Good Question

Jason Haas gives us a very good head scratcher:

There’s been a rightful storm about Scott Walker’s actual place of birth. Oh, sure, Paddy Mac claims to be a good American standing up for what’s right. His column has an achingly clever name to make us think that. But how come he hasn’t printed his own birth certificate

In Opposition

He obviously opposes spellcheck as well:

Squawkers and Birthers

Brawler takes on Charlie's misdirection regarding the whole ridiculous birther movement:

You can accuse Charlie Sykes of many things, but you can't accuse him of being burdened by conscience or having a nose for conspiracy theories gone too far.

So naturally Charlie was an early adopter in opposing the birther conspiracy theory (ie, Obama is not a natural born citizen). The Brawler recalls him "standing up for what's right" in this instance before the election, even when callers raised it. And callers have continued to raise it.

And on today's show, Charlie said enough is enough.

But do you know who's fault it is we're hearing about the birthers (Charlie adding that the story's been all over the place the past 7 to 10 days). Not the birthers themselves. It's the fault of the liberal mainstream media who cover the birthers!

Meanwhile, folkbum takes out PaddyMac with just one sentence.

But one shouldn't underestimate the power of these insane birthers. They even have the Kevin "The Brain" Binversie all flummoxed by a simple spoof.

Bad News For Milwaukee News

Jay Bullock reminds us when this town had two papers. The decidedly more conservative Milwaukee Sentinel, and the more liberal Milwaukee Journal, with its fabulous Green Sheet.

Then in the mid-1990's, the two papers merged to become the decidedly conservative Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They chose the wrong paper to emulate apparently.

Over the last few years they have suffered one dramatic cut back after another, the biggest blow to point was when they forced Stuart Carlson to leave.

Word is coming out at even more drastic cuts at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, now including the loss of Tim Cuprisin. Mike Mathias has even more here, as does Jason Haas.

I have often heard mention a growing belief that before long, MJS will follow many other papers and become only available on line. Even though I obviously have a computer, and would still have access, I would still miss the days of reading the paper over my morning bowl of Cheerios, or pointing out a story for my wife to clip for her scrapbook.

But with this new round of losses, and the fact that, if Mathias is correct, PaddyMac will still be around to torture us with his tortured logic, I will have to again ponder whether I want to finish this subscription, which lasts until next year, or take my money and run. After all, I am paying a lot of money for something that seems to becoming less and less worthwhile every day.

We at Whallah! would like to extend our sympathies to those hard working journalists that are being shown the door, whether they like it or not.

But I do have to point out that MJS had a golden opportunity to turn their fate around earlier this year and they blew it.

Oh, and Mr. Cuprisin, if you ever get bored, and want to keep your mad skillz intact, you always got a home here.

Irony, Thy Name Is Scott

The twittering candidate, taking a break from declaring his redundancy, heads to the airport for the presser for the Airbus380, one of the most impressive and newest passenger liners in the world.





Do you suppose he went to stand up against the government stimulus that made its launch possible? Nah. me either.

BTW, it's a good thing that Milwaukee County doesn't need a county government or Scott wouldn't be able to take time off to shake hands in Oshkosh on a Monday.

PS: Where does he get off calling it "Our" airport? Hasn't he tried to sell it off to everybody but Bernie Madoff and P-Diddy?

Kevin Binversie, aka Mr. Obvious Man

Poor, old Kevin Binversie. He doesn't like Whallah!:

The more I read "Whallah!" on my RSS feed, the more I realize that blog would be really, really, really, really boring without the existence of conservatives. It's like every unoriginal thought the Port Side of the Cheddarsphere has had at a Drinking Liberally over the past five years rolled into one...with posts no doubt done on the taxpayer dime of Milwaukee Co.

Well, let's see now. The tag line at the top of the site reads:

Committed to the monitoring of the local right-wing media and exposing their lies, hypocrisies, and foibles, so that you don't have to.

Mmm. A site about right wingers. So if there is no right wingers to talk about, I would have to agree that a site about them would be rather boring.

No wonder the Republicans keep losing ground, if they got guys like Binversie working for them.

And what's up with the Milwaukee dime comment? Who does he think I am, Scott Walker or David Clarke?

Macho Man McIlheran

Walker's Point blog found a fun little program from Stockholm Pride that allows one to measure the "level of hetero" on one's Twitter feed.

He ran through a number of Tweeters, including Macho Man McIlheran. PaddyMac, the guy who points out how wrong anything but a good, wholesome, heterosexual, Catholic couple is, well, just an abomination, scored not so high on the heterometer:

Pat McIlheran - 60% Hetero
Key Words – New York, Pandora’s Box, Pink, Flesh, Community

Maybe he is not so bad after all. He just has to stop fronting.

The Ever Classy Belling

From Cory Liebmann's Eye on Wisconsin:

Belling is clearly a long time Scott Walker cheerleader and has zero tolerance for anyone else trying to run against him in the primary for governor. So that means the worst of the insults during his July 17^th rant were directed at anyone possibly responsible for Mark Neumann getting into the race. For most Walker supporters that hostility is largely saved for Republican big deal Jim Klauser. Belling said that he was disappointed in Mark Neumann for turning over his campaign to someone that he called a "false prophet". He warned his listeners to be wary of such "false prophets" that claim to be Republicans because it is their only way to get power.

Apparently the fact that Jim Klauser is not backing Walker is not the only reason that Belling attacked him. Belling has apparently joined the paranoia of Rep. Robin Vos in thinking that a new business group (that Klauser is a part of) actually exists to raise money for the current governor. In fact Belling is so sure of this conspiracy that he took to calling long-time Republican and Tommy! aide, Phillip Prange, a (political) "transvestite" because "he goes both ways." I'm not sure he is using the correct terminology here but you get the point.

The rest is an absolute must read to see how mucked up the Republicans in this state really are.

You Have Been Warned

All of his stuff should come with this warning label:

Whallah! On Twitter

Illy-T style:


Guess who he was talking about.

MCF On The Radio

Check out as kr and I talk about Milwaukee County First on the radio. We will be on Friday morning on WMCS 1290 AM with Joel McNally and Cassandra Cassandra.

Unleavened Fischer Funny Falls Flat

I looked for some synonyms for "thin-skinned," to try to help old Kev out. He seems to have a tough time with analogy and metaphor. Remember the time he called the DNR, "gestapo-like?"

Anyway, Kev went looking for something that means "thin-skinned" and the best he could come up with (even though he was under no time pressure and had plenty of chance to think about what he might be saying) was this.

Commandment #1 (and this is really good, especially for those matzo-skinned
lefties) reads:

There you go. Matzo. That's the best he could do. What's the first thing that comes to your mind when Kevin uses the term, "matzo?" Think about it for a minute. I'll get you some more information.

The Free Dictionary defines "Matzo," as

matzo
Noun
pl matzos a large very thin biscuit of unleavened bread,
traditionally eaten by Jews during Passover [Hebrew matsāh]

Not much help there for Kevin, really. Is there? Maybe some synonyms might help.

bread, breadstuff, staff of
life - food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised
with yeast or baking powder and then baked

Now I'm confused. What might Kevin have been trying to get across? That somehow liberals are The Staff of Life? A nice sentiment but one I hardly think the public employee holds.

He says he was just trying to say "Thin-skinned" and didn't have any idea that the Jewish connection might mean anything to anybody. Where have we heard that argument before?

What might Kevin have used in place of "thin-skinned," if, in fact, that was not appropriate to convey his intended meaning? Thesaurus.com offers up "Feisty."

Main Entry: feisty
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: spirited; touchy
Synonyms:
active, alive, bubbly, courageous, difficult, enthusiastic,
excitable, fiery, frisky, full of pep, game, gritty,
gutsy, gutty, high-strung, hot-blooded, lively,
mettlesome, ornery, peppy, quarrelsome, scrappy, sensitive, spunky, thin-skinned, tough, truculent, zestful

or Fractious (note the distinction from Factious which might be better applied to Kevin and the Teabaggers {Hey, that's a great band name.})

Main Entry: fractious
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: grouchy,
cross
Synonyms:
awkward, captious,
crabby, disorderly, fretful, froward, huffy, indocile, indomitable, intractable, irritable, mean, ornery*, peevish, perverse,
pettish, petulant, querulous, recalcitrant,
refractory, restive, scrappy, snappish, testy, thin-skinned, touchy,
uncompliant, undisciplined, unmanageable, unruly, wayward, wild
Notes:
factious means addicted to forming parties and raise dissensions
in opposition to government or the common good, while fractious means tending to cause trouble or unruly or irritable.

The truth is that Kevin gets paid to deal in words. He claims to be an award-winning broadcaster of some sort. He blogs under his name and his employer's. He deals in constituent services for a state legislator. He uses his words for his living. If he tossed off "matzoh" from the top of his head when he thought of "liberal" then he's careless and sloppy at best. You could make a good case for it being a Freudian utterance, I suppose.

I don't know if he's a racist or not. This slip isn't the definitive utterance that tells us about Kevin. It is, however, one more data point to go with the casual Nazi references and the petty slanders that fall like rain from the heavens when he's writing. He had plenty of synonyms to pick from when he sat down to scribble that piece. It's one more unfortunate choice of words from a man who gets paid to represent all the people served by his employer and, by extension, all of us.

If this is "The Right View" of Wisconsin then Fischer and his ilk can have it. They'll have a tough time selling it to anyone else in this day and age.

Hey, Where's My Check?!

Mark Belling went on one of his usual fact-free screeds this afternoon.

This time it was about that new, hip and happening group, Milwaukee County First, of which I happen to be fortunate enough to be the chair.

Here is a link to his podcast. He starts to fly off the handle at about halfway through the podcast.

Belling, as his wont, doesn't have too many facts available to him, and so he confabulates things as he goes along.

Milwaukee County First is an independent, non-partisan group made up of strictly volunteers from all walks of life. But in Belling's world, he has us salaried employees of either AFSCME, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and/or One Wisconsin Now. I just wish he'd figure out who is bankrolling us soon, so I know who I am supposed to hit up for our checks, since we haven't gotten any money from any of them.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do hold a non-paid position as Chair of the PEOPLE Committee in my local.)

He also seems to think that we have multiple sites with multiple names, including Putting Milwaukee County First, which doesn't even exist according to a quick Google search.

It is telling that the right wing squawkers are so insecure about their boy, Scott Walker, that they are already trying to smear us and tell lies about us even though we are only in the second day since we launched. But if this is the best they can do, we will be just fine.

Drinking Liberally: Milwaukee County First Edition

From the website for Milwaukee County First:

Milwaukee County First is a grassroots network of organizations and individuals from all walks of life, united to amplify their voices in the cause of stopping the decline of Milwaukee County, restoring its assets and services to their former first class status, and keeping Milwaukee County a place where people will want to work, to play, and to live.

Milwaukee County is a shadow of what it once was. Its parks, once a necklace of jewels, are now unkempt and overgrown. Its transit system, once a yardstick for the nation, is now fighting for its very survival. The social services and safety net that Milwaukee County once provided has been scaled down so much that the State of Wisconsin had to intervene to protect the most vulnerable of the county’s citizens. Its infrastructure is crumbling and years behind in necessary repairs.

The causes of this decline in Milwaukee County’s status are many, from the dire economic times we are in, to local leaders, past and present, who have put their self-interests before those of the people they serve. It is time, if not beyond time, for civic leaders to once again put the interests of Milwaukee County first. It is time to make Milwaukee County a first-class economic and social region for the State of Wisconsin and the entire Midwest. This is why residents from throughout Milwaukee County have come together to form Milwaukee County First.

Milwaukee County First is a registered 501(c)4 non-profit organization based in Milwaukee County.

Come and meet us Wednesday night, July 15, at Drinking Liberally. We will be at the Sugar Maple, located at 411 E. Lincoln Ave. tonight at 7 p.m.

Learn how you can help us help Milwaukee County, and let us know what issues you would like to see addressed.

See you there!

Well, I guess that settles it

Kevin Fischer:

There is no justification for liberals to pontificate from their lofty high horses since they have no ability to reason or rationalize using clear thought, facts, and documentation.

You know, he's right. I mean, just listen to how former President George W. Bush totally handled this question from a college student regarding what laws governed private military contractors in Iraq. The man's understanding of the intricacies of international law, treaties, and sovereignty is simply breathtaking.



At the 33 second mark: "Help!"

Cross Posted at Pundit Nation.

This Is Only A Warning

But do take it very seriously:



I know, it's hard to believe that it does get worse.

Reading The Signs

A couple of weeks ago, Preview Paddy put up a preposterous post about the state taking over Milwaukee County's Income Maintenance program.

If you are not aware of the story, you obviously don't read Cog Dis and you should be ashamed of yourself (yes, that was a shameless plug). But in a nutshell, Scott Walker chose to repeatedly, year after year, short staff the call center for the Food Share program. His intent was to show it doesn't work, and that it should be privatized, even though his plan would provide even less service for the same amount of tax money.

When a class action lawsuit was filed against Milwaukee County and the state, the state simply chose to take over the program in an effort to get out of the lawsuit. This has gotten Scott Walker and his supporters all lathered up.

I already wrote (you know, at that other site) about how Mark Belling and Owen Robinson were flat out lying in an effort to try to cover up Walker's ineptitude. In the same post, I mentioned PaddyMac's column.

Enough history. The reason I'm bringing it up is that I found that Paddy and his "source" were also telling their own brand of falsehoods.

Last week, I learned that there was a banner hanging on the side of the Coggs Building, the same building that Paddy mentions in his post. I never knew it before this, even though I work in the building, because I approach it from the west, and the banner is hanging on the east side of the building. I was told that the banner has been up for about a month.

If you ask me, the number is pretty clear. But that is not all. As I circled the building, I found another one on the south side of the building. Take a look and see if you notice something. (You might have to click on the picture to make it bigger.)


On the right hand side, you can see that the Hunger Task Force is on there, which would indicate that they had to have had a hand in getting the banners up there. It is beyond me why they would then claim that the state is making no efforts to notify people.

Preview Paddy Strikes Again

I hate to interrupt my season premiere of "Eureka" for this, but every time I think I can get out, he drags me back ... you know the thing.

Anyway, McIlheran is earning his "Preview Patty" nickname this weekend. I got this excerpt of his Sunday column--yes, the Sunday column, so no linkity-blinkity--in my inbox at a bit after 6 this evening...

That is from Jay Bullock. Read what silly thing Preview Paddy is whining about now, and how Jay must have been watching too much Iron Chef, judging from the way he fillets Paddy.

Excuse Me, Waiter, There's A McFly In My Soup

Dan Bice has another article on JSOnline about l'Affaire de McFly. This one is so chock full of goodies, it is hard to know where to begin.

Bice tells us that the two lovebirds shared over 20o emails before the affair allegedly started. In one of the emails, McBride is not so subtly asking Flynn out for drinks. In another, Flynn showed a bit of clairvoyance:

"Once the article is declared done, with the expectation that you won’t be ‘covering’ me in your professional capacity, I guess we wouldn’t be violating journalistic ethics (notice I didn’t make a smart remark) if we stayed connected and I received the benefit of your particular perspective," the chief wrote on Jan 6.

It would indicate that they were ready to "do the deed", so to speak, but were conscious of how it would look if they did consummate their illicit affair before the article was printed. Even though they might not have had the physical part of the affair yet, to give them the benefit of the doubt, it does show that McBride had already thrown her journalistic ethics out the window. Of course, we already know that she did that a long, long time ago.

McBride also admits that she cannot be an objective reporter:

Elsewhere, McBride admits she can’t be objective about Gov. Jim Doyle, whom she dislikes immensely, and once proposed doing a story on District Attorney John Chisholm for Milwaukee Magazine. But she said the magazine shot down the suggestion because Chisholm is "too boring," an assessment with which she agreed.

And why would she want to do a story about someone she found boring? The Reasonable Progressive makes some uncomfortable observations about this part of the article.

Others have also taken their turns at this. Harris Kane has one of the best titles, though, with his "McBride's Hike On The Appalachian Trail."

Illy-T notes that the commenters on Bice's story can be worse than anything us dastardly lefty bloggers could or (usually) would do.

Mike Mathias, who again forgets us here, makes note of the Sykes Connection.

On a final note, I would be remiss if I did not include this:

But the journalist quickly began filling Flynn’s e-mail account with her thoughts and opinions. For instance, on Jan. 1, she expressed frustration with a negative Journal Sentinel editorial despite a drop in city crime. "Sometimes I wish I was writing a column, not a feature story," she wrote.

Um, Jessica, you already are writing a column, albeit not a very good one.

B.O.P.

Harris Kane, the clever blogger that brought us Waterboard for Walker, strikes gold again with B.O.P.:

Please join Heartland Hollar's B.O.P CAMPAIGN today and encourage the MJS to "Buy Out Patty!"

We would like to see Patrick McIlheran gone, so if he isn't laid off for contributing to the papers drop in revenue, then maybe they will at least "Buy Out Patty."

He also has a contest going on for the tweeter crowd. Read his post for the details.

On The Consistency Of Thought And Deed

Owen has his knickers in a twist over this Internet meme being turned now to poke fun at the lame-duck Governor of a Northern state. The caption generator has been around for a while and has been used with all sorts of brunts.

But now, he's all upset that someone has captioned it to make fun of the Quitting Governor and he just doesn't like it. Not one boot-stamping, jodhpur-flapping bit. I mean, what kind of a lowlife would turn to subtitling an outake from a Hollywood film to make a joke linking someone to Hitler? Oh, that's right. It was Owen back in January of 2008.

Then it was funny. Now it's an outrage.

Speaking of outrageous, from what paragon did Owen get the tip to the Hitler Ha-Ha? Guess before you peek.

Bad Decision Making

Now that we have a new state budget, I don't know of many people that are completely thrilled with it. I also know that not many people are overly enthused with Governor Jim Doyle, because of this budget.

But there are many things to complain about, both with the budget and with the governor.

One has to wonder if it was good decision making that led to Jessica McBride to complain that the governor broke a promise.

Should He Stay Or Should He Go?

Most political junkies are already aware that Fred Dooley, proprietor of Real Dimwit Wisconsin and "official blogger" for the MacGuyver Institution threw out a racist tweet.

It's been covered by most lefty bloggers including Zach and Al at Blogging Blue, One Wisconsin Now, and Cory Liebmann. It was even covered by a right winger, Rabbit.

Mike Mathias and Harris Kane not only cover the story, but argue that Fred should be fired from the Institution.

I would respectfully disagree with this stance. The MacGuyverians do not have to fire Dooley.

This is still America, and we do have rights. Dooley has a right to write what he wants, no matter how ignorant it might be, as long as it is not slanderous or libel, or would endanger public safety unnecessarily. Just as we have the right to point out that they are being fronted by a guy that makes racist tweets, and then fails to own up to his responsibility.

Fischer Gets A Smackdown

From Greg Kowalski, regarding the Sendik's in Franklin shutting down:

...Since Janet Evans has changed her blog to only cover School Board-related issues, the only blogger left on that site to cover anything Franklin is none other than our state senator's aide, Kevin Fischer. Fischer penned a piece and basically left his arms up in the air. He hemmed and hawed over it, and from what I read the only thing I could pick up on was something along the lines of, "Maybe the economy did it...but maybe not...what we do know is "the market decided". "The market decided"? There are so many different factors to insert into what "the market" decides it isn't even funny. However since Fischer, in my opinion, simply despises people like me or fellow resident John Michlig, he won't dare come close to actually saying that perhaps some of the reasons Michlig and I have pointed out for years are actually coming to fruition. Instead, he mocks us and the people who agreed with us, saying, "It had nothing to do with the cuts of beef, pedestrian access (Gimme a break), ripples in the parking lot, or number of bike paths."

[...]

Unfortunately, Fischer seems to be too proud of his boss's campaign contributor to dare question anything about it, much less perhaps say, "Hey - maybe Kowalski and Michlig were right about some things...". "The market" could have been there, but the council at that time (2007) was too quick in giving off approvals and too much in love with their own campaign contributions from Mr. Carstensen to even bat an eye at the situation in general. If the council would have done its homework, much like I did back in January (which ended up in several posts), they would have seen something could have been wrong with the data given. They would have seen that things might not have all been 100% there, and thus could have shaken some confidence in general. Last but not least, they should have made the very simple observation that, hey, why on earth are we putting in a big box discount retailer in what the city wanted to be its future civic center district.

Kind of shows where Fischer's head is in all this, now doesn't it?

He Did Not Complete Her

Poor Dan Bice. Jessica McBride dropped him as a friend on Facebook:



We here at Whallah! extend our congratulations condolences to Mr. Bice.