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    9/20/2010
    How is a venomous anti-corporate organization nonpartisan?

    I don’t get how Mike McCabe gets granted credibility as the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign (WDC), a self-described “nonpartisan watchdog group working for clean, open and honest government and reforms that make people matter more than money in politics.” 

    Well, that tells you right off where these guys stand.

    Yes, WDC does some helpful stuff. Even great stuff. Their campaign finance database is what I use to search for contributors to state campaigns. I also like their analyses of interest group spending, explaining Independent Expenditures vs. Issue Ads vs. PACs and Corporations. I often get turned around in the innards of the web site, but eventually get to whatever breakdowns I’m looking for. 

    Last week, McCabe, representing WDC, was called on by the Leg. Council’s Special Committee on Judicial Discipline and Recusal (phew!) to testify as an expert. McCabe:
    Thank you for once again extending an invitation to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to appear before your committee. We appreciate this opportunity to offer a citizen perspective on issues related to judicial recusal.
    I’m not sure which citizens’ perspectives the WDC claims to represent, in speaking about a Wisconsin Supreme Court rule.
    The amendment to the Code of Judicial Conduct the state Supreme Court gave final approval to in July allowing judges to decide cases involving their biggest campaign supporters is wrong on multiple levels.

    It is wrong because of who wrote it. Wisconsin’s new recusal standards were proposed by two of the state’s most powerful lobbying groups – Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association.
    And on and on it goes, reciting what are probably some very reliable data, and proposing a list of must-dos for the state, to prevent tawdry campaign dollars from soiling judicial decisions.

    I’d surely like to believe what these guys say. But there’s no way Mike McCabe is nonpartisan – and so there’s no way his testimony comes across as completely unbiased. No way.

    Below is an excerpt from McCabe’s speech to the progressives attending this year’s Fighting Bob Fest, September 11. Do you see any bias here?
    People forget that the original Boston Tea Party was not only a protest of British rule but also an act of civil disobedience against Britain’s East India Trading Company. Those tea partiers understood how unrestrained corporate power goes hand in hand with political oppression.

    Today’s tea partiers are most notably notable for blindness to irony. Their party is authorized and paid for by one of the largest privately held companies in the world, Koch Industries. Among America ’s billionaires, only Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are richer than David and Charles Koch. Their company and all its subsidiaries operate in 60 countries. They own oil refineries and operate pipelines all across North America . They make Lycra for clothing and Teflon for pots and pans. They produce everything from Dixie cups to Brawny paper towels. They do fertilizer and chemicals and plastics and commodities trading and cattle ranching. Oh, and tea parties.

    How rich are the Koch brothers? Even wealthier than Rupert Murdoch, whose holdings are said to be worth more than $60 billion. I mention Murdoch because the Koch Industries Tea Party has been promoted 24/7 by Murdoch’s media empire.

    Democracy is not possible without authentic journalism. There comes a time when journalism fails us. When an obscure preacher with 50 followers is made into a national celebrity for threatening to burn another religion’s holy book, you know such a time has arrived. When Helen Thomas is no longer in the front row at White House press briefings but a seat up front is given to a fake news organization [Fox News] dedicated to partisan propaganda and devoted to making us dumber and less able to see the truth and less capable of governing ourselves, you know such a time is upon us.
    Oh my, rich Rupert Murdoch. (And George Soros, Mike?) Lycra and Teflon? What’s with that? Understandable call-outs, I suppose, when one looks at WDC’s Board of Directors and “Coalition Organizations.” (p. 5 of the .pdf)

    McCabe is certainly entitled to his economic, social and political beliefs. But don’t tell me his “watchdog group” is nonpartisan.

    Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net




    COMMENTS

    Give me a break Jo. Is WPRI a "non-partisan think tank?" as it claims?

    I don't support all of WDC's positions, but what is it about judicial recusals when there are conflicts of interests do you not understand?

    When WMC invested $2M in the last judicial election, do you not think the benefactor judge should not recuse himself when sitting on cases involving WMC or its members?

    And better, why are we allowing the purest of the pure to accept cash bribes (or free electoral gifts)?

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Mon Sep 20 08:58:14 2010)

    Sounds about as non-partisan as a Union delegate...
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Andrew Ellis (Mon Sep 20 09:00:28 2010)

    ***Oh, and tea parties***

    McCabe's screed is nutty to the point of insanity. I only even heard of the Koch Bros. 2 weeks ago (article online) and I've been going to Tea Parties since their inception. What is it about liberals that they can't conceive of a movement that was started spontaneously without anyone to order people here and there and have signs printed for them and make sure there's some kind of a riot in the wings waiting to go on?

    McCabe may get his orders from higher up but Tea Parties except for the Tea Party Express and Dick Armey's group, whatever it is, are all individual except for loose associations with Tea Party organizers, in some cases. It's pretty much, if you give a Tea Party, whoever is available or who is passionate enough about it will show up with their homemade sign.

    Helen Thomas? Why should an anti-Semite have a front row seat at anything and I think it's time the Democrats get over thinking Fox News isn't a legitimate news organization. Apparently they can't tell the difference between the news and commentary programs. That's probably not surprising since they seem to think the vileness emanating from MSNBC is straight news.

    Nonpartisan? I don't think so. McCabe needs to get his head out of that place "where the sun don't shine" before he's led away by the men in the white coats.

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    C. R. Stevenson (Mon Sep 20 09:28:39 2010)

    C. R., I support *some* of the Tea Party's goals, but I don't think they understand what *causes* government spending and the resulting taxes and deficits. It's campaign bribes, and they best get their calculators to working for them.

    That aside, in some races (like Murkowski's write-in) you can be assured that the split vote is a winner for the Dems.

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Mon Sep 20 10:04:13 2010)

    FYI, Participants in the first Tea Party included many Masons.

    I just read Monk Elmers' campaign literature. Every point he brings up includes spending and punishing big business. He must not be elected.

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    David (Mon Sep 20 11:19:45 2010)

    Opensecrets.org also exposes which politicians get money from whom. Once you research enough, you find mostly the same corporations giving money to both parties. Sensenbrenner is a notable exception.

    "Gangs of America" quotes Jefferson as saying, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

    Prior to the War between the States, corporations were "limited to performing a specific function" (Gangs of America), could not own property other than what was directly needed for the authorised activity, and usually were not allowed to operate outside of state boundaries. States granted charters lasting no more than 30 years. This is in part why our country was so prosperous then.

    If you read "The Untold Story of Milk" you'll see how big dairies USED THE GOVERNMENT to pass laws which resulted in the demise of smaller ones. The Farm Bill awards taxpayer money based on HOW MUCH LAND IS OWNED, which is why we see the likes of Rockefellers getting Farm Bill money.

    Prior to the War between the States, the USA was a land of unlimited potential. Just read De Toqueville. After that, the corporate-government complex started snowballing.

    "Murder by Injection" (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archivos_pdf/murderinjection.pdf) documents this, as well as Alex Jones, (http://www.prisonplanet.com/fall-of-the-republic-exposes-how-brand-obama-is-destroying-america.html) and "America: Freedom to Fascism", (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173#)

    If you don't believe it, why did Soros call the 2008 crash "the culmination of his life's work"?

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    emily matthews (Mon Sep 20 11:47:51 2010)

    I received this email which highlights how these corporations act:

    "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV):

    Dear Senator Reid:

    We, the People of These United States of America want to know, Senator Reid, how much we need to ante up to "see" Agribiz' purchase of you and to raise the bid enough to buy your allegiance. After all, Senator, you are both an ex-professional gambler and a professional politician and therefore understand how to play the game. You acted correctly on the morning of September 16, 2010, and announced that you would shelve S. 510, the disastrous Food Fascism Bill (deceptively titled the "Food Safety" Bill). True, you "blamed" that correct and courageous decision on Sen. Coburn of Oklahoma, whose steadfast opposition to the degradation and industrialization of our entire food supply has been a source of pride and gratification to anyone in the US who treasures sanity, freedom or clean food, but we understand that politics requires such CYA tactics.

    Later that day, however, your reversed course and, citing a meeting with Rylee Gustafson of Henderson, NV, who was hospitalized as a 9-year-old in 2006 after "eating contaminated spinach", you decided to support the destruction of the US food supply of clean, wholesome food instead. Senator Reid, did you ask Rylee whether the spinach he ate was produced by a local family farm, since it is factory farms, not family farms, including phony industrial "organic" farms, which are the source of all US food borne diseases? CDC says that 1 American in 4 will be struck with food borne disease this year, but those diseases do not come from family farms, according to the CDC itself. Clearly FDA regulation is not working. We have a disastrously unsafe food supply precisely because it is a factory farm food supply, not in spite of it.

    Did you ask if Rylee's mom washed and cooked the spinach sufficiently to ensure its safety? Did you ask if Rylee's mom's kitchen had been inspected by the FDA Kitchen Police?

    Despite the fact that factory farming is responsible for food borne disease, it is local and family farms which are slated for extinction by S. 510, in favor of their giant, and deadly, sound-alikes. Both are called farms, but small, local farms produce safe food. Industrial farms produce disease and bribes.

    Small, local, organic farms did not produce the recall of billions of tainted eggs two weeks ago. Just two factory farms produced all those billions of poisonous eggs, aided and abetted by the ineffective regulation of bloated, corrupt government agencies to whom S. 510 would give more power to abuse and more bloat to waste.

    So tell us, Senator Reid, in the hours following your decision to table/kill S. 510 and your abrupt reversal of that decision to ram it through the Senate, what was the blood price which you accepted to sell America's food supply, increasing the number of illnesses and deaths with the death of family farms, and our liberty, health, freedom along with it?

    What emoluments were you offered, Sir, which would salve your conscience even temporarily sufficiently to allow you to announce that you would use the parliamentary procedure of cloture to cut off all debate on this bill and to ram it through the Senate?

    You see, Senator, We, the People, understand the oft-repeated saw that "an honest politician is one who stays bought". We do not have reason to believe that your decision is one which will stay bought since your decision did such an abrupt about-face. We would like to enter the game, Sir, that Big Agribiz and you are obviously playing.

    What is the price you have put on your support or decision to ram this bill through, instead of killing it, Sir?

    We know that your 20 largest campaign supporters in the 2010 election cycle were:

    Rank Contributor Total Individual PAC's
    1 MGM Mirage $175,900 $145,900 $30,000
    2 Simmons Cooper LLC $124,900 $124,900 $0
    3 Weitz & Luxenberg $112,600 $112,600 $0
    4 Harrah's Entertainment $112,450 $87,450 $25,000
    5 Comcast Corp $102,000 $62,000 $40,000
    6 Torchmark Corp $94,500 $89,500 $5,000
    7 JPMorgan Chase & Co $84,100 $57,100 $27,000
    8 Law Offices of Peter G Angelos $84,000 $84,000 $0
    9 AT & T Inc $83,500 $35,000 $48,500
    10 Girardi & Keese $81,400 $81,400 $0
    11 Station Casinos $76,450 $61,450 $15,000
    12 Blackstone Group $74,900 $53,750 $21,150
    13 National Cable & Telecommunications Assn $73,800 $38,800 $35,000
    14 Apollo Advisors $66,900 $66,900 $0
    15 Akin, Gump et al $66,550 $44,050 $22,500
    16 Barrick Gold Corp $65,414 $25,414 $40,000
    17 FMR Corp $64,200 $33,200 $31,000
    18 Goldman Sachs $60,100 $40,100 $20,000
    19 Boyd Gaming $59,600 $49,600 $10,000
    20 WPP Group $57,900 $52,400 $5,500

    We know that tracing the labyrinth of industrial connections of these corporations leads us quickly to a veritable rats' nest of Uber Cartel connections and interests: Big Pharma, Big Chema, Big Agribiz, Big Biotech, Big Medica, Big Oil and Big War.

    So tell us, Sen. Reid, what was the deal you were offered, and accepted, not to gamble with our future, but, worse, to trade it for what in the Bible is referred to as "a mess of beans", a trivial prize in exchange for something of monumental importance?

    For Esau, it was a hot and savory dish when he was hungry for which he traded his birthright. As foolish as that was, Senator, it was his to trade.

    You, on the other hand, have traded OUR collective birthright to health, clean, unadulterated food and the freedom to select it and it was NOT yours to trade! So here's the deal: tell us what you were offered and we will up the ante to meet, and beat the price. You get what you want and we keep our Food Freedom.

    Yours in health and freedom,

    We, The People of These United States

    NOTE: This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2009 - 2010 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

    https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?type=C&cid=N00009922&newMem=N&cycle=2010"

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    emily matthews (Mon Sep 20 11:59:33 2010)

    Yea, but there's no way Sensenbrenner will clean up the system. He has the chance -- today!!! -- by supporting the Fair Elections Now Act, but he refuses to. I wrote about that today.
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Mon Sep 20 12:00:26 2010)

    And incidentally, C.R., here are some of the Tea Partier's funders. Perhaps none individually as rich as Soros, but the ain't paupers. See HERE and HERE.
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Mon Sep 20 12:48:00 2010)

    Jo;
    >>>How is a venomous anti-corporate organization nonpartisan?<<<
    Do you have to be pro-corporate to be non-partisan in your book?

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Dean Weichmann (Mon Sep 20 15:01:11 2010)

    Well Dean, read the Bob Fest speech for yourself. I classify it as anti-corporation and definitely anti-Tea Party. As I said, Mike is entitled to his opinion as an individual - which I label as liberal. But I'm not so sure those same opinions should be shared publicly by the Exec. Director of a self-labeled nonpartisan organization, much less posted prominently on its web site - a web site that some trust as credible in the area of campaign finance information and campaign finance reform. I'm questioning the "nonpartisan" claim and questioning the credibility of the information and policy commentary.
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jo (Mon Sep 20 15:31:31 2010)

    Excellent question Dean. I consider myself "pro corporate" as related to the 80% of companies that are run by honest executives (republicans and democrats), yet I'm anti-corporate when it comes to the 20% that are damned crooks. I didn't think it had anything to do with partisanship, but let's hear it from Jo.
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Mon Sep 20 15:39:33 2010)

    Jack
    I went to the web site you posted, and I have to say this. The site claims that $$$ is behind the tea party movement......and they show two professionally made signs.
    That is absolutely astounding !

    I find it totally incongruent with the real world!
    I have attended half a dozen tea parties. The amazing thing to see is the myrid of HOMEMADE signs. I have yet to see two signs that were professionally made, or even identical in text/structure.
    So what does that say ?
    It tells me , to put up my BS detector !
    Is this a News Media prop like they did with Chevy trucks catching fire ?
    Is this a Liberal ploy to spout their view point.
    I have seen many "professional rallies" (usually Union Events) where there are maybe 5 different signs, but 100 of each.
    Those that suggest the tea parties are staged are those with an axe to grind, and envious of the grass roots movement.

    in short, they, like the Media...just don't get it!

    The lead article is hilarious in that it never mentions Mr Soros..hehe, I am laughing

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Rich Carlstedt (Mon Sep 20 19:04:30 2010)

    Gee, and I am laughing right along with you, because I never said Soros was mentioned in the articles. Some of the Tea Partiers are funded by the multi-millionaire Koch brothers, others by Dick Army, but all try to mimic the masters. Same name, same M.O., etc. And I support *some* of their issues, but think they miss a valuable point: that political corruption is the problem, not liberal ideology. It will be interesting to see how far an extreme right-wing group makes it in a center-right country. This November will tell us a lot.
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Tue Sep 21 02:43:21 2010)

    Oh my Jack. Are you up as early as I am to gather the news for FoxPolitics News? Or are you still up and haven't gone to bed? If that's the case - go to bed!
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jo (Tue Sept 21 03:00:00 2010)

    Jo, old geezers sleep in shifts... with a recess in the middle. Not something to look forward to, but the options are not good.
    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Tue Sep 21 06:05:44 2010)

    Jack, I don't care if there are a hundred zillionaires claiming to fund "The Tea Parties" What they did was find a parade marching down the street and they scampered as fast as they could to put themselves at the forefront so everyone would think they were leading the parade. Not so. I don't care how many links you post.

    AND far right extremists? Surely you know better than that. The first one I went to in Appleton was about 1/3 business people and about 1/3 retirees and the rest were various just plain P.O.ed citizens.

    Is that what you describe as "far right extremists"? Do you get your ideas directly from the White House? BTW, this is the first time I ever heard of a president disparaging ordinary taxpaying citizens.

    I made my own sign as did every one else there. We heard about someone giving a Tea Party and we attended, bringing our own scones and seed cake!

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    C. R. Stevenson (Tue Sep 21 10:32:48 2010)

    C.R., you miss the critical part of my comment:

    "I support *some* of their issues, but think they miss a valuable point: that political corruption is the problem, not liberal ideology."

    fox cities news, appleton, wi
    Jack Lohman (Tue Sep 21 14:52:04 2010)




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