On Sunday, customers who receive the Janesville Gazette found this in the newspaper tubes, along with their Sunday papers:
What you’re looking at is a flier (purporting to be an advertisement in the Janesville Gazette) that lists the names and salaries of public school teachers who signed the recall petition and includes a form so parents can request that their children aren’t assigned to “radical” teachers next year.
Because according to Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG) and the cowards in Janesville who worked together to put out the flier, teachers who exercise their Constitutionally-protected rights are now “radicals” who shouldn’t be teaching children. I’m willing to bet a million dollars from my exorbitant seven-figure public employee salary that if the shoe was on the other foot and the teachers in question had signed petitions to recall Democratic elected officials, CRG and the anonymous cowards who worked in tandem to put out this flier would call the teachers in question “heroes,” because CRG is nothing more than a right-wing group willing to do whatever it takes to help keep Gov. Scott Walker secure as a career politician.
According to a report in the Janesville Gazette, the flier was distributed in Gazette home-delivery tubes on Sunday without the permission of the Gazette, and representatives from the paper indicated the flier is not connected to the newspaper.
Gazette Circulation Manager Lon Haenel said Gazette tubes are for newspaper use only. The paper asks unauthorized people or groups to stop using The Gazette’s tubes, Haenel said, and will contact the police if they do not.
This whole situation is absolutely disgraceful.
This is political warfare at its very worst. CRG claims to be apolitical and its 501c(3) status requires them to refrain from political action. Yet, they make claims like: “CRG is your best choice to gain control over Wisconsin politics…” and “CRG is administered by political, financial, legal, and technology professionals dedicated to saving Wisconsin…” There is nothing apolitical about CRG.
They claim they are not a right wing front group, maybe it’s just a perception thingy – their values, goals, and actions only LOOK decidedly right wing.
The Janesville flyer brings their apolitical assertion into serious doubt; maybe investigating CRG is in order? Their stated goals:
1. Educate citizens on how to successfully engage and manage their government.
2. Motivate fiscal conservatives to vote in increasingly larger numbers.
3. Organize fiscal conservatives into the most influential political force in Wisconsin.
4. Encourage fiscal conservatives to contribute to the human and financial resources needed to grow and be successful.
A few questions:
1. How does this Janesville action fit any CRG goal?
2. Was this action taken on behalf of another group, and if so, which group?
3. Is there anything illegal about inserting unauthorized flyers into newspaper tubes?
4. Why did the Janesville Gazette issue a warning against unauthorized people/groups and not contact the police straight out?
Responsible citizens should investigate Citizens for Responsible Government.
If I were the Gazette, I’d take ’em to court over the illegal use of Gazette newspaper boxes to distribute these fliers.
Scott Walker’s Army strikes again.
PJ, add to the goals of CRG that it was founded as a pro-recall organization — recalling Walker’s predecessor as Milwaukee County exec.
And yet, the action in Janesville this week is anti-recall, abetted by CRG, which claims it had no idea of the use to which its aid would be put. So CRGers are fools and/or tools.
Not that I believe CRG’s disclaimer, not even for a Milwaukee minute.
Zach, how is this any less disgraceful than what you did here in this: http://bloggingblue.com/2012/05/17/lets-play-whos-that-lady-with-scott-fitzgerald/
Putting out flyers like that is no different than a lot of what’s done on this blog (other than the anonymity factor, which I do disagree with). I think it’s just fine to point out just exactly some of the high wages and benefits teachers and school district employees receive (at least higher than compared with the average joe). I do think there was a better way to do it however.
It does illustrate the point that the people whining and complaining about “sacrifices” and unjustly trying to remove the Governor are often better off than the rest of us who pay their high salaries (not only our saving for retirement, but were paying for their entire pensions and health plans too). I say send the $18 million election bill to them, they are the ones who demanded an unnecessary election and it seems like they have the money to pay for it, at least more than the rest of us do anyway.
Oh, dear…Another frightened little creature. He’s so frightened about anonymity that he hides behind a screen name. He’s so frightened that Blogging Blue might publish pictures of public servants in cars. He’s frightened of teachers because maybe he flunked out of school and has an ax to grind. Poor little thing. Fear is so ugly.
@forgetful: Personally, I’d rather have a well-compensated teacher teaching our kids rather than the average joe. If you were teaching, our kids would be idiots.
@forgetful: One more thing. Apparently you have no problem with the hundreds of millions of dollars paid to professional athletes, the mega millions paid to actors, the millions of dollars CEOs are paid and more frighteningly the millions paid to failed CEOs, and the actions of Wall Street that were largely responsible for the economic downturn while they reaped in their huge paydays. No, you begrudge teachers a salary that is still lower than the private industry norm and who won’t see $2 million in gross income over their work career.
And why … because you are told to do so. Fool.
Forget Me Not or Forget My Name or Forgettable Me – whichever it is – if you look at the Janesville action you will find that it didn’t illustrate any rampant overcompensation nor was that its purpose. The purpose of that action was radical McCarthyisitc intimidation directed at Walker’s opponents who signed the recall petition. It did not represent an action of responsible government accountability, it was designed as a wedge to goad the ignorant and ill informed. It represents an abusive subversion of transparency mechanisms put in place to root out actual corruption and fraud. Those open records laws were not designed to harangue public employees. Note that CRG does not see fit to replicate any transparency or accountability in its political attack citing the now familiar right wing meme that transparency leads to retribution – if you can’t see how this is playing out – then I’d suggest you hone up on your synthesis skills.
Furthermore you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself for belittling your fellow citizens who stand opposed to injustice. Public sector workers are not the cause of any national or state economic crisis. Act 10 was not motivated by budgetary concerns, rather budgetary matters was a pretext for dismantling unions.
Other Side – I couldn’t agree with you more. A system of well respected, well compensated teachers is one that would be better all around. Every other advanced nation in the world has grasped this simple idea – it is only conservatives in what was once the USA that don’t.
CRG is caustic. They should be exposed for the radical hazard that they are.