Monday, July 6, 2009

The Big Gotchas That Weren't

Last Thursday, Owen Robinson reported that bombastic radio host Mark Belling "broke" a story showing that the state's takeover of Milwaukee County's Income Maintenance program was purely political, and that the state and the local newspaper were in cahoots to make Walker look as bad as possible.

The basis for their argument was a series of emails between the state's Department of Human Services and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Steve Schultze.

For one to believe that this was indeed an act of political skulduggery, one would have to first ignore a few major facts.

One is that in the emails that Belling and Robinson provide, on the fifth page, one of the state staffers noted that Walker was given advanced noticed of the state's plans to announce the state takeover five days in advance. It would not take a great leap of logic to guess that it was Schultze that ran to Walker with the story. It could be that he wanted to just get Walker's side of the story, or it could be a little bit more. I have documented more than enough times about the way the local daily paper tends to treat Walker with kid gloves, if not outright hero worship.

Secondly, one would have to ignore the fact that Walker has been purposely short-staffing the call center, in an effort to force it to fail so that he could privatize it. His goal wasn't to save tax payers any money, since the cost would have been the same. His goal was to curry political (and probably financial) favor with the local business groups. By short-staffing the call center, the county's performance was not up to state or federal regulations, and was putting both the state and the county at risk for heavy fines from the federal government. Given today's political climate, why would a supposedly responsible elected official continuously put funding revenues at risk?

Thirdly, to believe Belling's and Robinson's conspiracy theory, one would have to completely ignore the class action lawsuit that had been filed against the state and the county, due to the county's inability to perform adequately. It is ludicrous and the height of desperation to try to argue the state set out to sue itself, risking tens of millions of dollars for a cheap political point.

Almost as farfetched was a hit piece by Patrick McIlheran, in which he tried to tell us that the State was not quite ready for the next phase of the takeover which occurred last week. He based this on the fact that the state didn't notify the media of what number to call for services. However, a quick phone call last week to the county's old number resulted in a phone message with a whole list of new numbers to call, depending on what service the caller was looking for.

Imagine that. People would have to call the call center to get the information. This was apparently more than McIlheran's journalistic ability is capable of handling. Not only that, but people were still getting service at the Coggs Building as well, so that argument is rather moot.

And as for PaddyMac's argument defending Walker's malfeasance:
None of this is, in the end, about whether poor people should get food stamps in the first place. They're entitled; that's long since settled. Even penny-pinching Scott Walker was simply fiddling simply with how to most economically use what taxpayers provide to serve the hungry. The state takeover scotched any such reform attempts.
I would simply refer the reader to my comments above about Walker's privatization and to this previous post that would more than adequately demonstrate the fallacy of such a preposterous argument. But then again, how could we expect anything else from McIlheran?

4 comments:

  1. Anyone capable of thinking for themself learned long ago that jounalism and integrity don't belong in the same sentence anymore. Why is the printed news a dying media? Because on the web you have the instant ability to research the subject and glean the facts, something the JS hasn't figured out how to do. They are a one trick pony. If a single source tells them anything it must be true.
    Belling and Sykes are fear mongers. They live off of the fear of their listeners who blindly trust them to tell the truth without understanding that talk show hosts are entertainers whose radio station gets paid by the show's sponsers for every share of the listening audience they gain, in turn keeping Belling and Sykes on the air. The more fear they can whip up among their listening audience the more they can hope that these same listeners run to friends, neighbors and family screaming "the sky is falling" creating more fear and panic and the more sponsers interested in getting their product on that station's air time and the more money Belling and Sykes make.
    'Paddy Mac" ( I like that...a lot) needs to learn how to spell research or go to the Enquirer. His upinion is so baseless and uninformed it's akin to "3 Headed Alien Baby Born to Bigfoot's Daughter in Billinhs,Montana Hospital". The problem with all 3 of them is they think so highly of themselves (and think we shoukd too) but then this is Wisconsin home to Joe McCarthy and history just keeps repeating itself.

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  2. It is pretty base to reduce Belling and Sykes as nothing more than "fear mongers". They report on actual issues that pertain to our community. The fact that they are negative reflects the times. Look around you. Is Milwaukee on an upward trend? Do our public officials really care about this city?

    I see areas going to seed, treasures that are being lost, a total lack of job creation or innovation, taxes and fees that are through the roof. Heck, a 21 year old student was MURDERED in Riverwest in cold blood and that is just a little blurb, not much of a big deal. Milwaukee is going down big time and much of it is the "leaders" fault. The fact that Belling and Sykes provide running commentary on this disaster doesn't make them fear mongers.

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  3. Milwaukee is indeed on the upswing, despite the consistent negative drum from the AM radio elite. Crime is down over 2 years ago yet Belling and Sykes continue to offer slanted facts without solutions.

    A lack of job creation is by no means solely a local issue, so I fail to see the relevancy.

    As for innovation, I take it you missed the report of the world class data center proposed in the Menomonee Valley? (http://www.jsonline.com/business/50087127)

    Public officials indeed care more for the city than those who are content to sit on the sidelines and do little else but sling mud.

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  4. It is pretty base to reduce Belling and Sykes as nothing more than "fear mongers". They report on actual issues that pertain to our community. The fact that they are negative reflects the times. Look around you. Is Milwaukee on an upward trend? Do our public officials really care about this city?

    Whallah!

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