Equal treatment for lovebirds

Whether Jess and Eddie are still carrying on or not (and who cares, except Paul Bucher and Susan Flynn?), it's good to see that both are being treated fairly by their employers.

Ed Flynn is Milwaukee's chief of police, and his bosses, the mayor and the Fire and Police Commission, say they're sticking with him, affair or no affair, because he has been reducing crime in Milwaukee. Fair enough.

Meanwhile, Jessica McBride is a lecturer on journalism ethics and other matters at UW-Milwaukee's journalism department, whose executive committee recently voted 3-2 to give her what amounts to permanent status there. Presumably, that's because she has been reducing journalism ethics in Milwaukee. Fair's fair.

An Embarrassment To The Bradley Foundation

I must admit, I am a bit perplexed.

While reviewing the previous post, I was reading the JSOnline blog post about the subject and found this comment:

On top of everything else, Flynn has really embarrassed the Bradley Foundation.

Bad strategy.

I'm just wondering if the commenter meant Flynn, or if they really meant Charlie Sykes.

Deja Vu, All Over Again

He said, he said, and she's not saying.

Earlier: The Cookie Crumbled (although it appears that Flynn might not be the upright citizen I believed him to be then.)

Methinks that when this is said and done, they will all be covered in mud, instead of just two of them.

More Painkillers, I Presume.

Now those scamps at RDW are praying for the Pres. Of course they're doing it in their own inimitable style.

If you look up Fred's reference you get to this uplifting verse.

8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.

9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven [d] from their ruined homes.

11 May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

12 May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.

13 May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.

It's not really one of the "feel-good" psalms.

Charlie Sykes Thinks I'm Number One!

Charlie Sykes just named me as the winner of his "Deep Tunnel" award for the week.

I give it as much credit as he gives the Shepherd Express when they name him Jerk of the Week. He is probably just upset because I called him out on being such a puppet.

But Charlie thinks I should apologize. So I will.

Charlie, I am so very sorry that you are a liar, a hypocrite and have poor reading comprehension skills.

Now I hope you feel better.

Charlie Sykes: Scott Walker's Attack Dog

Well, well, well. The day that I've been expecting for five months has finally arrived.

Charlie Sykes decided to launch a full attack on me. He's already sniped at me by using libel and untruths (which reminds me, gotta follow up with the lawyer tomorrow).

His attack was based on this post that I wrote over the weekend. Of course, he misconstrued by intent, but that is the norm for him as mentioned by a former WTMJ staffer, Dan Shelley, who had worked a lot with him, and knows of which he speaks.

But it got me wondering why Sykes waited a full 72 hours to attack me on that post. After all, it was not the first time I wrote something critical about Sarah Palin. So why this now? And Sykes isn't the master of chivalry himself.

UPDATE: Apparently, while Sykes has an issue with my Palin post, he has no problem if someone mocks the Palin family be saying they are incestuous. Can you say hypocrisy?

When I had a chance to listen to his podcast* this evening, it all became clear in five minutes.

Sykes started out his show building up the audience into a fervor. In doing so, he repeatedly emphasized that I am the Chair of Milwaukee County First, as well as that I hold a position with my union's local.

But then Sykes overplayed his hand. He also included snipes at my friend and fellow MCF board member, Keith Schmitz, and his involvement of MCF and Open Book, trying to allege some impropriety when there is none.

It was then that I realized that this had nothing to do with the Palin post I wrote. He was merely trying to discredit me and Keith in order to discredit MCF.

But why would he do that now? Simple. Yesterday, I spent the entire day and night at the courthouse, watching the County Board trying to fix Scott Walker's faulty budget. As other union members, I was wearing my "No More Cuts" shirt, but for some unknown reason, the media chose to focus on me, including an interview with Channel 12 and shots from the other stations' news shows. I was also featured, rather prominently, in this morning's edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

All of a sudden, my name was all over the place, and I was getting attention. (Although this wasn't the first time I was on TV. WTMJ - TV interviewed me on Labor Day while I was manning the MCF table at Laborfest.)

Apparently, this was seen by a threat by Team Walker.

As I pointed out last summer, some of Team Walker's key players include Michael Grebe and Steve Smith. Grebe is the chair of Walker's campaign, as well as CEO of Bradley Foundation. As the Foundation's CEO, he is the boss of Janet Riordan aka Liz Woodhouse aka Mrs. Sykes III.

On top of that, Smith is Sykes' boss. Between pressures from both his boss and his wife's boss, as well as just being the unofficial mouthpiece for Walker, it is only logical that Sykes would be Walker's attack dog, trying to discredit us.

I guess I shouldn't complain though. At least he didn't try to waterboard me.

But it does raise a couple of interesting questions. Why does Team Walker and Sykes see a small grassroots group that advocates for Milwaukee County, and has criticized various County Supervisors and Governor Doyle, as a threat? Is this there subconscious way of admitting Walker is not good for Milwaukee County?

*The podcast is fun to listen to. Two of his earlier callers actually point out that I was correct, even if I might have chosen my words more carefully. Of course, he trashed them too, as his norm, per Dan Shelley.

Cross posted at Cognitive Dissidence.

Imagine

Charlie Sykes put a post saying how rough he's got it being a talk show host.

Just imagine how rough it would be for him if he had to be honest and tell the truth while he was doing it.

Before You Complain, Paddy

Make sure the mud you're whining about isn't coming from your own hands.

It's Lonely Out On The Fringe

You gotta feel bad for Jerry Bader. Even if he's not completely wrong you'd think somebody would march out there with him on the Lawton rumors. Even Vicki McKenna won't repeat his story.

Of course, she hasn't acknowledged that Lawton is a story yet, 20 hours after the fact. So much for breaking news.

Updated: Bader walks it back. 10/27/09

11:23 AM STATEMENT FROM JERRY BADER CONCERNING THE BARBARA LAWTON STORY:

I HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE SOURCES THAT PROVIDED INFORMATION YESTERDAY REGARDING LT. GOV BARBARA LAWTON. THEREFORE I CANNOT STAND BY THE STORY POSTED YESTERDAY.

Notice it's not about him accepting responsibility for running with a story he couldn't back up. Bader blames his sources.

On the other hand, Binversie just drops the story down the memory hole.

I have also removed my later post on this matter.

Updated 10/28: The sleazebucket Bader is still at it. He still has his original link up with the same title but now there's a different soundbite behind it that speculates (He stresses three times that he's speculating. That's the same number of times he saud he was "Reporting factually," on Monday.) that "someone" applied leverage to get Lawton to step aside.

First, he drops his first story down the memory hole and says that there has been "talk" about the reasons she left the race.

Second, he pretends that he's not a part of the story.

Third, he's pimping it from the same link as if he was right all along.

It's no wonder you hear him referred to as a cut-rate Sykes, Even Chuck had better sense than to bite into the turd that Bader swore by.

Sykes Is A Cobag?

The Brawler takes the gloves off for this one:

Charlie Sykes was never a particularly coherent thinker/propagandist -- it's difficult to reconcile being a moralizer with being married three times -- but the cognitive dissonance has been to 11 ever since Obama was elected. Sykes will say on his show he thinks Sarah Palin is over (yet continue to shill for Sarah Palin because that's the goddess of his herd) and he'll say he opposed TARP (even though he adocated it).

In short, Charlie Sykes is a cobag -- he's full of shit and he floods the airwaves with it. A rude comparison, to be sure, but Sykes deserves nothing more.

Ouch.

McIlheran: Milwaukee's Own Baby Rush

From Illy-T:

Last week medium-wave radio squawker and laissez-faire martyr Rush Limbaugh told a New York Times reporter to go kill himself.

This evening the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's "right-wing guy" Patrick McIlheran likens a Madison, WI film festival to Jonestown, where more than 900 people dosed themselves fatally with cyanide at the behest of a fanatical Christian preacher, whose followers also shot a Democratic Congressman and several others to death.

I guess that makes Charlie Sykes our own Glenn Beck

Like The Tick On A Rat

The title is the picturesque, and accurate, description of Charlie Sykes used by my friend, Bert, at folkbum's.

Read the entire post to see why Faux News, WISN and WTMJ are the charlatan news stations that we know them to be.

Hip Halloween Musings?

Next Saturday, the special interests are again sponsoring a teabagging event at a publicly funded site.

One of their speakers is going to be none other than James Harris, who is sure to share some of his hip musings like this one:

Message of Hate?

Naaaah!

I say it's a message of Hope! Finally! Signs that there is intelligent life on other planets! The aliens are trying to communicate with us! They are trying to send us a message!

I... swastika.... Obama....

And they wonder why people have a hard time taking them seriously.

Rush Gets Punk'd

Once again, Limbaugh's prejudice gets the better of him:

It must have seemed so perfect. An obscure blogger unearths some pages of President Obama's college thesis. The report supposedly comes from big-time journalist Joe Klein of Time magazine. And the thesis has some real gems: like Obama's disdain for the Constitution.

The whole thing was nothing more than a satirical post on a humor blog. But Rush Limbaugh, who quoted from the supposed thesis on his radio show, sure wasn't laughing. Here's how it went down.

An unknown blogger picked up on a made-up post meant as a joke, which claimed that Joe Klein had gotten his hands on 10 pages of student Obama's college thesis. Rush Limbaugh jumped on it, which immediately sparked Web searches on "obama thesis."

Supposedly titled "Aristocracy Revisited," the excerpt revealed the president had "doubts" about the "so-called founders." Juicy. Except not true. Limbaugh discovered halfway through his show that he'd been had, but defended himself by saying basically the thesis felt true. Listen in to Rush's mea sorta culpa.

The sad part is that even though Rush was again thoroughly proven to me a schmuck, there are still people that will believe it with all their heart. You know the ones, the birthers and the teabaggers.

ADDENDUM: Illy-T has more.

H/T to Blogging Blue

Is It Any Surprise?