Wausau Channel 7 WSAW Produces
Secrets in Shawano Series
to Discredit and Damage SIST

UDATE November 23, 2008

The close relationship between Shawano town officials and Secrets in Shawano reporter Mike Lauber of WSAW Channel 7 is becoming more apparent over time. In early November, 2008, city officials and the FBI called a meeting of 60 people supposedly on a hit list supposedly associated with SIST. At this secret meeting, only one reporter was present. Do you know who it was? Not Tim Ryan, the local Shawano Leader reporter (who was apparently quite indignant to have been left out). It was Mike Lauber, the WSAW reporter who published the Secrets in Shawano series.

One might pass this off as coincidence, but for another recent occurrence. In mid-November a document surfaced, purportedly a fax to WSAW and ONLY WSAW Channel 7, not to any other news media in the Green Bay-Shawano area. This fax adds another melodramatic twist to this already ridiculous story of the FBI and a so-called Canadian informant. Now someone is claiming that someone is calling this informant a terrorist, etc. etc. WSAW hints that SIST could be the ones sending this fax, without any evidence to support this. Come on, you investigative journalists! What is wrong with you that you can’t figure out where this fax came from or who sent it? Why did only WSAW, publisher of Secrets in Shawano, get the fax?

A statistical overview of the population shows that 89% of the population is White and nearly 8% Native American. That leaves other races in the smallest minority. While overall, only 2.5% of the US population is Lutheran, in Shawano this religious denomination comprises 38% of people with religious affiliations. Roman Catholics make up 26%, thus the majority of the Shawano population is White Lutherans and Catholics.

The German Lutherans and Catholics who settled northern Wisconsin (Shawano and Wausau) are religious descendants of Martin Luther and biological cousins of the same German Lutherans and Catholics who in World War II murdered six million Jews and millions of others who didn't fit their mold.

Is it any surprise that these people are using the same tactics today in the USA to harm and discredit those who are different from them?

Wausau's Channel 7 WSAW, a CBS affiliate, together with Shawano Mayor Lorna Marquardt and staff of the Shawano Leader newspaper, have teamed up to produce a multi-part television series called "Secrets in Shawano", purportedly to shed light on the activities of "...an extreme religious group in Shawano and their history and impact on the community."

SIST has been operating in Shawano for how many years, and now they suddenly decide to make a big commotion: Why? For what purpose? What is their intention here? These are some of the questions we will explore in the next pages and additions to the site, and will provide information and facts that we guarantee you will have a hard time finding elsewhere.

This WSAW series, in fact, is a concerted attempt to discredit and harm the businesses owned by SIST. SIST has purchased and operates a number of businesses in Shawano for the purpose of raising funds to build an international school of science and technology in the Shawano area.

Check back on this page often for further updates and more information. If you have specific questions or comments or topics you would like to see addressed, please submit them here.

In contrast to the swirling rumors, speculations, allegations and falsehoods that comprise the Wausau Channel 7 WSAW Secrets in Shawano series...

consider the following facts:

Fact: Many of these buildings were already empty and unused before their purchase by SIST.

Fact: Rather than assisting the renovation and restoration of downtown businesses, Shawano city officials repeatedly used legal and other means to prevent SIST from upgrading and improving these vacant buildings. Read more about a recent example here. Rumor 2) SIST doesn't pay their taxes. (This comes up in almost every Shawano Leader article on SIST.)

Fact: No other Shawano businesses with unpaid taxes are repeatedly cited in the Shawano Leader for lack of tax payment.

Fact: The Shawano Leader reports and paints every detail of SIST business purchases in negative light, in contrast to their treatment of other business sales in town. This clear discrimination goes on and on.

Fact: Shawano officials use questionable techniques to prevent SIST from operating. The strategy is to steal, rob and hurt financially so finally SIST will give up and the city will buy the businesses for nothing.

Fact: As soon as SIST bought the Best Western hotel, health inspector Lisa Lucht showed up with a six page list of demands that needed to be resolved within two weeks. Where was she before that? How many other restaurants in town has she inspected and cited in the past years? Someone should find out.

Fact: City officials deceitfully yanked the Best Western liquor license so the restaurant could not sell drinks.

Question: With this kind of interference, how would any business owner survive, let alone pay high taxes?

Rumor 3) There is an 'SIST compound'.

Fact: Assuming use of the word compound in this context doesn't refer to a substance that contains atoms of two or more chemical elements held together by chemical bonds, the other definition of compound (a fenced enclosure containing buildings, such as a camp for prisoners of war) is equally perplexing. It would be interesting to have someone try to identify the fenced enclosure to which the Secrets in Shawano series refers. It would be interesting because such an entity does not exist.

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