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.

They're Not Even Trying Anymore

The incestuous relation between right wing politicians and right wing money tanks has been shown time and time again.  But now they're not even trying to be subtle about it any more.

Charlie Sykes, who is owned paid by the Bradley Foundation, an extremist bunch of right wingers known for publishing the racist "The Bell Curve," to be the "editor" of WPRI (Worms Promoting Republican Ideology) sat down to interview David "Chokehold" Prosser.  One line says it all (emphasis mine):

Because that incident was still under investigation by the state Judicial Commission at the time of this interview, we did not address that issue in what was otherwise a wide-ranging discussion on the campaign and the state’s high court. I sat down with Justice Prosser in mid-October at the offices of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in downtown Milwaukee. ...

Keep in mind these things:

• The Bradley Foundation gave a ton of money to Prosser's campaign
• The Bradley Foundation gives a ton of money to WPRI
• Sykes' current (third) wife works as the Bradley Foundation's Director of Communication

To sum it up, the Bradley Foundation is merely using Sykes as a puppet to produce their propaganda to protect and promote the politicians they have purchased.

This is simply how corrupt the right wing has become.

Quotable

Erik Gunn:

The November issue of The Wisconsin Interest has a behind-the-scenes look at Ron Johnson’s successful campaign to unseat Russ Feingold in the U.S. Senate, written by Christian Schneider. WI, edited by Charlie Sykes, is put out by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a free-market think tank and policy mill for the state’s GOP.

See? No one is buying the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's malarkey about them being "non-partisan."

H/T iT

Another Nail In Journalism's Coffin

In today's paper, they have a big article about this real serious study that showed a slight majority of Wisconsinites are opposed to the high speed rail. Of course, the same study also shows that a majority doesn't understand the state's budget either.

But there's a few things that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel omitted from their report on this real serious study.

One of them is that WPRI (Wankers Promoting Republican Idiocy) has been discredited and is not a reliable source of information, especially regarding polling.

Also omitted from the paper's coverage is that despite WPRI laughingly calling themselves bipartisan, they are anything but.

Consider the fact that WPRI sent out their crack(ed) columnist Christian Schneider to be embedded in the Ron Johnson campaign. In a series of articles that Schneider is writing about this is news free, but mostly consists of the gist that "Ron Johnson is a damn fool, but boy, oh boy, he's just swell."

Another main point that you would thing a credible news source would want to disclose is that WPRI (edited by Charlie "Mr. Copy and Paste" Sykes, nonetheless) is funded in part by the Bradley Foundation. It just so happens that this neocon money tank is headed up by none other than Michael Grebe, who was also Scott "Train Wreck" Walker's gubernatorial campaign and is now part of his transition team.

In other words, he is the puppet master for both Walker and this organization.

Was there ever any doubt what their results would be on a question regarding high speed rail?

How The WPRI Report Killed The Minimum Mark Up Law

What? Oh, never mind.

H/T Illy-T

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.

The Future Of Journalism Is Doomed!

The world has gone mad. Absolutely, stark raving, completely off its rocker, insane.

An alert reader sent this in:

from Jessica McBride's facebook page....

__________________

Jessica McBride is very happy today because the Chancellor officially approved her indefinite status! (the academic staff equivalent of tenure). This was the final step, and comes after a 7-0 positive vote from the review committee and a positive recommendation from the Dean. Thank you Chancellor Santiago and UWM!!!!! I am one of the ...fortunate people in that I love my job and love working with the students. Celebration time!!!!!

February 5 at 4:03pm

This was further confirmed in a tweet by James Wigderson.

I can't even imagine what would make the committee or Santiago think that this was a good idea.

Perhaps it was her catastrophically poor command of the English language.

Perhaps it was her not so high journalistic ethics standards.

But if I were a betting man, I would have to say that if you consider all the work she's been doing for WPRI lately, I would look for a very large monetary gift from the Bradley Foundation to UWM.

What A Tangled Web They Weave

Ed Garvey has a column in The Cap Times which highlights an unholy alliance between UW and WPRI:

In Wisconsin, St. Norbert’s College polling is used by public radio and public TV. And now we also have the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute/University of Wisconsin-Madison poll -- a “partnership” between right-wing WPRI and our great state university’s political science department. Whoa, Nelly! The institute apparently needed credibility to persuade people to pay attention to the Bradley Foundation poll, so it is easy to figure out its goal in creating this “partnership”: instant credibility. (No one has ever accused WPRI of neutrality on issues of importance to the Bradley Foundation.) In essence the institute rents the good name of the UW.

Garvey details how they did an open records requests and found that, basically, all of the WPRI - UW polls are tainted and only go to push the neoconservative agenda of the Bradley Foundation.

As Garvey and others points out, it throws doubt on anything that this group produces. Garvey et alia have also raised questions about the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel publishing WPRI's reports like they are gospel truth. That is easily explained, since I've already shown the incestuous relationships with the Bradley Foundation's Michael Grebe, Journal Communication's Steve Smith and wannabe governor Scott "It's my turn, dammit" Walker.

And to deepen the ties to Charlie Sykes, who already has been shown to be in the midst of this mess, is the fact that old Chuckles is a member of WPRI's brigade of propagandists.

In summary, WPRI is a front for the Bradley Foundation. The Bradley Foundation and WPRI, lacking credibility on their own, are using UW as their beard. And as for Sykes and Walker, they each of an arm of the Bradley Foundation so far up their posteriors, their resembles to Mortimer Snerd is more than coincidental.

In other words, you can't believe a word from the lot of them.

ADDENDUM: As Xoff points out in the comments, OWN was the first one to break the story of their skullduggery.

Cross posted at Cog Dis.

Would An Organized Political Party Act Like This?

Nah. But that doesn't stop the RPW and their apologists.

Chris Schneider, the erstwhile Dennis York, blogging over at the WPRI Think Tank Command Central gets to take the official snark shot at Jeff Wood. It's replete with "joint committee" and Big Lebowski jokes and all those other compassionate, sympathetic bromides that the WPRI scribblers maintain are the hallmarks of Conservative action. One wonders what "policy" Schneider was researching when he wrote this attack.

Lest we forget, it wasn't so very long ago that Jeff Wood was one of the RPW's shining stars, tasked with being the saddle-pal of Crazy Frank as they ramrodded the ill-fated TABOR Bill to its quick and certain demise.

Now that Wood has turned his back on the "leadership" of RPW, his former groupies are only too happy to pile on him while he's down. Remember this post for the next time Charlie tries to convince us that conservatives are, somehow, travellers of a higher road. The next time Belling or Wagner start bitching that Liberals are mean you can point them in this direction.

Jeff Wood will pay for his transgressions. He will pay in time and money and honor. If he's smart he'll come out stronger and better. If he's smart he'll ignore the piffle falling off WPRI and their ilk. But then, that's just good policy any day.

MJS Does FOX

FOX News likes to pretend that they are fair and balanced. They maintain this facade even though everyone knows it to be a joke.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is stealing a page from FOX's playbook.

In today's Regional Briefs, the have the following blurb:

Policy Research Institute offers alerts

Thiensville - The Thiensville-based Wisconsin Policy Research Institute is offering a new feature through its Web site that provides notification electronically when a new report or commentary from the institute becomes available.

For details, see www.wpri.org.

The nonprofit institute was established in 1987 to study public policy issues affecting Wisconsin.

Funny thing is, the supposedly liberal-leaning MJS is giving free publicity to a conservative think tank, but I don't recall a single mention of One Wisconsin Now, nor of that fine group when they started up their WMC Watch.

Just remember this, gentle reader: You can't always trust the local paper. And you can never trust those that label it as liberal.

The Amazing McIlheran

Patrick McIlheran has got to be the most amazing man on earth. I know of no other person who can drive a car, brush his teeth, type out a column, tie his shoes, or do anything else for that matter, and all the while have his eyes clenched tightly shut, his fingers implanted deeply into his ears, and screaming, "La, la, la, la, la, la..." at the top of his lungs.

At least that what I think he must be doing in order to go through life totally oblivious to the facts in front of him.

Another fine example will be disgracing the Crossroads section of Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In this article he drags out the old, tired bit about school choice again.

McIlheran actually starts out well, pointing out how parents have a right to make choices for their children. I fully concur. A parent does have the right to make decisions for their child. The parent should be able to choose what the child will eat, what the child will wear, which doctor will treat the child, and so forth. This is as long as the child is not put in harm's way of course.

But then McIlheran goes off course and into his own plane of reality again. He states that:

One premise of Milwaukee's school choice program is that parents tend to choose - not always, but often enough - academically superior schools if they have a chance.

He goes on to say that "research" shows that school choice will be shown to be academically better. All that has been debunked so much, I won't bother with it here.

But according to a study released last October-a study done by WPRI nonetheless, a major proponent for school choice-shows reality a bit differently than the one that McIlheran perceives. Said study shows that some 90 percent of parents who put their children into school choice even bother looking at which schools are strongest academically. They instead put their focus on tangents that are more important to them. These could range anywhere from musical programming to religious orientation to geographical location.

Even strong advocates for school choice, like Dr. Howard Fuller, were forced to take a few steps back, at least until WPRI issued a "corrective."

So even though his own side is saying that school choice may not be cracking up to what they had hoped it to be, McIlheran still goes blithely along, arguing lost arguments.

Next, I'm sure he'll be telling us how everything is going splendidly in Iraq.