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The Wisconsin Witch Hunt Goes National
· Friday, April 29, 2011
On May 1, left-wing vigilantes will target companies across the country that have committed a mortal sin: sending donations to GOP Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Rest assured, such intolerable acts of political free speech will not go unpunished by tolerant Big Labor activists. They're calling for both a national boycott of Walker's corporate donors and a coordinated sticker vandalism campaign on GOP-tainted products.
The Wisconsin Grocers Association is bracing for the anti-Walker witch hunt. Anonymous operatives have circulated sabotage stickers on the Internet and around Wisconsin that single out Angel Soft tissue paper ("Wiping your (expletive) on Wisconsin workers"), Johnsonville Sausage ("These Brats Bust Unions") and Coors ("Labor Rights Flow Away Like A Mountain Stream"). Earlier this week, a "Stick It To Walker" website boasted photos of vandalized Angel Soft tissue packages at a Super Foodtown grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y.
This destruction of private property is illegal. Not that it matters to anti-Walker protest mobsters, who trampled Wisconsin's Capitol at an estimated $5 million in security, repair and cleaning costs to taxpayers. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "The identity of the backers of the sticker effort is unknown, although many assume it is being orchestrated by public employee unions. This latest effort follows boycotts organized by members of the Wisconsin State Employees Union AFSCME 24."
AFSCME 24 is the same union affiliate that recently disseminated intimidation letters throughout southeast Wisconsin, demanding that local businesses support unions by putting up signs in their windows. The letter threatened not just Walker supporters, but any and all businesses that have chosen to sit on the sidelines and stay out of politics altogether: "Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members." Others on Big Labor's hit list: Kwik Trip, Sargento Foods Inc. and M&I Bank.
Walker, of course, has been at the forefront of government pension and budget reforms. Similar measures are being advanced by Democratic governors and Democrat-run legislatures from Massachusetts to New York to California. But union bosses have yet to sic their goons on individual and corporate donors to Democratic politicians imposing long-overdue benefit and collective bargaining limits for public employee unions.
How convenient, yes? Just as they secured a big fat waiver from the federal health care mandate and tax scheme they lobbied to impose on the rest of America, Big Labor is giving Democratic legislative water-carriers who have been forced to adopt cuts and cost controls a big fat waiver from their organized wrath and vandalism.
Now, a few hundred or thousand ruined grocery store items may not seem to matter much to the average reader, but this little property destruction campaign spotlights a nasty tactic increasingly employed by the left: campaign finance disclosure as a speech-squelching weapon.
We saw it last fall when Democratic operatives targeted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for donating to Obamacare opposition ads.
We saw it in 2008 when a top MoveOn.org alumnus launched attacks on Republican donors with the express purpose of "hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions."
We saw it when Obama campaign committee lawyers lobbied the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute a GOP donor for funding campaign ads exposing Obama's ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.
We saw it during the Proposition 8 traditional marriage battle in California, where gay rights avengers compiled black lists, harassment lists and Google target maps of citizens who contributed to the ballot measure.
We saw it when "progressive" zealots smeared Target Corporation and Chick-fil-A for daring to associate with social conservatives.
And we're seeing it again this month as the Obama White House readies an executive order that would force federal contractors to disclose all political donations to candidates and independent groups in excess of $5,000 made not just by a corporate entity, but by all of its individual executives, directors and officers.
Former Federal Election Commission official Hans von Spakovsky obtained the sweeping draft executive order, which -- surprise, surprise -- exempts unions and predominantly left-wing federal grant recipients from the mandate. On Wednesday, GOP senators spelled out the bullying agenda in an open letter objecting to the Obama order: "Political activity would obviously be chilled if prospective contractors have to fear that their livelihood could be threatened if the causes they support are disfavored by the administration." Join the club.
When disclosure's a bludgeon, all but Obama's cronies are nails.
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The Constitution
Thanks for the list of places and products that I will go out of my way to purchase. The American Majority cannot let this behavior continue.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 10:19:26 AM
JJStryer
I'll look for this Union label. Go ahead. Brats and Coors, sounds like dinner. Thanks for the great BBQ ideas Union jerks. This will backfire to. These people are really looking foolish. Are they not?
Desperate and foolish. That's what happens when someone knows their time is up.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 10:30:24 AM
Billy
Gotta joint the crowd - just happen to like all the products listed, but if I didn't, I would still buy them just to spite the thugs who try to impose their will on the rest of us. Though I don't care about what a celebrity states as their opinion, and normally don't care when a business states theirs - it just helps me clarify where I will shop. Home Depot is off my list because of their stand on homosexual unions, GM and Chrysler because of their caving to unions and taking a gov. bail-out.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 12:06:02 PM
J Paul
This sort of vandalism is meant to intimidate, just like the kind of intimidation which has been perpetrated against banks and lending institutions by disruptive ACORN and SEIU groups: is this not racketeering/extortion which can and should be prosecuted? The intent is obvious. Racketeering is not a form of free speech, it is a crime.
Consider the extraordinary level of economic destruction exacted against everyone after bad loans were found to be just that: bad loans. Time for some J'ville brats!
Posted April 29, 2011 at 1:04:12 PM
veritaseequitas
The Lunatic Left Wing Liberals know that their agenda is so odious that the only way it can be advanced is through the above stated means. All human beings have a dark side. It is a terrible thing when LLWL's embrace theirs rather than fleeing from it. I also will go out of my way to buy as many of the products being boycotted by the despicable unions.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 1:27:51 PM
old guy
How about a new Wisconsin holiday -- TP-night? Instead of the broken glass of Kristallnacht, the goons can grab all that AngelSoft and drape it around Madison.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 2:37:23 PM
p3orion
Hey libs! Make sure you put the stickers in a highly visible place, so I can tell at a glance which products to support.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 4:11:21 PM
Tom in Michigan
Thanks to the unionistas for helping us decide our May Day dinner menu. I'll be grillin' delicious Johnsonville Brats while enjoying a cold Coors Beer. We'll have Sargento's wonderful cheese on our appetizer tray and spend the afternoon shopping at Target. We don't have a Chick-fil-A near us but; I guarantee I will stop in at a the next one I pass while travelling for a snack.
Please, Michelle; let us know all the businesses the unionistas and their Obamavik tovarishci are boycotting so I can spend MY money there.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 5:23:50 PM
Brian
Is Big Labor becoming our new Waffen SS? Sounds like it.
On a serious note, the Constitution clearly states law-making power rests with Congress. Since when does an "executive order" have the force of law?
Posted April 29, 2011 at 5:34:13 PM
David A.
Johnsonville Brats on a grill!--that's a GREAT suggestion to break-away from the chicken my wife has thrown at me all winter! Time to visit Wal-Mart on the way home from work....
Posted April 29, 2011 at 5:34:19 PM
TJS
Join the battle. Patronize the companies, boycott the unions. Let's have it out.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 7:36:04 PM
Mark Hansen
If I were the CEO of Georgia-Pacific, I'd start embossing that miserable Obama logo on my company's Angel Soft bath tissue. Many Patriots would go out of their way to buy that, I'd wager. Before long, it would be the official toilet paper of the Tea Party.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 7:40:15 PM
tdrag
I have been a Union member for over 40 years. The recent activities of my union "brothers and sisters" in Wisconsin and elsewhere around the country are disgraceful. The men I served my apprenticeship with were veterans of WWII and Korea, good hard working Americans and yes, Democrats not Marxist thugs. If the union members doing this thuggery think they are advancing their cause they are sadly mistaken. They have jumped the shark and their time is short.
Posted April 29, 2011 at 8:18:56 PM
JIMI KENDRIK
MISCHELL MILKIN, I JUST WISH THERE WAS A WAY TO CLONE YOUR BRAIN BY THE MILLIONS....WE LOVE YOU LADY, AND KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK...
Posted April 29, 2011 at 11:16:07 PM
Richard Ryan
Thanks for the heads-up Michelle!I usually buy Boulevard Brewery Wheat Beer, but I will have to forgo that for Coors from now on.We love Johnsonville Brats and will be shopping for Angelsoft paper from now on.Also we love Chick Filet:their food is excellent as well as is their service.The thugs in the union have actually done these companies a big service.
Richard Ryan
Lamar,Missouri - Birthplace of Harry S Truman
Posted April 30, 2011 at 10:58:52 AM
pete
I could be wrong on this, but my old mind seems to recall in Germany in the 1930s Jews were ordered to put up signs on their shops and sew yellow six point stars on all their clothing so they could be identified.
Are we going to allow America to turn into that?
Posted May 1, 2011 at 9:54:55 PM
Dennis
Just a word of caution so we don't take this overboard: let's not support these companies at the expense of the companies whose products we normally buy. Buy the product that meets your needs. Let the market do its work. A note or call of thanks to the targeted companies would be powerful by itself. And I suspect these companies prefer to compete with their product, not with their political position.
Posted May 2, 2011 at 11:25:02 AM
TAE
When Obama took over GM and Chrysler and they closed all those dealerships, it was based on how they contributed politically - they closed the first Dodge Dealership in the country for NOT supporting Obama. A bit of history lost. How many other businesses does this administration (and their union goon squads) want to destroy? Anyone who makes a living and won't kowtow to them and their 'brilliance', I suspect.
Posted May 2, 2011 at 3:22:00 PM
Tom
tdrag
Thanks for your comments. I firmly believe that you not the thugs reprsent the majority of union employees and you have to take the hit for them. They are lemmings following Obama over the cliff.
Posted May 2, 2011 at 3:54:27 PM
George Rogers Clark
Echoing the other admirers here; yes, Michelle, we love your work! And, JPaul's use of the word, "intimidation" is most appropriate.
But JJStryer speaks of their being "desperate and foolish" as a reason for this current conduct. JJ, this stuff isn't new with them. The left has always been quite comfortable trampling my rights while declaring their right to discard the Constitution and other acts of socialistic terrorism. They are the same idiots who call conservatives "Nazi", while totally ignoring the fact that the Nazi Party was an extreme liberal socialist regime.
What I like, Michelle, is that you keep me informed about the latest liberal intimidation tactics. With your help, we can all more readily recognize their actions, even when they try to disguise them.
Posted May 3, 2011 at 10:01:56 AM
jeff price
Well written and correct as always Michelle. One word stuck out for me however in the article. It is a word that most accuratly describes the "union mentality" or that of its management structure. That word is "mobster". Old school mobster is how unions conduct their business. And I have been/am a member of SEIU and CUPE(in Canada)as well as a former member of United Steelworkers of America. Unions have done me alot of good over the years but the truth is the truth, and I choose not to deny it any longer.
Posted May 14, 2011 at 7:09:01 PM