His Answer For Everything: Pain Pills

Rush Limbaugh, showing his usual lack of class, first puts the blame on the oil well collapse on "environmental whackos".

Then he claims that the oil spill should be just left alone, because it's as "natural as ocean water."

But when it comes to the endangered wildlife, he shows his willingness to share:

"You do survive these things. I'm not advocating don't care about it hitting the shore or coast and whatever you can do to keep it out of there is fine and dandy, but the ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there," Limbaugh said. "It's natural. It's as natural as the ocean water is.

"Well, the turtles may take a hit for a while, but so what? So do we!" Limbaugh said. "Just give it a pain pill! Why not? That's what they had for us, and we don't even launch ourselves into the windshields of fire trucks."

Illy-T has a suggestion with a lot of promise.

Who's Behind "Voter Fraud"?

No, it's not ACORN. Mostly because they are no longer around.

But a story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which tells of a couple facing charges of voter fraud, we find the real culprits (emphasis ours):

But when he did the same thing in 2008, he said, there was no indication that he and his wife had voted absentee.

Owing to the steady chatter on talk radio about voter fraud that day, he said, they assumed the worst.

"We were convinced we had been disenfranchised," he said. "There was supposed to be a check-off" for their absentee ballots.

But didn't he know they had mailed their absentee ballots about a week earlier?

"At that moment I was convinced I had not been counted, that my vote was gone."

And so when the poll worker handed them each regular ballots, they cast them.

We fully expect that Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to fully investigate and throw the book at Charlie Sykes, Jeff Wagner and Mark Belling. After all, he wouldn't want to be considered a political hack that would do something like take money in exchange for, oh, let's say, wanting to sue the federal government over health care reform, would he?

Impeccable Resources

Patrick McIlheran says Mark Neumann is a dead duck in the race for governor.

His source of this wisdom? Well, none other than Dad29, who thinks Neumann is mentally ill-prepared:

Neumann's elevator doesn't go all the way to the top of the building any more. The lights are on, but nobody's home. He's a couple cans short of a 12-pack. His transmission doesn't have a 3rd gear. He's wacky, folks.

Yup, the same Dad29 who's "genetic response" to homosexuals (or common sense, for that matter) is to stock up on ammo.

So, how much do you think Tom Barrett will beat Neumann by in November?

Also see: The woman who took down the GOP

I Bet He Does

Oops. Talk about misleading headlines.

Maybe It Will Be On Sunday Incite

My friend Bert, posting over at folkbum's, with a really good question:

I thought this oil spill thing was one of the prominent stories this week. But, like when Tom Barrett's altercation was national news, I'm not seeing anything about this current event on the blog by Charlie Sykes. What gives?

That's What They Get For Not Giving Her Her Own Show

On last night's Hannity, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin did what she does best-complain about the "lamestream media throughout our country." This time, the media's "lame[ness]" was revealed through their coverage of Arizona's new controversial immigration law. Palin sniffed: "One of the media outlets the other day just-was killing me on this one, Sean, where they had a caption across their screen that said Arizona law will make it illegal to be an illegal immigrant? Some bizarre type of headline like that where it was just this illustration that they just don't get it."

The station the Sarah was talking about? Faux News.

What If the TEA Parties were black?

Young Chris Walker has a very good post up discussing how well the TEA Parties would be accepted if they were populated with mostly African-Americans?

In it, he quotes why whites can get away with crap no one else could:

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Breaking News Already Broken

Patrick Dorwin at Badger Blogger notes that Mark Belling reported today that the high speed train station in Madison will be moved. Dorwin's money quote:

Don’t expect to read about this in the newspaper anytime soon. They never want to repeat news broken by Belling, even when they know its true.

He's right, of course. The newspaper reported this about six weeks ago.

Coming soon: Belling reports the collapse of the Roman Empire. This too will not be covered by the mainstream media.

Walker Should Make Belling His Spokesman

The pseudo-Team Walker thinks that Mark Belling is just wonderful because he spent not one, but two days whining about Mark Newmann for being more environmentally conscientious than the average conservative.

Apparently, Belling, and pseudo-Team Walker feels Neumann isn't sufficiently "profits-before-people" for them.

That's fine. In fact, that is splendid. I think Walker should make Belling his spokesperson.

Then they can also explain why such a rabid Walker backer is also racist and a misogynist. Perhaps they are commonly shared traits?

Yeah, We've Had Them For Years

Saw this story on the twitter:

A growing number of conservative groups are bankrolling startup news organizations around the country, aggressively covering government and politics at a time when newspapers are cutting back their statehouse bureaus.

The phenomenon troubles some longtime journalists and media watchdogs, who worry about political biases and hidden agendas.

The news outlets have sprouted in larger numbers in recent months to fill a void created by the downsizing of traditional statehouse coverage and to win over readers, including those from the tea party movement who don't trust the local paper or the TV news.

"Our state Capitol used to be bustling with the media," said Matthew Brouillette, president of the Harrisburg, Pa.-based Commonwealth Foundation, whose news outlet, the Pennsylvania Independent, went live in January. "Now, you can swing a dead cat and not hit anybody in the state Capitol newsroom."

The news outlets usually receive their money from right-leaning, free-market organizations. Idahoreporter.com, for example, is funded by the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a think tank that has barraged local governments with public records requests since last year in an effort to expose waste.

Similar news operations are now in place in Washington state, Michigan, South Carolina, Montana, Wyoming, Florida, West Virginia, Arizona, Missouri, Maryland, Nebraska, Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio and elsewhere.

This is not exactly breaking news here, folks.

For years we've had the Bradley Foundation-sponsored WPRI (Wonks Promoting Republican Ideology), that has none other than Charlie Sykes as editor/contributor/panderer. WPRI has already been busted out as being an amazingly unreliable source of information, thanks to the hard work of the people at One Wisconsin Now.

Another phony set up is the MacGuyver Institute (for the Chronically Impaired) who's claim to fame is to take some duct tape, a bendy straw and a paperclip and come up with a costume that they are a respectable news source. Of course, again thanks to OWN, we know better about them as well.

And yet a lowly, unsupported blogspot like Whallah! is more reliable than these two facades put together.

And There Goes The Hypocrisy Meter

It just exploded as well.

Thanks, Fred:

The left would rather insult than listen, they'll keep their rabid base but they are losing the country.

There Goes The Back Up Irony Meter

Charlie Sykes has spent the last couple of hours ripping into State Representative Pedro Colon for his rather boorish and inexcusable comments regarding Representative Steve Nass, who was saying his final good-byes to his mother.

Fair enough. Colon deserves to get called out on that.

But then our recently installed back up irony meter blew up, when Sykes commented that you would never see conservatives doing something so inappropriate to a liberal.

Really, Charlie? As inappropriate as Colon's comments were, at least he didn't lie, like you did, to tell his smears.

Our Irony Meter Exploded

Whallah's Irony Meter has exploded this morning.

It occurred when Charlie Sykes kept referring to AFP's Mark Block as "a two-bit political hack."

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Good Advice From One Who Knows

Greg Kowalski points out that a former school board candidate from Franklin is pondering getting into the blogging game at FranklinNOW.com

Young Kowalski gives this would be blogger some sound advice:

Hugo - best of luck to your future on the blogs. I suppose I only got one tip for you that some could argue I learned the hard way: Don't let State Senator Mary Lazich's aide get to you! Think of it this way - if he attempts to be overly critical of any of your positions you could very well share a Milwaukee Magazine article with him!

Personally, I would have told Mr. Nguyen to avoid FranklinNOW.com altogether, but hey, that's just me.

The Cowardly Belling

Like most conservative bully boys, Mark Belling turns out to be a coward when confronted directly.

Case in point, yesterday, there was a listening session at the West Allis Library regarding the sales tax that would provide dedicated funding for the bus system.

Wauwatosa Alderman Dennis McBride shared an interesting story with the crowd:

Wauwatosa Alderman Dennis McBride, who introduced himself as an original U-Bus rider when he attended UW-Milwaukee, amused the west side crowd with an account of a constituent who had heard “some guy on talk radio named Mark” excoriating McBride’s longstanding support of public transit. When McBride called “Mark” (Belling – a notorious enemy of the Milwaukee bus system), the talk show host’s staff first said their boss was “talking about Alderman McBride,” then when McBride identified himself, announced that Belling had moved on to another subject. While attentive citizens murmured about Belling’s apparent cowardice, McBride added that the resident who called him said “I don’t ride buses,” to which he replied that if the 150,000 people who ride the bus were all driving cars, it would add a great deal of gridlock to the woman’s own use of her car.

But, he added, talk to the legislators present about it – an alderman can’t pass a state law, whereas those who can, “are probably afraid that some guy named Mark” is going to say nasty things about them if they vote for AB 282. Legislators want to know that constituents will stand by them next November if they do vote to pass AB 282 into law. McBride also complimented West Allis on the redevelopment of the 70th Street corridor, insisting that it couldn’t be maintained without good transit connections.

I wonder if our lawmakers would be so afraid of doing the right thing if they realized that people like Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes are nothing more than fakers.