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Kangaroo Court
Tolerating Fraud and Muzzling Speech
 Think back a few years to the heart of U.S. military action in Iraq. Antiwar activists drummed up all kinds of bogus charges about how the government was “silencing” them when they tried to criticize the war. This is a common reaction of the left – whenever the media ignores their nonsense, they claim there’s some kind of government effort to censor them.
But here in Wisconsin, we have an unelected government body trying to censor legitimate political speech, and nobody utters a peep. This week, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) granted itself the exclusive power to regulate political speech during the campaign season. The Board, which was initially created to enforce existing campaign law violations, has moved on to creating entirely new laws without the Legislature’s consent. And if you’re planning to criticize your state government, you should be worried.
When considering the new rule, the GAB heard testimony from several constitutional experts who told them they could not simply rule on issue advocacy without a statute like the federal Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BICRA). It’s important to note that BICRA itself has been successfully challenged on constitutional grounds. And even though state experts told the former judges on the GAB that they did not have the statutory authority to create this kind of rule on their own, they have decided they do have the authority to implement a rule – they just aren’t sure they can craft one that was constitutional. That’s probably because they can’t.
The GAB wants to regulate what organizations say about elected officials in radio and television ads close to an election. Yet their rule would go even further than the federal BICRA law to regulate what people say on blogs, in YouTube videos, and in church flyers. Basically, if you want to criticize your government, the GAB will decide whether your cause is worthy enough.
Of course, the GAB deeming itself the “speech police” doesn’t even come close to being constitutional. And they will probably lose their power grab in court – but not until groups spend thousands, if not millions, of dollars in court trying to regain their rights. In Wisconsin, free speech has a very steep price, indeed. As a bonus, taxpayers get to pick up the tab for the GAB’s lawyers too.
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Bon Voyage Jobs
 This week, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that companies in China and Germany are spending millions of dollars to subsidize imports of paper to the U.S, in an attempt to pull jobs out of the Fox Valley and into their countries.
When asked about the unfair trade practices by Germany and China, Rick Bahr, USW Local 2-469 representing about 900 workers at the Appleton mill in Wisconsin, said, "We expect our government to stand up and fight back for American paper workers' jobs and send a message to China that they can no longer violate the fair trade laws agreed to after joining the World Trade Organization (WTO)."
Of course, jobs are also leaving America because excessive government regulation and strong unionization make it too expensive for plants to keep jobs here. The latest threat to American jobs is the effort by environmentalists to regulate carbon emissions. This is the goal of Governor Doyle’s recently adjourned Global Warming Task Force, which issued recommendations that if implemented, are certain to drive jobs from Wisconsin en masse.
In fact, many of the Governor’s Task Force recommendations are based on the federal Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. (Perhaps the climate should be allowed to carry a gun – then Mother Nature could feel more secure.) The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) conducted a state-by-state case study of the economic impact of cap & trade on the various states, and their findings for Wisconsin are stunning:
- Up to 74,000 lost jobs, even when the creation of so-called “green collar” jobs is accounted for.
- Annual loss of disposable household income of $6,904 when fully implemented.
- Electric rates would more than double (177% increase) upon full implementation, and residential natural gas prices would increase 160%
During the upcoming elections, voters should choose candidates who will support reasonable environmental policies, rather than imposing new taxes and regulations that drive up energy costs and drive jobs out of Wisconsin.
Felons for Voter Fraud
 Wisconsin has always been a magnet for liberal thugs who will do anything to tip the election in favor of their candidate. That’s because Wisconsin has no official voter list and we allow same day registration and do not require voters to provide a photo id to vote.
During the 2000 Presidential election, a Democrat donor from New York gave homeless people free cigarettes in exchange for votes. In the spring of 2004, voters in the city of Milwaukee were treated to a free hamburger.
This year, Wisconsin has allowed outside groups to load our voter files with fraudulent voter registrations. Worse yet, several of the people creating the fraudulent registrations are themselves convicted felons and therefore not even eligible to vote. Today, Attorney General Van Hollen revealed that Adam Mucklin, a Special Registration Deputy who was convicted of substantial battery in April of this year, falsified his registration, stating that he was eligible to vote. Mucklin is still serving his sentence and currently under supervision.
Last week a report by the Associated Press revealed that at least seven felons convicted of crimes including cocaine possession and robbery were recruited by ACORN, a liberal group that used taxpayer-funded subsidies to harass banks that refused to make loans to people with poor credit.
Acorn’s political director for Wisconsin shrugged off the illegal hires saying, “We have a lot of folks with felony records and, frankly, they need jobs.”
Yesterday the Nevada Department of Justice raided the ACORN office in Las Vegas after receiving repeated complaints about voter registration fraud, but don’t expect that to stop them. ACORN has the finest lawyers money can buy, courtesy of the U.S. Taxpayers and Senator Barack Obama.
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