denstirgraves45 - hmmm... So, you just registered to comment on the posts on this and have NEVER been a part of the Gazette extra forum UNTIL NOW? You have no other user name... Not sure that your story is believable at all, and that is only my opinion, but you are not making much sense. Labor fest and the Labor day parade has traditionally been a strong UAW/Union event, if that has changed the fruits of your toils are sure not showing it.

In the parade the Republican were put together unless they sent in a seprate form. The Rock county party did not want Neuman with them for whatever reason. Keller made a joke out of the parade and brought a horse along without any notice. Think about that GARY someone has to pick up after your mess. Then he drug out his small section for two and one half blocks. Get real no one person should ever have that big of an ego to think that they should be able to take over the parade. Have some thoughts about others.

Minan - You crack me up. How many times are you going to use that one? Can we give Obama and the others that voted for it the boot too?

The parade this year that my grandkids attended was great. Kids love parades whether it is a clown or a car, all that excitement is fun for them. I know as an adult that Labor Day is about America and all the Americans that have paved the way for this great nation of ours. Doesn't that include politicians? The only complaints I heard were on FB and that was about the teenagers stealing candy from the little ones and all the litter. Kids love to get candy, flags, beads and even flyers. They can color on the flyers. JMO

Thank's to all that work'ed so hard to make this & other parade's run so smooth,
Great Job Well Done,

Looks like there's two people who should go to work for the Gazette.
.
And, in an election year, show me a parade without the politicians. Especially an election year.

frusion
There are a lot of people that put the parade together, I was only one of them. Yes, I liked that one too in the years past. This year Skelly's pulled a lot of little red wagons behind an ATV, and that was amazing. I heard that they practiced a lot in their area learning how to make the turn that they would have to make at Main St. They did a phenomenal job. thank you to the Skelly family for their entry

denstirgraves45,I missed the parade this year so my bad if you did it, but my most memorable Labor Day Parade was the semi that had something like 20 trailers piggy-backed. Do that again!

sangus
I just looked at the photos of the parade that your paper has posted. Really !!!! you think that 10 pictures (1 was a politician) tells the whole story of the parade when there was over 120 entrys in the parade this year.

frusion
I would love to publicize the volunteers but obviously the Janesville Gazette does not think that is an important story. It is not that anyone feels unappreciated, it is the whole point of the issue that this is a parade for the community, with community involvement, not solely a political forum. I will not stop volunteering for this event as each year it is bigger and better. That in itself is a major accomplishment and I want to thank each and every person involved with Laborfest/Labor Day Parade for all their hard work to make a wonderful weekend for all to enjoy.

I hope Ryan runs for President too. Look at who his biggest donors are? Those that are smart and are concerned about where all their money is being spent. That's who they are.

Which party advovates for the rights of corporations to make those American flags in CHINA? Paul Ryan, you should be proud! what a joke! That guy hides behind a lot of cliches and catch phrases. Look at his biggest donors and you'll see who he really works for. I just hope he runs for president and no longer is a congressman. A very dishonest man. At least from my viewpoint.

totellthetruth
I am not a member of any union and I am on the parade committee. It is not bs that the UAW does not run laborfest and the parade,...they do not. Yes we have UAW members that are on the committee but they are few since GM is no longer in Janesville. Most of us are just hard working individuals without any union affiliation. And as for Paul Ryans comment, sarcastic humor is not in my vocabulary. His biggest supporters are from Janesville and he just punched us all in the face. I would like to invite him to next years planning of the line up and spend the 4.5 hours that we all took out of our schedules to line this parade up so that we had music, clowns, politicians, and floats spaced out.

sangus
I agree with photogal about the article highlighting the politicians more than the actual focus of the event. Yes this is a highly political year, with that being said, Labor Fest is not about politics, but about the community. This was the 20th year of Giving back to our community and that should have been the focus of the front page article. Have you done an article about what it actually takes to organize this event for Janesville and the surrounding communities? I would hope that the Gazette would help to get the word out as to how much work, time, & effort that it takes for each volunteer. This parade is not about GM, not about the Unions, not about the Politicians (who act like drama queens), it is all about the community and the people who live and work in it.

Maybe the Labor Day Parade Committee needs to more clearly publicize who the volunteers are that plan, organize, and assemble the parade so no one feels unappreciated.

Helge1939...I agree with you on the comment about the politician's being recognized and not all of the good floats and other units in the parade. I personally think that this parade is for families and children to enjoy and WAAAAAAY too much political stuff being handed out etc......the focus should not be politics!

also...I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of UAW and was on the committe for a couple years. So those of you who think that UAW runs the parade....get that out of your heads!

redhawk I agree 100%. Volunteering has been the highlight of my year for a few years now and my family has done it for eight. Hard work is done by the coordinators and volunteers and I would encourage all to help as much as they can! Maybe next year we can make it even better!

UAW DOES NOT run the parade. People from the community are on the parade committee, they are the ones that put the parade together. I was in charge of organizing the whole parade one year and it is quite the project let me tell you! It is a whole year long task...and very stressful!

Paul Ryan's comment was meant to be funny. He obviously knows that they swtich the order around every year. People just don't under stand sarcastic humor. Give it a rest people. He made the comment because typically the Unions are Pro-Democratic groups. He was trying to be funny. Give it a rest. He's obviously doing somethign right in Washington when every news source, from CNN to MSNBC to FoxNews are talking about his policies. Yeah, MSNBC doesn't like his policies, but since when have they ever liked anybody that was conservative, the allow a Keith Olberman (the most annoying person in the world, and I was saying that while he was on ESPN SportsCenter).

totellthetruth...maybe you should volunteer to help out next year, then you could see the diverse group of people from around our area that work so hard to make this event a success.

nobody said NONE of labor*fest is affiliated with UAW. Its at the UAW grounds for pete's sake. However, people assume it is UAW members and workers that make up the entire team it takes to run this production and that isn't the case as all. Yes, some are or were memebers of UAW. However, it is not about UAW its about celebrating employment. Something that wasn't easy to do this year with such a high unemployment rate. Want to turn this to politics, how about the politician who came up to our judges stand on East Milwaukee and yelled, tell rock county jobs are on the way. Well prove it. Do you know how many times we heard that Monday. I hope one of them is right...

redhawk, The UAW is not affiliated with the Labor Day Parade.. Not they are not, they only hold seats on the committee and steer the direction of the UAW! So, you all want to feed us the BS line that none of Labor Fest is affiliated with UAW or trying to brainwash people into the union mentality. LOL

Scott, I have read those stories. I was merely speaking about the parade and Labor*Fest as my comment states. I understand the resource issue, however it isn't just about politics. Its my opinion and I am entitled to be frustrated after all that was done to put this parade on. Yes, maybe you should think about a new concept. If you need ideas, I am sure any volunteer could send you in over 20 directions for a story.

Photogal,
Apparently, you never read Anna Marie Lux's columns or our many, many features on the good people in our community doing good things. Ever see our annual "People Who Matter" section?
The point is: We do lots of those stories. We also cover the parade each year. We look for a different angle. This is a highly political year. We chose to focus on politicians. You might have preferred another story. We can't do them all. We wish we could, but we only have so much time and so many people. We did have many different photos featuring different parts of the parade. In our minds, the photos tell the parade story even better than words.
As for Democrats vs. Republicans, there was no conspiracy. Our reporter and photograher merely featured the people they encountered.
There will be another parade next year. We will be there again, and we'll do our best to find a new, interesting angle.

Scott Angus
Editor

Frusion, I think what is upsetting is the ONLY article written about the parade is about politicians, which isn't what the ENTIRE parade is about. Did you know, this parade is one of the largest in the midwest? Did you know it takes a lot of hard work, dedicated people and MONTHS of preparation to pull this parade off. Most don't. They take their kids, enjoy the parade, leave with a bag full of candy and thats it. There is always more to every story, its just too bad the gazette only focused on this.

I'm still wondering where the story is about all the volunteering that happened with the entire labor day weekend. Between the parade and Labor*Fest there should have been some sort of story. Unless I am missing it somewhere, I didnt see it. But again, who would like to read a positive story about people helping people? Its much easier to always read about crime and gloom, huh?!

Read the title of the article. The theme is POLITICIANS in the parade. Jeepers, the title tells what the story is about and then you complain "....the story is about politicians"

Look's like the politician's are being notice'd in the parade more then all the good unit's,

Hey TJ, Yeah Chad Lee's eyes seem to follow me wherever I went but Russ Feingold's eyes seemed to follow my wallet so that was more scary!

I found it ironic that the Constitution Party candidate was there. The Constitution party who advocates the government not do anything not specified in the US Constitution, was in a parade honoring a federal holiday...that is not specified in the Constitution.
As for most of the Republican candidates, they looked at my girls and the stickers they had on and kept on walking without handing out any of their literature. Why? Because the stickers were for Democrat candidates? Hello! Who was walking past not more than 30 minutes before handing out stickers? They are kids! Of course they are going to accept the sticker and wear it!

Why are they all smiling? Who the hell would want to be elected to a partisan office in today's world? One third of the people love you, one-third of the people hate you, and the remainder don't have a clue. At best you collect a paycheck for doing nothing but creating discontent. The old school description for your political talent was called "muck raking." In conclusion, some of you will prevail and get elected, but your electorate is growing restless with your partisan bickering. I suggest you make your campaign pledge on solving problems rather than blaming the other side. Thanks for listening.

photogal....the concept of a Labor Day parade is certainly lost on anti-union Republicans.

I'm so glad I skipped the parade this year. The political stuff just makes a mess. All the wasted paper and hollow promises. That goes for ALL parties involved.

Don't get me started on the folks handing out gimmicky trinkets and American flags made in China. Hello! It's a Labor Day parade. Use stuff made in the USA!

Where are all the democrats? This is really a sad display of across the board politicians. And is Chad Lee's photo not scary looking? I keep staring at it trying to figure out what's going on there. It's like his eyes follow you or something.

Another fine example of Gazette partison politics. Of all the Democrats that were in the parade the only picture and name mentioned was Rus Feingold. Lets have equal time for the Democrats.

Ryan has been in the parade long enough to know they alternate each year where the political parties are located in the parade and Local 95 wasn't involved in the placement decision.

Earnednotgiven, Roadmaster is correct, most are not affiliated with UAW at all. It is volunteers from all over the community. That being said, we need more volunteers to keep this parade going another 20 years! I am hoping an article can be done next year before labor day time with information on volunteering or entering ACTUAL floats and not just having trucks with names on them. Lets get into the spirit people!

Ann Marie you specifically told me you wrote a story about the labor day parade... seems to me you wrote a story about politicians more than the labor day parade as a whole. Hmmm... maybe the concept of this parade is being lost to many.

Most of the people on the Laborfest Committee are not affiliated with the UAW. While there are some from the UAW, all the officers of Laborfest are not UAW.

Ryan shoots down anything suggested to help the market by the Democrats, but has the nerve to show up for as he puts it a UAW parade.
Talk about a flip flop.

Politicians in a parade is the same as driving a loaded garbage truck full of trash and flys in a parade...
No class at all.

When Senator Feingold walked by people cheered and got out of their chairs to shake his hand. When Congressman Ryan walked by it was like someone told the crowd to "talk among yourselves". Heck of a contrast.

redhawk... did you look at the people on the labor fest committee? Are not a big majority of them UAW 95 people?

It just goes to show how out of touch Ryan is with Janesville if he doesn't understand that the UAW does not run the Labor*Fest parade.

Mr. Ryan should get his facts straight. The UAW has nothing to do with parade assignments. The Labor*Fest committee is responsible for that and if I'm not mistaken, the placement for politicians are rotated every two years.