There is NO Jane Doe Equivalency...

Media TracKKKer's is at it again.   The right wing propagandists group led by the well known racist Brian Sikma has decided to launch an attack against Tom Barrett! Oops Sikma was not brave enough to do that so he went after Mayor Barrett's wife.  Mrs. Barrett, is a teacher who previously worked for the Milwaukee Public School System and was laid off in 2011(its NOT working).  She is now employed by the Wauwatosa School District. 

It seems that Mrs. Barrett sent out a total of 3 emails from her MPS account that could be conceived as "political".  O the horrors.  

Two of the three emails were sent in March 2011 to state Sen. Spencer Coggs and Rep. Tamara Grigsby, calling for them to vote against legislation that curtailed collective bargaining for most public workers.

"Keep up the good fight. We are all under attack," one of the emails says.

The third email sent to five email addresses in February 2011 seeks help "getting the word out" about an effort against Rep. Jeff Stone's campaign for Milwaukee County executive.

"The more people we get to protest, the better," the email says. "Everyone who can should try to come."

So of these three emails,  none of which have anything to do with the recall election, they really say  nothing.  Two out of three were to her elected officials saying good job and another asking 5 friends to protest.

I get that there is an email policy, and there needs to be one.

According to MPS' code of ethics, employees are allowed to participate in political activity, but they can't use the school system's name in a way that implies endorsement by the school system. It also violates an acceptable use policy that says the email system can't be used for campaigning, St. Aubin said.

 Of course looking at the emails, there was no campaigning so that punishment goes away, nor would any sane person think that a "keep up the good fight" to your elected rep, in an email that you personally signed and sent would "imply endorsement" by the 10,000 employees of MPS.   Is it "unethical"  - we will explore that in a bit, but first lets break the emails down a bit more. I assume they looked at all of Mrs. Barrett's emails for the year, which by my count is approximately 181 days, and lets assume 30 emails a day.   That translates into 5430 emails in a year.  Which by these calculations means Mrs. Barrett sent a total of .0005 emails she should not have sent.  

As to the "unethical" part, I want to relate personal experience.   My wife is a Social Worker in the Madison School District.   She works 80% of the time, which means that she works Monday - Thursday and has Friday off.   She leaves for work at 7:00 AM and usually comes home around 5:00 PM..  Well beyond contract hours.  She also almost always at night checks her work emails from our home computer  and makes work related phone calls and texts.   Recently I had to spend a Friday in the hospital getting a procedure done.  It took approximately 7 hours.  My wife sat with me in the hospital with her Ipad working almost the whole day sending and answering emails and making phone calls(on her day off).   I also know for a fact that she sees things on a daily basis that 98% of us will never see and only occasionally read in the paper.  I also know that 30 emails in a day is a slow day for her.  I also think that the time she puts in is the rule not the exception.

She does all of this knowing that under ACT 10 she was forced to take a pay cut for her actions once and is now close to another 30% plus pay cut and being punished for having her Masters Degree and 20+ extra credits. Our Governor and his minions have spent over a year demonizing public workers as the have's and now your going to punish a teacher for sending three emails?   This on the heels of the story breaking that the Governor of our state, who makes triple what a teacher makes, and sets the stage as the leader of our state, does not show up for work anymore.  Plus Walker received a $7000 pay raise.  And three emails are "unethical"?

Lets review. 

The John Doe investigation is about all of Scott Walkers top advisor's campaigning for an actual candidate in an actual election and fundraising for said candidates(Walker and Brett Davis).  During this illegal campaigning/fundraising on taxpayer time, they(Darlene Wink/ Tim Russell/ etc..) set up a secret email network so that they would not be detected by IT nor subject(they thought) to Open records Requests.  12 people have been given immunity for this months long investigation so far and counting.

Mrs. Barrett's sending three emails she should not have DOES NOT EQUAL THIS.  

For further proof, the John Doe investigation has taken a seasoned prosecutor many months and even a Scott Walker criminal defense fund.  While Mrs. Barrett's emails were discovered by a coward who used it to attack  the family of Mayor Barrett.  Attacking the wife of someone in the political game is one that the right has played before. Who is Sikma's next target?  Any young children around for him to attack?  It is a shame that the Journal Sentinel attempts to give this sleaze credibility?

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