We all remember what happened last year, the teachers of the state, led by MTI, stormed the Capitol when ACT10 was introduced. Their actions gave power to the Wisconsin 14 to head to Illinois, thus denying the republicans a quorum and delayed the actual passage of ACT10 months when it was slated to pass in 3 days.
One of the (extremely minor) stories that came out of this period of Wisconsin History was that the teachers had to take unpaid sick days to protest at the Capitol( a practice by the way that can be traced back to 400 BC and the days of Socrates).
Regrettably, for the truth, and the people of Wisconsin, we have some very well funded(Koch/Bradley) fake “news” organizations in our state that are desperately trying to help the Walker Administration. One such shadow group of the right wing out of state billionaires is The MacIver Institute! . They looked for anything they could find at the time to attempt to discredit the protestors. Unfortunately for them, the protestors were nurses, police officers, teachers, fire fighters, etc… and it was hard for a bunch of paid lobbyists to find anything to discredit from this fine group.
So they did what the righties do best, they manufactured a story. Some teachers received an excuse for being sick(so they could take paid leave instead of unpaid leave, per their contract).
While most sane people do not pay much attention to what these fringe groups have to say, the union busting, GOP donating Wisconsin State Journal loved this (non) story. The WSJ not only ran with this (non) story,but they sued to get private medical records of all of the Madison teachers. Not only did they manage to get the private medical records of all Madison teachers, taxpayers in Madison, WI have to foot the bill, to the tune of $31,454.57.
Thanks guys its not like we have no other use for that money!
I wonder if the MacIver Institute, will be sending John Smalley and Scott Milfred Christmas Bonuses?
As low as my esteem for the MacIver Institute is, I see nothing wrong with exposing illegal practices like the fake sick note issue. Where MI goes wrong is that while the sick note issue was occurring in perhaps 2 dozen cases, there were 100,000 peaceful, law abiding citizens that seemed to escape MacIver’s attention.
1) The story was not manufactured. It happened. Our reporting was accurate. Several doctors have been disciplined by the Medical Examining Board because of this scandal.
2) Matt, how can you say the other marchers escaped our attention? See–> http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=maciver+protest&oq=maciver+protest&aq=f&aqi=p-p1&aql=&gs_l=youtube-psuggest.3..35i39.11555.13155.0.13336.7.7.0.0.0.0.174.649.6j1.7.0…0.0.
Wow you use lazy reporting just on your own even. A search of donations of NB employees and the owner would reveal a much more complicated system than one persons one donation. Also unlike the WSJ, NB respects the beliefs of everyone and does not punish employees who hve a different ideology than the owners.
Secondly I find it laughable that you worry about patient privacy when you sued for private medical records…. You should say the resulting stories, they were not news. You took a desperation attempt by Macgyver and tried to make it news.
While you were attacking elementary teachers, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was actually doing investigative reporting and broke the story that Michael Gableman has been selling his vote to Michael Best & Friedrich. Interesting what an investigative journalist finds when they actually investigate.
Which story is more newsworthy to the people of WI?
Brian,
I know your smarter than that. I never said it was not a true story I said it wasnt news. It is not. I said that you were desperate for anything to take the story away from the corruption of fitzwalkerstan officials(which is true) and this is all you found so you had to blow it up into something it is not.
Luckily for you, you had the WSJ as a willing partner, usually they only help WPRI so willingly.
Of everything that happened at the Capitol, some doctors writing sick notes to a dozen protestors(out of thousands and thosuands) to me is not a story. How many people call in sick on a daily basis? ever seen opening day of the Brewer Game? think 50,000 people there are there on unpaid leave?
The teachers had a certain amount of paid leave days in their contract and if they used them they used them Its a contract, maybe Maciver can follow every teacher every day they call in sick to make sure they do not go get their mail that day.
Lets look at it in context also. Recently David Prosser missed a month on the Supreme Court because he wasnt feeling good. Were his medical records subpoenaed? When President Obama was in Milwaukee, Scott Walker had the flu that only allowed him to meet up with the president on the cold runway for a photo op but he was too sick to accompany him on a factory tour….medical records subpoenaed there?
Lets now look at the reporting the WSJ did. How many sick days have those teachers built up? how many times have those teachers ever called in sick during their career or taken vacation during the school year? How many hours a week have they worked over and above their contract? What was their diagnosis and are they absolutely certain that they did not have those symptoms? Maybe they were sick and went to the Capitol to protest anyway. IT would not be the first time that someone went and did something when they werent feeling good. lets not forget that the Walker administration ended the paid sick leave bill, despite in our democracy it was passed by the people, so they expect people to function when they are ill.
This story and subsequent law suits are a black mark on the Wisconsin State Journals already failing reputation. By the way whatever happened to Tort Reform?
Has the Wisconsin State Journal or any other legitimate news outlet ever reported that every single Madison teacher made up the time lost through extending the length of the remaining school days? Those who did not report to school to protest were not paid for for their make up days and those who did report to school gave the taxpayers four extra days worth of free labor.
Jeff says bogus sick notes written to get people out of work, when the people aren’t really sick, are fine. Who knew?
And, if a story doesn’t appeal to Jeff, it’s not news. Good to know.
Ok Jim lets take a look at it…..there were tens of thousnads of protestors at the Capitol throughout the course of the couple months were people protested prior to the passage of ACT 10, with the pinnacle being approx..150,000. of these thousands of protestors, approximately 12 got in trouble for getting a fake sick note to try and get a day off paid, per their contract, instead of having to take it unpaid. I didnt say it was fine, i said i dont care.
secondly lets also take a look here, We have a Supreme Court Justice who choked a 62 yr old woman, another who took gifts of well over 100,000$ and then ruled in favor of the company giving him gifts(all without disclosing this relationship), we have open meeting violations almost regularly at the capitol, A Governor who we have on tape explaining to his millionaire donors how he really wants to govern and telling the people a different story, and we had thousands upon thousands of people storm the Capitol peacefully, amongst others. And you tell me that 12 people getting a note from a dr and they might or might not have been sick and thats news?
O yeah and we have a governor who does not work
http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2012/05/13/walker-calendar-files-part-1/