Glenn Grothman - Comedy Gold

By Jeff Simpson

"Our country is not going to survive if we continue this war on men," he told a tea party rally in 2010.

In the Bizarro world, where we have elected a serial adulterer and reality star as President, I recently liked a tweet by Brian Fraley and George Will is telling people to vote against The Donald in the upcoming elections.

While I have been keeping an eye out for locusts, I came across a video and am now certain the end is near. 

Glenn Grothman signing a letter approving civility in politics.

You just can not make this stuff up.  When Grothman loses to Dan Kohl in November he can take his stand up on the road. 

If you dont know who Glenn Grothman is, lets take a quick look.

No word on if he will now end his war on Kwanzaa! 

The Crazy Is Concentrated!

 

By Jeff Simpson

H/T Dan Bice for today's entrance into right wing crazy world!

To secede or not to secede.
That will be the question for Wisconsin Republicans at next month's convention.
Earlier this month, the party's Resolutions Committee voted in favor of a proposal that says the state party "supports legislation that upholds Wisconsin's right, under extreme circumstances, to secede."
A version of the so-called "state sovereignty" resolution was first OK'd last month by one of the state GOP's eight regional caucuses as an assertion of the state's 10th Amendment rights. The measure also calls for ending all mandates that go "beyond the scope of the constitutionally delegated powers of the federal government."
Top Republican officials hoped to kill the fringe proposal during a meeting of the resolutions panel at the Hyatt Hotel in Milwaukee on April 5. Instead, the committee made a few edits to the resolution and adopted it on a split vote.
Now, the matter will go for final approval to the delegates attending the state Republican Party's convention in Milwaukee on May 2-4.

From Facebook(in regards to this):

Post by Wisconsin Tea Party.

Political Organization · 2,309 Likes

The Wisconsin TEA Party is making big strides within the Republican Party of WI. Keep it up, Patriots!

While the Wisconsin "tea party" celebrates, Scott Walker runs from them:

Gov. Scott Walker, the leader of the state party, distanced himself from the resolution last week.
"I don't think that one aligns with where most Republican officials are in the state of Wisconsin — certainly not with me," Walker said at a press event on Friday.

Then Walker, not surprisingly sticks in one last dig -

 The governor said Republicans and Democrats have both had their share of unconventional resolutions over the years.

Between this and the recent intra party attacks on the few remaining reasonable moderates left in the republican party, the Bradely gopher boys are out in force trying to minimize the incredible damage they have done.


 

Before Mike Tate poses for holy pictures some reporter should ask him to name a @wisdem moderate. #plale http://t.co/UP3SKwGKzy
— Brian Fraley (@Dailytakes) April 11, 2014

Getting lectured by @WisDems on moderates is a joke. Remind us all again how your Senate Minority Leader got to Madison?#wipolitics #wi06
— Kevin Binversie (@kevinbinversie) April 12, 2014          

So here is my question to our loyal readers:

Tell me who in the Dem party is NOT a moderate and WHY.  Tell me where in the Dem party a resolution has been voted on that compares to states secession.  

I have brought this up before, pointing out the damage that the false equivalency does to our state.

If you truly think there is  equivalency, I want to see some examples*!

*Examples have to be within the last four years.   

   

Of Charlie Sykes, Right Wisconsin and Walkergate

I have often opined that journalism is a dead - or at least dying - trade.  All too often, it seems like it is nothing more than a regurgitation of political press releases without any questioning or investigation to the veracity of the statements being made.

Dominique Paul Noth, an old school journalist, wrote an eloquent article in which he also laments the changes that have happened in journalism, although he admits it wasn't always so great either back in the day.

While it would well be worth the gentle reader to take a few minutes to read Noth's poignant observations on journalism as a whole, there is a section that I would draw the reader's attention to which outlines what we all know but few are willing to say outright - that the corporate media is in bed with the political operation of Scott Walker and his dark money supporters:

Many readers now wonder aloud why parent company Journal Communications continues to
damages its reputation of journalistic integrity by turning morning TMJ Radio over to the right-wing blathering of Charlie Sykes. But that was a ratings decision, not a news one. The justification remains that Sykes, like Rush Limbaugh, describes himself as an entertainer not a journalist. (Of course, he wants his opinions revered as hard commentary and he comes from a journalist background. In fact, I worked in the Journal newsroom when he was a reporter there, haranguing veterans with his ideas, which they found amusing or just quietly rolled their eyes. The general opinion was that he was likeable but not believable, and his father, the late journalist Jay Sykes, was more respected. So no wonder Charles moved on to pastures that would put him on a higher pedestal.)

Sykes’ ego has now led to a larger error. His Right Wisconsin, a website requiring paid subscription and full of his musings and those of others who claim journalistic credentials, including several right-wing bloggers JS has hired, was started by him to spread his journalism credentials and is actually owned by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Journal Communications, moving from mere employer of an entertainer to conspirator in right-wing journalistic thematics. That has destroyed the JS reputation for objectivity especially right now, as Walker falls into deeper disrepute through his own behavior as county executive.

Just ask Bice himself. In a web chat on jsonline Feb. 26, he was asked to comment on whether Right Wisconsin was an arm of Walker’s political machine, given that its editor, Brian Fraley, has been revealed as email contact in the recent release of John Doe missives. Chatted Bice:

“If you want to understand how closely tied Right Wisconsin is to the Walker team, do this: Go to the email records and do a search for the word Fraley, as in RW managing editor Brian Fraley, who worked with Kelly Rindfleisch back in the legislative caucus days. Then note that Fraley is involved in the email exchange that just led Gov. Walker -- apparently -- to fire DOT legal counsel John Schulze. Then turn on your radio and listen to Charlie Sykes argue against the Schulze's firing. It's a small and deeply intertwined world.”

Part of that deep intertwine is JS ownership of this Right Wisconsin so closely tied to Walker’s camp and Sykes’s disgust when Walker backs away from supporting his own gang.

As of this writing, Bice as columnist has suggested but not flat out said that Walker knew of the secret email network and router set up inside his county exec office. Meanwhile Sykes pretends it’s all old news though Walker’s pettiness in these emails destroys his Eagle Scout image and explains why Republican and Democratic prosecutors and judges continue to investigate him.

Any journalist can smell that Walker was deeply involved but there is a legal concern – and Walker has a deep bench of high-priced lawyers – about what you can say in print. After all, there wasn’t enough back then to charge Walker with corruption, just hints that good lawyers could try to strangle in court action.

As I spelled out to friends who asked: “There is a legal reason that Walker dodges his obvious knowledge and even media reporters who demand he answers. Consider the consequences if he does admit publicly what the emails of others reveal. It would confirm his role in an illegal coordination between campaign and county workers on taxpayer time. That opens him up to criminal action, in effect reopening the first John Doe while he and supporters are scrambling to delay the second John Doe until after the election.”

So while I understand the caution of journalists, I must point out that aggressive reform-minded newspapers – unlike JS -- would say aloud that Walker knew despite the legal implications. They have lawyers, too, and the First Amendment to protect them when they draw obvious conclusions. It’s not a matter of opposing or supporting Walker, it’s just going where the evidence leads good journalists.

For now, Bice in his column can hint, but he won’t say. Maybe that’s unusual caution in practice. But maybe, now that his owners have shown their real stripes, he has little choice.

There is not much that I or anyone else could add to this. But I would point out that the intertwining to which Noth speaks is even deeper than he reported. While it is true that the Journal Sentinel owns the website, it is funded - at least in part - by the Koch-funded Wisconsin Club for Growth.

Thus Sykes and Fraley have forsook all pretenses of being entertainers or journalists.  They are simply marionettes controlled by their corporate puppet masters.

Walkergate 2: Charlie Doe

Readers of Cog Dis already know that there is a second John Doe investigation going on.  They also know that this Son of Doe is looking into the dark money of groups like the Koch Brothers and the Bradley Foundation and their front groups such as Wisconsin Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity.

The gentle reader also knows how these dark money groups would use their front groups to help hide the donors to such groups through complex money laundering schemes.  They would then use said money to help advance their agendas through the use of bogus studies and reports, the propagandizing of said studies and reports and through more direct actions in supporting bought and paid for candidates.

But in all the reporting so far, what has not been touched are the 800 pound squawking gorillas in the room - Journal Communications, Charlie Sykes and White Right Wisconsin.

White Wisconsin is the result of the unchecked collaboration and collusion between the dark money groups, the corporate media and WISGOP.  It is a website that is hosted by Journal Broadcast Group and sponsored by the Wisconsin Club for Growth and "powered" by Charlie Sykes.  It offers a free platform for politicians, political operatives and propagandists to spew their vitriol in an effort to sway low information voters into voting against their own best interest.

To add to it, Journal Broadcast Group also allows Sykes to use the airwaves of WTMJ-AM to continue to spew their propaganda, continue the lies and most significantly, give politicians like Scott Walker free air time to do their campaigning.

Let me re-emphasize this.

White Wisconsin is an aggregate website paid for by Wisconsin Club for Growth, a Koch Brothers front group.  The website is hosted by Journal Broadcast Group, which includes WTMJ-AM, the home of Charlie Sykes, who is the "power" behind the website.  The goal of the website is to promote the Teapublican agenda.  And the most ironic part is that the sheeple that actually believe their noise has to pay for it.  Presumably, the bulk of this money is going right back to the Koch group to continue their illegal collaborations with political campaigns.

But as will all things Doe, there's more.  There's always more.

Besides the unusual business relationship between what is supposed to be a neutral, respected news source and a political action group, it turns out that the players involved are no strangers to seamier side of things.

Sykes often gives free air time to Scott Walker and other Republicans.  So much so that their license was legally challenged with the FCC.  In fact, Sykes was such the go to guy for the Teapublicans that he was mention in the criminal charges against Darlene Wink stemming from the original Walkergate investigations.

As Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express pointed out, Sykes is also very heavily involved with the Bradley Foundation-funded Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI).  WPRI is one of those right wing front groups that spews out bogus studies that just so happen to support the agenda of the Bradley Foundation and its other benefactors.  To further his ties to the Bradley Foundation, Sykes' current wife, his third one, is Janet Reardon, aka Liz Woodhouse, who is the Director of Communications at the Bradley Foundation.

It's understandable why Sykes is so nervous about the Son of Doe investigation.  Even if he is not implicated himself, it would still have a great impact on the level of financial comfort and lifestyle he is accustomed to.  IF he wasn't incarcerated, he'd might have to still go out and do manual work for the first time in his life.

Sykes' right hand man at White Wisconsin is Brian Fraley.  Fraley comes to White Wisconsin via the MacIver Institute, where he was the Director of Communication.  And yes, the MacIver Institute is also funded by the Bradley Foundation.  But as with Sykes, the ties go deeper for Fraley.

Before going to the MacIver Institute, Fraley worked directly for ALEC.  And just like Sykes, Fraley also got a mention in the original Walkergate proceedings.  However, instead of being named in Wink's complaint, Fraley got his dubious honor in the charges against Kelly Rindfleisch.  In this instance, we learn that Fraley was part of the original caucus scandal from a decade ago:

One would have thought that after getting tied up in the caucus scandals, Fraley would have wanted to avoid even the perception of impropriety.  One would apparently have been wrong.

The third person, Collin Roth, came to White Wisconsin by way of Media Trackers, which receives the bulk of its funding from American Majority, yet another right wing money laundering machine.  Roth's role is a glorified gopher and research assistant.  How good of a researcher he is is questionable, since he willingly signed on with people like Sykes and Fraley.

Due to the secret nature of John Doe investigations, we cannot know if Sykes, Fraley or White Wisconsin would be part of the investigation going on or if it is part of a different investigation.  Regardless of which investigation they are under, or if they aren't under investigation yet, it is worthwhile to remember that they are nothing more than the sockpuppets for the right wing front groups and anything they say or write should be taken for nothing more than propaganda.

Cyber Attack To Promote Walker's Book Traced to Billionaire's Astroturf Organization

By Jeff Simpson

Head on to Amazon and check the reviews and read the book if you want.  We all know there is "no there, there.  

However if you do need a good read  - Check out Unintimidated!