Democratic Party Freezes Out Grassroots in Wisconsin, Nation

Updated - Someone should ask U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) why the national and Wisconsin Democratic Parties (DPW) are shutting out grassroots primary challenges against congressional incumbents.

WisPolitics is holding a luncheon for Rep. Kind to discuss policy issues at The Madison Club, 5 East Wilson Street in Madison at 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. on March 29 next Tuesday.

Rep. Kind is facing a tough primary challenger in retired teacher Myron Buchholz (D-Eau Claire).

Kind is chair of the corporatist New Democrat Coalition and a champion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) 'trade' agreement now before Congress.

Buchholz opposes the TPP and is making the loss of manufacturing jobs and campaign finance the centerpiece of his campaign. Buchholz launched his congressional run in February.

One would think in progressive Wisconsin, in the tradition of Bob La Follette, voters should pick their representatives, not Party bosses.

Candidate Buchholz found out the Democratic Party bosses protect entrenched incumbents like Kind, who has received over $16,000 from the Koch brothers, (Craver, The Capital Times).

Money Talks, La Follette Walks

Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) Chair Martha Laning is protecting Kind and the special interests funding his six-figure gig as a nine-term member of Congress.

Laning tells the Democrat in good standing, Myron Buchholz, that the DPW's voters' list, (Voter Activation Network (VAN)), will not be made available to Buchholz for his challenge to Rep. Kind, (Blogging Blue), (Cognitive Dissidence).

It's about money.

The money from the Koch brothers is nothing compared to the top four special interest sectors forking over money to Kind—Insurance, Pharmaceuticals/Health Products, Health Professionals and Securities and Investment—who have collectively donated over $391,000 in the 2015-16 election cycle alone, (Open Secrets, Center for Responsive Politics).

As of Dec. 31, 2015, Kind had over $2 million on hand and raised well over $1 million in 2015-16.

Name of the Game Is Money from Special Interests

Kind and the DPW are not unique. Shutting out, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hopes shutting down, grassroots challengers is a national phenomena.

"The Florida Democratic Party will not allow me access to our party's (voters') database and software because I am running against an incumbent Democrat," said Florida congressional candidate, Tim Canova (Fulton, Common Dreams). Sounds familiar.

Canova is mounting a grassroots challenge against the six-term congresswoman and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida).

Message from the DNC, Schultz and the Party insiders' favorite, Hillary Clinton, to challengers fighting special interests is clear: Get lost, (Iannelli, Broward-Palm Beach New Times).

[Note: Breaking news out of Florida: "After being denied access to an important voter file that could help his campaign, Democrat Tim Canova, who is challenging incumbent Debbie Wasserman Schultz this August, will now get access to a campaign tool called the Voter Activation Network (VAN)," (Perry, Florida Politics).]

Missouri and other states report similar challenger obstruction by the state's Democratic Party.

"(N)ews outlets in Missouri reported last month on the fight over VAN access in that state, 'several Democratic candidates—who are also Ferguson movement leaders,' were blocked from the files by the state party. As one of the candidate's campaign managers put it, 'The sign almost says, 'Newcomers need not apply.'"

The DNC has become a funnel for special interests and Myron Buchholz and Tim Canova are not the right kind of special. The kind with a dollar sign and six figures to donate for services rendered.

This begs the question of Kind, posed by Myron Buchholz, which side are you on, Ron Kind?

Which Side Are You On, Ron Kind, Asks Congressional Challenger Myron Buchholtz

American industry moves manufacturing jobs overseas
as trade agreements championed by Rep. Ron Kind
(R-Wisconsin) have hollowed out the U.S. economy.
Now before congress, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
would move entire industries overseas, as American
manufacturing jobs move into endangered-species territory.
Pictured above is a shuttered facility from La Crosse
Footwear Inc. that shipped 100s of American jobs to the
Far-East circa 2000-01. Who would want to ship away
American jobs and why?
Myron Buchholz demands an answer.

Rep. Ron Kind is to manufacturing jobs what Gov. Scott Walker is to higher education: Hostile.

Brilliant campaign video is out by Myron Buchholz for Congress (D-Eau Claire), challenging nine-term incumbent Rep. Ron Kind (D- La Crosse).

Kind is the chair of the "New Democrat" Coalition and a champion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) 'trade' agreement now before Congress.

TPP like other trade agreements will hollow out the American economy, ship jobs and industry overseas, and drive down American wages.

TPP was negotiated in secret for years, is heavily supported by Republicans, the pharmaceutical industry, an array of corporate special interests and Wisconsin's own Ron Kind, (Wallach, Goodman; Democracy Now); (Conyers, The Nation).

Why would any politician even consider TPP? Rep. Kind has no answer.

Myron Buchholz pays homage to Bob Dylan's classic Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965) in a video asking Rep. Kind, Which side are you on, Ron?

The video features images of the homeless, shuttered factories and foreclosed homes, as Buchholz asks in a lamenting tone, Which side are you on, Ron?

Wisconsin's Myron Buchholz, Primary Challenger for Congress, Hits TPP, Special Interests, Assualt on Local Control

Myron Buchholz and Family of Eau Claire, Wisconsin -
Retired Teacher Myron Buchholz Mounts
Primary Challenge Against U.S. Rep. Ron Kind,
Answers Bernie Sanders Call for a Political Revolution in
Wisconsin's Historically Independent Third Cong. District

'Congress has completely forgotten the lessons that caused passage of the EPA and our first clean air and water laws in the 70’s. We must revisit them before the corporations suck us dry'

Spoke with the Myron Buchholz (D-Eau Claire) campaign shortly after Buchholz announced his primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse).

Kind's district includes many rural areas from which residents draw their drinking water from aquifers, and Buchholz blasted politicians who deplete and attack protection of aquifers. 

Buchholz also hit Kind's championing of the American jobs-exporting Trans-Pacific Partnership, (TPP).

Buchholz' said special interests funding Kind inspired Buchholz to run as well.

Below is a follow-up interview with Myron Buchholz.

Question - In light of the Flint tragedy, the proliferation of industrialized agriculture against the small farmer, and the present danger to Wisconsin's fresh water bodies such as the Mississippi, Lake Superior and Lake Michigan (for starters), imperiled by state policy, what would you as a member of Congress work for to protect water, the lifeblood of humanity? What can we do federally?

Buchholz - First we must recognize the extent that the corporate model will go to extract whatever they can until the resource has been depleted. I believe the most obvious example of this is 'Mountain Top Removal.' Any government that allows a mining company to blow the top off of a mountain for one days’ worth of electricity will clearly allow any corporation to deplete any resource till it is gone. The Great Lakes Compact was a major step towards protecting our precious water resources, but as recent events make clear, just because there is an agreement does not mean that it will never be challenged. High capacity wells are another challenge to our water resources. It is one thing to connect a 150HP tractor to a well, and completely another to connect an 800HP tractor. There must be reasonable limits placed on any extraction regardless of the resource. For far too long industry has been able to use 'economic development' as a justification for doing whatever, and it is time to draw some lines. In congress, I will advocate for limits and public control of resources and enforce existing law. It appears Congress has completely forgotten the lessons that caused passage of the EPA and our first clean air and water laws in the 70’s. We must revisit them before the corporations suck us dry.     

Question - The Trans-Pacific Partnership, (TPP), for most folks is D.C. inside baseball. However, without a doubt the consequences of TPP are exporting jobs and industry, and eviscerating the rights of U.S. citizens by selling out our environmental, labor and consumer rights to transnational corporations with no allegiance to America.  Your opponent, Rep. Ron Kind, is all for the fast-tracked TPP which likely will not get a vote before the 2016 election. You are against the TPP, a special interest, massive investor rights agreement that shuts out people.  Does this description seem fair and accurate?

Buchholz - The TPP is NAFTA on steroids. Stopping it is the main reason I decided to take on Mr. Kind. We already have examples of how these agreements remove local control and are undemocratic in nature. The corporate model is based on greed, and we have learned that their greed knows no bounds. Therefore, giving corporations more control than they already have absolutely scares the hell out of me. Examples abound, but the removal of Country of Origin Labeling on meat should be enough to shock the electorate into stopping the power grab. It seems patently ridiculous that I can know where my shirt is made, but not where my hamburger comes from.      

Question - What has gone wrong with American politicians of both parties? Did selling out the people to special interests suddenly displace working for the people whom elected representatives are supposed to protect? What's your narrative on this on what has happened to America?

Buchholz - Why is it that a candidate for almost any office is judged by how much money can be raised to campaign? I have come to the conclusion that a candidate should be judged by how cheaply and efficiently one can run a campaign, not on how much money one can throw at the election industry that has grown large during my lifetime. I get solicitations on almost a daily basis from companies who want to sell services. How can we expect Congress to efficiently manage money when campaigns, especially incumbents, exist on an almost unlimited budget? The average work year for Congress in recent years is 115 days. That leaves way too much time to fundraise. We need have public financing of elections if there is going to be any hope of getting back to a citizen legislature.  I propose that no congressional candidate should be able to spend twice the congressional income on any election. For the US Congress, that is still $348,000!  The only occupation in America where one spends millions getting a job that pays $174,000 is the US Congress. Those millions come mainly from those with deep pockets who expect something in return. Of course, overturning 'Citizens United' would help a little, but we had a terrible problem before that misguided Supreme Court ruling. I also realize that our present congress will never vote to limit fundraising, so any change will have to come through the amendment process.           

Wisconsin Dem. Party Chair Blocks Grassroots Congressional Run

Citizens from Wisconsin and Minnesota gathered outside
Rep. Ron Kind’s Eau Claire office last June to urge
Kind to stop Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority
Photo: Wisconsin AFL-CIO

In the tradition of Bob La Follette voters should pick their representatives, not party bosses.

Not so says the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW).

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) Chair, Martha Laning, won her election in June 2015 promising to cultivate a progressive, grassroots-supporting agenda over party insiders, (Talaga, Isthmus).

It didn't take long for Laning to sell out and break promises, and in a presidential election year no less, betraying La Follette and the Wisconsin people who should be welcomed into the DPW, not shooed away.

In a year rife with congressional primary challenges nationwide, (Bland, Meyer, Schneider and Robillard, The Politico), Wisconsin's first major congressional primary challenge comes from progressive Democrat Myron Buchholz of Eau Claire in Wisconsin's third congressional district.

Buchholz quickly found the DPW is run with broken promises, outright lies and disregard to internal Party rules from Chair Martha Laning.

Laning's months-long tenure at DPW has already earned the moniker the "incumbent protection plan," protecting party insiders from the people whom they are elected to represent and progressives working on behalf of citizens against special interests.

Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wisconsin) was first elected to office in 1996 and became so immersed in Washington politics and out-of-touch with his district, Kind champions the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty.

The TPP is a give-away to transnational corporations, foreign interests, and hedge fund investors. The consequences of TPP would be the accelerated flight of American jobs and industry, and the substituting of citizens' legal environmental, labor and consumer protections with the full force of special interest law.

Think NAFTA's giant sucking sound, multiplied by 1,000 and the reality of TPP, (not voted on yet), and you'll get the picture of this potential restructuring of American society not exactly responsive to citizen voices anymore. Kind made news when he tried to explain why he received over $16,000 in money from the Koch brothers, (Craver, The Capital Times). Now there's a new kind of Democrat.

Democratic Party Obstruction to Grassroots Challenge

Myron Buchholz decided enough is enough and launched his run in February.

So what does DPW Chair Laning do?

She tells this Democrat in good standing that the DPW's voters' list, (Voter Activation Network (VAN), will not be made available to Buchholz for his challenge to Rep. Kind, (Blogging Blue), (Cognitive Dissidence).

Laning's reasoning. She has no reasoning, saying she must control the VAN because if Democratic incumbents believe it will be sold to primary challengers the incumbents won't update the VAN and the voter information contained in the VAN will suffer.

Buchholz' and other Democratic Party volunteers are taking to Facebook and other social media saying if they believed incumbents had a proprietary hold on the information volunteers gather, they wouldn't have volunteered in the first place.

An email by supporters of Buchholz circulating reads:

The current DPW by-law language regarding VAN access is this:

The Wisconsin voter file which is administered by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) will be made available to all the following individuals/groups in good standing with the DPW and legislative caucuses: all incumbent Democratic Party officeholders, Democratic nominees for public office, Democratic legislative campaign committees, and county, local unit, and Congressional District affiliates of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Voter file will be made available to non-partisan candidates who are in compliance with the membership requirements detailed in Article 1, Section 6(e), contingent upon the recommendation of their county party leadership. In the case of multi-jurisdiction or statewide races, such recommendations will be made by the State Chair, subject to review by the Executive Committee. Multiple recommendations for a specific office are allowed. All other requests made by individuals, candidates, groups, organizations, or political committees not specified above, must be approved by the State Chair, subject to review by the Executive Committee. All appeals for reversals or exceptions are subject to review by the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin voter file and other Democratic Party list access fees will be determined by the Executive Committee established fair market value, as required by state regulation. 

The DPW County Chairs Association is meeting this weekend in Stevens Point. The discussion on changing Laning's new protect-the-incumbents-against-grassroots citizens policy should begin in Point.

Sanders' Call for Political Revolution Answered, Wisc Rep. Ron Kind to Face Primary Challenge

Myron Buchholz and Family of Eau Claire, Wisconsin -
Retired Teacher Myron Buchholz Mounts
Primary Challenge Against U.S. Rep. Ron Kind,
Answers Bernie Sanders Call for a Political Revolution in
Wisconsin's Historically Independent Third Cong. District

Retired Teacher Myron Buchholz Mounts Primary Challenge Against U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, Answers Bernie Sanders' Call for a Political Revolution

Wisconsin's Third Congressional District Snaking Along Mississippi River (into Central Wisconsin) Known for Independence and Oasis of Progressive Politics

By Steve Carlson (Facebook)

Ron Kind (D-Wisconsin, Third Dist.) will have a primary challenger.

On Monday, Myron Buchholz announced that he is challenging Congressman Ron Kind in the August 9th, Democratic Party primary in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.

Buchholz is a retired high school history teacher and longtime peace activist from Eau Claire. He serves on the board of the Chippewa Valley Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and is a steering committee member of 15 Now Northwest Wisconsin, a community coalition that advocates for living wages.

"Bernie Sanders has called for a political revolution, for average Americans to step up and take our government back from the billionaire class. I’ve decided to answer that call," he said. Buchholz also said Wisconsinites need a representative who will fight for working people, instead of promoting trade deals that send American jobs out of the country and depress wages.

"In 2004, 29% of children in Wisconsin were eligible for free or subsidized school lunches," said Buchholz. "By 2014 that figure had risen to 43%. Poverty is spreading across Wisconsin and across the country. We need working class champions in Washington DC and that’s who I’ll be."

The Democratic Party congressional primary election will be held on Tuesday, August 9th, 2016.

Like Myron Buchholz' Facebook page!

Republicans Driven by Fear into Unreason and Hysteria

Barbara With, a citizen activist and public intellectual living in northern Wisconsin, asks: "Is it my PTSD from being in Paris during the attacks or are other people stunned, shocked and sickened by people who reject the idea of helping refugees from violent atrocious war? Something has definitely happened since last Friday to this world. Something that leaves me tremendously sad." (Facebook)

What has happened to the United States since November 13 is a rush towards fascism, abetted by 47 Democratic House members such as Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse, Wisconsin) who voted for the ludicrous American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015 this week.

In the "United States we are witnessing one of the most morally calamitous reactions to a refugee crisis in the country’s history," writes Sasha Abramsky in The Nation. "There is an odor of early fascism, or rather of the hysteria that precedes the march away from democracy, to much of this Trumpian rhetoric. An odor of the street fight. An odor of the iron fist. It is an acrid smell, a mid-century aroma tinted with totalitarianism and historical ignorance."

None of us should be surprised that the leading Republican Party candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump, is openly calling for suspension of the First and Fourth Amendments, and the targeting of a minority religion.

Other candidates try to out-do each other—as they have all Summer and Autumn—in incessant warnings to be afraid, the other is upon us. Wisconsin is well-represented by Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Ron Johnson and its entire Republican congressional delegation steeped in hysteria.

Writes Abramsky, "I see powerful figures such as Trump beating up on helpless refugee children. I see a stampede on the right to exploit a catastrophe, to exploit the war crimes of madmen, for partisan political gain. It is, quite simply, shameful. To block access to America for refugees—in particular refugee children—fleeing the barbarism of the Syrian war is as unsavory as was the turning back of ships filled with desperate Jews in the period leading up to the Second World War."

Sixty-one years ago, facing similar imbecility in Congress led by Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), journalist Edward R. Murrow famously rebutted, "We will not walk in fear of one another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular."

Fear is the essence of the Republican Party today, and The Party requires feeding for its objectives, open fascism. Somehow, Rep. Kind while living in the same state as Scott Walker no less and others missed that boat.

For Wisconsin Gov in 2014, We Need Gwen Moore or Russ Feingold

Talk around the camp fire is about whom Wisconsin voters should put up against Scott Walker-Christopher Cline and the Koch Brothers, should Walker decide he has sufficiently decimated our state and escaped criminal charges.

Scott Walker running for president is not going to happen.

As for governor, some are suggesting Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse, Wisconsin).

My two cents: Ron Kind just will not cut it for Wisconsin; for the same reasons that you don't widen an ice fishing hole, jump in and go for a swim. You just don't do it.

We need Gwen Moore or Russ Feingold. And we need one of them to declare fast.

Don't wait until after August.

GOP Buys Up Ron Kind Net-Domain Names

The Wisconsin GOP won't have U.S. Atty Stephen Biskupic around to do their dirty work in the 2010 election.

But they don't need him to take the low road.

Here's a sign of the campaign we should expect.

Apparently, the Republican Party of Wisconsin is buying up the Internet domain names to trip up a Congressman Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) run for Governor in 2010.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin's mob has reserved the following sites:

RonKindForGovernor.com (WhoIs.net)
KindForWisconsin.com (WhoIs.net)
KindForGovernor.com (WhoIs.net)

What do these guys think they are accomplishing by this cheap stunt?

Is the GOP really that afraid of a fair and open election? Pathetic.