist Views” or “Other Views,” the Gazette posted it under “State Views,” thereby giving it a more official and credible stature than it deserved.

Perhaps I’m being a little too sensitive here, but considering the Gazette is owned by a WMC board member, it obviously could have been much worse. They could have titled it “God’s Views.”

Just a few days earlier, the Capital Times editorialized their views on the WMC.

Capital Times Editorial Excerpt:

WMC Winning Race to the bottom
WMC, once a credible group, turned into a destructive entity years ago. In the 1980s, as the traditional link between corporations and the states in which they were located began to fray, WMC abandoned its long-term commitment to growth and progress in Wisconsin. It opted, instead, for strategies that provided short-term rewards to investors, most of whom do not live in the state. Those investors favored "race-to-the-bottom" economic strategies -- in which corporations reject any commitment to workers and communities in order to skip from state to state, and ultimately from country to country, in search of situations that allow them to shift the tax burden to working families, pollute at will, eschew public health and safety regulations, lower wages for workers and cut benefits.

This is consistent with, and expands on the idea that joining the WMC could hinder rather than enhance one's business prospects. Easily one the best newspaper editorials on the WMC. A must-read.

Resigning From WMC A Good Business Decision

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The Janesville Gazette ran the the A.P. version of the J.P. Cullen/WMC resignation story in Saturday’s edition on page 6A. The AP article attempted to paint the resignation as a forced concession between two free market businesses. The text of Cullen’s resignation letter read:

Isthmus Excerpt:
Due to some corporate structuring and analysis, we regret to inform you that we are withdrawing our membership in WMC and I must resign my position on the Board of Directors. I continue to support the ideals of the organization to promote a healthy business climate for Wisconsin, and it is my intent to continue to advocate for sensible public policies that will benefit both the businesses and people in our great state.

On the surface, I would like to think that Cullen’s resignation resulted from a re-examination of the their political conscience, but that is not to be. I also think it would be a misconception to call this any kind of a defeat for the WMC and their radical politics. We should just take Cullen's word for it, their resignation from the WMC was based on corporate structuring and analysis. It was strictly a business decision, nothing more. Other businesses should follow Cullen's lead.

If anything, perhaps it can be said they are finding business more important than whatever the WMC is pushing, but the Janesville contractor remains true to their cause.

Read Paul Soglin’s Explanation here.

Read more here.

WMC Have Your Attention Yet?

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Once again, the candidate who throws the dirtiest mud - Wins!

Madison.com Excerpt:
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman won a narrow victory over Justice Louis Butler on Tuesday, marking the first time a sitting justice has been defeated in 41 years.
The bitter and partisan race for the officially nonpartisan seat drew national attention because of the barrage of negative ads by outside groups costing millions of dollars.

As long as we keep under-estimating the power of the WMC and their local chambers of commerce affiliates - the people lose.

Democracy Weakened Whether WMC Wins Or Loses

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Today for the first time (where have I been, right?) I saw the television campaign ad attacking Louis Butler for Wisconsin State Supreme Court Judge. The ad, as you probably know, attacked the former Public Defender for simply doing his job – public defending. But I readily became aware that the ad was also a tasteless joke mocking the intelligence of the Wisconsin voter after I read the disclosure at the bottom. Right away I thought here we have an organization (WMC) smearing an attorney for defending his client to the best of his ability, while previously, the same organization supported a judge (Ziegler) for defending her client to the best of her ability. The only major difference here of course is, Judge Ziegler was NOT defending the People she was sworn to defend, but instead was defending a undisclosed private client.

Why the radically wrong WMC still has any credibility is anyone's guess, but those are the kind of candidates they want and continue to support. By the way, when you see those words (Paid for by WMC) at the bottom of your TV screen or in a newspaper ad, you can’t say you haven’t been forewarned.

Now, I’m not saying the WMC hold secret meetings every week conspiring to take over the world or your town. But what I am about to share is my view of the WMC, which is a self-appointed illegitimate arm of GOP club-for-growth types and other right-wing zealots who support corporate-owned candidates for government, local or otherwise. They will drive a campaign between two seemingly non-partisan candidates to the depths of mutual assured destruction, not just destroying the reputations of the candidates, but to actually make their case so cock-eyed and deliberately wrong as to draw attention to what may very well be their ultimate goal – appointments.

No doubt, there is a state-wide drive to centralize and downsize local government and turn as many democratically elected offices into appointed positions. It is obviously much easier and less costly to influence the appointment process with a sleeper cell or two than it is to accomplish their goals by depending on the whim of the voters. The WMC has enough members in communities throughout the state of Wisconsin that one way or another, they will have at least one member or supporter embedded on any local board or committee drawn up to oversee these appointments. I believe the WMC and its affiliates are responsible for much of the local activism pressing for limiting the role of not only city and county governments, including the State Supreme Court, but to also cut off the power of democracy right at the ballot box.

So, under the veil of political campaign ads that fall just a smidgen short of full-blown personal libel law-suits, the WMC have discovered the formula to accomplish this goal. You won’t read about any of this in their mission statements (OneWisconsin Link), but they can’t lose because if their corporate-owned candidate wins the office, they win. And if their corporate-owned candidate loses, well, the belligerent WMC (remember, this is a chamber of commerce!!) knows they have taken the political process one more step further down a gutter so petulant and intolerable that both the Right, Left and anybody in between will beg for appointments. WMC influenced editorials will pop up in your town’s newspapers tearing down the partisan bickering and negative ads of political campaigns they themselves have manufactured.

To this, the WMC will celebrate with cases of Dom Perignon below a George W. Bush autographed banner of “Mission Accomplished.”

The WMC, their tactics and mission, should be denounced by the Wisconsin state legislature, and they should not be given the podium at the State Capital to spread their anti-democracy gospel to a captive audience of the people, for the people, or paid by the people.