Resistance Report: Cease-and-desist letter embraced by activists, but their claim gets rated false by PolitiFact

CEASE AND DESIST. When the staff of Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., sent a cease-and-desist letter to a Milwaukee man, Earl Good, Citizen Action of Wisconsin used the letter to rally supporters. Good had reportedly called Johnson’s office hundreds of times, and the left-leaning Wisconsin group wanted its supporters to pledge to tell Johnson, “We will NOT Cease and Desist!”

Now WDJT-Milwaukee reports on what’s behind the viral story:

[Good] started calling Senator Johnson’s D.C. office to voice his opinion after President Trump’s inauguration. He says his goal was to influence how his U.S. Senator votes. Good admits he’s persistent; so persistent, on one occasion he called Senator Johnson’s office 83 times until someone picked up.

“The day before was 40 to get through. The day before that was 8. The day before that was 29, so they’re very aware of who I am by my cell phone number,” says Good.

Good says he’s been to Johnson’s Milwaukee office on two occasions. He calls the local office “accommodating,” but takes issue with the response in D.C. …

A spokesperson for Senator Johnson responded, saying, “Constituents are always welcome and encouraged to contact our office with their concerns, regardless of political viewpoint. Unfortunately, very infrequently a pattern of inappropriate behavior emerges that crosses the bounds of decency and requires action to ensure the well being of visitors to the office and staff.”

That same spokesperson says this is only the second time in two years a letter like this has been sent.

PolitiFact Wisconsin rated Citizen Action’s statements on the matter “false,” as the group had indicated that Johnson’s office was broadly using cease-and-desist letters in order to silence critical constituents: “Despite the broadness of the claim, the group produced a cease-and-desist letter written to only one person who it says has been involved in Citizen Action initiatives such as preserving the Affordable Care Act.

“The letter demands that the man stop visiting or calling any of Johnson’s staff or offices, but says written communications will be received. And Johnson’s staff says it issued the letter, on the advice of the U.S. Capitol Police, because the man had been harassing and threatening to staff, not because he protested any of Johnson’s actions.”

A POTATO FOR YOUR THOUGHTS. Meanwhile, taking inspiration from the cease-and-desist letter, Cards Against Humanity launched a website to mail potatoes to Johnson demanding a town hall. “Legally, we’re not allowed to call Senator Johnson a cruel idiot who doesn’t understand how health insurance works. But we are allowed to mail thousands of potatoes to his office demanding that he listen to his constituents and hold a town hall meeting,” says JohnsonPotato.com. “For only $5, you can send a potato with your name on it to Senator Ron Johnson’s office demanding that he hold a town hall meeting.”

Cards Against Humanity describes itself as “a party game for horrible people.”

WHEN THE GOP LOVED TOWN HALLS. “The 10 lawmakers who have held the most in-person town hall meetings over the last two years are all Republicans,” reports Chase Masters in The Hill. “Since the beginning of the 114th Congress in 2015, four Republicans — Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (Wis.), Sens. Mike Crapo (Idaho) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) and former Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.) — held more than 100 in-person town hall meetings.” Recent activism by those seeking to preserve the Affordable Care Act, however, “led some lawmakers to pare back or cancel their in-person events” over the past two months.

SPEAKING BITTERNESS? Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., had an eyebrow-raising explanation — using an antiquated term for Asians — for why he didn’t hold town halls last week. “The amount of time that I have at home is minimal, I need to make sure that it’s productive,” Bost told the Southern Illinoisan. “You know the cleansing that the Orientals used to do where you’d put one person out in front and 900 people yell at them? That’s not what we need. We need to have meetings with people that are productive.”

It’s possible he was referring to the “Speak Bitterness” people’s court trials in communist China during the 1950s, where peasants were called upon to denounce their landlords. Millions of the former landowners were executed as part of these trials.

DEMOCRATS GET PRESSURE TO HOLD TOWN HALLS TOO. Reports Yahoo News: “The fired-up progressive base behind much of [the new progressive] activism is not restricting its activities to the Republican side of the aisle. In a world where the new president has the lowest level of support from members of the opposing party in Gallup polling history, and in which Democrats’ unfavorable views of Trump are of blindingly hot intensity, Democratic politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are on the receiving end of one message over and over: Resist. Resist everything.”

CHANGES AT CAP. Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed reports the Center for American Progress is expanding around plans to create problems for Trump’s remaining Senate-confirmable nominees: “Democrats at the Center for American Progress estimate that President Trump still has upwards of 900 second- and third-tier appointees to push through the Senate. And in the liberal think tank’s new ‘war room,’ the objective is to scrutinize each one, from assistant to more minor federal agency employees, raising questions about qualifications and conflicts of interest that promise to tie up floor time, bog down Republican efforts in Congress, and delay Trump’s legislative agenda.”

And as Yahoo News reported yesterday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund is heading in a new direction in the Trump era. “At the Center for American Progress, you know, we were founded on ideas — recognizing that there was a gap in proactive progressive ideas — and so we spent a lot of great years … working hand in hand with [the Obama] administration and members of Congress,” CAP Action Fund vice president Michele Jawando told me after a rally outside the Department of Justice calling for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ resignation. “But what we recognize is now we’re in a different world. We are in a time of resistance.

“We recognize that the fight is not just on ideas now. It’s one-on-one. It’s direct combat, and we’re ready to go.”