Something That Charlie Sykes, Media Trackers, Wisconsin Reporter, WPRI and McIver Institute Should Familiarize Themselves With

The Tort of "False Light."

Read it, learn it, stop doing it.

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.

McIlheran Deals From The Bottom

Patrick McIlheran has a snide little post up, in which he cites the psuedo-news organization McIver Institute* who found that former Governor Doyle had slotted a handful of people into state jobs before leaving.

Even though every politician leaving office at any level has done this, apparently now it is a bad thing.

I guess that is because Scott Walker needed those spots for his cronies. So far, we know he's only found a spot for his former Director of Administrative (Lying) Services, Cindy Archer, as reported by his own newspaper.**

But that isn't even the most egregious part of his post.

McIlheran then has to go on lying about Russ Feingold, labeling him as being for infanticide. Gutter press, indeed.***

*Just how does that propagandist group keep their 501(c)(3) status?

** A quasi-news organization

***Factoid: McIlheran only buys Bibles with that pesky commandment about not bearing false witness redacted.

Hey, Look At Us! Pleeeeeease!

Brian Fraley, part of the Republican front group, MacGuyver Institute, wrote a piece that can only be described as a desperate plea for attention and/or credibility:

Can you imagine that? The Doyle Administration is actually forecasting an imbalance of a quarter of billion dollars in the General Fund and most of the State of Wisconsin is clueless because for whatever reason, the news has gone unreported by traditional information sources. People may be suffering ‘bad economic news’ fatigue, but that’s not a reason to let such news go unreported.

It is a compelling example of the need for MacIver News Service to exist.

However, immediately following that, Fraley belies his protestations of being a legitimate news service:

Through MNS, we provide the public with copyright free, original news reporting on the actions and policies of state and local governments, including the actions and policies of specific elected public servants. Our perspective pieces offer analysis and commentary on these same policies and people.

The MacIver Institute cares about public policy and the impact public policy decisions will have on Wisconsin’s future.

We understand the economic model of the news business has changed. Outlets that used to have significant resources devoted to following state government are now lucky to have one set of eyes watching the Capitol on a part-time basis.

In part, that’s why we started the MacIver News Service.

Any blogger, pamphleteer, newspaper or broadcast station in the state is free to reproduce our articles, with attribution, at no cost. Thanks to our various distribution and social networking channels, our reports have been seen by hundreds of thousands of individuals over the last year and a half.

So while we are dismayed at the fact significant stories are being missed by the traditional media, we are proud of the reputation we’re building. Here at MacIverInstitute.com, our goal is to create a place to which people who share our concerns can turn for information and insight.

An actual news service is only interested in reporting the news, not setting forth a certain political philosophy or controlling the facts that are to be disseminated in order to promote a candidate or an agenda.

If they want to be considered a credible news source, they need to work on their objectivity and a full representation of the facts, not just the ones they think will promote their political agenda. But then again, being a news service isn't what they were formed to do, now was it?

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.

Even If Irony Isn't Dead It's Certainly Limping

How do you suppose a man who makes his living at an organization funded by donations and grants can look himself in the mirror after decrying spending other people's money.

It's not like he has his hands on the controls of the engines of production or anything. He's just suckling at a different public teat.

Right Wing Tank Thinker Is Now Against Tax Cuts For Business

The serious people speak. "Attracting business to Wisconsin is not government's job."