I first became acquainted with right-wing media in 1992 whilst living south of the Mason Dixon line. The nascent Rush Limbaugh was my drug of choice and, man, was he a hoot. His show on Election Day was particularly Hootacular because, as you may suspect, caller after caller reported they [...]
1. Before performing an act of dubious morality, think "Do I want this to appear on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?"
2. If you are the subject of a controversy that is clearly going to hit the papers, return the reporter's calls. Silence speaks volumes -- particularly [...]
When it comes to Jessica McBride, is Ed Flynn the cop who can't stop? That's unclear.
But it is clear that some at UWM view the school's journalism department as a joke as they gave Jessica McBride the nod for the equivalent of tenture.
From the Milwaukee Journal [...]
That would be Charlie Sykes, of course.
My question: Is Charlie Sykes Catholic? Were his parents? Chuck talks a lot about the Church in the political realm but doesn't really talk about his faith at all. Not that it matters over much, but given Chuck likes to define who is and isn't [...]
It's pretty much conventional wisdom on the right and the left that African-American turnout will plummet in the 2010 Wisconsin gubernatorial election because Obama isn't on the ticket.
I agree with the Chief, contra Wigderson, that if this were to happen it would not be as important as it was [...]
How does one square a) the assertion that Milwaukee is home to massive, election-swaying voter fraud and b) the fact that Scott Walker has consistently won low turnout (and thus easier to sway) elections in Milwaukee County?
* With apologies to Jay Bullock, who's been riffing on this internet tradition of [...]
It takes a law professor to pack as much Obama Derangement Syndrome into 153 words as Rick Esenberg does in his latest opus,"Shame on Obama." The subject of his Ese's ire: Obama not going to Berlin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Shark [...]
WOW! Did Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have a scoop today! Check this out: The Obama Administration wants Barrett to run for governor!
Here's the story:
Tom Barret got a phone call from the president after making national news. Should he expect another call, this time to throw [...]
Charlie Sykes was never a particularly coherent thinker/propagandist -- it's difficult to reconcile being a moralizer with being married three times -- but the cognitive dissonance has been to 11 ever since Obama was elected. Sykes will say on his show he thinks Sarah Palin is over (yet continue to [...]
Patrick McIlheran says the networksrallied around Fox New as it was blocked by the White House!
Only it's not true!
When will Patrick McIlheran run a correction? Or if he starts, does he fear he will never stop?
[...]Because the latest Charlie Sykes blog post makes him seem more brain dead than usual.
He hails a Pew poll that claims:
Regarding health care reform, many of the key provisions remain popular though support for the overall package has slipped. More people now generally oppose the health care reform proposals in Congress [...]
Rightwingers, who had no problem denouncing opponents of the Iraq War as un-American, are outraged that hatebloggers use the term teabagging to describe tea parties, such as the September 19 Milwaukee Tea Party.
Thing is, the term teabagging did not enter the lexicon until (as noted by the illusory [...]
There's a lot to parse in this column about the September 19 Milwaukee teabagging by Patrick "Iraq war opponents are a surrender caucus" McIlheran, and the Brawler hopes to get to it. But he did want to zero in on this claim by McIlheran apropos of the crowd's size:
5,000 to [...]
A while back the Brawler wondered whether Barrett had, or was about to, receive a second phone call from Obama, this time urging him to run for governor. Then comes today's Kind announcement. Has the call come through?
After all, the Obama team has reportedly taken an aggressive role [...]
Patrick "I possess skills"McIlheran will be deploying his knowledge of climate change (i.e. whatever he's read from PowerLine or the Heartland Institute that morning) October 10 at the "Future Wisconsin Conference" at the Days Inn at 11703 W. Bluemound Road. That's per a flyer someone thoughtfully handed me at the sparsely attended [...]
I think Sadly, No! nails it in this shorter version of Ross Douthat's Bush apologia (registration required):
Yeah, OK, so Bush fucked up everything he touched, but at least he had the good sense to scramble around at the very last minute while spending lots of lives and money [...]
I think Sadly, No! nails it in this shorter version of Ross Douthat's Bush apologia (registration required):
Yeah, OK, so Bush fucked up everything he touched, but at least he had the good sense to scramble around at the very last minute while spending lots of lives and money [...]
The Brawler is always deeply amused to see Charlie Sykes, who called Barack Obama a "sniveling, snot-nosed community organizer"* recoil at the "hate" shown by the "left" (which includes everybody from anarchists to Byron Dorgan). The latest case has been some comments by DPW Chairman Mike Tate, whom Sykes refers [...]
The Brawler is always deeply amused to see Charlie Sykes, who called Barack Obama a "sniveling, snot-nosed community organizer"* recoil at the "hate" shown by the "left" (which includes everybody from anarchists to Byron Dorgan). The latest case has been some comments by DPW Chairman Mike Tate, whom Sykes refers [...]
When the Brawler left the lakefront as festivities were beginning on September 19, it looked like the Milwaukee Tea Party had maybe drawn north of a thousand souls*. So you can imagine his surprise when he saw some of the estimates coming in. The Sheriffs Department claiming 8,000 to 10,000 [...]
When the Brawler left the lakefront as festivities were beginning on September 19, it looked like the Milwaukee Tea Party had maybe drawn north of a thousand souls*. So you can imagine his surprise when he saw some of the estimates coming in. The Sheriffs Department claiming 8,000 to 10,000 [...]
How many teabaggers packed into the Milwaukee lakefront yesterday? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says several thousand. As noted yesterday, Dad29 pegs it at at least 3,000 to 5,000. National treasure and insubordinate ex-cop Glenn Frankovis, channeling AFP honcho Mark Block allegedly channeling the Sheriff's Department, puts it [...]
Parks logo seems odd there. What's up with that? (I get that it may be standard issue for the Parks logo to appear on banners for the sponsors of events on county grounds. Still, seems oddly prominent. And obviously it could be a matter of [...]
James T. Harris, possibly saddened that Bill Cosby would have the temerity to take a break from critiques of African-American culture to suggest that maybe, just maybe, race is a factor in the tone and nature of some of the attacks on Obama.
I agree [...]
The full sign reads: "Don't blame me! I voted for the American!" Spotted a bumpersticker with the same snappy legend.
[...]A thoughtful critic of Obama's policies, who no doubt has read every paragraph of HR 3200, makes sure his voice is heard at Saturday's teabagger rally. Remarked a neighboring teabagger: "I like your sign."
[...]Scott Walker speaking at the Teabagger Rally at the lakefront, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
[...]Stopped by the tea bag rally at the lake front, leaving a few minutes before the festivities began.
Quick reactions:
Attendance was respectable for an event of its kind, but by no means huge. I'd put the crowd at about a thousand, possibly north of that (it took up a fraction of the cordoned [...]
Stopped by the tea bag rally at the lake front, leaving a few minutes before the festivities began.
Quick reactions:
Attendance was respectable for an event of its kind, but by no means huge. I'd put the crowd at about a thousand, possibly north of that (it to up a fraction of the cordoned [...]
Charlie Sykes routinely challenges the patriotism of his ideological opponents and loves smearing by association. In this respect he seems to depart somewhat from his father, Jay G. Sykes. Who (assuming the Jay G. Sykes who sired Charlie and this Jay G. Sykes are one and the same) represented [...]
If you read the Obama school speech backwards, it sounds like "My sweet Satan." Thankfully some parents, so concerned that Obama's words could upend years of their kids conservative indoctrination upbringing, will bar their kids from hearing this :
Now I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know [...]
Obama should have owned Greendale, even though it was George W. Bush country. Why? Because the village's existence is a result of the New Deal (as are the Social Security checks received by about a quarter of the people living there) and backlash politics have never touched the South Side. [...]
People who "fret" about Death Panels base their paranoia not on a rightwing disinformation campaign but on a sophisticated reading of the international press.
[...]"Can't imagine why people don't want a bus tax," Patrick McIlheran says in today's blog post.
Which struck the Brawler as funny: Didn't voters approve of a 1-cent sales tax last fall, part of which would go to funding public transit. (Though ultimately it didn't make the budget.)
And indeed [...]
The Brawler's Washington Heights homeboy Tom Barret got a phone call from the president after making national news. Should he expect another call, this time to throw his hat in the ring for governor?
Given that early Obama supporter Doyle and his team aren't particularly high on Barb "Vote Hillary" Lawton [...]
"Great for Wisconsin" declares Owen Robinson as Mercury Marine announces it's staying (at least for now) in Fond Du Lac.
It's a bit more complicated than that, of course, given that MM is staying in Fond Du Lac because it was able to wring considerable concessions out of its [...]
Mercury Marine blinked in its brinkmanship and now -- at least for the near term -- will be staying in Fond Du Lac:
The labor union at Mercury Marine Inc. approved contract concessions aimed at keeping hundreds of jobs at the outboard-engine factory here, instead of sending the work [...]
Patrick "Skills" McIlheeran grasps for a reason to piss upon the grave of Ted Kennedy:
Tired of Ted Kennedy yet? No? Do remember, the Investor’s Business Daily’s editorial page reminds us, that it’s been known since 1992 that Kennedy didn’t merely oppose President Reagan’s confrontation of Soviet evil. He [...]
Patrick "Skills" McIlheeran grasps for a reason to piss upon the grave of Ted Kennedy:
Tired of Ted Kennedy yet? No? Do remember, the Investor’s Business Daily’s editorial page reminds us, that it’s been known since 1992 that Kennedy didn’t merely oppose President Reagan’s confrontation of Soviet evil. He [...]
It seems so, based on this story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Union workers at Mercury Marine Inc. are getting one more chance - probably their last one - to vote on contract concessions aimed at keeping hundreds of jobs at the company's plant in Fond du Lac.
If the proposal [...]
For pity's sake. In yet another defense of waterboarding, Patrick McCafeteriaCatholic McIlerhan says, Heavens to Betsy, torture works:
So reported the Washington Post the other day. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s attitude changed remarkably, the paper reports, “after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation [...]
Here's what House Minority Leader John Boehner had to say on July 31, clearly with no knowledge that teabaggers, incited by talk radio, would be descending upon town halls:
This is a time of anxiety and frustration for the American people, who've watched this year with mounting anger as Democratic-controlled [...]
From Talking Points Memo:
Here's a thought: If you own a major supermarket chain that caters to a great deal of liberal-minded people with money, don't rail against the evils of health care reform in the Wall Street Journal.
Unfortunately, that advice comes a few hours too late for Whole [...]
A Gallup poll shows that more than a third of folks are sympathetic to teabagging demonstrations -- reflecting a hardening of anti-reform sentiment among Republicans and (likely) right-leaning "independents."
In other words, there's little sign that the teabag riots appeal beyond the core audience -- a problem.
Another problem: people, [...]
Wow.
From hatingnotdebating.blogspot.com, about what went down at the Claire McCaskill town hall (in a predominantly white county). I'm suspecting the guy was not a reform supporter"
This is the only video of what actually happened at the event this afternoon. The news only showed the woman being escorted away by'" [...]
Now, the Brawler doesn't listen or really spend much time thinking or writing about Mark Belling. What's the point? He's clearly a brownshirt. Still, the Brawler must admit he was a bit flabbergasted by this Belling rant, as transcribed by Jim Rowen.
Rightie talker Mark Belling devoted the entire first [...]
Last night when the Brawler posted the picture above from the JSOnline, under the catchy headline "They're not going to kill your mother," he had no idea that it would wind up above the fold of the paper edition, occupying the bulk of [...]
The crowd at Rep. Gwen Moore’s health care forum Tuesday at North Division High School was partisan but mostly polite. A woman (left) who didn’t want to be named said reform would limit her mother’s care. Joan Christopherson-Schmidt (right) tried to convince her otherwise. [...]
Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg has sniffed at bloggers whose meager ambition is to "offer entertainment to our side."
As opposed to his blog, which, lately at least, has been a source of entertainment for those with a taste for unintentional comedy on the other side.
Rove is not a genius, or even very clever: He's totally and completely immoral. It doesn't take genius to claim, as Rove ludicrously did last fall, that it was the Democrats in Congress and not George W. Bush who pushed the Iraq War resolution in 2002. It doesn't take brains [...]
Charming. A teabagger outside Obama's town hall today wants illegals to be sent home with a bullet in the head (around :21).
These are the people that Charlie Sykes claims are committing flagrant acts of democracy, that Esenberg claims are making nuanced arguments about the efficacy of government to deliver [...]
Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg, July 11, "Politics as Total War" :
I'd like to think that our common life would be a lot better and our political debates much more productive if we faced each other with a presumption of good faith and respect. I think we'd all be [...]
Rick Esenberg, July 10, 2008:
My second post ("Being serious ...) was prompted by commenters who repeated the slander that "Bush lied and people died." If you believe that, I do think that you are either misinformed or hopelessly partisan; even not serious.
Rick Esenberg, August 5, 2009:
He is, [...]
OK, so it appears the latest manufactured fury talking point from Charlie Sykes is that the White House is trying to round up names of health care reform opponents for who knows what nefarious purposes (actual intent is to get a handle on the bogus talking points floating around [...]
OK, so it appears the latest manufactured fury talking point from Charlie Sykes is that the White House is trying to round up names of health care reform opponents for who knows what nefarious purposes (actual intent is to get a handle on the bogus talking points floating around [...]
Paul Krugman points out that quite a few sick people fall victim to rescission, the retroactive cancelling of health insurance.
From his blog:
Via Yves Smith, an important piece on “rescissions”: cases in which insurance companies retroactively cancel your health coverage.
The industry would have you believe that [...]
WTMJ talker Charlie Sykes once again hailed the howling mob that's been trying to shut down Dem listening sessions. Indeed, while yesterday Sykes tried to distance himself from people who were yelling, today (unless The Brawler missed it) Sykes made no concession to civility. Indeed, Sykes suggested to his benighted [...]
It was 13 years ago Sunday that Charlie Sykes was busted for shooting off illegal fireworks with woman-not-then-his-wife-but-periodic-radio-guest-under-pseudonym-Liz Woodhouse Janet Riordan.
That wasn't disclosed until the following January, after The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Tim Cuprisin had been lying to his listeners about the identity of Woodhouse, er Riordan (and yes, the [...]
Charlie Sykes taking to the airwaves Tuesday to hail teabaggers shutting down congressional listening sessions, including Kagen's in Green Bay and Appleton, as examples of some spontaneous national uprising was utterly predictable. And, as always with Chuck, deeply amusing.
On his show he tried to make the case that it takes [...]
Warning readers of the West Bend Daily News not not pay attention to socialists, Owen Robinson says the true path to health care reform is by (drumroll) unleashing the free market. It's worked for plastic surgery!
His concluding fact-based argument faith-based assertion:
Nobody in America thinks that our health care [...]
You can accuse Charlie Sykes of many things, but you can't accuse him of being burdened by conscience or not having a nose for conspiracy theories gone too far.
So naturally Charlie was an early adopter in opposing the birther conspiracy theory (ie, Obama is not a natural born citizen). The [...]
Or so say those commies at RAND Corp.
From BusinessWeek:
In a first-of-its-kind study, the non-profit Rand Corp linked the rapid growth in U.S. health care costs to job losses and lower output. The study, published online by the journal Health Services Research, gives weight to President Barack [...]
Funny thing is, Charlie Sykes is big on telling his listeners that part of being an American is the ability to tell the government to go to hell ...
Unless, of course, the government comes looking to arrest you in your own house when you haven't done anything.
[...]Betsy McCaughey is best known for writing a factually challenged attack on the Clinton health care plan for the New Republic that's frequently cited as one of the factors that helped kill it (it would have been killed anyway, but whatevs). She's gone on to mount a series of [...]
Now, the Brawler understands that rising unemployment will almost surely cut into Obama's still quite high popularity. So the notion of delaying, nay killing, health care reform and possibly weakening the Prez surely seems appealing for Republicans with an eye toward picking up seats in 2010.
But a real world [...]
The Brawler was deeply amused (though admittedly late in reporting it) that Paul Ryan is portraying Assurant as a potential victim in a reformed health care system.
From his questioning of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee staff director last week:
Ryan: In 2013, let's take Assurant, a large [...]
MeetWilliam Kristol. Charlie Sykes naturally thinks it's a great idea.
Bill Kristol: 100% evil.
[...]Scene from a Germantown tea party, held outside a scrapbooking store, courtesy of the increasingly unhinged Phelony Jones:
Phel's organizing strategy for the right:
But now, the right has emotion and logic on their side. The left, in it's cunning and stop-at-nothing, goal-post moving tactics, [...]
This song, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with Iwo Jima. But this fan-created clip makes you believe it does. I think Brain One would be pleased.
[...]If Rick Esenberg really wants to be seen as a thinker who explores ideas rather than just another guy trying to entertain his side, he really ought to take a long, hard look at this post.
It begins humorously with a spectacular, Fatty Arbuckle-worthy, pratfall:
Patrick Mclheran suggests that, once a [...]
Whoops, wrong tape. Yes, truly the people in the streets of Iran care what John McCain has to say about their struggle.
Some, no doubt, took this as a sign that Obama was afraid to speak truth to power and just wanted to get along.
Not that DC rhetoric has much bearing [...]
Michael Horne thinks Jessica McBride made a mistake when she said she liased with Ed Flynn as an academic, not a journalist. The Brawler tends to agree that her self-destructive streak couldn't help but manifest itself in her statement.
With Jessica McBride describing herself as an "academic" when she fell [...]
The Brawler has long admired Milwaukee Magazine Editor Bruce Murphy's journalism. Indeed, it's ironic that Murphy got his start there under Sykes, given that he has far surpassed his boss in accomplishment.
So, the Brawler was looking forward to seeing what Murphy would say regarding the disclosure that Jessica [...]
Myself, I go with James Carr.
[...]The Brawler noted more than two years ago, in a different context, that Jessica McBride doesn't do apologies. She would later demonstrate that she was capable of launching hysterical attacks and even drop the "I'm married to a lawyer" threat.
Her "statement" on the affair fits [...]
When the Brawler read Jessica McBride's profile of Ed Flynn, it reminded him of something.
Then he remembered what it was: A 14-year-old profile of Paul Bucher. By one Jessica McBride. Headline: "Oswald prosecutor has reputation of being aggressive, hardworking." (Headline for the Milwaukee Magazine piece: The Cop Who Can't [...]
Attention journalism students. As Jessica McBride demonstrates in her profile of Police Chief Ed Flynn forMilwaukee Magazine, write what you know:
Flynn is also a compelling physical presence: tall, iron-haired, fit (he once rode a bicycle 233 miles) and energetic. He has what one observer calls “command bearing.”
Kind of weird [...]
Patrick McIlheran prints, and Charlie Sykes, as ever, retreads, an email from businessman John Radke warning how the Doyleone budget will kill teh jobs in Wisconsin.
Unmentioned: Radke is active in an anti-Doyle Republican front group.
And while Radke hails Indiana's budget surplus, he fails to note [...]
Christian Schneider, resident scholar at "think tank" WPRI, scribbles 674 words packed with dubious history and analysis punctuated by this killer conclusion:
Basically, the GOP has to secretly root for unemployment to stay high for another year, in hopes of regaining control and making fundamental systematic changes that help unemployed [...]
One of the more amusing aspects of the 2006 Wisconsin gubernatorial race was the way Republican shills would hail as "good news" polls that showed Big Jim Doyle ahead of their guy.
From that vantage point, Jim Doyle must be thrilled by a recent Survey USA poll that shows his [...]
The Chief asks an intriguing question: What's the most important year in American cinema in the last 20 years. His friend says 1993. He says 1999.
The Brawler, as the headline suggests, picks a different year. Largely because he still remembers staggering out of the dark theater into daylight [...]
The day after tens of thousands (perhaps 300,000 all told in what could be a generous estimate) of Americans teabagged with total strangers,the right is desperate to portray this as some great mass movement. A sign that, to quote the great Twisted Sister that prompted awful singalongs at at [...]
Charlie Sykes committed a flagrant act of lying at roughly 9:21 on Wednesday when he told his listeners he opposed the Troubled Assets Relief Program. He was prattling on about how GM warranties would be guaranteed by the TARP slush fund and added, "Which I was against."
That, my friends, [...]
Paul Ryan, who happily piled on to the deficit under President Bush, released the House GOP budget today and, befitting the holiday, it was comic gold.
A radical plan to blow up Medicare. A spending freeze to subsidize tax cuts for the rich.Budgeting gimmickry. Budget scoring that [...]
While the listeners of Charlie Sykes fear something called socialism (and a government bailout of a compay isn't really "socialism"), more Americans have more confidence in where things are going than they did months ago.
From a Washington Post poll:
The number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed [...]
Charlie Sykes was very enthusiastic to alert his flock that outoing Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan (whom today Charlie said is going to be the archbishop of New York, an odd gaffe which leads one to wonder whether Charlie really is Catholic) had joined some other church leaders in denouncing [...]
