PolitiFarce Gets Recalled

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the largest corporate media blocs in the state, is, oh so proud of their PolitiFact, even though it misses more than it hits.

But I don't know what good it does anyone, since it is so skewed so often.

Take for instance, the issue of how many recall signatures were turned in.

The recallers claimed that it was more than one million signatures.  The GAB said that the actual number was 931,042.  That would mean that the recallers were off by a 7%.  For this, PolitiFarce gave them a "false" rating.

And that's it.  They didn't check out any other single claim that was flying around out there regarding the recalls.

For if they had, they might have found that the MacIver (Anything but a) News Service and the teahadists that were hosting the "Verify the Recall' McCarthyism revival were lying through their teeth when they claimed that a third of the signatures were invalid.  In reality, it was about one thirtieth.

If they had look further, they might have heard Charlie Sykes echoing these ridiculous claims.  They could have given him yet another "Pants on Fire" rating to go with his collection. (And it's not lost on me that Sykes has never been found to be telling the truth.)

If they looked even minimally, they would have found Sykes' pal, Jeff Wagner, who predicted the final number would be around 600,000 and sometimes predicted that the recall would fail outright.  Wagner was off by almost 50%, but he doesn't even warrant a mention.

They could have looked at Vicki McKenna and the Koch-sponsored Wisconsin Reporter who claimed that someone forged her name on a recall petition.  Yet according to their own Verify the Recall database, neither her professional name or her real name appear.  That would put them at 100% off.  But PolitiFarce won't even give them a smoldering ember much less a pants on fire.

The excuse that it was too hard to look around doesn't hold water either.  They could have just looked at their own bloody paper and found that they were off by five times the actual number of invalid signatures.  Maybe they could torch their own pants?

But since PolitiFarce chose not to look at the other side of the guessing game, I'll give them a rating:  Corporate Media:

Cross posted at Cog Dis.

PolitiFact's Two-For-One And Why Is Sykes Still On The Air?

PolitiFact, the hit and miss "fact checking" product in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gives Scott Walker a "Pants On Fire" rating for falsely blaming Governor Jim Doyle for one of Tommy Thompson's taxpayer's cash giveaway:

Facing a near-certain recall election, Walker that day used his Twitter account to highlight the story as a failure of the previous administration, that of Democrat Jim Doyle. (Other tweets included the fact he stopped for ham and rolls after church.)

His tweet: "Headline ‘State spends millions for 202 jobs’, missed rest of sentence:, ‘under program approved by Gov Doyle.’"

In other words, the poor performing program was created under Doyle. And that’s where the blame should fall, Walker says.

Did Doyle approve the plan?

The legislation creating the program was introduced in 1997 and passed and signed into law the following year -- not by Democrat Doyle, but by then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, a fellow Republican now running for a U.S. Senate vacancy.

Doyle didn’t take office until 2003, five years after the CAPCO bill was signed.

Indeed, the proposal had bipartisan support. It was authored by Democratic state Sen. Gwen Moore, now a congresswoman from Milwaukee. Among the 89 members of the state Assembly who voted in favor of the bill March 25, 1998: Walker himself.

But the go on to write how Charlie Sykes, Milwaukee radio squawker, took this from Walker and ran with it, even though he knew it to be false:

Walker’s tweet gained a broader audience the following day. WTMJ radio talk show host Charlie Sykes picked up on the topic and in a three minute segment linked Doyle to the CAPCO program five times. He called it "a Jim Doyle idea," and said the program was "one of Jim Doyle’s signature venture capital bills."

In an email, Sykes acknowledged that the program was created under Thompson. And he pointed out that Walker had tweeted on the subject the day before.

Sykes whined about it on the radio and sniveled about it on his blog, but not once did he even come close to apologizing for misleading his listeners or bothering to correct his lie. If anything, he doubles down on his dishonesty by mewling that Doyle wasn't mentioned enough in the original article, even though he just acknowledged it had nothing to do with Doyle.

Why Sykes is still on the air despite openly lying about things, and admitting he is lying, is simply beyond me. But it goes to show why a person can't believe anything that comes from corporate media shills like Sykes.

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.