Sykes' Field Of Dishonor

Young Meg wrote at Cog Dis about her experience at this past weekends Field of Honor, an event to honor the World War II vets. Unfortunately, one man ruined the event:

So, when Charlie Sykes, who, to his credit, helped raise a lot of money for the program, came up to speak, I didn't really think much of it. I clapped, out of respect and gratitude for his help. Mr. Sykes started his speech out by reading a letter that was very kind, and very thoughtful. I liked it, and when he explained that the person who wrote it wasn't able to attend the night's events, I thought it was because it was someone currently serving. Instead, it turned out it was written by Paul Ryan. Normally, this wouldn't have offended me, as he is a member of congress from our state. However, this was different. Mitt Romney had just announced Ryan as his VP nominee earlier that day, and Sykes thought this was an appropriate time to start his campaigning for him. He just couldn't wait.

Needless to say, I was offended and incredibly angry that Charlie Sykes decided that this was the time to campaign for his hero. Scott Walker also spoke at the opening event, and he didn't say anything political. He kept his words short and sweet. How come Sykes couldn't have done the same? Doesn't he have any respect for that fact that not everyone believes in his backwards conservative ideology? And what does Paul Ryan know (or care) about veteran's issues? He wants to take away Medicare, first of all. That effects all the veterans sitting in those seats! He's the guy whose budget plan would strip billions away from veteran's services. Housing, education, jobs, medical care and the VA - money gone. The poverty rate among our returning veterans, and especially veterans of the Vietnam War (you know, that war Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan's running mate, fought like hell to avoid serving in?) is incredibly high. You know how Republicans say that all those who use welfare are just lazy, disgusting people? Yeah, not even. It's a large percentage of veterans who utilize those services. VETERANS! Republicans use 'em for their wars, then dump 'em when they get home. Slapping a "I support the troops" bumper sticker on your SUV isn't enough. Support the funding of veterans programs and vote for politicians who will make sure they are taken care of when they come home.

Sadly, this isn't uncommon. Republicans seem to have an affinity of using veterans as political pawns.

Reading The Signs

A couple of weeks ago, Preview Paddy put up a preposterous post about the state taking over Milwaukee County's Income Maintenance program.

If you are not aware of the story, you obviously don't read Cog Dis and you should be ashamed of yourself (yes, that was a shameless plug). But in a nutshell, Scott Walker chose to repeatedly, year after year, short staff the call center for the Food Share program. His intent was to show it doesn't work, and that it should be privatized, even though his plan would provide even less service for the same amount of tax money.

When a class action lawsuit was filed against Milwaukee County and the state, the state simply chose to take over the program in an effort to get out of the lawsuit. This has gotten Scott Walker and his supporters all lathered up.

I already wrote (you know, at that other site) about how Mark Belling and Owen Robinson were flat out lying in an effort to try to cover up Walker's ineptitude. In the same post, I mentioned PaddyMac's column.

Enough history. The reason I'm bringing it up is that I found that Paddy and his "source" were also telling their own brand of falsehoods.

Last week, I learned that there was a banner hanging on the side of the Coggs Building, the same building that Paddy mentions in his post. I never knew it before this, even though I work in the building, because I approach it from the west, and the banner is hanging on the east side of the building. I was told that the banner has been up for about a month.

If you ask me, the number is pretty clear. But that is not all. As I circled the building, I found another one on the south side of the building. Take a look and see if you notice something. (You might have to click on the picture to make it bigger.)


On the right hand side, you can see that the Hunger Task Force is on there, which would indicate that they had to have had a hand in getting the banners up there. It is beyond me why they would then claim that the state is making no efforts to notify people.

In Paddy's Pretend Land

From my other home, Cognitive Dissidence, a post I wrote about PaddyMac's fertile, if warped, imagination:

Last week, Patrick McIlheran, right wing propagandist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, wrote a sententious little column in which he dreams what it would be like to be an actual journalist. His first interview would be with the enigmatic figure of the state government, and how he would deftly point them out to be fraudulent political pawns trying to make his superhero, Scott "the Weasel" Walker look like a fool.

The biggest problem with PaddyMac's column is that he is as short on the facts as he is long on the imagination. After all, who would ever be so gullible as to confuse old Paddy of even being close to a journalist or a truth-teller?

Read the rest here.

A New Place To Hang My Crown

Life events happen to everyone, even kings.

I had some recent live events happen to me, both in my personal and my professional life, which gave me cause to pause and reflect on where I am, what I am doing, where I wanted to be, and the best way to get from here to there.

That is when I realized I needed to change some things in my life, including the way I blog.

About a year ago, Jay Bullock was kind enough to take this blogosphere newbie and invite him to join his site, folkbum's rambles and rants. For this, I will be forever grateful to Jay, along with sage advice he gave me as I started.

About a month later, the infamous Template gave me a key to this place. I took over the joint last fall when Template moved on to other things.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, due to those darn life events, I find I have less time available for blogging. Not only that, I also realized, I've had other things to say, other than continuously trying to correct the multitudes of falsehoods, foibles and hypocrisies of the local right wing squawk brigade.*

I still had Jay's site that I could do that sort of writing, but I found that this was becoming too time consuming. I was becoming unable to write all the things I wanted to. I would either have to give up sleep, give up doing my responsibilities around the house (which I knew I wouldn't have been allowed to do), or change my blogging pattern.

Since I am a fan of sleep, and of keeping my hide attached to my body, I chose to change the blogging pattern. Therefore, I, with a lot of help from my good friend, Illy-T, set up a new home, or castle, if you will. Its name is Cognitive Dissidence, and I hope you'll come to visit me there.

Oh, I'll still post here when the matter is germane to this sites specialty, and I'll still post at Jay's place, when I want more than myself to read my work, but otherwise, Cog Dis will be my primary focus, blogwise.

But I would want to thank all my friends and allies (some of them coming from surprising corners of the Cheddarsphere) for the support, understanding, and help that they have given me over the past year. I would also be remiss if I did not thank you, gentle readers, for making these past few months so much fun.

*Ironically, my two of my first three posts have to deal with Sykes anyway.