Where's Charlie Sykes' Page Now?

Earlier in the year, Charlie Sykes, squawking head at WTMJ-AM, showed that he, at long last, has shown that he has no sense of decency when he sent out a most vulgar tweet inferring that Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele was some sort of pedophile.

In his vulgarity, Sykes tweeted that he was paging another squawking head at the radio station, John Mecure, who's claim for fame is sensationalizing stories and pretending he's busting child pornography sexual predators.

But it appears that Sykes' little paging system is busted.

It has been recently reported that Phil Wentzel, a top aide - even once as high as spokesman - for Sheriff David Clarke, has been arrested for creating child pornography.  The arrest stems from nearly a year's investigation into Wentzel.

Even worse, even though Clarke put Wentzel on leave, it's with pay.

Now that there is an high ranking county staff person who is a sexual predator, Sykes is silent.  So is Mecure for that matter.

Is Sykes' silence on this serious issue because he is buddy buddy with the ultraconservative nut job of a sheriff?

Or is it that Sykes thinks sexual abuse of minors is something that should only be joked about, especially using a liberal as a foil?

Charlie Sykes, WTMJ Double Down On Libelous Tweet

About ten days ago, we reported about how Charlie Sykes went beyond the pale and made the inference that Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele was a pedophile.

This was brought to the attention of Abele's office and to the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party took this offense seriously and sent a letter to Steve Wexler, Executive Vice President of the Journal Broadcast Group. In the letter, their outrage at this libel was expressed as well as giving that Sykes receive some sort of punishment, such as suspension or termination, for his vulgarity.

Wexler responded back in an unfortunate, but entirely predictable, manner:

Thank you for sharing your concern with me about a "tweet" by Charlie Sykes that you felt was inappropriate.

I've reviewed your letter and don't agree with your conclusion.

By the way, I am well aware of John Mercure's background, since he has worked for our stations for years, both on TV and as host of our afternoon radio news program.

Best regards,

Steve Wexler
Executive Vice President
Journal Broadcast Group
720 E. Capitol Dr.
Milwaukee, WI
53212

Direct Line: (414) 967-5205
Direct Fax: (414) 967-5596

swexler@jrn.com
Twitter: @wextmj

Sykes addressed this on his radio show. Or more appropriately, danced all around this issue. But even when asked directly what he meant by that tweet, Sykes refused to answer the question.

We cant' expect Sykes, or WTMJ's management, to do the proper thing on their own. They don't have the integrity or the honor to do so.

Perhaps it's time to take the same action that has Rush Limbaugh and Clear Channel sweating like the pigs they are. The only way to get their attention and get them to do the right thing is to go after the only thing they care about, their money.

I think it also may be time to drop a line to Sue Wilson and the Media Action Center.

Sykes Goes Beyond The Pale With Pedophilia Tweet

Last week, Charlie Sykes again took things beyond the pale with one of the most irresponsible tweets anyone has ever tweeted:

For those that aren't aware of the significance of this, John Mercure is the late afternoon squawker on WTMJ radio.  Before he became a squawker, he was a "reporter" for TMJ's TV station and was known for sensationalizing stories and specializing in child sexual predators.*  He was also well know for taking things too far himself.

The question is: What is Sykes' intent with this post?

If he was serious, he might have opened himself and Journal Communications up to a large slander lawsuit.  Even though Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele is a public figure, and thus open to getting slammed more than a private citizen, the law does put limitations on what a person can say about them.  Accusations and inferences of being a child sexual predator goes a long way over the line.

If Sykes was "just kidding," it shows what a sick little man he is that he considers pedophilia to be something joked about.

Now, I am no fan of Abele's, and I have often offered up criticism of his Walkeresque approach to leading the county and his attempts to turn Milwaukee County into a plutocracy for himself and his rich friends, but this inference by Sykes goes beyond the pale.

Sykes needs to offer a public apology and his employer better look at if they need to take further actions to protect themselves from this liability.

*Even though Mercure styled himself as a crime-fighting reporter worried about kids' safety, he won't even talk about Brian Pierick, the Walker crony who has been charged with child enticement.

Saving PolitiFact The Trouble

It's been a while since PolitFact has taken a look at Charlie Sykes' outrageous statements and lit his arse on fire, so we'll just have to do it for them.

Thursday morning, Sykes was ranting and raving about this article in the paper which told of how hundreds of people came out to Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele's budget hearing to speak passionately about saving paratransit.

I only caught parts of Sykes' steaming pantful, but there were two glaring lies he was telling his audience.

One, he said that the advocates for the disabled were saying that the paratransit fees were going to more than triple.  All this proves is that Sykes is illiterate.  The article actually reported this (emphasis mine):

The cuts proposed by the Milwaukee County Transit System also include elimination of service on six regular routes, ending Freeway Flyer service and shortening routes or cutting bus frequency on 28 other routes. The transit system also is proposing to raise paratransit fares for riders with disabilities by $1.25, to $4.50.

Again, it only shows that Sykes can't read.

But where Sykes really got it wrong, and thereby set his own trousers ablaze, was when he claimed that no one has ever threatened to cut paratransit services before and that he was outraged about it.

The only thing is that paratransit services have been threatened before, even as recently as last year when then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker threatened to cut that service to the bare minimum required by federal law.

Secondly, per county records, now Governor Walker and his Republican allies in the legislature have decided to cut transit and paratransit funding by $5.5 million in the recently passed budget.

Don't expect Sykes to admit to that any time soon, though. He's too busy trying to keep the flames from his pantaloons from reaching all that hairspray in his helmet-hair.

Sykes & Bellilng's phony 'gotcha'

Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling -- the guys whose tapes the FBI now plays to torture people in standoffs and get them to surrender -- are all a-twitter over comments someone taped of Chris Abele speaking to Milwaukee County Democrats, in which he describes himself as someone who supports "lefty" causes.

In an email, the county party lets a little air out of the gasbags:

...as you'd expect, Sykes and Belling have been playing edited, out-of-context
comments from Mr. Abele on their radio shows.

The Beavis and Butthead of Milwaukee radio even went as far as saying they had a "secret" tape, and that Mr. Abele didn't know he was being recorded. Of course, the Milwaukee Dems very publicly had a video camera rolling, and we routinely live stream our meetings over the Internet. This was a totally fabricated "gotcha" moment.

Did Charlie Sykes Just Call Ron Johnson A Liberal?

Chris Abele has the Republicans terrified.

Abele is a left leaning candidate for Milwaukee County Executive, who also happens to be just a bit richer than the Vatican.

Despite the fact that Abele has been blundering his way through the early stages of the campaign, he has a good chance of surviving the primary on February 15th just due to the fact that he is rich enough that he can drown the airwaves with his commercials, in which he never really does say much to hang his hat on.

Abele is a bit of an enigma in the sense that no one really knows what he is about.  He is very elusive with giving straight answers to anything, instead only offering up populist rhetoric. The few things that he has made any sort of statement on has been on the right side of the issue, such as delaying the reconstruction park so that his fellow multimillionaire Michael Cudahy can throw out some wild idea of trying to cram an entire historical museum, a parking lot and a few businesses in that small area.  (Of course, Cudahy always to fail that his high end restaurant is located right there and having even more attractions would be a boon for him)

Anyway, the Republicans must have done a private poll and were terrified of the results.  As a result, they have their lead attack dog, Charlie "No Proof" Sykes come out with the "breaking news" that Abele is a liberal!  Of course, the fact that he has donated to liberal causes and liberal candidates for most of his life in Milwaukee is irrelevant, because it's much more melodramatic if Chucklehead calls it "breaking news," and an exposure of some deep down secret.

Of course, when High Priest Sykes squawks to the masses about a threat to their lord and savior, The Almighty Dollar, the chorus of the echo chamber sounded off in their usual unthinking parrot manner.

SIDE NOTE: Two goofs at Badger Blogger actually wrote two separate posts for the same thing (so much for independent thought!).  But you can't really blame them if they don't read their own site. No one else does either.

There are two things that are rather humorous about the right wingers' panic attack.

One is that Abele's campaign co-chair, who is coming in fresh off the campaign trail after working closely with Ron Johnson's campaign.  Just a wee bit of dissonance there, eh?

The other is when Sykes retweets one of Abele's tweets:

Well, let's see.  Jay, Zach and I had come out to show our support for our friend, Jason Haas, who is running to fill Chris Larson's old seat on the Milwaukee County Board, when Abele and one of his staffers came walking in the door to schmooze around for support.  I can't say it got him very far.

I don't think that Zach or Jason (who got listed twice in the tweet) have endorsed anyone for the executive race.  Jay "folkbum" Bullock has come out in support of Jim Sullivan.  As for who I support, well, it's not Holloway, Griffin, Stone or Abele.

But even funnier is that Abele's staffer who tweeted this, and Sykes who blindly followed along in his anxiousness to score a point, regardless of how lame, included a tweeter using the handle @capper.  Unless I moved across the Pacific Ocean and had an ethnic crossover, @capper is most definitely not me.

Two non committed people, two in favor of Jim Sullivan, and getting our names wrong....not exactly what I would label has "his peeps."

So what facts does Sykes have that we are Abele's "peeps?"

 In Sykes' own words: "My proof...Absolutely none."