QOTD

From Eric Boehlert:

But in one misguided sense, who could blame them? Anyone who regularly watched Fox News, listened to AM talk radio or read the hot house conservative media for the last four years must have been convinced Obama's 2008 victory was a massive mistake and that it was only a matter of time before voters corrected their blunder.

That's been the wayward message for nearly 48 months: America was anxious to right the Obama wrong and when given the opportunity on November 6, there would be a Republican stampede.

Turns out viewing politics through the filter of hate severely limits your vision.

Sykes' Hypocrisy Regarding Breitbart's Death

Last week, one of the most acerbic of the right wing's heroes, Andrew Breitbart died.

Breitbart was not a nice person.  Some of his claims to infamy included selectively editing videotape in order to defame Shirley Sherrod, saying "F%*$ you!" to union leaders, and telling Wisconsinites to got to hell because they wanted freedom and equality.

Sadly predictable, when Breitbart died, some people let loose a stream at vitriol as one last shot at the memory of this caustic person.

Even more sadly predictable, the hypocritical Charlie Sykes has tried to make hay out of this.

Actually, for Sykes to try to make something out of this is doubly hypocritical.

First of all, should anyone really expect Breitbart to be granted respect when he wouldn't show any respect when the late Senator Ten Kennedy passed away?

Secondly, Sykes should be keeping his mouth shut about anyone's comments when he has yet to even apologize for inferring that Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele is a pedophile.

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.

Mountains Out Of Molehills and Molehills Out Of Mountans

Charlie Sykes touts another "breaking story" from the crack reporters propagandists at Media Trackers and at the MacGuyver Institute.  This time the story has to deal with some knucklehead who made a stupid off-the-cuff comment on Facebook about killing Scott Walker.

Keep in mind that there is no specific plan on how the alleged assassin-wannabe would go about the deed, strengthening the point that it was more of a vent than an actual threat.

Now compare that to the story at Mother Jones, where a group of thugs have actual plans on how they are going to try to tamper the recall effort by committing fraud in misrepresenting themselves and then destroying the ballots they have signed.

So how serious is this threat?  The article explains:

Michael Maistelman, a Wisconsin attorney and election law expert who reviewed screenshots of the comments, says the postings could raise serious legal issues if the plan is to tamper with official recall petitions. "If a person fraudulently solicits recall petitions and then destroys those petitions, they will probably go to jail," Maistelman says. "The law is very clear on this."

[UDPATE]: Reid Magney, a spokesman from Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board, says destroying or defacing an official recall petition would violate state law. (Here's the relevant statute.) Such a violation, he adds, would be a class I felony in Wisconsin, which carries a maximum fine of $10,000 and up to three-and-a-half years in jail.

Somehow, I don't think it pays to wait for Media Trackers or MacGuyver to cover this story. They simply don't deal with reality.

Cross posted at Cog Dis.

Silly Protesters

The right wing, whether it be corporate shills like Charlie Sykes or just part of the Posse Comatose, regarding the #occupy protesters, made shorter:

"Silly protesters! Don't you know government giveaways and tax breaks are for corporations and the wealthy?!"

No, I'm not going to try to educate these fools. If they haven't learned their history lessons, that's their problem.

Because the Right Knows So Much About Civility

When the right winger whine and mewl about the horrible left and the lack of civility they show when they actually gather and sing, it only shows how pitiful and insecure they really are.

But while they complain of people singing, or God forbid, telling the power-abusing Republicans "Shame!", the somehow have never gotten around to mentioning their hero, the lying Andrew Breitbart, who told Wisconsin's working men and women to "Go to Hell!"

Given their level of selective and faux range, I doubt that anyone will condemn Breitbart when he increases his attention seeking desperation  to crossing the line and and goes NSFW*.

So how do the right sound off on one of their own dropping f-bombs?  They join right in on it, the poor adolescent fools that they are.

*Note to Breitbart: It might be formidable and dramatic if you didn't squeal when you say it.

It's Hard To Be A Conservative: Part Really I Lost Count

You have to continuously complain that some companies might drop their health insurance plans in favor of that offered through the Affordable Care Act, or as the RWNJs like to call it, Obamacare.

Yet at the same time, you have to hope that you won't have to explain why you've been silent for years about the companies like Walmart, McDonald's and Aurora who haven't been offering health care coverage in favor of government-sponsored health care programs like BadgerCare.

You Can Take The Man Out Of Talk Radio But You Can't Take Talk Radio Out Of The Man

It was inevitable. Some idiot does it every year.

Every summer, when it gets stupid hot such as it's been for the past few weeks, with heat indices in the triple digits, the media and local health departments and/or politicians give the warning to keep hydrated, keep cool, watch out for the elderly and disabled and mentally ill, and to never leave your kids or pets locked in the car.

And every summer, some right winger shows themselves to be an idiot by complaining and mocking the warnings.

This year's idiot is former TMJ squawker who left the station and did the lateral move of speaking more directly for the Republicans - in this case, specifically for Senator Scott Fitzgerald:

And despite all the warnings, we have already had four deaths across the state which have been contributed to the heat wave.

But given the way he's been cheering on Scott Walker and the Snittin' Fitz, don't expect Jagler to give an apology for his callous remarks any time soon.  He's still got too much squawker in him to have even an ounce of class.

What Does WISGOP, Squawk Radio and Right Wing Bloggers All Have In Common?

The answer is that their positions are so indefensible that their only line of argument anymore is name-calling, as exemplified in this mass email from WISGOP:

You know that squawkers like Sykes and the echo chamber will be using these names until election day and beyond as they lick their wounds.  

After all, original thought has never been their strong suit.

Solidarity Floats

A couple of weeks ago, the local paper, in an ongoing series of attacking public sector workers, pointed out a story in which the Racine firefighters union chose not to expend its limited resources for a non-union float, even though said float was originally designed to honor the victims of 9/11. It's not that they were opposed to it, but they felt that they could spend their time, money and manpower more effectively on other things.

As one might suspect, the usual suspects, right wing radio squawkers and their echo chambers, chose not to present the situation honestly but rather to conflate it to try to make it look like the unions were against the 9/11 victims and thus against America. Then again, honesty has never been a friend of the right, especially for radio squawkers.

As one might imagine, the float did just fine as people gathered in support, either to genuinely honor the victims, or to take advantage of the publicity to promote their own event or their image.

Ironically, one of the people that came out to "support" the float was Vicki "Wolf on back, snake on chest" McKenna, nee Pyzynski. This is the same woman who took to calling the firefighters thugs, despite their hero status, just because they simply opposed the Republicans' abuse of office and unilateral stripping people of their rights.

But how do the victims of 9/11 fell about this whole thing? Are they mad at the unions for dissing them? Do they feel that the unions were wrong for standing up for their civil rights like that?

Apparently not, according to this news story:



Did you notice that the firefighter highlighted in the clip, claimed to be a Republican? Did you catch when he said that the GOP's attack on the working classed superseded politics or the union/anti-union debate?

So why are right wingers like Charlies Sykes so anxious to make this such a big deal? The answer is simple. They know that they are, once again, on the wrong side of history. So they conflate and exaggerate a non-story in an effort to distract the public from what's really going on.

And thus they make themselves truly the ones that are disrespecting those they pretend to defend.

Cross posted at Cog Dis.

McIlheran: In Defense Of Witch Hunts

Professor William Cronon is a history professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.  He is also a blogger who wrote an eye-opening piece on how the Koch Brothers and their ilk are funding and controlling this recent assault that we have seen in recent weeks, not only on the working people of Wisconsin, but all across the country.

Within days, the Wisconsin GOP came down like a gang of locust, making a very specific open records request.  It was obvious by their choice of words to search for that their only concern was to throw a wide fishing net in their expedition in hope of finding some stray tidbit that they could conflate and use in an effort to discredit his good name.

Patrick McIlheran, resident GOP spokesman at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (motto: Have you unsubscribed yet?) tries a pathetic attempt to justify the GOP's witch hunt (emphasis mine):

Schneider points out something else: The left has freaked, loudly enough to shake some conservatives, because the Wisconsin Republican Party ran a freedom of information request on Cronon's UW e-mail account. Was the professor using the equipment provided by taxpayers to play politics? Inquiring minds are curious, but the left behaves as if to request the records was itself some kind of suppression of the professor's free thought.

The question for McIlheran is this: On what grounds do you suspect that Professor Cronon was using the government's computer to write his blog?

Having some experience myself with what Cronon is currently going through, I have to wonder.

Is it based on some baseless and artificially created "proof" as the right is wont to rely on, since the truth and reality rarely supports their positions?

Or is it because they so often don't do the ethical thing that they naturally presume no one else does either?

Or is Charlie Sykes their director of research?

As McIlerhan would say: Inquiring minds are curious...

More Peaceful Talk From Right Wing Squawker

Michael Savage - Why we need to get armed:



I don't think he was reading from the Communist Manifesto either.

So You Don't Have To

As the header of this site says, we are committed to monitoring of the local right-wing media and exposing their lies, hypocrisies and foibles, so you don't have to.


In that sense, here is what you will hear tomorrow, whether you listen to Charlie Sykes, Vicki McKenna, James T. Harris, Jeff Wagner, Jay Weber, Mark Belling, or any of the other squawkers:


On President Obama's State of the Union address:  He LIED! He's a socialist! His math is fuzzy! His numbers are wrong! He said it before and LIED then too!  He wants to spend more! He wants to tax you into the poor house!  He's a communist! He's not from this country!  He's so pompous! 


On Senator Paul Ryan's rebuttal:  Brilliant! Genius! He nailed it! A rising star!  He really gets it! A TRUE American! God Bless Paul Ryan! Right on!


On Representative Michele Bachmann's rebuttal:


So now, I just gave us all the day off from talk radio tomorrow.  Instead of listening to a Chicken Little squawking, go out and listen to a real bird singing.  


Enjoy!


PS: If you do decide to put yourself through the torment of listening to them, remember the other part of our header:  Great moment in radio history--Charlie Sykes: "My evidence...Absolutely none!"

Hate-Mongering Beck Spurs Death Threats Against 78 Year Old Woman

Glenn Beck has been on a tirade against Frances Fox Priven, a 78 year old woman. Her sin, in Beck's eyes, was co-authoring an article with her late husband, Richard Cloward, in 1966.

The article was called "The weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," and in it they warned of the dangers of allowing poverty to get out of control and the ramifications it could have on the country.

For this 45 year old article, Beck accused her of "economic sabotage" and termed her an enemy of the Constitution.

Now she is receiving death threats.

But you know, the right wing hate-mongering has nothing to do with violence. Just ask them, they'll tell you.

H/T The Motley Cow

Abnormal Is The New Normal?

After pointing out the irresponsible rhetoric that comes from talk radio and Faux News, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been relentlessly attacked by the members of talk radio and their followers for pointing out this fact.

"Loughner was a liberal," some would claim, while others would just call him mentally ill. Apparently, defending their hate is easier than honest introspection.

OK, let's say we give them Loughner. There is always Jim David Adkisson who shot up the Unitarian Church in Tennessee after getting repeated doses of the vitriol and hate speech served up by Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly.

If they think that is just one example, Blogging Blue posted, last summer, that Adkisson was just one in a string of crazies who lap at talk radio's and Faux News' hate juice.

Digby thinks that this denial of reality by the right and the populace in general is the new normal:

I've been following this story of the radical right very closely since Oklahoma City. But as I mentioned the other day, I didn't realize what a huge role it has come to play in their popular imagination. They believe they were wronged, and it's fed their militant paranoia ever since then.

It is worse. But perversely, because it is worse, people are less alarmed by it. It's fairly obvious to me that this has been normalized. And it's been normalized to the point where what people now find alarming is someonepointing it out

American voters say 52 - 41 percent that "heated political rhetoric drives unstable people to commit violence," the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Liberals rather than conservatives are more responsible for such rhetoric, voters say 36 - 32 percent.

No, that's not a joke. But I'm not surprised. I often get accused of being divisive when I write about right wing lunacy. It makes people feel uncomfortable.

I hope like hell it's not the new normal, especially after seeing this list linked to by Digby.

The Classless Glenn Beck

When former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi warned of the dangers of the reckless, hate-filled rhetoric from the right and the teabaggers, Glenn Beck thought she was stupid.

It's too bad we had to have a tragedy like the one in Arizona to once again prove that Beck is the idiot, and a hypocritical one at that:

He really should be ashamed of himself. But a man without honor or values, that is asking too much from him.

The Ever Classless Kevin Fischer

Kevin Fischer is one self-centered, selfish, egotistical blowhard if there ever was one.

Tonight, Fischer is whining about the meteorologists handling of the weekend's weather. He feels that they were too excessive in their warnings and alerts. After all, Milwaukee County, his little part of the big, wide world, only got 1.1 inches of snow.

Unfortunately, the rest of the state didn't get off so lightly.

The storm was so severe that a 150-mile stretch of I-94 had to be closed and many parts of the state received 18 inches or more, not counting the blizzard like conditions caused by the high winds.

And even that isn't the most grievous part of Fischer's egomania. The weather caused five people to lose their lives and that isn't cute or funny.

It's amazing how insensitive and unaware Fischer can be at times.

Sykes The Sophomoric

Bert over at folkbum's takes Charlie Sykes' lack of decorum to task:

Like the stink in your bachelor buddy’s car, the ugliness issued from the hard, black heart of right-wing WTMJ-AM radio is something you can get used to after a while.

In my case, when the station played Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back” while discussing first lady Michelle Obama about a month ago, I thought that was undeserved but not at all surprising. Also, I’m used to show host Charlie Sykes and his sophomoric, classless taunting of the outgoing Democrats. Rep. David Obey gets called “a horse’s ass”, Gov. Jim Doyle is a “lying sack of sh&#” whom Charlie audibly “flips off”, and Sen. Russ Feingold’s new campaign slogan should be “want fries with that?” Get it? Get it? Whatever.

NOH8

Proud Progressive, one of the hundreds of bloggers at Blogging Blue, takes on Vicki McKenna and her vitriol. McKenna was trying to downplay the hate crimes occurring lately in Whitewater, as well as many other places around the state and the country:

Vicki McKenna
i’m starting to smell a rat. 3 “hate crimes” in a month? something’s up.
i am going to bet $ on a couple of things: 1. there is no KKK in whitewater. 2. this is either a fake hate crime, or a dumb kid messing w/people he knows, but doesn’t like.

And thanks to PP, here is a great video from the NOH8 campaign:

The "What's In It For Me?" Argument

PaddyMac takes on rail again*, this time using a statement by Steve Prestegard, who was complaining that the rail wouldn't take him to Milwaukee to tape Sunday morning's episode of Charlie Sykes' Incite show:

Well, sure -- at ungodly expense and, critically, if you’re in the right spot and have the right destination. Steve Prestegard meets neither of those criteria, he writes at Marketplace.

He starts in Ripon, where he lives. He speaks in Green Bay at 7:30 a.m. He tapes a TV show in Milwaukee at 1. This apparently isn’t atypical. “Good thing I like to drive,” he writes. And:

“Those in business who claim they want the Doyle–Barrett train mystify me, because I am unable to think of many non-office-based jobs that don’t require the ability to go where you want when you want. Unless you sit behind a computer all day every day, or have one location where you do business, you need the ability to see customers or your various facilities, and on your schedule, not someone else’s.”

This is one of the dumbest arguments for or against something, in my opinion.

No, high speed rail isn't go to meet everyone's needs. Especially if they live somewhere far off of the rail line. So what? I am not going to personally benefit from them expanding the I-90 from Madison to points southward. Nor am I going to benefit from the current work of expanding I-94 from the airport south. So why are they doing those?

Supposedly because it is supposed to help the overall region by allowing business people, delivery trucks, etc. get through easier. Well, so would rail.

Arguing for or against something based solely on how that thing will personally affect you is nothing more than self-centeredness and selfishness. These, however, are traits that are all too common among conservatives, so that is what they most often resort too.

The funny thing is, they really, really don't like it when you turn it back on them.

The sad part is their selfishness causes us to miss out on many things that could have benefited us all, including them, even if not directly.

*You can always tell when Scott Walker or one of their other pets are in trouble. They become monomaniacal in whatever the subject is, no matter how silly they end up looking.

I would expect the rhetoric from all aspects of the right wing media, from Belling to Sykes to PaddyMac to PolitiFarce to harp on this for a while, since it is costing their champion and their cause a number of problems.