Spring Cleaning At Wisconsin Watchdog

By Jeff Simpson



Coming on the wake of Jimmy Wigderson getting let go at the Waukesha Freeman, thanks to "economic reasons*", (*economic reasons, being no one buys the paper to read his crap),now the latest organization to hire Jim, is cleaning house.

The poorly named Franklin Center for Government and public integrity, realized that the people who were writing for them, had no integrity and thus were forced to clean up their crew.

They finally realized that hiring Jimmy Wigderson to be their "education reporter" would be akin to ABC World News Tonight, hiring Pauly Shore to be their 5:30 PM anchor.  For instance, Wigderson, as an "objective" "education" "reporter" called for the assassination of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Evers.  Hard to take someone serious after that!

Luckily we at CogDis caught that and called it out because the watchdog fell asleep.

Couple that with Wigderson, deciding that some women deserve to get their pussy grabbed without permission by The Donald, and really he is not fit to be unaccompanied in a school, much less "reporting" on education.  

I am not even saying that because Wigderson has made it a hobby trying to get me fired from various jobs.  I had nothing to do with this, this was purely the free market.   There is only so much room, for BS stories, lack of facts and blatant lies in the right wing niche of Wisconsin.  Between Mediatrackkkers, Right Wisconsin, Christian Schneider, and Maciver the market is saturated!   We will see where they go from here, maybe they will hire a crew that actually cares about integrity. 

But wait there is more.   

It is not just Jimmy Wigderson that deserves to take credit for the mess that was Wisconsin Watchdog, their Wisconsin Bureau Chief(hey Capper, I need a better title!), Matt Kittle, also played a major part(full disclosure, Matt and I attend the same church).  

Kittle is known for attacking public workers with all of his might, while defending two time loser and convict,  Kelly Rindfleisch and spent as much time as possible pushing John Doe propaganda.  

As the saying goes, There is no there there! and now they are not there!  

As Wiggy tweeted out:

 "The Franklin Center is shutting down," James Wigderson, who covered education, tweeted early Friday.

That was a follow-up to his previous tweet from Thursday night that read, '"Email account closed. And with that, Watchdog.org shall publish no more."

r

 

✔ @jessieopie

@jwigderson Wait, what?

 Follow

James Wigderson @jwigderson

@jessieopie The Franklin Center is shutting down.

1:24 AM - 14 Apr 2017

 
•  11 Retweet
 
•  11 like

One last personal note, I always love when people who consider themselves the media, who attack people who use no comment, have nothing to say when a story is about them:  

Case in point!

Wigderson declined further comment.

Wisconsin Watchdog Bureau Chief M.D. Kittle could not be reached for comment. His office number was not in service Friday, and he did not respond to a message left on his cell phone.

On Thursday, Wisconsin Watchdog tweeted: "God bless. #wiright"

Finally, one last point.  Watchdog,org and The Franklin Center are not going away.  As they told Bice:

But a Franklin Center spokeswoman said in a statement that the center and Watchdog.org will continue.

"The Franklin Center has not shut down; it continues to operate and we expect growth as we progress through 2017," said Franklin Center spokeswoman Laurel Patrick, who previously worked for Walker. "In order to achieve this growth, it is undergoing a reorganization."

Which means that Wiggy can not help himself but lie, and can not even bring himself to tell the truth when the story is about himself.

Remember that when you check out his blog or Right Wisconsin!

Where Is The Franklin Center Centered?

Via Erik Gunn of Milwaukee Magazine, we find a link to a most interesting investigative story done on the shadowy shenanigans and sketchy capers of the Franklin Center. Here are a couple of highlights:

I've had a little time to look through the Franklin Center's 2010 form 990 now, and there are a few things I'm going to point out to you about it before giving you the whole thing to peruse on your own time. First, the Koch Brothers' crime family apparently had a little more money for the Franklin Center in 2010 than they had in 2009. You'll recall the Franklin Center got nearly $3 million in 2009 (actually $2,918,431), most or all of it laundered through the Sam Adams Alliance. In 2010, the Koch Brothers' crime family coughed up an additional $900,000 or so, for a total of $3,776,997 in 2010. Add the income amounts disclosed for the two-year period, and you get almost $6.7 million ($6,695,428). That's a pretty sweet two year budget -- average of $3.3 million -- for a start-up non-profit organization founded and based (for its first year or so) in an indiscrete, seasonal taffy shop in Medora, North Dakota, don't you think?

Second, the Franklin Center has apparently notified the IRS that they've now had an address change. While their 2009 Form 990 listed their address at the Bismarck UPS Store, in 2010 they are saying they're based in Alexandria, Virginia. I think that's interesting primarily because they haven't bothered to tell the North Dakota Secretary of State that they have had a change of address, nor have they told the Virginia State Corporation Commission that they are no longer a "foreign corporation."

And this look at how they might be spending their lucre:

Good question. I figured that they must be spending it all on grant money to in-place news entities, but that's not the case. According to their 2010 form 990, it appears they only gave about $315,600 in grants to fake news outlets. Their single largest category of expenses for 2010 is the "Fees for services: other" category, to which they paid $1,734,369. There's really no way to know, but my guess is that's money spent on the state-based fake news websites they finance all around the country. The next biggest expense is legal fees, at $503,166. Again, no way to know for sure, but I'm guessing that's mostly to pay lawyers to defend those fake news reporters when they get sued for defamation. That probably happens a lot. Then they paid out $387,202 for "conferences, conventions, and meetings." I'll get to that in a minute. The next biggest expense is for "Development" for $347,703. I'd guess that's to send all their reporters and staff to adult remedial reading, writing and math classes. This is probably a sound investment; these people obviously need that. Then another $189,000 for their annual "travel" budget. That's a pretty impressive travel budget for a little not-for-profit organization based in Bismarck. Those things make up the bulk of the Franklin Center's expenditures in 2010. (Look at the 990 report, below, to see where they spend the rest.)

So what is the Franklin Center spending its "conferences, conventions, and meetings' money on? It's hard to say. No. That's not true. To some extent it is easy to say. The Franklin Center is one of the primary sponsors of the annual "RightOnline" Republican bloggers' conference, generally scheduled to take place at the same time as the progressive "Netroots Nation" conference, and (historically) in the same city. (They try to follow Netroots Nation around, but are likely having trouble booking hotels and conference centers for 2012. Heh.) The Franklin Center is also a major sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference ("CPAC") where right-wing nutbags show up every year to out-crazy one another. They sponsor official Republican Party presidential debates. They sponsor the right-wing fascist American Legislative Exchange Council's Annual Conference. They sponsor the right-wing "Watchdog.org" state-based Fox News-like, partisan propaganda services stinking up over 20 states. And after sponsoring all of this right-wing nutbag and Republican events and propoganda, the Franklin Center very ironically claims to foster "unbiased and accurate" investigative journalism.

Do read the whole thing, it's as enlightening as it is disgusting.

Wisconsin Reporter Fallout Hits Franklin Center

Last week, I laid out how the propagandist group that ironically calls itself Wisconsin Reporter is actually funded by the Koch brothers and has ties to Scott Walker's campaign.

The very next day, fall out started to happen and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin sent out a scathing letter informing news sources around the state alerting them to the fact that WR is not a valid news source but simply an extension of the Walker/Koch campaign.

Earlier this week, Erik Gunn, the reporter who writes "Pressroom Buzz" for Milwaukee Magazine, covered the story.  In his article, he pointed out some of the questionable stories that have come out of WR and posed the question if their work would not be better suited for the op-ed page.

Well, the story doesn't end there.

Gunn had shot off some questions to the Franklin Center regarding the story.  They came out swinging...and missing:

Jason Stverak responded to my question about blogger Chris Liebenthal’s linkage of the Franklin Center to a Scott Walker donor, through the Center’s ownership of the web domain IowaPolitics.com, by suggesting the connection was in essence out of date. 

Liebenthal, Stverak says, “is stretching to find connections that aren't there. Regarding your specific question, we purchased the website and domain name from WisPolitics Publishing LLC in 2011. We stand by our coverage and the integrity of our news organizations." 

Steverak also provided a link to this press release announcing the transaction. In short, he appears to suggest that the connections Liebenthal drew reflected ownership of the domain before the transaction. That may be so, but the information on record (via the WhoIs look-up) still reflects what Liebenthal reported. I’ve asked Liebenthal for his reaction and will post that in the comments here when he gets back to me.

And respond I did:

Liebenthal got back to me late Wednesday with this response to the Franklin Center's statement: "The funding source of the Franklin Center is well documented, not by just myself, but scores of sources. Likewise, the domain ownership was independently confirmed and clearly demonstrates the intermeshing of the Franklin Center, Wisconsin Reporter and Scott Walker's campaign. Their denial of these easily demonstrated and verifiable facts says more about their integrity and reliability as a news source than anything else." 

Given the track record of these two propagandist groups, the fact that David Koch was bragging about using his front groups to try to sway the recall elections and the fact that Michael Grebe, the head of the Bradley Foundation, is also Walker's campaign chair, I wouldn't expect any acts of integrity on their parts anytime in the near future.

That means it's up to us, the people, to play watchdog and call out our local newspapers that might be tempted to cite the glorified campaign literature that comes from these two groups as actual news reporting.

Three Must Read Koch Stories

It's always wise to know your enemy:

Koch Brothers to launch vast database for 2012

Koch Brothers poised to raise influence with conservative database

And just more confirmation of what I've been telling you all along:

Koch Brothers funding right wing "news agencies" through Franklin Center

The Daily Caller: More Media Bias

Even as I was finishing the earlier post pointing out the blatant bias and hypocrisy being spewed out by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, another example of media bias came across my desk. This time, it's The Daily Caller.

The story actually starts with the Wisconsin Reporter, who had put up a story touting Walker's exaggerated jobs numbs a couple of weeks ago. Not satisfied with hyping the hype, they then went on to misquote and misconstrue the words of Graeme Zielinski, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Zielinski responded to their propaganda by sending them a scathing email and advising them to stop pretending to be a news source and just admit that they're a front group for the right wing.  The poor little darlings at the Wisconsin Reporter got their undies in a bundle and wrote a whiny, fact-free piece pretending they're the victim.

Enter The Daily Caller, who jumped at the chance to defend the "independent Wisconsin news outlet."  The Daily Caller's bias quickly became evident when they referred to Zielinski as the "Democratic flack" and tried to portray the Wisconsin Reporter as some kind of trusted news source.

There are two glaring problems with both the Wisconsin Reporter's and the Daily Caller's positions.  Both involve the fact that they are telling glaring, easily-disproved outright lies.

The first glaring in your face lie is that the Wisconsin Reporter is an "independent Wisconsin news outlet."  

Both articles admit that the Wisconsin Reporter is a branch of the Franklin Center for Government and Public integrity.  That much, at least, is a factual statement.

However, I would point the gentle reader back to the piece I wrote regarding the false advertisements that were flying around during the Democratic primaries. In that piece, I wrote the following:

And this is where we go into the same sordid incestuous intermingling that the Koch Brothers are known for.

Patriot Advisors is headed up by Tim Dunn and Denis Calabrese.

Calabrese, the former Chief of Staff for Dick Armey, is also on the director of the Sam Adams Alliance, yet another Koch Brother front group and money chute. This Sam Adams Alliance also funnels the Koch dollars to other groups like Americans For Prosperity and the Franklin Center for Public and Government Integrity*.

The sharp-eyed reader might have already noticed, but it was the Franklin Center which is quoted in the anti-King flyer.

Just to be clear, the Sam Adams Alliance, Patriot Advisors and Franklin Center are all Koch-funded groups with incestuous ties to each other. One of them is using the other to justify voting for the fake Democrat instead of trying to defend the Republican and his boorish behavior or facing the consequences for his actions.

In that same article, I mentioned the article by Gene Gibbons, writing for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Again, I would point out this passage:

At the forefront of an effort to blur the distinction between statehouse reporting and political advocacy is the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, which finances a network of websites that focus on state government. This center has ties to a number of conservative organizations, including the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, whose founder is billionaire David Koch. He is a longtime financier of right-wing causes whose shadowy political dealings were highlighted this past summer in a New Yorker article by Jane Mayer headlined “Covert Operations.”

In summary, we know that the Wisconsin Reporter is a puppet for the misnamed Franklin Center for Goverment and Public Integrity, which is in turn funded by the Sam Adams Alliance, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Koch Brothers. This looks more like a money laundering scheme than an "independent Wisconsin news outlet." The Koch Brothers do not have a history of being concerned about unbiased reporting, but rather only in manipulating state and federal governments, and local newspapers, to smooth the way for them to get more money and more power.

The other blatant and egregious lie these two Newspeak operations propogate was Scott Walker's claim that Wisconsin produced half of the jobs in the country in the month of June.

Mike Rosen easily names five statesthat produced more jobs than Wisconsin. Rosen did add that Wisconsin was in another sort of rare class, but not a good one (emphasis his):

Let’s put Walker’s jobs victory dance in perspective.

Several states; Texas (+32,000), California (+28,800), Michigan (+18,000), Minnesota (+13,200) and Massachusetts (10,400) had more job growth than Wisconsin.

Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics data Walker touted, Texas was responsible for almost 200% of net job growth in June, California 150%, Michigan 100%, Minnesota 65% and Massachusetts slightly more than 50% .Nor was Wisconsin’s monthly percentage increase among the nation’s largest. Alaska experienced the largest over-the-month percentage increase in employment (+1.7 percent), followed by North Dakota (+1.2 percent), Vermont (+0.9 percent), and South Dakota (+0.8 percent).

In fact, Wisconsin was one of only 9 states that reported statistically significant over-the-month unemployment rate increases in June.

In fact, the claim was so bogus, that the erratic PolitiFarce had to point out that Walker was lying about it.

Even more telling, Walker himself had to backpedal from the claim and lie about what he had originally lied about.

Yet I saw no evidence of either of these sites reporting the retraction or the fact that Walker's facts were, in fact, nonfactual.

I can fully empathize with Zielinski's frustration. However, I would advise him not to worry about the press credentials. Groups like these two don't worry about such things, and the Republican politicians will still give them the soundbites whether they are credentialed or not.

With groups like these, you have to hit them where it hurts. Put a call in to the IRS and Department of Revenue for violating their legal status. After all, on Wisconsin Reporter's own website, they have this:

WisconsinReporter launched in January 2011 as a division of StateHouseNews. It is a nonpartisan organization, dedicated to playing the watchdog role on state government, while localizing stories to certain districts: La Crosse, Kenosha, Eau Claire, Wausau, Stevens Point, Chippewa, and Beloit.

Statehouse News Online utilizes a state-specific approach, in order to provide readers with information that is of proximate and practical interest. Interested parties can contact info@FranklinCenterHQ.org for more information.

StateHouse News Online began in June 2010 and is a product of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting non-partisan, new media journalism.

I believe that this claim* of non-partisanship is easily shown to be a false claim, and would open them to all sorts of fines and penalties**.

PS: If any of my researcher friends want to look into the Daily Caller and who sponsors them, I'd be glad to do that story as well.

*I also screencapped this page for future reference, if it's needed.
**While you're at it, file one against the equally egregious McIver Institute, would ya?

The Koch Brother Sock Puppet Show Hits The Road Again

In the spring, with the help of a reader, I was able to show you how the Koch brothers used their heavy hands and poured money into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race through their various front groups.  The Koch-purchased David Prosser paid off in spades almost immediately by ignoring the laws of the land and rubber stamping Scott Walker's union-busting bill without hesitation or thought.

With the help of several friends and allies, we now find that the Koch Brothers Sock Puppet Show is on the road again, this time interfering with the recall elections.

Greg Sargent tripped the whole thing with this article showing that John Buckstaff, the fake Democrat in the race is actually a Republican backer and has donated money to Randy Randy "Bed" Hopper.  Furthermore, Sargent tells us that a flyer that they've been distributing telling people to vote for Buckstaff is aimed at getting Republican voters to cross over in the primary and shut the real Democrat, Jessica King, out of the race immediately.

Also remarkable about Sargent's findings is that the flyer is paid for by a group called "Patriot Advisors."

And this is where we go into the same sordid incestuous intermingling that the Koch Brothers are known for.

Patriot Advisors is headed up by Tim Dunn and Denis Calabrese.

Calabrese, the former Chief of Staff for Dick Armey, is also on the director of the Sam Adams Alliance, yet another Koch Brother front group and money chute. This Sam Adams Alliance also funnels the Koch dollars to other groups like Americans For Prosperity and the Franklin Center for Public and Government Integrity*.

The sharp-eyed reader might have already noticed, but it was the Franklin Center which is quoted in the anti-King flyer.

Just to be clear, the Sam Adams Alliance, Patriot Advisors and Franklin Center are all Koch-funded groups with incestuous ties to each other. One of them is using the other to justify voting for the fake Democrat instead of trying to defend the Republican and his boorish behavior or facing the consequences for his actions.

Or in other words, the sock puppet on the Kochs' right and hand makes some statement, regardless of the whether it's true, half-true or a bold faced lie, and then they have the sock puppet on the left hand repeat the lie in order to reinforce it and give it false credibility.

And I'm sure this scenario is being played out in the other races as well.

And this is exactly why the "get out to vote" over the next few days is so important. We can't let the Koch Brothers continue to screw with our elections. And despite their money and their deceitful practices, we have three things they will never have.  We have the boots on the ground of true Wisconsinites. we have the truth and we have the strong desire to defend our homes from the corporate overlords and their malevolent ways.

As a reminder, here is the list of who's who in the primaries, including the Koch funded phonies.

*To show you the irony of the name of Franklin Center for Public and Government Integrity, look at their most recent hire, Kevin Binversie, who likes to slander people, even the disabled, and makes decisions based on the whims of twenty-something year olds.  Perhaps they should look up the definition of integrity before they start demanding it of others.

Koch Brothers' Heavy Hand Behind Anti-Kloppenburg Ad, Everything Else In Wisconsin

A shadowy group called Citizens for a Strong America (CSA) has run an TV ad against JoAnne Kloppenburg, a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  Said ad was recently evaluated by PolitiFact Wisconsin and was found to be "ridiculously false" and was thus given the dubious "Pants on Fire" rating.

The article, besides evaluating the ads factual correctness, also pointed out an issue of question regarding CSA:

We wanted to ask Citizens for a Strong America-- one of five conservative groups that reportedly have spent $2 million in TV advertising against Kloppenburg -- for evidence to back its claim. That proved to be difficult.

According to its website, the group is based in Beaver Dam, Wis., and "promotes public policies that reduce tax burdens on families, increase public safety and protect the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s medical, psychological and educational well-being."

No names, phone numbers or e-mail addresses were provided on the website. And there are no Beaver Dam phone numbers listed for Citizens for a Strong America or for Veronica Johnson, a person identified as having placed the TV ad.

This was picked up in other places and they made some further progress.

PRWatch also wrote on the subject and found that CSA is operating out of a drop box in West Bend, even though they are apparently able to channel money by the truckload, but there they became stymied.

Buckeyville was able to trace CSA's website to a John Connors, who has a Milwaukee address which happens to be the same as that for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a well-known front group for the Koch Brothers (remember them?).

Jessica Arp, a reporter for Channel 3000, also filed a video report regarding this story, which includes a focus on how inaccurate the advertisement really is.  She also noted the drop box, that their phone number is a Middleton number, and that John Connors tie in.

But all of these astute reporters haven't gone all the way looking into the convoluted and intricately interwoven mess that is behind CSA.

Independent of the above cited research, a friend of mine, and a cognitive dissident in his own right, had his curiosity piqued by the Politifact article, and did his own look see behind the scenes.  He was kind enough to share what he found with me.  (Please note that he did give me this information last night, and it is my own fault that this is only getting posted now.)  Some of this will be redundant of what I wrote above, but I will take that risk for the sake of keeping it consistent in both my mind and the mind of the gentle reader.

As noted above, the website for CSA is registered to John Connors.  As also noted above, Connors' address is listed as 1126 S. 70th St., Suite S420, West Allis, WI 53214. This is also the same address for AFP.

But that's not all. Not by a long shot.

Also sharing the same address as CSA and AFP is an organization called Campaign Now.  Guess what. Campaign Now's website is also registered to John Connors. Digging a little deeper into Campaign Now's site, one can find their contact phone number.  This number happens to be the same phone number that was used by AFP to register riders on the buses to the AFP (read Koch Brothers) sponsored pilgrimage to Madison on February 15, in order to represent the Koch Industries in front of the Joint Financial Committee.
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Besides sharing phone numbers and addresses, these groups also share Connors, who is listed as a On-Site Production Coordinator at the AFP/Koch Brothers sponsored Tea Party held in Wisconsin Dells in 2009

Further research shows that Connors is indeed a very busy and very well-connected young man.

On top of being affiliated with AFP, CSA and Campaign Now, Connors was also an intern for then County Executive Scott Walker and for the gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, all while balancing his school career and being a senator at Marquette University.

Connors is also listed as the registrant for yet another website, this time WatchDog.org, which is ironically described as a "non-profit, non-partisan" project of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity.  And here's a really shocker - Franklin Center is affiliated with - guess who- the Koch Brothers!

It should be noted that the Franklin Center is one of these so-called news organizations, a la MacIver Institute. Here is a real good summary of how messed up this stuff is getting:

The decline of the statehouse beat is bad enough. What I find even worse is the influx of agenda-driven state “news” organizations, some with a leftist orientation but most of the newer entries tilted far to the right. They claim their sole reason for being is to inform the people and hold public officials accountable, filling a vacuum caused by the downsizing of the news industry. Their mission statements actually say they’re rushing to fill the gap.

Don’t believe it for a moment. Do what reporters should do: Check them out, as I have done. For the most part, the people in charge of these would-be watchdog operations are political hacks out to subvert journalism in their quest to grab and keep power using whatever means they have to do so. Good luck on finding out where they get their money; the IRS disclosure forms required of organizations that claim nonprofit status are singularly uninformative.

At the forefront of an effort to blur the distinction between statehouse reporting and political advocacy is the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, which finances a network of websites that focus on state government. This center has ties to a number of conservative organizations, including the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, whose founder is billionaire David Koch. He is a longtime financier of right-wing causes whose shadowy political dealings were highlighted this past summer in a New Yorker article by Jane Mayer headlined “Covert Operations.”

As a side note to all of this, it should also be noted that Connors is not the only one who has their fingers in all of these pies.  Claire Milbrandt, who was listed as Stage Coordinator at the AFP event, is also listed as Account Executive at Campaign Now, Account Manager at Connors and Co., and a consultant for AFP.

I sure hope that the Koch Brothers are paying them well for all of their hard work.

But it is very frightening to see just how many things the Koch Brothers have their dirty little hands into in Wisconsin, and none of it to the benefit of the state or its people.

It also shows just how very important that we take to the polls on Tuesday, April 5, and vote to keep Wisconsin in the hands of Wisconsinites, not the Koch Brothers.