The liberal media will get push back when they handle things so dishonestly.
The Wisconsin State Journal ran and then deleted a venomous, dishonest editorial against Republican Attorney General candidate Eric Toney a few days before the primary. It accuses Toney of harassing people because he prosecuted them for illegally voting IN THE WRONG COUNTY.
The newspaper deleted the editorial when Toney demanded a retraction.
For following the rule-of-law, Toney was described by the liberal newspaper as causing “harm to the public” and engaging in a “sad stunt.” The newspaper called people voting in Fond du Lac County when they didn’t live there a “sad mistake.”
We live in Waukesha and Washington Counties. Can we go rent a PO Box in Dane County and vote in Dane County judicial races? Would the State Journal be OK with that?
The editorial board failed to conduct basic fact checking, reported falsehoods, and had all of the information in their possession but left out key facts anyway. They made readers believe Toney prosecuted the people discussed in their story solely for voting with PO boxes, leaving out the fact that those people didn’t even live in Fond du Lac County, according to the criminal complaint.
Seems like a serious problem.
The editorial board falsely argued that Toney won’t convict anyone anyway, implying that he brought the cases for political purposes, when he’s already obtained a conviction.
The board lied by implying that Toney did not realize one defendant was a Trump voter when that fact was in the criminal complaint. Which they had.
They didn’t tell readers that, according to the complaint, this defendant admitted not living in the county for two years, instead making readers think Fond du Lac was her home.
The editorial board made it sound like Toney was perpetuating a stolen election narrative, when he’s consistently said he opposes decertification and even noted in a press release, “This prosecution is not suggestive that the election was stolen but elections are the cornerstone of our democracy…”
The liberal newspaper editorial board negligently failed to tell voters that 3 of the 5 people in question cast votes in counties they didn’t even live in, the complaint says. Toney’s approach is to offer deferred judgments that don’t result in conviction in cases that fit the other two. That seems like measured justice to us. He’s not hitting them all with the same hammer.
The conviction the editorial board failed to mention came before a Tony-Evers appointed judge. Lawrence K. Klug ended up being convicted of only a misdemeanor after entering a plea of non-contest, which again seems proportional to the offense to us.
“This defendant illegally voted in Fond du Lac County, while living outside of Fond du Lac County,” Toney said. “This allowed him to vote in legislative races and a congressional race in which the defendant was not legally allowed to vote in.”
Jamie Wells, the Trump voter the State Journal focuses on, told authorities that she and her husband had been living outside of Fond du Lac County “for the past two years,” staying in New London, Wisconsin. New London is a city in Outagamie and Waupaca counties. When reached by police, Wells was in Louisiana and stated that she wouldn’t be back for a few months.
Wells and her husband were both charged.
Of course, that ruins the State Journal’s narrative.
Even worse, the State Journal HAD the criminal complaint when they wrote this misleading and incomplete paragraph:
That’s just dishonest.
Who is on the editorial board?
STAFF MEMBERS
KELLY LECKER, Executive editor
SCOTT MILFRED, Editorial page editor
PHIL HANDS, Editorial cartoonist
COMMUNITY MEMBERS
JANINE GESKE
SUSAN SCHMITZ
Scott Milfred, the editorial page editor, makes no secret of the fact he despises Trump:
Wall Street Journal says Trump announcement would hurt the GOP in midterms: https://t.co/kr1vzWKaGT. I agree. But I sure hope Trump does not announce another bid. That's because I don't want any chance, no matter how slim, that Trump could become president again. #wipolitics
— Scott Milfred (@ScottMilfred) July 20, 2022
For whatever it’s worth, he’s also a fan of the gas tax. You get the drift.
Gas is $3.89/gal on Madison’s East Side. Lowest I’ve seen in a long time. Glad WI didn’t do gas tax holiday gimmick cuz we need good roads. I-39 Madison to Beloit is sooo much better, safer w/ 6 lanes. #wipolitics pic.twitter.com/6mIV93Hccf
— Scott Milfred (@ScottMilfred) July 18, 2022
The editorial writers also didn’t tell voters that Toney filed two charges against felons who voted illegally, and he’s already obtained a conviction in one of those cases too. That’s probably not the sympathetic narrative they’re looking for, so they just left that part out.
Guess it’s clear which Republican primary candidate the liberal media are worried will win on Tuesday! (Hint: They’re worried Toney will get through because he’s the only GOP candidate who has ever prosecuted a case.)
The headline on the State Journal editorial was also inaccurate. It read:
Whoops! AG candidate Eric Toney snags Trump voter with over-the-top charge
The “whoops” falsely implies that Toney didn’t know Wells was a Trump voter, but the criminal complaint revealed that he knew that already.
All that really proves anyway is that Toney follows the rule of law on election integrity issues regardless of politics. We know that’s a foreign concept to the State Journal, which is probably fine with Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul politicizing his office.
If you clicked on the editorial late Saturday night, August 6, 2022, you got an error page. We have screenshots of the entire editorial before it was taken down, however.
The story even lied that Toney “no doubt hoped that criminally charging five of his Fond du Lac constituents for using post office boxes as voting addresses would convince more Trump supporters to back him in Tuesday’s primary.”
However, since three of the people actually did not live in Fond du Lac County, according to the complaint, they weren’t Toney’s constituents. Voting in the wrong county strikes us as a big deal in local elections that might be decided by a few votes.
It apparently never occurred to the rocket scientists on the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board that district attorneys don’t make laws. If they have an issue with these prosecutions, maybe their issue should be with the Legislature that wrote the law.
The newspaper made it sound like a big red flag that Toney said in a speech that he was the state’s most aggressive prosecutor of voter fraud, but they didn’t tell readers he was just quoting a line from their affiliate newspaper.
In an August 3, 2022, news release, Toney announced that he had obtained a voter fraud conviction against Donald C. Holz, a convicted felon who was barred from voting but did so anyway. Read the criminal complaint here.
The State Journal didn’t tell their readers about this conviction, either.
Holz illegally cast a ballot in the November 2020 presidential election. Felons aren’t as sympathetic to readers, so Holz didn’t make the editorial.
The editorial mentioned Trump over and over and over again. The editorial writers launched into a massive broadside against Trump, writing things like, “But Toney wants to trump up fears of voter fraud to appeal to Trump’s staunchest followers. Trump has lied about widespread voter fraud – which doesn’t exist – to try to explain away his loss to President Joe Biden. Trump all but requires GOP candidates seeking his endorsement to regurgitate his false claims.”
In other words, they are trying to create a false narrative that Republicans are all in with Trump’s narratives on the election to hurt their chances in November.
But, dishonestly, the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board fails to tell readers that Toney has repeatedly said he opposes decertification of the election.
The article relies on a similarly dishonest story by “Wisconsin Watch,” which is a liberal site that masquerades as objective journalism.
There are two remaining cases where the people voted with PO boxes but lived in the county. However, Toney’s approach would be to treat those people differently than people who didn’t live in the county or are ineligible felons.
“If someone was otherwise eligible to vote (but didn’t live in the county), we look for misdemeanor resolutions with no jail. If someone was ineligible to vote we look for a felony with jail time,” Toney said.
“If someone was living in the county and was otherwise eligible to vote, we will be looking at deferred judgement agreements where they wouldn’t be convicted. All defendants are presumed innocent or until proven guilty.”
In other words, the people who voted with PO boxes but lived in Fond du Lac County somewhere won’t get convicted.
Wisconsin Watch, a 501(c)(3) organization that disseminates news stories to many prominent media outlets statewide and is housed at the taxpayer-funded UW-Madison campus, has taken more than $1 million from an organization founded by George Soros over the years.
In November 2020, Wisconsin Right Now discovered that the group is still prominently pushing out stories by a writer, Howard Hardee, who was dispatched to Wisconsin by a Soros-funded organization to work on “election integrity” stories and projects. It has other left-wing donors.
The Wisconsin State Journal Editorial Board does not tell readers about these concerning biases.
Tip to the State Journal: Just keep the editorial down. You’re embarrassing yourselves.
