Enough Already

An open comment to Charlie Sykes:

Charlie,

We all know that Mike McGee, Sr. said some horrible and unforgivable things about you and your mother when she passed away.

We all know that Mike McGee, Jr. also said some crappy things about you, and he has now been proven to be nothing more than a two-bit felon.

But it does not reflect well on you that you are so obsessed with the conviction. You made your points, and now you are just beating a dead horse. Let's move on now, shall we?

Another Area Where They Don't Really Want To Go

Sykes, as I figured he eventually would, put up a post that has been circling the right side of the Cheddarsphere. It highlights a YouTube video of state Senator Lena Taylor having a moment of confusion during a session at the Senate.

Is this where they really want to go? After eight years of them promoting this guy for POTUS, and then apologizing for him for all of those years?



And with Sykes starting to advertise his "Incite 2008" squawkfest, who can forget his wonderful blunder from last year, when he started accusing Michael McGee, Jr. of saying things that weren't said. It still warms the cockles of my heart to remember him having to apologize the the "Alderthug" for his false and malicious statements.

Of course, in retrospect, it was probably just Sykes having a Freudian slip, and he meant to put down the Jewish religion.

Indeed, Why Is It Relevant?

McBride goes after one of her favorite targets in her latest posting about Michael McGee, Jr. She notes in her writings:

The site has a hint of racism, when it notes:

Alderman Michael McGee Jr. is currently being held on Federal charges based on information supplied by an Arab businessman in his district, who is also an FBI informant.

Why is it relevant that McGee's alleged victim is Arab?

Indeed, that is the same question Whallah asks every time she mentions that an alleged criminal may be an illegal alien. Of course, then again, her postings often do more than hint at racism.

Punishing those who voted for McGee

McBride is horrified that Ald. Michael McGee not only might be freed on bond but actually be able to do his job and cast votes on the City Council while his trial is pending.

Her theory, apparently, is that the citizens of his district, who recently reelected him in a landslide after a recall election (in which McBride's husband worked against McGee), should be punished by not having a voice on the Council.

She tries to cover herself by including this disclaimer:

I know McGee is innocent until proven guilty. But when cops get charged with felonies, especially when the crimes relate to their jobs, they don't go back on the street and resume their law enforcement duties once they're released on bail.

I'd draw an analogy here because McGee, like a police officer, holds a position of power that involves the public trust and the public's business, on the public's payroll. Until he's convicted or acquitted, I don't think he should be casting votes about the people's business and the city's future. The allegations were too serious.

And, yes, I assume other indicted aldermen and legislators cast votes before they were convicted. That was wrong too, for the same reason, although there are differing degrees of seriousness depending on the case.

But it makes you wonder why she didn't think of this when her hero, Scott Jensen, continued to serve in the Assembly, along with other indicted Republican lawmakers, after being indicted on felony charges.

Jensen, charged almost five years ago and convicted 16 months ago, still hasn't spent a day in an orange jumpsuit. His appeal is still pending, and he's still walking the streets. He not only continued to vote while the case dragged on, but was reelected by the forgiving voters in his conservative district. Imagine that.

Hyperventilating about McGee

Milwaukee Magazine's Bruce Murphy, who generally treats Jessica McBride well, had this not-so-kind observation on the Michael McGee affair:

Last week, former Waukesha DA Paul Bucher filed formal charges asking that McGee be impeached by the Milwaukee Common Council. Bucher doesn’t even live in the city, but he is the husband of Jessica McBride, who, along with her former talk radio brethren, has been hyperventilating for some time about McGee. And Bucher, whose career in public service tanked after his defeat in the Republican primary for Wisconsin attorney general, is presumably looking for any publicity he can get.

Read it here.

Bucher: Have briefcase, will travel

We recognize that Jessica is not responsible for the actions of Paul Bucher, although she did marry him and does seem to espouse many of his political views. We know she shares his opinion of a Milwaukee alderman who's in the news.

Which brings us to Bucher's latest project, since joining the private sector: Impeaching Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee Jr. JS online reports:

Bucher asks council to impeach McGee
The lawyer for Ald. Michael McGee's unsuccessful recall election opponent has filed formal charges with the Milwaukee Common Council to open impeachment proceedings against the jailed alderman.

But Common Council President Willie Hines Jr. plans to reject the impeachment charges from former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, because Bucher doesn't live in Milwaukee...

After news of the criminal charges came out, Jordan asked Bucher how to overturn the election, Bucher said today. Bucher said he outlined several options and she told him to pick the fastest one, which is for the council to remove McGee from office. He responded by filing impeachment charges against McGee with Hines.

Both city ordinances and state law provide for the council to remove an errant alderman upon a citizen's complaint. But City Attorney Grant Langley has said the state law supersedes the city ordinance where they conflict, and they conflict on who can file the charges to start the proceedings.

Bucher used the city ordinance, which doesn't specify who needs to file the charges, instead of the state law, which requires the charges to be leveled by "a resident taxpayer." He said he was aware of the state law, but was waiting for Langley or Hines to tell him whether he should use a different procedure...

Hines said through an aide that he will send Bucher a letter tomorrow that cites Langley's opinion about the state law overriding the city ordinance.

Another alternative: Bucher could establish residency in the City of Milwaukee. Maybe he could even do that in McGee's 6th Aldermanic District and run for alderman himself. Jessica, a self-styled expert on the central city, based on writing a few newspaper articles about gangs, could write his platform.

Or maybe this is just the first step for Bucher to expand his practice beyond his Waukesha County base. Any aldermen in Madison that need recalling? How about Minnesota? Canada?

All McGee, all the time

Ten posts in 36 hours on Michael McGee Jr.?

And McBride's just getting warmed up.

At what point does it become an obsession?

(Sorry, no links. We are not enabling her.)

'Firings miss fundamental problem'

Joel McNally, a talk show host himself on WMCS-AM in Milwaukee, in the Shepherd Express:

Another reason to fire McBride was that her show was never very good. It was the same right-wing clichés you could hear from Sykes delivered in a more annoying voice.

The excuse for the firing was an attempt at wacky comedy by McBride about the tragic death of a 4-year-old Milwaukee girl caught in the crossfire of an inner-city shooting.

McBride set up a mock interview with black Milwaukee columnist Eugene Kane about the little girl’s murder that had Kane squawking like a chicken.

Kane is a frequent racial target on right-wing shows. Most decent people would fail to see the point—or the humor—in attacking Kane over a heartbreaking tragedy that touched an entire community, black and white.

None of these firings over isolated, tasteless incidents addresses the fundamental problem with talk radio. That is the dominance of one narrow-minded point of view promoting intolerance.

The solution isn’t to fire all the right-wing radio hosts, as enjoyable as that might be. The solution to offensive speech in a free society is more speech.

We desperately need more points of view on the radio.

He also comments on Don Imus and Michael McGee. You can read it here.

It's easy to tape, but who wants to listen?

Don Imus. Michael McGee.

Who will be the next talker to step in it?

Tim Cuprisin of the Journal Sentinel says the key to calling out both Imus and McGee was that someone began to routinely tape their programs every day.

Jay "Folkbum" Bullock says the way to take on the talkers is to cite chapter and verse, not issue broadsides complaining about their content. But he notes there is no one performing that service, at least so far. Says Folkbum:

This is the blogosphere, people, and the great beauty of it, as I've said before, is that if you see a hole in the middle of it, you have the ability to form a SykesWatch-sized piece to fill that hole. In the meantime, calling someone a "neocrybaby" or demanding "Sistah Souljah" moments just makes you look petty. Aligning yourself with the rhetoric of the McGees makes you look cretinous.

Here's the rub: Creating a McBrideWatch, for example -- since this site is all things McBride -- would require someone not only to tape her programs, but to listen closely, analyze them, and write about them. In a bad week that could mean 15 hours of programming. Mercifully, with baseball season it is a lot less airtime, but still quite a commitment to regularly expose one's brain cells to hours of her scolding and annoying whine.

Small wonder there has been no volunteer. To do all of the right-wing talkers in Milwaukee would be a full-time job. Talk about taking one for the team; that would be the ultimate sacrifice.

Thug update

Maybe everyone in Milwaukee's 6th Aldermanic District isn't a thug, despite what McBride said earlier, Brew City Brawler notes. Or is that what she's saying? Hard to tell, since she writes in her own special style.

The premise of the new post is that not all minorities are stupid thugs. School Director Jennifer Morales, for example, is wrong almost all of the time by McBride standards, but did a good thing by voting for handcuffs in the schools, she says.

Wonder how she feels today, since Morales was one of the five votes to successfully undo the handcuff policy last night.

The thug vote

Why did Alderman Michael McGee Jr. win a recall election with 64% of the vote?

That's easy. He got the thug vote. He's one himself, and so are his constituents. Who says so? Jessica McBride.

Brew City Brawler finds that opinion more than a bit bigoted. But, hey, it's WTMJ radio's blog, not CBS radio, so who cares?

The Brawler frequently asks the question: Why is this woman teaching journalism?

Here's the Best of the Brawler on McBride.