The Biggest Shtick In The State

Monday morning, Charlie Sykes spent part of his squawk show trying to take credit for the Prosser "mandate" of a victory. (Note to Charlie: 0.49% is far from a mandate. It's more like a mistake.)

Illy-T does the yeoman's work of breaking down just what influence Sykes might have had on the race:

What is sad, though, is Sykes's mincing triumphalism, because what he doesn't tell you is that if his special theory has validity, then the dissembling shouter managed to impede Justice Prosser's progress in almost every single one of the Wisconsin counties he mentions, by:

Milwaukee: 11 points
Racine: 6 points
Waukesha: 8 points
Washington: 5 points
Ozaukee: 9 points
Dodge: 11 points
Fond Du Lac: 11 points
Jefferson: 10 points
Walworth: 4 points

That's how much Prosser conceded, between the general election on April 5 and the primary election on February 15, which is when Sykes commenced his 50K-watt campaign of ludicrous propagandas

Can you imagine that? If the election was even just a week longer, Sykes might have managed to give the race to JoAnne Kloppenburg.

Sykes' delusions of grandeur isn't anything new though.  When she was still an overt political player, Jessica McBride had the same syndrome.

Charlie's Double Standard On Double Standards

Last week, Charlie Sykes made a brash statement trying to play up the controversial election for the Supreme Court.  He claimed that:

"They put in as much money as they will ever be able to. They will never again, in Wisconsin, be able to mobilize a 3-to-1 money advantage."

On Sunday, PolitiFact decided to take a look at those claims. Unsurprisingly, they found him to be a flat out liar* and gave him the woeful "Pants on Fire" rating, his second one.**

Needless to say, the sniveling Sykes got his undies in a bundle about being burned again. He's been ranting for two days now, including attacking the PolitiFact reporters not just once, but twice.

In the first launch, aided by his fellow Bradley Foundation beneficiary, Christian "Atomic Pantload" Schneider, is all in a tither that PolitiFact didn't offer enough proof.  They do this in spite of the fact that while PolitiFact actually cites their sources, Sykes' source was an "unidentified 'political observer'" who Sykes also identified as being pro-Prosser.  When given a chance to be clearer on his source(s) of information, Sykes refused to respond.

In his second attack, Sykes then pulled the classic conservative ploy of moving the goal posts. Instead of whining about the sources of information, since the reporters had many and Sykes none, he chooses instead to attack on a whole different subject.  Instead of talking about Sykes' provably-false statement, Sykes chose to whine and tantrum about whether they ever look at other talk show hosts.  Apparently, Sykes is an adherent to the phrase "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit."

What it boils down to his Sykes got caught with his burning pants down around his ankles. When he was asked to support his BS claims, he should have just told the truth like he did the first time:

"My evidence? ....absolutely none"

*He was also lying about the supposed imminent end to the unions.

**It amazes me that even though his pants have been on fire twice now, none of the crap he puts in his hair has caught flame.

Sykes' Cognitive Dissonance

It's got to be hard to be Charlie Sykes.

All this week, he's been trying to argue that JoAnne Kloppenburg would be a bad Supreme Court Justice because as a prosecutor, she has been doing her job and enforcing the laws as they are written, working equally well for both Republican and Democratic Attorney Generals.  Then he would turn around, sometimes in the same breath, argue that she would be a bad Supreme Court Justice because she would be some sort of activist judge that would not follow any laws.

Reading Between The Tweets

It appears that there is some love lost in Wingnut Land:

Most people read that as that Charlie Sykes thinks Jeff Stone is dead in the water.  And that's a likely scenario. Stone did himself no great favors by aligning himself hip-to-hip with Scott Walker.  Walker did lose Milwaukee County in November on a 68-32 margin, and that's when Walker had popularity. Stone then continued to bury himself by playing along with Walker's attack on the working people of this state and introducing a bill to keep poor people, minorities and college students from voting.

That's not exactly the prescribed formula on how to win friends and influence people.

But there also may be another explanation for Sykes' tweet.

He could be pining away for his friend, who would rather hang around with ex-cons than with Sykes.  Can't say that I blame Stone for that one either.

Prosser's Problem Identified

On Friday, there was a debate between David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg, the two candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  Prosser attacked his opponent by trying to label her with vague titles and offering no reasoning for his name-calling (emphasis mine):

Justice David Prosser went on the attack in a debate Friday, calling his campaign opponent an ideologue trying to mask her true sentiments. 

Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg said Prosser was mischaracterizing her and she had never allowed personal views to color her approach to cases in two decades at the Department of Justice. 

Prosser said Kloppenburg held "extreme political and social views" but did not specify what they were. 

"She's trying to camouflage her views and not level with the people of Wisconsin," Prosser said. 

"She is an unbending ideologue. And I wouldn't say that if I hadn't heard that multiple times."

Now, let's first see if his accusations are accurate.  Here is Kloppenburg's campaign commercial:



Doesn't seem so extreme to me. If anything, she could be described as rather centrist.

So why would make these wild and baseless accusations? Besides the fact that he is probably not polling very well right now, thanks to his close association with Scott Walker, that is.

Prosser gives us the answer in the part cited above.  It's obvious he listens to too much talk radio and is no longer able to be objective or honest.  Not a good thing for a Supreme Court Justice candidate to have problems with.

That alone should show why Kloppenburg is the much better choice.

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."