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Sixand Sevens's Blog

An entree of observations with a side dish of healthy skepticism in the Milwaukee Cafe, near Vliet Street.

'Resourceful blogger' credited in Milwaukee story

By User from New Berlin, WI - Apr 1st, 2009 at 11:15 pm EDT

Last Tuesday, I posted highlights from the public Yahoo group used by the right-wing, pro-voucher Advocates for Student Achievement in Milwaukee, ones that illustrated the sharp contrast between ASA's carefully-staged public profile and its real activities and intentions. For example, it purported to be, in its own words, a "good government group" organized to encourage more people to run for the Milwaukee Public Schools Board. But their internal communications showed that ASA was, in fact, a machine to recruit, train and manage pro-voucher candidates for that board, and to discourage others from running. In public, ASA said its only intent was to identify and inform good candidates; in private, ASA engaged in everything from fundraising to message-management for its stable of three: Redonna Rodgers, Annie Woodward and David Voeltner. And while in public, ASA's representatives said they had no agenda except to focus attention on improving Milwaukee's public schools, their internal conversations reveal a very different goal: to remove MPS Board President Peter Blewett from office. Read More »

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Score another victory for the Kossack Army

By User from New Berlin, WI - Apr 1st, 2009 at 11:11 pm EDT

NEWS FLASH: The secret-but-public Yahoo group that I described yesterday here has now been closed! Apparently too many Kossacks were checking the link, recognizing the evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing by Advocates for Student Achievement of Milwaukee, and sharing it with their friends and neighbors, the media and Wisconsin law enforcement agencies. I hope that everyone was able to copy the data found there before it was closed this morning. I did!

Now, on to today's update:

Kossacks, I've been thinking this morning about the reasons why the daily newspaper in Milwaukee might choose not to follow up on the investigative reporting (consisting of a couple of Google searches) I did on Monday and reported yesterday here and here. Read More »

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What if you found Karl Rove's internal emails?

By User from New Berlin, WI - Mar 25th, 2009 at 1:05 pm EDT

Let's go back to 2004 for a second. What if it was two weeks before Election Day and YOU, doing a simple Google search, found Karl Rove's internal email traffic with Rummy, Condi, Ashcroft, Miers, Gonzales and the rest of Dubya's cabal. What if, in the strangest of twists, they were using a plain old Yahoo group to communicate with each other, and didn't take the time to make it closed to the public? What if YOU could read for yourself all the wrinkled, ugly truth between the shiny plastic lies that these people were telling in public?

Would you run to publish what you found there?

Would you share it with as many of your friends as fast as you could?

Would you summarize as much of it as possible and post it online, even post it at Kos? Read More »

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A plan is exposed in Milwaukee

By User from New Berlin, WI - Mar 25th, 2009 at 1:18 am EDT

Last week, a good-government group in Wisconsin called Citizen Action filed a complaint against Advocates for Student Achievement, one of those right-wing, pro-voucher outfits that adopted Bush-era doublespeak for a name. I've already done the math and concluded to my own satisfaction that they're pro-voucher, despite their protestations, and that they've engaged in candidate recruitment and training, though they say otherwise, and that they've run their own fundraising operation on behalf of their recommended candidates, though they say they haven't.

I read the Citizen Action complaint, and I understand the point that Citizen Action is making. Wisconsin law says that if you create a political action committee, and it functions as a political action committee, then the PAC has to register itself and make regular campaign finance reports to the appropriate state agency. And Advocates for Student Achievement hasn't done that; it's been busy targeting Milwaukee Public Schools Board President Peter Blewett for defeat, training and raising money for its own candidates -- Redonna Rodgers, Annie Woodward and David Voeltner -- and not taking any calls from the mean old media. Read More »

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A plan draws unwelcome attention in Milwaukee

By User from New Berlin, WI - Mar 25th, 2009 at 1:16 am EDT

How could I have forgotten to mention in my note last night that someone has already admitted they're behind the second poll targeting Milwaukee Public Schools Board President Peter Blewett, and the trail leads right back to Advocates for Student Achievement, the pro-voucher group that commissioned the first anti-Blewett poll. And once again, the scoop didn't come from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel -- where exactly does the MJS spend its reporting budget? -- but from the steadfast Shepherd Express, and from Lisa Kaiser, the one-woman investigative team covering the MPS Board race.

It makes you wonder if the Journal-Sentinel and the Shepherd Express cover education issues in the same city.

Oh, and I remembered the one big thing that had slipped my mind last night. It seems that when Advocates for Student Achievement behaves like a political action committee -- you know, raising money for candidates, giving money to candidates, recommending candidates, organizing support for candidates -- but doesn't file PAC financial disclosure statements, it may be breaking Wisconsin state law. Read More »

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A plan gets a little coverage in Milwaukee

By User from New Berlin, WI - Mar 25th, 2009 at 1:13 am EDT

It's been an interesting ten days in Milwaukee since I finished adding up all the strange details about Advocates for Student Achievement and concluded that they were, in fact, a pro-voucher front group for unnamed, unknown folks who may or may not live in Milwaukee, or even in Wisconsin. You know what they say: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Well, according to my math, a whole bunch of ducks got together, appointed themselves in charge, recruited a bunch of candidates to run for the Milwaukee Public Schools Board, then ran a big flag up the pole over the duck clubhouse that read, "We're not ducks, we're not pro-voucher, and vote against that anti-voucher MPS President Peter Blewett." Doesn't take a lot of calculating to figure out they were ducks.

And that their agenda is school vouchers.

And that their primary target is MPS President Peter Blewett. Read More »

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Posts

Play-by-play: Walker playing politics with job creation

Walker & Davis throwing out Tommy!’s legacy; seek to reverse Tommy’s efforts to promote commuter rail in WI on behalf of wealthy GOP campaign donor

Walker's wild train attack runs off the rails

Scenes from a Bankster Bailout Backlash

Walker recycles gimmick AND failed economic policies

Bankster makes off with cool $1.45 million

Separate but equal, presumably

State's Two Largest Newspapers Change Grover Norquist from a "Zealot" to an "Advocate," "Activist"

Right-Wing Ridiculousness Round-Up

Does Ed Thompson also think farmers are "welfare bums"?

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