Bruce Murphy at Milwaukee Magazine has been the only person reporting on Scott Jensen’s attempt to start yet another right wing organization in Wisconsin. Apparently preparing for a second criminal trial is not fully occupying his time. According to Murphy’s most recent report, Jensen would be paid $120,000 to lead the organization and someone else would be brought on to head the research for $72k. Apparently they have tried to recruit both Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin State Journal reporters for the research job. Maybe that is why neither paper has saw fit to even mention the org at all. This would be just the latest addition in a long line of extreme right wing groups trying to impose their rigid ideology onto the rest of Wisconsin. It is reportedly named the Maciver Institute.
In December the domain maciverinstitute.com was privately registered with no one willing to lay public claim to the new org. They also have set up a super duper secret Twitter account that you can’t follow without special permission. When I visited their actual website last night, it was still largely lacking substance. Right now I am having problems accessing it but here is a cached version. The site did give some important information however. It gave a glimpse of some of the people involved with this operation - a motley crew indeed. First you have Scott Jensen who still is awaiting his second criminal felony trial. Then you have Michael Dean, from the wild-eyed First Freedoms Foundation, listed as a contact person. Listed as treasurer for the org is Mark Block, the guy that got the stiffest penalty for political campaign violations ever handed down in the state. This new right wing org is also listed on a national directory and it lists Block as also being a contact for the organization.
Speaking of Mark Block, he posted an interesting entry on his Twitter account on January 30, 2009 at 3:18pm. I’m wondering if that Tweet inadvertently tells us a few more things about this new right wing outfit. It states the following:
“Klauser and Grebe will be calling meeting for Saturday, March 7th. Very important.”
Klauser is of course a long-time disciple of former Governor Tommy Thompson and Grebe is surely the right wing Bradley Foundation sugar daddy Michael Grebe. Michael Grebe and the Bradley Foundation are notoriously partisan and have funded some of the most extreme and narrow right wing outfits in the country. It looks like they may be adding yet another one to their twisted portfolio. With all of this chatter lately and with the constellation of right wing nuttery on March 7th, should we also expect a roll out this weekend?
I can’t help but notice that this new Jensen/Block/Dean/Grebe/Klauser thing appears to be coming just after the latest right wing organization (Wisconsin Institute for Leadership) lost its Executive Director and apparently its level of activity. Could this mean that WIL will be folded into the Jensen operation? How many of the other Wisconsin right wing organizations will be brought in? Whatever the exact arrangement, one thing is pretty clear: the Maciver Institute is bound to be a prison of rigid corporate interests and narrow right wing extremism. In that spirit and with its launch appearing imminent, I hereby dub it, the Scott Jensen Chain Gang!
In December the domain maciverinstitute.com was privately registered with no one willing to lay public claim to the new org. They also have set up a super duper secret Twitter account that you can’t follow without special permission. When I visited their actual website last night, it was still largely lacking substance. Right now I am having problems accessing it but here is a cached version. The site did give some important information however. It gave a glimpse of some of the people involved with this operation - a motley crew indeed. First you have Scott Jensen who still is awaiting his second criminal felony trial. Then you have Michael Dean, from the wild-eyed First Freedoms Foundation, listed as a contact person. Listed as treasurer for the org is Mark Block, the guy that got the stiffest penalty for political campaign violations ever handed down in the state. This new right wing org is also listed on a national directory and it lists Block as also being a contact for the organization.
Speaking of Mark Block, he posted an interesting entry on his Twitter account on January 30, 2009 at 3:18pm. I’m wondering if that Tweet inadvertently tells us a few more things about this new right wing outfit. It states the following:
“Klauser and Grebe will be calling meeting for Saturday, March 7th. Very important.”
Klauser is of course a long-time disciple of former Governor Tommy Thompson and Grebe is surely the right wing Bradley Foundation sugar daddy Michael Grebe. Michael Grebe and the Bradley Foundation are notoriously partisan and have funded some of the most extreme and narrow right wing outfits in the country. It looks like they may be adding yet another one to their twisted portfolio. With all of this chatter lately and with the constellation of right wing nuttery on March 7th, should we also expect a roll out this weekend?
I can’t help but notice that this new Jensen/Block/Dean/Grebe/Klauser thing appears to be coming just after the latest right wing organization (Wisconsin Institute for Leadership) lost its Executive Director and apparently its level of activity. Could this mean that WIL will be folded into the Jensen operation? How many of the other Wisconsin right wing organizations will be brought in? Whatever the exact arrangement, one thing is pretty clear: the Maciver Institute is bound to be a prison of rigid corporate interests and narrow right wing extremism. In that spirit and with its launch appearing imminent, I hereby dub it, the Scott Jensen Chain Gang!
Posts
1 comment:
Thanks for this post. It is very important that Wisconsinites be made aware of the antics of Scott Jensen. This stuff could never be made up if it were not true.
Post a Comment