Kyle Wood's Remorse

By Jeff Simpson

 "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

An event happened recently that flew under everyone's radar - Kyle Wood was sentenced to 30 days in prison.  

Kyle Wood, who claimed to have been beaten in his apartment because he is gay and did not support Mark Pocan for Congress, was sentenced to 30 days in jail Wednesday after pleading guilty to obstructing police.
Wood, 30, of Madison, took up valuable time that police and emergency medical personnel could have been using for real emergencies, Dane County Circuit Judge William Hanrahan said.
“You concocted the story and corroborated it with injuries,” Hanrahan said. “This is quite simply bizarre and outrageous.

 While it is sad that Mr. Wood was so in need of help mentally that he injured himself in such a way, it is even sadder how the right wing media and hack bloggers were all to ready to capitalize on this story that everyone knew from the beginning had holes in it bigger than Scott Walker's College transcripts!

Three of the more well known righty bloggers were the ones to band together and get Wood's fake story out there as often as possible.   Charlie Sykes from White Wisconsin and  Brian Sikkkma from mediatracKKKers could not tell the story quick enough or loud enough.  

 Although Sikma has since deleted the post and put up a different one in its place, here is a flavor of what he wrote, thanks to Google Reader and another right wing blogger who was one of the many that fed into the story, but like Sikma, deleted their post:

A series of shocking text messages purportedly from Philip Frank, the partner of Democratic State Representative and Madison-area Congressional candidate Mark Pocan, threatened a volunteer for Pocan’s Republican opponent days before the volunteer was found beaten.

Last Wednesday, Kyle Wood, a full-time volunteer with Republican Chad Lee’s Congressional campaign, was beaten inside his home in Madison by an unidentified attacker who claimed that as a gay man Wood should be supporting the gay candidate for Congress.

The text messages obtained by Media Trackers allegedly show Philip Frank, Pocan’s partner, making sexually-charged comments to Wood before threatening him and making racist statements about the spouse of Chad Lee. The messages were apparently sent two or three days before the Wednesday beating, according to Wood, who is alleging to investigators that the messages came from Frank.

After mocking Wood for supporting the Republican candidate, Frank is accused of writing, “Remember your station in life and remember not to cross the husband of a powerful man. You are on shaky footing as it is, push much farther and you won’t have a future in this town, or any other.”

The news was so big that Sikma was breathless on Monday morning as he shared his story with Charlie Sykes on Sykes' squawk radio show.

But guess what. Even though Sikma claimed that he had verified the story, and the thing had taken off nationally, it turned out to be another lie.

 OOPS....then Wisconsin's biggest paid hack, who perpetually tries to claim he is a journalist, Christian Schneider used his column space in JSOnline(since deleted with no apology) to perpetuate this same lie:

Science Fiction Writer and WPRI paid hack Christian Schneider wrote a fable the other day, one of his best pieces of work.

Beaten for being a gay republican!  Over 1300 words of pure republican bliss!

The story however had one major tell:

To date, Wood has been reluctant to talk to any media, especially on-camera.   “I’m not going to win Princess Kay of the Milky Way or anything anytime soon, I look a little rough,” he joked.

Wood was reluctant to talk to the media because he knew he was lying, however his fake story had to be told so he chose people who were NOT the media.   Schneider of course, The Daily Caller and mediatrackers for some examples to make sure and get their message out to as many people  as possible before the house of cards fell!

This was yet another great example of how the echo chamber works.  They make up a story and a couple people run with it, allowing fellow paid and unpaid hacks to repeat repeat repeat!   Wisconsin reporter, Crazy Fred Dooley , Alpha Male Randy Hollenbeck and  Boots and Sabers(owen deleted the story like it never happened- no apologies or retractions) to name a few!   

The sad thing is that Kyle Wood is remorseful and is spending 30 days in prison.   The three stooges of Sykes, Schneider and Sikma all are still pushing BS propaganda and not a single one was even slapped on the wrist.  

Sad day for Wisconsin.

Charlie Sykes: Torn Between Two Liars, Looking Like A Fool

Yesterday, I wrote a fairly comprehensive expose on the biggest lies told by Brian Sikma and his propagandist group, Media Trackers.

I pointed out that Sikma outdid himself when he came out with the false story of a Republican volunteer who claimed to be savagely beaten. Sikma even went so far as to repeat his libelous lies on the Charlie Sykes show. Despite it being an obvious hoax, Sikma swore up and down that he verified all the facts and stood by his report.

Brian Sikma

That is, he stood by his story until it became unraveled and he had to admit that it wasn't true. But even then, he lied again, trying to put all the blame on the fake victim and ignoring his own boasting of how he verified his supposed facts.

Because of his scurrilous attacks on an innocent man, he has put himself in line for a possible libel lawsuit that could cost him and Media Trackers a lot of money. Even James Wigderson had to admit that Sikma could be in a world of hurt because of his reckless behavior.

Charlie Sykes did not hesitate to throw Sikma under the bus in order to try to salvage his own reputation:

Then came Media Trackers which claimed it had hard evidence, in the form of a lengthy transcript of graphic and obscene threats against Woods, which they attributed to Pocan's gay partner. If true -- and if MT could verify the information -- the story was a potential game changer. But...

On yesterday's show, I expressed skepticism about the story and asked Brian Sikma how he knew this was not a hoax -- specifically noting the pattern we've seen elsewhere -- and how he had "verified" the now-discredited text messages. Sikma cited multiple sources who had "verified" the texts.

But despite his "sources," obviously the text messages had not been verified, because they were fake.

The group issued this statement last night:

Media Trackers regrets that we were repeatedly lied to and misled. We regret that our readers were subject to the dishonest claims of a dishonest individual. Despite the best efforts to verify the accuracy and integrity of certain claims, a cover-up sometimes works. Those who create and maintain such fabrications deserve to be ruthlessly exposed for they hold the power to destroy the credibility of innocent people.

**

Unfortunately, that's not really good enough.

The ultimate responsibility for the lies and deception rests with Kyle Wood; but it was unacceptably sloppy to run with the unsubstantiated story.

But if Sykes thinks that he's out of the woods by dogging out Sikma, he's sorely mistaken.

Let me explain.

My colleague, Jeff Simpson, already pointed out that Christian Schneider*, aka Atomic Pantload, had also done his own bit of trouble with this story.

Christian Schneider

When it came out that the story was a lie, Schneider first put a single line way at the bottom of the post updating people that the story had been recanted. No apologies, no explanations about his role in it, just that one line.

Then suddenly, the story went poof into cyberspace. In it's place, Schneider came out with a new post, utterly changing his story:

Earlier today, I wrote a lengthy post about this Daily Caller story that detailed an alleged attack of a gay GOP campaign staffer in Dane County.

From what I now understand, there are some questions about some details that appeared in the original story, which I quoted at length. As a result, I decided to hold off on running the post until I can verify some of the facts that have been reported.

-Management

Whoa! So Schneider is part of MJS management now?

Note how he indicates the story on the same day he wrote it? I wonder how he explains Jeff using that post this morning, days after Schneider wrote the original post.

Schneider then did a follow up post again repeating his alleged skepticism:

When I first heard the story, I wanted to write about it, but I questioned some of the details in the original Daily Caller story. So I took down my original blog post and began making attempts to talk to Wood himself to get more details.

On Saturday afternoon, Wood and I talked for around a half hour. He was very pleasant. He sounded calm and credible, adding details to already published reports of the incident. I was always aware that there was still a question as to whether the incident actually happened, which is why I titled the post in the form of a question. But to me, his story at least seemed plausible. I wanted to give him the chance to tell it it public.

As it turns out, my original skepticism was well-founded. It is still unclear as to how much of Wood's story took place, if any at all. He clung to his story until today at 3:52, when I received an e-mail from him verifying a detail in my blog post about him. At that point, he said he would no longer be speaking to the media. Presumably, he recanted his story to the police shortly thereafter.

Huh? Now he's saying that he spoke to Wood on Saturday, after he posted his original story? And now he's claiming to be a reporter? I don't know which is the bigger fallacy, the story or that claim.

Schneider obviously thinks he's safe to say what he wants since no one can know what he originally wrote, as that he had deleted it.

Oh,Schneider is such a silly man. Even before I could get online, a thoughtful friend and already sent me the link to his original post, via Google Cache. I ask you, gentle reader, does this really look like the post of a person filled with skepticism and doubt, or of a man who hadn't already interviewed the alleged victim?

Beaten for being a gay Republican? An interview with Kyle Wood

By Christian Schneider
Oct. 28, 2012

At 7:00 last Wednesday morning, Kyle Wood was just one of thousands of campaign staffers strewn throughout the country, making phone calls and knocking on doors for candidates on the ballot in November. But an hour later, Wood was lying on the floor of his apartment, covered in blood, having been the victim of a beating he believes was politically motivated.

Wood, 29, who is volunteering for Republican Chad Lee in a Madison-area congressional race, believes the attack was punishment for “betraying” his fellow gays. “My feeling, based on the statements that were made [during the attack], it probably had something to do with the fact that I support a Republican candidate running against an openly gay man,” Wood told me. “And as a gay man, I’m supposed to support that gay man. And I don’t. “ (Lee is running against openly gay Democratic State Assemblyman Mark Pocan.)"

And since Google Cache links don't last forever, another reader provided me with the pdf form of the article, which I have available for the gentle reader here.

The whole story seems to be rather self-assured and the work of a two-bit hack that was trying to score some cheap political points, even if it meant smearing and libeling an innocent man.

It makes me wonder if Schneider and MJS are also going to be liable to a libel lawsuit.

But this is where Sykes has got himself a problem.

Schneider is a "Senior Fellow" at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, yet another right wing propaganda group funded by the Bradley Foundation, as well as a member of ALEC.

Sykes is Schneider's editor there.

Charlie Sykes

If Sykes wants to be consistent, he's going to have to point out that Schneider told a lie as egregious, if not worse, than the one Sikma told. Then he's going to have to decide whether he can use Schneider's work anymore.

And if Sykes doesn't want to hold Schneider to the same level of accountability, he's going to have to explain why not. Would it be because Schneider is a higher caliber hack and liar?

I have no clue what Sykes will do.

In fact, I'm a little surprised that Sykes even called Sikma out on his garbage. Sykes doesn't have an issue with telling lies himself. Every time that PolitiFact has checked his statements, he has been caught with his pants on fire. And when he is confronted with his lies, Sykes readily admits it:

"My ‘evidence’? Absolutely none."

Sykes went on to label his remark "an off-hand wisecrack" -- "You know, humor, hyperbole, joke."

Which brings us to the same question I asked yesterday:

My question is, given how often so many of them have been proven to be dishonest - whether on their own volition or by feeding off of stories from people like Sikma - how can anyone believe what any one of the right wing propagandists, bloggers and squawkers?

*Not to be confused with the other Christian Schneider, though how the mistake could be made is pretty obvious.

Cross posted at Whallah!

Brian Sikma and Media Trackers: Natural Born Liars

Last week, Tommy Thompson had an attack on his opponent, Tammy Baldwin, only to have it completely backfire. Thompson, who tried to falsely portray Baldwin as not supporting the memories of 9-11 survivors, is still feeling the repercussions of not only lying, but also having his own ethical issues arise from it.

Undaunted, Thompson did it again this week when he again tried to smear Baldwin, this time complaining that Baldwin allegedly did not support providing body armor for the troops fighting in the Middle East. If possible, this attack was even more false and more disgusting than his previous one. From Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"Who the heck would vote against armor-piercing protection for our troops, except for someone who's hanging so far out on the left that she can't even think straight?" Giuliani asked.

Now a variation on that theme is the centerpiece of a new Thompson ad ripping Baldwin.

"She fought to block funding that provides body armor for our troops just to make a political point," the TV spot says.

But experts say the measure coming under scrutiny is a feel-good bill that wouldn't lead to federal defense cuts, much less slice federal funding for body armor.

That's just political spin.

"The notion that, if this bill would pass, it means that Tammy Baldwin would be denying body armor to troops, is ludicrous," said Kenneth Mayer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Four times in the past, Baldwin was listed as a co-sponsor for legislation that would allow peace-loving taxpayers to get a conscientious objector exemption from the Internal Revenue Service to stipulate that their income taxes wouldn't be used for war. Their taxes would go into a "peace tax fund," with the money being divvied out for non-military items.

Every two years, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia introduces the bill, and then it sits in the House Ways and Means Committee without a vote. Baldwin most recently backed the bill three years ago.

So where would Thompson get such a false notion? Bice explains that as well:

Earlier this month, Media Trackers - a conservative group that digs up dirt on Democrats - was the first to suggest that Baldwin's support for this measure meant she favored "denying body armor and medical supplies to U.S. military personnel" fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From there, the story took off. It was picked up by Breitbart, a conservative online news site, and plugged by talk show hosts Jerry Bader and Charlie Sykes.

Brian Sikma

Brian Sikma, who wrote the Media Trackers' piece, has defended his original post, saying he never contended the peace fund bill would "cut" funding for anything in the military. He said his point was that under the bill, anyone would be able to "block" their taxes from being used to support the U.S. Department of Defense.

But even Sikma went beyond that in a television appearance over the weekend.

"Tammy Baldwin clearly has a credibility problem when it comes to national security issues," Sikma said on Sykes' "Sunday Insight" show on Sunday. Among other things, he said, "She voted against body armor and medical supplies."

Except there was no vote.

The measure has not come up for a vote in committee or on the House floor during Baldwin's 14 years in Congress. The last time anything happened on the proposal was July 1995 when a House committee held hearings on it.

But where Sikma claims that he did not write the bill would cut funding, he actually did write that:

Despite the fact that some believed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were controversial, many on both sides of the political aisle thought that the troops deployed should at least receive the supplies and protection they needed. Baldwin’s work on the so-called Peace Tax Fund actively sought to block funding for needed protection and life-saving equipment for these deployed military personnel.

As a note to Sikma, I did screencap the post, so there's no use for you trying to delete it or change it like you usually do.

NOTHING NEW

The fact that Sikma, who is the communications director for Media Trackers, is confabulating things is neither new or shocking, although it remains very offensive and disgusting.

Media Trackers, and Sikma, is sponsored by the Bradley Foundation, the Koch Brothers and the Sam Adams Alliance, much like its sister propagandist agencies, MacIver Institute, Wisconsin Reporter and WPRI.

Sikma and his propagandist agency has a lengthy history of having credibility problems. Perhaps their most famous example is where they tried to accuse recall petition signature collectors of bribing underage women to sign the petitions. This was utterly and completely proven to be false.

They then accused Senator Lena Taylor and her mother of housing a felon who had allegedly voted fraudulently. It turned out that this too was a lie and that the alleged felon was actually an ex-felon and was legally allowed to vote.

Sikma and his group has regularly tried to discredit the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office and its investigation into the illegal campaigning that was done by Scott Walker and his staff. They have gone as far as scouring the Facebook pages of the employees of the DA's office and stalking their houses. To this day, they have not been able to prove one act of impropriety, but that does not keep them from making the innuendos.

Perhaps the most classic example is when Sikma and company accused a lefty group of providing ribs for votes. Even though they knew their allegations were false, they still made them. But when they were called into the DA's office to testify on their allegations, their story changed completely:

Then came the bombshell:

Q: All right. Did anyone tell you that in order to get a ticket for food you had to sign up to vote?

[Roth] A: No, not explicity. [sic]

...

Q: Do you have any other information that you could offer that would shed some light on this...?

A: ...I can't say if that was a necessary or that was explicit that one had to sign in and get in the van to take the food or the ticket

In other words, Media Trackers's anonymous source knew the pro-union Wisconsin Jobs Now group did not engage in illegal activity. But that didn't stop Media Trackers from "reporting" otherwise.

So this begs the question: if Media Trackers wasn't going to cooperate with investigators (perhaps because they knew the facts weren't on their side), why did they ever bother issuing a press release making such serious allegations. Simple. They only needed to smear Wisconsin Jobs Now for the short period before the recall election. They didn't need to win a court case, they just needed to win a media war. And win they did.

To put the icing on the issue, they also ended up with a little spat with their sister agency, MacIver Institute, who got dragged into the mess.

ONE LIBEL TOO FAR

Despite the long history that Sikma and his agency has of distorting the truth, if not flat out lying, and not taking any responsibility for their behaviors, Sikma might have finally outdone himself now.

Sikma recently reported that Kyle Wood - a Republican volunteer for Chad Lee, the political opponent to Mark Pocan to fill Tammy Baldwin's seat - was brutally assaulted. He further reported that he had copies of text messages which had been allegedly sent by Phillip Frank, Pocan's husband.

Suggested  new logo for
Media Trackers

Although Sikma has since deleted the post and put up a different one in its place, here is a flavor of what he wrote, thanks to Google Reader and another right wing blogger who was one of the many that fed into the story, but like Sikma, deleted their post:

A series of shocking text messages purportedly from Philip Frank, the partner of Democratic State Representative and Madison-area Congressional candidate Mark Pocan, threatened a volunteer for Pocan’s Republican opponent days before the volunteer was found beaten.

Last Wednesday, Kyle Wood, a full-time volunteer with Republican Chad Lee’s Congressional campaign, was beaten inside his home in Madison by an unidentified attacker who claimed that as a gay man Wood should be supporting the gay candidate for Congress.

The text messages obtained by Media Trackers allegedly show Philip Frank, Pocan’s partner, making sexually-charged comments to Wood before threatening him and making racist statements about the spouse of Chad Lee. The messages were apparently sent two or three days before the Wednesday beating, according to Wood, who is alleging to investigators that the messages came from Frank.

After mocking Wood for supporting the Republican candidate, Frank is accused of writing, “Remember your station in life and remember not to cross the husband of a powerful man. You are on shaky footing as it is, push much farther and you won’t have a future in this town, or any other.”

The news was so big that Sikma was breathless on Monday morning as he shared his story with Charlie Sykes on Sykes' squawk radio show.

But guess what. Even though Sikma claimed that he had verified the story, and the thing had taken off nationally, it turned out to be another lie. This time, Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Sikma's reporting skills, or lack thereof:

Wood claimed the attack occured [sic] on Wednesday morning when an unidentified man knocked on his door and then brutally attacked him as soon as Wood answered it.

Following that news, Media Trackers printed damaging allegations about "a series of shocking text messages purportedly from Philip Frank," Pocan's husband. Media Trackers printed the whole series of text messages, which were laced with threats, sexual innuendo and racist language and which were supposedly sent to Wood just days before the alleged attack on him.

“Remember your station in life and remember not to cross the husband of a powerful man. You are on shaky footing as it is, push much farther and you won’t have a future in this town, or any other," one of the supposed messages reads.

Brian Sikma, the Media Trackers blogger who wrote the item and who regularly accuses mainstream journalists of sloppy and biased reporting, said his story was based on information from Wood. Sikma said Wood's "conduct is unacceptable and such actions have no place as a part of our public debate," but Sikma made no mention of his own role in the allegation against Frank getting onto the Internet.

Sikma said that Media Trackers had also talked with workers in Lee's campaign and other unnamed individuals who knew Wood "in an attempt to verify his personal integrity." Sikma refused to say whether Media Trackers had reached out to Pocan's campaign before running the story.

But Dan McNally, Pocan's campaign manager, said Media Trackers never contacted the campaign. He had no other comment.

Keep in mind now that Sikma claims to have verified the text messages, but didn't even know the phone numbers. He said that he had verified the veracity of the texts and the statements, but couldn't name the people that verified them. And he utterly lied about contacting the Pocan campaign or Mr. Frank.

If you go back to Sikma's interview on Sykes' show, Sykes even expresses concern about the veracity of the story. Sikma again guaranteed that the story was absolutely true and that it was checked and double checked.

Now that the story has been proven to be a hoax, Sikma has gone into damage control mode and has thrown Wood under the bus:

Wood had shared information with Media Trackers subsequent to the beating purporting to show harassing text messages sent to him by Philip Frank, the spouse of Democratic Congressional candidate Mark Pocan. Individuals who know Wood verified the accuracy of his claims to Media Trackers but those claims now appear to be false. Media Trackers believes Wood misled us and lied when questioned about the accuracy of the information he claimed to have.

Harassment and violence should never be tolerated regardless of the motives behind it. Nor should fabricated claims of harassment and tolerance be allowed to stand without condemnation. Wood lied to law enforcement and the public about his beating and previous instances of harassment. His conduct is despicable.

The extent of the fraud perpetrated by Wood’s claims spreads far beyond Wisconsin as media outlets across the country picked up his story and repeated his allegations. Wood owes the public, Rep. Mark Pocan and his spouse Philip Frank, and law enforcement officials an apology.

Media Trackers regrets that we were repeatedly lied to and misled. We regret that our readers were subject to the dishonest claims of a dishonest individual. Despite the best efforts to verify the accuracy and integrity of certain claims, a cover-up sometimes works. Those who create and maintain such fabrications deserve to be ruthlessly exposed for they hold the power to destroy the credibility of innocent people.

Even if one wanted to believe Sikma's story that Wood simply lied to him, Sikma has a lot of explaining to do himself.

For instance, he will have to detail what he did and with whom he spoke to verify the texts' veracity and Wood's integrity. Sikma should also explain how the police figured out that the story was false and whether he played a role in that matter.

He should, but he won't.

He'll be too busy preparing his defense for the libel lawsuit that Mr. Frank should file against him.

As a last note, I wanted to point out that a lot of right wingers were duped into this story. Most of them, like Sikma, resolved their dissonance by throwing Wood under the bus. Others just deleted it. And like Sikma, their credibility has been hurt. But it's their own fault. After getting proven to be a liar so many times, there is no reason for anyone to believe him.

My question is, given how often so many of them have been proven to be dishonest - whether on their own volition or by feeding off of stories from people like Sikma - how can anyone believe what any one of the right wing propagandists, bloggers and squawkers?

The Journal Sentinels Schneider Problem

By Jeff Simpson


Christian Schneider is a columnist for JSonline. He is also a paid shill of the Bradley Foundation and for some reason the Journal Sentinel has decided to keep giving him column inches to spread his ideas propaganda.

Schneider was a blogger for the JS and broke the Kyle Wood story.  Wood was a troubled kid who said Mark Pocan's husband beat him up because he worked for his opponent. The right wing echo chamber, led by Schneider, could not get that story out fast enough.  The problem though is it was not true.   Schneider then did the responsible thing and recanted his story with an apology deleted the story from the Purple WI website like it never happened.  For reasons unbeknownest to anyone, Schneider was then promoted to columnist.

Recently, Schneider called Senator Feingold worse than a child predator in a column to no repercussions, as David Haynes feels that helps advance the marketplace of ideas(Scott Walker is the only untouchable political figure in WI).

Now Schneider is out with one of his regular, public education sucks and vouchers are the way to go columns.   As is typical Schneider, facts do not matter.

While it is all gobbledy gook, one paragraph was particular telling:

Finally, let's suppose Wisconsin had an educational system rife with racism and bias. Wouldn't the best idea be to get those minority kids out of the existing framework and into schools that can better address their specific needs? In other words, exactly what the private school choice program does for poor children? If one thinks the achievement gap is caused by the status quo, simply pumping more dollars into that educational system would seem to only exacerbate the gap.

Let us break it down.

Finally, let's suppose Wisconsin had an educational system rife with racism and bias.   - Our public education system is absolutely NOT rife with racism and bias and there is not any evidence that Schneider can point to that would say it is.   

Wouldn't the best idea be to get those minority kids out of the existing framework and into schools that can better address their specific needs? 

The best idea would be to address the fact that under Scott Walker and Republican gerrymandered rule, Wisconsin is the worst state in the country to be African American in and poverty is increasing all over the state.    The best way to address minority kids specific needs is to bring jobs back to WI and address the poverty problem. 

In other words, exactly what the private school choice program does for poor children? 

The private choice program is not whatsoever, nor has it ever, been designed to address the specific needs of minority children.  Ever.   It is designed simply to be able to allow some people to cash in on the public education money that previously went to the kids.   The Education Reformers are just mining to fill their panning equipement with public education dollars.   

It is no small irony that Schneider wrote his column on the same day that a Federal Report was issued about the million dollars of fraud and waste in charter schools.  

The report, titled “The Tip of the Iceberg: Charter School Vulnerabilities To Waste, Fraud, And Abuse,” was released jointly by the nonprofit organizations  Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools and the Center for Popular Democracy. It follows a similar report released a year ago by the same groups that detailed $136 million in fraud and waste and mismanagement in 15 of the 42 states that operate charter schools. The 2015 report cites $203 million, including the 2014 total plus $23 million in new cases, and $44 million in earlier cases not included in last year’s report.
It notes that these figures only represent fraud and waste in the charter sector uncovered so far, and that the total that federal, state and local governments “stand to lose” in 2015 is probably more than $1.4 billion. It says, “The vast majority of the fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because the federal government, the states, and local charter authorizers lack the oversight necessary to detect the fraud.”

 If one thinks the achievement gap is caused by the status quo, simply pumping more dollars into that educational system would seem to only exacerbate the gap.

How would we know?  Scott Walker and the Republican legislature, have cut funding to schools more than any other state in the country.   Maybe "pumping more dollars in the educational system" might now work, but it is something that has never been tried so how would we know?

It is unfortunate that someone with such blatant disregard to the facts and who is pushing a blatant agenda is given such prominent column space.   It is also not surprising that when they highlight shills like Schneider that it would lead to a not very good business climate.   

Luckily it is a new era and while mainstream media lets you down, the real information is readily available.  

Remember in the future Christian Schneider is not your friend, and he has a very hard time with the truth.  Instead of reading through his column, maybe take the time to thank a teacher!   

Was Attack On Milwaukee County District Attorney A Campaign Stunt?

A couple of weeks ago, just as the Federal Appellate Court was about to rule on the lawsuit filed by Scott Walker's collaborators - the Wisconsin Club for Growth - a vile hit piece against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm was published by a right wing propaganda group.

This smear job tried to portray Chisholm as being motivated to enforce the law by the virtue that his wife was a union steward and understandably upset by Act 10.  (Never mind that any rational person who loves Wisconsin was upset about this.)  The author of the tabloid column, Stuart Taylor, also tried to portray the District Attorney's Office as some sort of union hall, although no one could or would support these wild accusations.

At the time, I questioned the legitimacy of the article:

Given the all of the story's inconsistencies, conjectures and fallacies, it's hard to give it any credence. 

It smacks more of an act of political desperation.  Considering that Walker is trailing in just about every poll, is receiving bad economic and/or job creation news on what seems like a daily basis and could very well face the continuation of the Walkergate investigation, it is very believable that Walker and his supporters are scared to death.

This story appears to have all the reliability of Kyle Wood's accusationsagainst US Representative Mark Pocan's partner. 

And just as in the Wood's allegations, it's particularly disgusting that they have to drag Chisholm's wife into it.   Then again, if they had any sort of decency, there wouldn't have even been a need for the investigation in the first place.

Sure enough, a couple of days later, it came out that the source for this smear was a former cop named Michael Lutz who has struggled with life after being shot in the line of duty. He supposedly suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Instead of coping with this in a healthy fashion, Lutz apparently had decided to self-medicate with alcohol and making death threats to Chisholm and his family.

Now it is being reported that the CEO of the propaganda group is using these false accusations as a launching pad to promote Walker's presidential aspirations in order to further his anti-union, pro-plantation economics agenda:

"If he survives re-election, he might well become the number one Republican candidate," Richard Miniter, chief executive officer of American Media Institute, in a Tuesday article on the evangelical Christian website One News Now. The piece is entitled, "A union nightmare: Scott Walker in the White House."

Miniter's group commissioned two stories by Stuart Taylor Jr. that accuse Milwaukee's Democratic district attorney of conducting secret investigations of Walker and his staff because of  Chisholm's wife's pro-union agenda. The source for Taylor's stories was Michael Lutz, a controversial ex-Milwaukee cop who spent less than six months as an unpaid aide in Chisholm's office in 2011.

Miniter told the conservative website that the first-term Republican governor is under attack in the current gubernatorial contest because he took on labor unions in the state. Recent polls suggest Walker is in a statistical dead heat with his opponent, Democratic candidate Mary Burke.

"Unions donate a tremendous amount of money to the Democratic Party," he notes. "So calling for any kind of reform is a threat to the lifeblood of the Democratic Party."

Sadly, Dan Bice, who wrote the article about Miniter, failed to mention a few facts about Miniter, such as that he had been caught blatantly lying about President Barack Obama's record, claiming that several items on Obama's agenda failed when in reality they were successful.  Or that Miniter was such a goof that he was fired from the New York Times.

Another key omission by Bice is that Miniter worked hand in hand with Marc Thiessen, the author of Walker's "autobiography."

Once all the information is presented, it becomes obvious that this whole thing was just another scheme to further their fascist agenda.  They have no more credibility than Brian Sikma, James Wigderson or Charlie Sykes.  And like the local mugs, they have no qualms about ruining the reputations of a good man and his innocent wife, just to advance the agenda of their dark money masters..

I would call on Scott Walker to condemn these people and their underhanded tactics but something tells me that a future investigation will reveal that Walker was actually in on this stunt.

Sanctimonious Salamanders

By Jeff Simpson

Yesterday we brought you the pure unadulterated hypocrisy of the Governor and the Journal Sentinel showing unbelievable outrage towards Ryan Braun for lying to the public.    

Today, as expected, there is so much more.  


1.  We start at the top with the biggest hack in Wisconsin - Christian Schneider:

 Even after getting popped, Braun has apparently learned nothing, as his prepared statement on Monday was equally smarmy and oleaginous. "I realize now that I have made some mistakes," he wrote, as if some mad scientist cooked up the concepts of "lying" and "cheating" in a test tube last week. "I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions."

 But Monday's revelations about Braun expose him as a thief as well as a liar and a cheat. And his burgling of home runs and salary alike could affect baseball in Milwaukee for a decade.

Not ONLY is Schneider, a servant of the Bradley Foundation, he is a known liar, who was one of the most viciferous conduits of misinformation in the Kyle Wood fiasco.   Yet his way of a mea culpa when Wood was exposed as a fraud was to delete all stories pretending it did not happen.   Mark Pocan and his husband are still waiting for a public apology!   I wont even get into his defense of a well known woman abuser!  

2,   Another Bradley servant, Kevin Binversie who thinks the biggest thing to come out of the Braun suspension is it makes the democrats look bad.

 a) Will state Democ­rats try to embar­rass them­selves as they did last year, when they tried to pull the Braun saga into the Walker recall?  (Time will tell.)

This of course is the same Kevin Binversie whounexplicably libeled and smeared a fellow blogger, and championed shooting recall petitioners and wished for the death of Mark Pocan.   

 3.   Finally Dave Blaska, took time out from venerating daily his love for Scott Walker, to tell us how bad Ryan Braun is.  

The real gravamen of the case against Ryan Braun is the lying, the dishonesty. Ryan Braun is a liar.

Say Whaaa??? 

4.  Jimmy Wigderson, no preview of his post because I morally cant support White Wisconsin, another Bradley Employee also weighed in!

The Foibles of the ridiculous James Wigderson are well documented, here and here!   It appears that his hypocrisy is the only thing that exceeds his lies or his ego!   


These four talking about Ryan Braun being a liar, would be akin to Kim Kardashian tweeting "NO Justice" after the George Zimmerman was declared not guilty for hunting down an unarmed boy!


The Sanctimonious Hypocrisy of the right, gets wearing at times!   

Walkergate: Dark Money's Deep Desperation

By now, the gentle reader has probably seen, or at least heard of, the tale told by Stuart Taylor, Jr. regarding the John Doe investigation into Scott Walker's corruption.  The article appeared on Legal Newsline, a propaganda group sponsored by the right wing cabal known as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Taylor's fallacious smear job alleges that the Walkergate investigation and subsequent charges and convictions stem from Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm's desire to avenge his wife, a school teacher and union steward, for the emotional strife caused by Walker's Act 10.

For a multitude of reasons, these allegations should be treated with a high level of skepticism, if not outright derision.

The presentation of Taylor's story should cause suspicion even before one gets into the meat of it.

In a highly suspect bit of coincidence, Taylor's story just happens to come out on the same day that the appeal of a ruling by Judge Randolph Randa, ordering the investigation to be stopped, was to be heard. It's almost as if the Dark Money groups behind the lawsuit read their tea bag leaves and saw that the appellate judges weren't going to be very favorable to their stunt and wanted to get out in front of the bad news.

Adding further doubt to Taylor's tale is the fact that his only source is an unnamed, faceless former prosecutor that had supposedly worked for Milwaukee County.  It is curious that this unknown source claims that he is no longer working for Chisholm, yet is still afraid to be identified.  It is also curious that this individual was apparently close enough to Chisholm that he had overheard Chisholm's declaration of revenge but yet obscure enough that no one can figure out who he is.

Even if the gentle reader can give the benefit of the doubt to these curiosities, it is quickly discovered that there are other anomalies that are even harder to explain away.

Taylor correctly states that Walker's former Chief of Staff, the late Tom Nardelli, went to Chisholm's office in 2009 to complain of some missing money from a "county charity."  The charity in question was Operation Freedom, a thinly veiled campaign stunt for Walker, which he was told to take out of his office and handled independently.  As we already know, Walker instead put the money in the hands of his long time friend, Tim Russell, who also was stealing from the fund to pay for lavish vacations and Walker's campaign websites.

But this is where Taylor's story really starts to unravel.

Taylor mewls that the investigation should have stopped when they found the thief, but that Chisholm continued to investigate Walker and his staff.  Taylor accurately relates that Nardelli grilled Chisholm about the continuing investigation, alluding that Walker and company were unaware of the continuing investigation until May 2010.

However, that is a false statement.  The reason for the John Doe was because the investigators found other irregularities stemming from the original complaint.  When they tried to look into these irregularities, Walker started to stonewall them.  And that is what prompted the actual Walkergate investigations to start:

The document appears to cast doubt on some of Walker's claims about his role in launching and cooperating with the investigation.

On May 5, 2010, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf filed a petition with court officials asking if his office could initiate a secret investigation into what happened with $11,000 in donations intended for Operation Freedom, an annual event honoring veterans.

By making it a secret John Doe investigation, Landgraf wrote that prosecutors might get better cooperation from Walker's office, which had been "unwilling or unable" to turn over records and information needed in the investigation. He said he would need to subpoena county records and officials.

"It may be the County Executive's Office is reluctant to provide information to investigators due to a fear of political embarrassment," Landgraf wrote, noting that Walker was then running for governor.

John Chisholm

I would remind the gentle reader that the DA's office did a raid of Walker's county executive office on November 1, 2010 - the day before Walker was elected governor.

I would also remind the gentle reader that Taylor accused Chisholm of conducting the John Doe as revenge for Act 10, which wasn't even introduced until 2011 and allowed to enacted until 2012.

Obviously, whether one wants to say that 2009 or 2010 was the starting date of Walkergate, either is well before Act 10.  Unless Taylor and his mystery former prosecutor are willing to say that Chisholm is a Time Lord and hopped in the Milwaukee County TARDIS to travel two years into the future and saw his wife's anguish and figured out that it was from Act 10, their accusations fall flat.

Come to think about it, that addition would be no harder to believe than the rest of their tale.

But wait! There's more.  There is always more.

Taylor and his unknown source claim that the DA's office was reminiscent of a union hall, festooned with blue fist posters:

The culture in the Milwaukee district attorney’s office was stoutly Democratic, the former prosecutor said, and become more so during Gov. Walker’s battle with the unions. Chisholm “had almost like an anti-Walker cabal of people in his office who were just fanatical about union activities and unionizing. And a lot of them went up and protested. They hung those blue fists on their office walls [to show solidarity with union protestors] … At the same time, if you had some opposing viewpoints that you wished to express, it was absolutely not allowed.”

Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looked into this aspect of the story and found that it had no substance:

Also Wednesday, an attorney with Democratic ties who defended clients caught up in the Doe probe said he saw no evidence of political bias or union support in their dealings with Chisholm and his office.

He said he didn't observe signs with a blue fist, a pro-union symbol that Legal Newswire said was displayed by some workers in the office.

Legal Newsline quoted the former Chisholm subordinate as saying that the district attorney "had almost like an anti-Walker cabal of people in his office who...hung those blue fists on their office walls (to show solidarity with union protesters)."

Leib, Chisholm's attorney, did not respond to a question about the signs.

Defense attorney Mike Maistelman said he never observed any union insignia in visits to the DA's offices, though he cautioned that he might have missed them.

Maistelman, a Democrat, represented a former deputy chief of staff to Walker as Milwaukee County executive during the first John Doe probe.

"I never saw any blue fists but I saw a lot of red faces," said Maistelman, referring to his back and forth with prosecutors.

Given the all of the story's inconsistencies, conjectures and fallacies, it's hard to give it any credence.

It smacks more of an act of political desperation.  Considering that Walker is trailing in just about every poll, is receiving bad economic and/or job creation news on what seems like a daily basis and could very well face the continuation of the Walkergate investigation, it is very believable that Walker and his supporters are scared to death.

This story appears to have all the reliability of Kyle Wood's accusations against US Representative Mark Pocan's partner.

And just as in the Wood's allegations, it's particularly disgusting that they have to drag Chisholm's wife into it.   Then again, if they had any sort of decency, there wouldn't have even been a need for the investigation in the first place.

Outsource Schneider

By Jeff Simpson



The all time paid political hack, and sometimes "writer" at Jsonline, Christian Schneider is at it again.   The author of the Kyle Wood Fiasco(of which he was nominated for the rotten tomato in writing awards) is more of a paid advertiser for all things republican, than a serious writer. 

When the republicans get in trouble with some particularly bad piece of PR(which is regularly), say a prominent figure choked a woman, then Schneider comes to the rescue with a piece of fiction for everyone on the right to quote.

It is so nice for Journal Communications to give him this forum.  

This time his masters sent him out to defend.......Mary Burke!  Mary Burke has been taking some major hots for the fact that her company, Trek Bicycles, has outsourced 99.5% of their manufacturing.    This has cost Wisconsinites, JOBS.

Why do they need Schnieder?  That's simple.  If the evils of outsourcing, and how it has helped drive our economy into the ground, ever becomes a real issue in an election, the republicans would take an unprecedented beating.   They long touted the wonders of outsourcing(cheap labor, no rules, no unions), and have done their best to legislate that outsourcing becomes practically mandatory. 

Here is Schneider drivel:

"Offshoring," on the other hand, means moving jobs overseas, where products can be produced cheaper due to lower labor costs. For the workers whose jobs are moved to India, China or Mexico, offshoring — to use a technical economic term — "sucks."

But as is the case with almost everything in politics, outsourcing and offshoring pit concentrated vs. diffuse benefits. While moving jobs overseas costs identifiable jobs in the short term, it allows companies to make products cheaper, helping them grow and create more jobs right back here in the United States.

 And I thought Paul Ryan was ignorant on economics!   

First off, the wonders of outsourcing has brought us to a $38.6 BILLION trade DEFICIT.  To help Schneider out, let's spell it out:

We have brought in $38,600,000,000 worth of goods than we ship out. 

That is $38,600,000,000 more worth of goods that foreign workers made that we have bought, compared to what foreign countries have bought from American workers.  

What does that mean to you?  Record job losses! 

What does that mean to Schneider's bosses?   Pretty much all of the income growth and record profits!

The Polaroid is starting to come into focus.   Let's shake it a little bit more:

Remember this from Schneider:

While moving jobs overseas costs identifiable jobs in the short term, it allows companies to make products cheaper

in 2009 as a result of outsourcing, the Janesville, WI GM plant closed. 

In 2009, the average price of a car was $27,958.
In 2013, the average price of a car was $31, 258(record high).
(Ps: Chris - $31,258 is higher than $27,958)

2300 people unemployed in Janesville.   2300 people whose families had worked at GM for generations, all unemployed.   Now they only have to pay an extra $4000 for car if they want to buy!

These 2300 people who no longer will be building our cars, have spouses, children, bill,s pay taxes for the local school districts, shop at the malls, eat at local restaurants, AND worked hard and built a high quality, affordable product....well at least they used to.

I have no doubt that Schneider can find some CATO based "economist", when they are not busy sticking up for Paul Ryan's austerity budget, about the wonders of outsourcing.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, the real world disagrees. 


I probably expected too much out of someone who gets their business acumen from a reality TV show, but the facts on the ground(as they always do with Chris's column) differ greatly:

 But economists are unanimous that trade, including outsourcing, is hugely beneficial to economic growth at home and abroad."

This is highly misleading for two reasons. First, economists are unanimous in agreeing that trade could have major distributional consequences. And some prominent economists, such as Paul Krugman, have argued that the recent pattern of trade for the United States has had negative distributional consequences for large segment of the U.S. workforce.

The second reason that it is misleading is that economists are unanimous in believing that in the context of below full employment economy, like the one we have seen the last five years, a larger trade deficit implies lower growth and fewer jobs. In this context outsourcing hurts the economy.

Let's hope that Schneider does not get his parenting skills from Keeping up with the Kardashians.

As economist Dean Baker points out, that this is a  bipartisan problem(hence the defending of Mary Burke), not only does outsourcing not work, we have other problems:

At the same time, his trade policy has done little or nothing to expose highly educated professionals like doctors and lawyers to the same competition. This policy has the predicted and actual effect of depressing the wages of less educated workers relative to the most highly paid workers. This policy is exacerbated by maintaining an over-valued dollar, which further depresses the wages of those workers exposed to international competition to the benefit of those who are largely protected.
President Obama has also done nothing to combat the corruption in the corporate governance structure whereby corporate board members are paid hundreds of thousands of thousands a dollars a year to look the other way as top management pillages the company. A policy that subjects less educated workers to the most vigorous possible competition, while maintaining protection for those at the top will redistribute income upward, as we have seen over the last three decades. Both candidates seem to largely support such policies.

 The reality of the situation is, until we start manufacturing in America again we will never have a full recovery, nor will we be the Superpower we once were. 

Americans, not employed by the Bradley Foundation, are starting to get this and its scares the hell out of Chris's bosses!

PS: I do have to give Chris his due though.  He did hit the nail on the head with this line:

(Next up: What "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" teaches us about the Laffer Curve.)

Since the Laffer Curve might be one of the few things (besides Congress) that has less credibility left than Honey Boo Boo

 

Now we know why Scott Walker placed this billboard in the shuttered GM plant grounds.  He felt that he was creating jobs by laying off 2300 fellow Wisconsinites. 

Twenty Questions for the Kedzies!

We ll know the story of Senator Kedzie's son getting beat up for having a Romney/Ryan sign in his yard!  How could we not really, since Senator Neal Kedzie was announcing it to anyone who would listen! 

Heck the good Senator Kedzie even coordinated with the Romney Campaign to make sure everyone knew how dangerous liberals could be. 

The problem with the whole story, besides the fact that Senator Kedzie saw his injured son as a political prop, is that the story just was not true! 

Here is the Whitewater Police Report:

WOW does that leave us open to some questions!  

1.  Has Paul Ryan called since to check and see how Sean is?

2.  Why did the Whitewater police never take the political motivation serious?

3.  Why would Sean kedzie drop the case after being beaten up so badly?

4.  Since Sean dropped the case on 12/4 and it is 12/11 where is the press release from Senator Kedzie saying that the case was dropped?

5.  Where is the apology to the liberals of WI for being falsely accused?

6.  Where is the public apology to Max Hey, who is innocent?

7.  Why was Max Hey the first "Max" that came up when he typed his name into facebook?  When you type a name into facebook the names that you are using the most, come up first!  

8.  Why was Kedzie adamant that Max Hey was the one, when there was no evidence and he admitted to not seeing the person who did it?

9.  Why was Kedzie stalking Max Hey at his job?

10.  Are there any similarities between Sean Kedzie and Kyle Wood?

11.  Will anyone on the right issue a retraction? 

12.  Seriously will they? 

13.   Who gave Sean his haircut and shave?  why? 

14.  Has Sean pissed people off on campus? 

15.  Had Sean been drinking?

16.  Why would someone who "cracked the case" on facebook, suddenly disappear from facebook?

17.  What was in it for Senator Kedzie?

18.  What was in it for Sean Kedzie?

19.  In the end between wasted police investigations, and sneding out press releases on the taxpayer dime, how much did the Kedzie family cost the taxpayers?

20.  What the hell happened?

Michigan: Malfeasance, Malarkey and Motivation

By now, I'm sure the gentle reader has heard the tragic news that Michigan is no longer a free state. Through an act of great malfeasance, the lame duck state legislature passed the Right to Woe law. Within hours, the feckless Governor Rick Snyder signed this odorous piece of legislation into law.

It's not a law that the people wanted. This is evident by the fact that many of the reprobates who did this vile deed had lost their election in November after the voters rejected their malevolence. It is also evidenced by the fact that Michigan's Right to Woe law is written verbatim from ALEC's playbook.

But the madness didn't end there.

Shortly after the legislature did their nefarious deed, this video appeared and went viral among the RWNJ community:



Holy mayhem!

Of course, the likely suspects, aka the paid propagandists like Charlie Sykes and James Wigderson ran with it. I really got a chuckle from Wigderson's bluster about the video:

I’m looking forward to reading on leftwing blogs a) it never happened, b) Americans for Prosperity deserved it, and c) the Koch brothers faked the whole thing to make unions look bad.

But as one might expect, there is a problem with this scenario. A couple of problems really.

As the blogger emptywheel adroitly points out:

All this, in spite of the fact that witnesses say the Americans for Prosperity people were trying to provoke union members to violence, and witnesses reportedly saw AFP people loosening the ropes on the tents so they would come down. And in spite of the fact the place was crawling with cops (shipped in from around the state) who didn’t do see anything amiss. (Cops are as we speak arresting people engaging in civil disobedience at the Romney Building, where the Governor’s office is.)

And we know all too well that the state police has not been hesitant to abuse their authority and use force even when it's not needed. If there was something criminal happening, does anyone thing that the police would idly stand by?

They also have another problem - eye witnesses:



At the same time this is going on, some putz from Faux News was going around trying to agitate union protesters. He finally got someone to go after him. Funny thing is, even with all the police around, he never reported it and they never responded to it.

It's pretty safe to say we can chalk this one up in the same category as Sean Kedzie and Kyle Wood - playing the false victim. I can't wait for Christian Schneider to tell us he interviewed and verified everything before taking his post down and trying to bury it.

And as for the faux Faux News story, well, I'm also waiting to see if they show Lansing's palm trees:



The ALEC zombies think that they have it all sewed up in Michigan. They even added a fiscal note to the bill to keep the new legislature from overturning the law next year.

But things aren't as airtight as they'd like to think.

One, the Michigan law exempts police and firefighters. That's the same mistake that Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans made and which got Act 10 overturned.

Secondly, even though the legislature might have their hands tied, the people don't. They will have to ride it out for a year, but they can do for themselves what the government can't (emphasis mine):

However, labor unions believe they have found a way to challenge these bills at the ballot box, even if they would be allowed to remain in place for a while in the interim. As first reported by NBC News, an analysis by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan shows that labor would have recourse to put the right to work laws up for a citizen initiative. Republicans thought they short-circuited this by including an appropriation of funds in the legislation. By virtue of a state law, this means that the legislation cannot be challenged at the ballot box, they contended. However, the CRC of Michigan analysis shows that this is only true for one type of initiative. Here’s the full language of the analysis.

There are four methods whereby a proposal can be placed on the statewide ballot in Michigan: (1) statutory initiative, (2) voter referendum, (3) legislative referendum, and (4) constitutional amendment.

STATUTORY INITIATIVE is defined by Section 9 of Article 2 of the Michigan Constitution as the power which the people reserve to themselves “to propose laws and to enact and reject laws.” The power of initiative extends to any law the Legislature may enact and is invoked by filing petitions containing signatures of registered voters equal in number to at least eight percent of the total votes cast in the last election for governor. The Legislature is required to enact, without modification, or reject any proposed initiative within 40 session days. An initiative not enacted by the Legislature is placed on the statewide ballot at the next general election. A law that is initiated or adopted by the people is not subject to gubernatorial veto and one adopted by voters cannot subsequently be amended or repealed except by the voters or by a three-fourths vote of the Legislature.

VOTER REFERENDUM is defined by Section 9 of Article 2 of the Michigan Constitution as the power “to approve and reject laws enacted by the legislature.” Referendum must be invoked, within 90 days of final adjournment of the legislative session during which the law in question was enacted, by filing petitions containing signatures of registered voters equal in number to at least five percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last general election. The effect of invoking a referendum is to suspend the law in question until voters approve or reject it at the next general election.

LEGISLATIVE REFERENDUM is authorized by Section 34 of Article 4 of the Michigan Constitution, which provides that “[a]ny bill passed by the legislature and approved by the governor, except a bill appropriating money, may provide that it will not become law unless approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon.”

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT is authorized by Sections 1 and 2 of Article 12 of the Michigan Constitution and may be proposed either by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature or by filing petitions containing signatures of registered voters equal in number to at least ten percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last general election.

The question of CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION is required by Section 3 of Article XII of the Michigan Constitution to appear on the ballot automatically every 16 years after 1978.

Only the legislative referendum is short-circuited by the appropriation of funds. Labor could use the voter referendum or the statutory initiative to put right to work on the ballot, for example. This will take more signatures than the legislative referendum, but that just represents an organizing opportunity.

I hope that the good people of Michigan don't make the same mistake we made. Instead of marching in circles or yelling a building, they need to get all boots on the ground now to start collecting signatures.

The corporate special interests might have one this round in Michigan, like they did in Wisconsin, but they have in no way won the war.

POSTSCRIPT: I keep seeing comparisons between Michigan and Wisconsin and how similar they are. Does this mean that Snyder has a secret router and a legal defense fund too?