CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – The number of inmates that Tony Evers wants to parole or pardon is quickly becoming the issue of the campaign for Governor. You can be certain that there will be no more pardons announced between now and Election Day, even though he’s issued 600 so far. If the Governor has any control over it, the parole board won’t meet again until after November 9th.
Ever’s 2016 campaign promise, to reduce the state’s prison population by half, is impossible with releasing some very scary individuals.
And I had a brilliant idea for Wisconsin Right Now, the conservative journalism site that’s been publishing daily stories about the criminals who’ve been released. They should create a map that shows where each one lives. Voters can then see who their neighbors are.
Not to be outdone, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker has a low-bail no-bail proposal for 2023 – after he faces the voters this election day. Criminals up-to-and-including second degree murder could not be incarcerated before trial. As in Wisconsin, the more voters learn about it, the less popular it is.
And Illinois voters have been informed of these plans through conservative mailers, which look like newspapers, that have shown the mug shots of those who’d be released.
The Pritzker response? He threatened the printing company. Paddock Publishing prints all kinds of flyers, newspapers, and mailers. And Pritzker said many of their clients won’t do business with them if they didn’t stop printing opposition content. And they caved. His opponents have to find a new contractor to print their stuff. And Pritzker’s lawyer threatened two TV stations to stop airing negative ads against the governor. And they did.
If these policies are so good, you’d want more people to know about them. Instead they can only survive if fewer people know about them – free speech be damned.
Chris Conley
Comments