Fraley, B

Johnson name-checks other <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105984-2012-08-14-Exhibits-01-100-PT1.html#document/p14/a317544" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(26, 76, 127); text-decoration: none;">sources of big money donations</a> that he intends to tap. Leo Leonard of the conservative legal group the Federalist Society was looking for an extra $200,000, he says, and there were hopes for a further $1m from the US Chamber of Commerce.He wasn't bragging. As election day approached, money from rightwing lobby groups and corporations began to pour into Wisconsin, unseen by the public, as the message got out that Prosser's salvation was a necessary step to safeguarding Walker's radical rightwing reforms and Act 10.An email from March 2011, just two months after Walker took office as governor and a month before Prosser was tested at the polls, makes the point. It's from Matt Seaholm, state director of Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party-affiliated group founded and funded by the billionaire rightwing Koch brothers.By now the anxiety surrounding the fate of the Wisconsin supreme court judge, David Prosser, is growing more intense. “This could stop everything that Walker is trying to accomplish and [the unions] know it. Goes without saying, that would be a bad thing,” <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105950-Strategy-Coordination.html#document/p7/a317545" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(26, 76, 127); text-decoration: none;">Seaholm says</a>, writing to Tim Phillips, AFP's national president.By 20 March, two weeks before the election, worry is distilling into panic. Brian Fraley of the Wisconsin-based conservative think-tank the MacIver Institute, shoots an impassioned plea for help to what he calls his “group” of like-minded lobbying groups and individuals, forwarded to Walker's chief of staff and other top advisers in Madison.<a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105957-Prosser.html#document/p6/a317546" target="blank" title="Guardian" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(26, 76, 127); text-decoration: none;">“David Prosser is in trouble,”</a> Fraley begins. “And if we lose him, the Walker agenda is toast, as could be the Senate GOP majority and any successes creating a new redistricted map. That's not hyperbole.”By the end of the bitter campaign, some $3.5m was spent by outside lobby groups channeling undisclosed corporate money to support Prosser's re-election – more than eight times the $400,000 the judge was allowed to spend himself. That included $1.5m from WCfG and its offshoot Citizens for a Strong America, and $2m from Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), all of it in unaccountable “dark money”.It worked. <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/122364728.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(26, 76, 127); text-decoration: none;">Prosser was re-elected</a>, with a squeaky-tight margin of just 7,000 votes and after a fraught recount. The following month, Walker boasted to the Republican kingmaker, Karl Rove, “Club for Growth–Wisconsin was the <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3105957-Prosser.html#document/p18/a317547 "Guardian”" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(26, 76, 127); text-decoration: none;">key to retaining Justice Prosser</a>.
Sykes might think that he and Stormfront have a uniquely discerning

eye for art, but by any measure the video is highly offensive. It

shouldn't be used by any news source and Journal Communications should

make it clear to Mr. Moocher that he shouldn't be using it either.

Journal Communications has given Sykes a lot of rope lately. He is the center of their new experiment called <a href="http://www.rightwisconsin.com/" target="blank">"Right Wisconsin"</a> [10] a subscriber-based, paid content news site for right-wingers which Sykes touted in January as a means of <a href="http://www.620wtmj.com/blogs/charliesykes/187731381.html" target="blank">helping to get more Republicans elected</a> [11]. One of the sponsors and "partners" is the phony issue-ad group <a href="http://wicfg.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/wisconsin-club-for-growth-right-wisconsin/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Club for Growth</a> [12],

which has spent millions in the state defending Governor Scott Walker

and GOP candidates. The site features long-time GOP operatives like

Brian Fraley, now at the MacIver Institute, and "reporting" by Media

Trackers, a Breitbart-style attack dog operation. Both the MacIver

Institute and Media Trackers are funded by the Bradley Foundation.===
<h2> MacIver: An ALEC Ally in Wisconsin</h2>

In 2011-2012, the MacIver Institute teamed up with <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) member <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity" title="Americans for Prosperity">Americans for Prosperity</a> to produce a multi-million dollar TV "issue ad" campaign called "It's Working!" in support of Governor <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Scott_Walker" title="Scott Walker">Scott Walker</a>.

The MacIver/AFP ads told Wisconsinites that Walker brought thousands

of jobs to Wisconsin, but omitted the facts that Wisconsin is ranked 50

out of 50 in the nation in job creation and that the state lost at least

23,900 jobs between March 2011 and March 2012.

In April 2013, MacIver again published misleading information

regarding Wisconsin job growth under Walker, claiming greater job growth

than even Walker himself had reported. The piece, titled "Gov. Scott

Walker More than Halfway to 250,000 Jobs Goal", claims that 137,372 jobs

have been created since Walker took office.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MacIver_Institute#cite_note-4">[5]</a>

The non-partisan fact-checking organization PolitiFact gives this claim

"Pants on Fire" status, showing that their conclusions are severely

flawed on several levels.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MacIver_Institute#cite_note-5">[6]</a>

First, the MacIver report uses partial years in their calculation, a

method which is known to be an extremely poor measure of trends because

of seasonal job market fluctuation. Secondly, the MacIver report does

not account for the existing jobs at the start of Walker's term, which

consequently inflatedly the number by 65,401 jobs that should not have

been included. Reports from the Capital Times and Milwaukee Journal

Sentinel estimate that the true number of jobs created from January 2011

to February 2013 was closer to 64,500.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MacIver_Institute#cite_note-6">[7]</a>

On November 24, 2010, just weeks after Walker was elected governor,

the MacIver Institute published an editorial by Brian Fraley calling for

the newly-elected governor and legislature to repeal public sector

collective bargaining and make Wisconsin a “Right to Work” state. Walker

never mentioned attacking collective bargaining rights during the

campaign. The editorial was published two weeks before Walker first

raised the subject publicly at a Milwaukee Press Club luncheon.

Fraley was MacIver’s Director of Communications and the former private sector co-chair of ALEC’s <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Health_and_Human_Services_Task_Force" title="Health and Human Services Task Force">Health and Human Services Task Force</a>.

The MacIver Institute is a member of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network">State Policy Network</a> (SPN), which is actively involved in ALEC.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MacIver_Institute#cite_note-7">[8]</a> Please see <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Ties_to_ALEC" title="SPN Ties to ALEC">SPN Ties to ALEC</a> for more.