They're So Cute When They're All Petulant

Over the past few years a certain subset of bloggers has made the case that money is speech, that there should be no limits on how money is spent to influence politics. The most egregious example of this is the Citizens United decision.

But, now that real people are using their own money to influence politics in the only way they can compete those very same bloggers are shocked, shocked to find out that money is a sword that cuts both ways.

Here is the legacy of Jim Haney at WMC; he sowed the seeds for a business climate in Wisconsin that pitted employers against workers. Now Kwik Trip, Johnsonville and Sargento are reaping the fruit of those vines and the perpetually aggrieved are squealing about it.

Here's a piece of advice for the next time AFP buys a political movement; you might consider the consequences of naming it after the best known boycott in American history. The real patriots of the real Boston Tea Party knew that consumers have choices that can change the system. Thanks to the Koch brothers and Jim Haney Wisconsin companies will have to deal with the fallout from that.

Attempting To Re-Frame The Debate

In which Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce decides they don't want to be known for only saying, "No!" they are running this Facebook ad.

I wonder who they think they're fooling.

Selling Their Souls

As Keith pointed out earlier, Chancellor John Wiley's keen observations of the damage that the WMC is doing to the State of Wisconsin with their Machiavellian manipulations and maneuverings has caused fits of conniptions and consternations among the right wingers.

But what Keith has shown us is but the tip of the derangement iceberg among the righties.

Christian Schneider has a post "dissecting" Wiley's observations, calling them hyperbolic. Unfortunately, his refutations are pure hyperbole themselves. An example:

Yet, apparently those changes are what are necessary to keep Wisconsin from - and I hope you’re sitting down - becoming a “permanent third-world state.” Honestly, if any political science student at UW-Madison used that kind of hyperbole in one of their research papers, they should be forced to re-take the course (unless it was taught by Kevin Barrett.)

Um, yeah. Well, if we have to explain the difference between a treatise and a research paper, then they're already lost to the point anyway. And why the Barrett mention? Just to rile the dander of the lemmings that eat up this pablum anyway.

My good friend, the Illusory One has pointed out some more of the truth about WMC and their lying henchmen.

Not to be outdone by Schneider, the master of linguistic and logic gymnastics, Patrick McIlheran chimes in with his two cents on the issue. He quaintly titles his piece "The nerve of these....tradesman!" After a long and winding road full of smoke, mirrors, stroked statistics and logical leaps that have not been seen since McBride closed down her blogs, he comes to this conclusion:

Wiley seems particularly frosted that business owners have gotten so uppity as to forget their place: Which is to shut up, make more . . . well, whatever it is such tradesmen make all day, and anyhow just do their job, which is to support the university by submitting to ever-higher taxes and to be grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Basically, McIlheran takes a long and convoluted path to admonish the Chancellor for calling for equality. That rotten scoundrel! How dare he want equality for the people!

Unfortunately for PaddyMac, the definition of tradesmen does not include megarich CEOs of corporations. The proper word for the group that Paddy is looking for is plutocracy.

The only tradesmen in this story would be people like Schneider and McIlheran who have traded their souls for a lump of fool's gold.

Hey Paddy, Lance, whoever -- Boycott me!

Our old friend Paddy Mac at the Journal Sentinel doesn't do any heavy lifting on this blog post,entitled, "Hey" Let's Boycott the Ghosts of Greater Wisconsin," except to lift the content right from Lance Burri in FoxPolitics.

His topic: Why is everybody picking on Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) when there are those liberal groups out there:

The Greater Wisconsin Committee -- a shadowy interest group if there ever was one -- spent $1.4 million on the race. About a third of all third-party expenditures.

"Epic's outrage is, however, directed only at WMC. Not at WEAC, nor at GWC, whose money would easily have 'bought' the election, had WMC's not evened things out.

"Of course, expressing outrage at those groups would be a meaningless expression of outrage. How does one 'boycott' WEAC? Refuse to do business with anybody who pays school taxes? With anybody who sends their kids to Wisconsin public schools? With anybody who graduated from Wisconsin public schools?

"How does one 'boycott' GWC? We don't even know who they are.

"One doesn't boycott them. That's how. Because one can't. There's nothing to boycott. WMC, on the other hand...we know who they are. They're businesspeople. They're the creators -- the ones Winston Churchill described as the horse that pulls the wagon."

Gotta give Burri credit for some great Orwellian work. He says WMC "evened things out" to prevent those loony lefty groups from influencing the election. Right. Except that WMC had done the same thing last year for Annette Ziegler and announced right afterward that it intended to do the same thing again. It's the liberal side that has been trying to play catch-up and level the playing field.

I'm hardly a disinterested observor. I was GWC's general and media consultant the first two years it existed, 2004-06. Then I retired from consulting but became a member of the GWC board in the spring of 2007. That's no secret, and neither are the identities of others at GWC. The organization is incorporated as a Wisconsin non-profit, recognized by the federal government as a tax exempt advocacy group, and also operates a state political action committee and a federal 527. It files every required report and obeys every state and federal tax and campaign law.

The reason you can't boycott GWC is that its board members are people who share an interest in promoting progressive issues, not changing the laws so they can make more money. The board consists of a couple of community activists, a couple of lawyers, and me. I suppose you could not use the law firms of those two lawyers and call that a boycott.

But feel free, Paddy, Lance, or whoever else, to boycott me, if that will make you feel any better.

Not that any conservative has ever given me a nickel anyway.

Let the boycott begin.

The Lawyer Is Teh Funny

Rick Esenberg has been riding Paul Soglin pretty hard for the last week or so because of the Mayor's work on behalf of WMC Watch. The Rickster, who if memory serves has cashed at least one WMC check for his own self, wants Soglin to share the names of his clients.

In his latest howler, Goose and gander: WMC and Soglin, Esenberg makes a funny. Although speaking of a generic candidate he inadvertantly reminds us of the foibles of Michael Gableman, WMC's latest, greatest patsy.

Although there is arguably not as great a possibility for quid pro quo type
corruption, i.e., a candidate deciding that she owes a funder favors

In Gableman's case, of course, this worked both ways. Not only is Gableman beholden to his benefactors but he owes his career to his fundraising work on behalf of others.

I'll let you go now. I just wanted to let Rick know that I got his little wink at reality there. Carry on.

A Logical Conclusion

The fallout from last Tuesday's election, in which WMC was able to oust Justice Louis Butler and but in their bobble-headed puppet Gableman, continues. But there is an interesting pattern of thought among the right wingers.

Each and every one of the squawkers, from McBride to McIlheran to Sykes to Belling have all been crowing about Gableman's victory. (OK, Sykes doesn't actually write anything on his own. But he did put up several posts linking to other people writing the same point, over and over and over.)

Also, using eerily similar language, they all try to convince us that Gableman's winning the election had nothing to do with the huge amount of money spent by special interests, or Gableman's racist ad playing on the fear of people. No, my friends, they try to tell us that the only reason Gableman won is because Gableman was the conservative choice. For the sake of this discussion, let's use this as the first given: Gableman won because he is conservative.

Now, let us look at the allegations by the left. They claim Gableman's ad was racist and lacking in truth and integrity. James Rowen points out, in a post that criticizes McIlheran's incomplete essay on the matter, that no less than 30 state judges and one former Supreme Court justice found the ad had "exceeded the boundaries of fairness, honesty and integrity for candidates running for judicial office."

Clyde Winter again does his usual exemplary job of research and writing to show us a history of the whole scandalous election. He also provides us a couple of links to FactCheck.Org which tells us that the ads from CFAF were full of untruths, half-truths and unethical claims. FactCheck.Org also points out that the ad that came from Gableman himself is in the style of the Willie Horton ads, and that it would be generous to call it misleading (especially when it was blatantly fraudulent). Heck, even Sykes said that Gableman's ad was an embarrassment.

And let us not forget how our favorite barrister, in great pains-taking detail, itemized the incorrect allegations and assumptions of the likes of McBride, who couldn't even get the basic facts correct on which she launched her vitriolic eruptions of lies and hate. That's not the first, nor was it even the latest, time that she has gotten her facts completely wrong. But what do you expect. It takes a professional journalist to even know that they should start out with the complete and actual facts of the case. It is unfair to expect that level of journalism from McBride. (And to think, she is on the public dole for supposedly teaching journalism. Talk about wasting tax dollars...)

So, we see that, based on findings from lawyers, judges (including a former Supreme Court justice, and a fact checking organizations, the ads were racist, filled with lies, dishonest, unscrupulous and fear-mongering. Let that be our second given.

Following logic, given that Gableman won because he ran as the conservative, and given that the ads supporting Gableman were racist, misleading, dishonest, and unethical, one must presume, by their own admission, that these "conservatives" are racist, dishonest and unethical.

But we already knew that, didn't we?

Exceeding The RDA In Irony

Something has made grumps grumpy:

So. Here we are on the day after the election and The Gazette has found that there are partisans participating in non-partisan elections. (They weren't the only ones. Some idiot over at Fred's place thought it might be unconstitutional for teachers to vote on school referenda and wanted The New Supremes [Now with 17% more dunderheads] to look into it)

Why would I spit good soup over this, though?

It's because the editorial was over the masthead of The Gazette and the name of Publisher, Sidney Bliss. The very same Sidney Bliss who sits on the board of WMC and who, presumably, supports the actions of that body.

I'm sorry, Sid. (May I call you Sid?) You have no standing to decry the partisan actions of anyone until you take care of that line on your CV. I know that belonging to WMC is a good way to troll for advertisers and build those relationships that lead to good billing weeks. Fine.

But where do you get off saying (or paying someone to say) that anyone is unfairly using non-partisan politics to further an agenda when you sit on the board of an organization which has raised meddling to an art form.

Deal with that beam in your own eye, Sid. Then we can have a chat about the mote in Mike Sheridan's.

Where's Their Outrage Now?

McBride, Sykes and the rest of the right wing squawk brigade were more than willing to point out the sins of Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler. He failed to make timely notice that he took a campaign contribution from an attorney appearing before the court.

Somehow, all of them must have missed the news about today's proceedings with Annette "Gut Check" Ziegler hearing arguments that involve WMC, who donated $2 million to her campaign. And has Milwaukee Rising points out, the AG J.B. Van Hollen, who also benefited greatly from the WMC during his campaign, could have asked for her recusal, but willingly failed to do so.

If you wish to do more than the Attorney General, or any of the local right wing media, in promoting justice, please click on the link below and sign the petition asking Ziegler to do the right thing, for once, and recuse herself.

http://advwisc.bluestatedigital.com/page/petition/zieglermenasha

Thank you to One Wisconsin for organizing the petition drive.