Right Wing Faux Outrage - The Jeff Simpson Edition

On Sunday, my colleague, Jeff Simpson, wrote a post at his site on Purple Wisconsin, a collection of bloggers and paid right wing propagandists hosted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  Simpson's post, which he replicated here, was about how Jim Bender, the face of the education profiteering group, School Choice Wisconsin, had sent out open record requests asking for personal information on all the kids in over 30 different school districts.

In his post, Simpson expressed his concern about not only what Bender's intentions were, but also the precedent he was setting.  Simpson feared that sex predators, stalkers and angry ex-spouses could follow this routine and expose the children to harm.

Simpson was hardly the only person to express these concerns.

However, Simpson's post at Purple Wisconsin was enough to send Bender on a bender.  Bender went whining and crying to Ernst-Ulrich Franzen, a member of the paper's editorial board, complaining that Simpson compared him to a pedophile.  Even though Simpson went to great pains to do just the opposite, Franzen jumped on the chance to stifle the truth and took down the blog site.

On Monday, squawk show host and adulterer Charlie Sykes went on a rampage against Simpson.  With the sound of his spittle hitting the microphone, Sykes said that Simpson lived in a "fever swamp" and called him "demented," "sick," and "a liar."

Sykes went on to say how MJS was wrong for ever giving Simpson their format to use and that he should be banned from the site.  The real kicker was when Sykes mewled that if a conservative had done this, they would be banned from writing there ever again.

Sykes' tirade does show that he is a damn slow learner, since he's already been sued for libel before.  (Ironically, the only reason that Sykes is still on the air is because of the unions he loves to bash on a daily basis.)

Sykes also shows what a bloody hypocrite he is, since he has willingly and freely admitted that he makes crap up on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, Franzen and his boss, David Haynes, pandered to the faux outrage from the right wing nuts and have taken Simpson's blog down entirely.

This only goes to show that they are as big hypocrites as Sykes is.

I would remind the gentle reader of the time that Christian Schneider ran with the fabricated story of how Kyle Woods, a gay Republican operative, was supposedly beaten up by the partner of US Representative Mark Pocan.  When it was revealed that Schneider was not telling the truth, the paper did not ban him as Sykes asserted would happen, but promoted him to being one of their paid columnists.

It should also be noted that Sykes himself continues to have Schneider, as well as Brian Sikma, who also lied about the Woods story, as regular guests on his radio and TV shows as well as contributors to his website, Right Wisconsin (funded by Wisconsin Club for Growth).

Heh, a liar hosting liars, yet we're supposed to be upset about a guy who actually tells the truth.

In summary, we have further confirmation that Sykes is a bloviating, pompous ass who is a liar and a hypocrite.  It is little wonder he needs to have the financial support of his corporate masters to still have even the illusion of relevance.

We also have further confirmation that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and all of Journal Broadcasting is nothing more than a right wing propaganda machine that isn't as interested in telling the truth as they are with squashing dissent.  It is not surprising that their circulation numbers have dropped so low that they needed to sell out to out of state interests before they went belly up.

If you somehow still subscribe to this tabloid and haven't cancelled your subscription yet, you should seriously ask yourself why you haven't done so already.

On a closing note to Jeff, congratulations on kicking the hornets nest.  This kind of uproar shows that you hit close to home.  But you haven't truly made the big time until you get nominated to Sykes' Deep Tunnel Award.