White Wisconsin Is On The Air

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that Charlie Sykes is a racist.  His show and his blog is full of examples of his race baiting.

Heck, he's so bigoted that he will only let the "right" conservative black writers

publish articles on his latest endeavor, "White Wisconsin."

But even as inured as we are to Sykes' race baiting and bigotry, he went to new lows last Thursday.

Image courtesy of
One Wisconsin Now

On his show, he was doing his usual race baiting, ranting that poor people might actually get a pittance each month instead of that money going to the poor corporate special interests.  After all, if groups like the Bradley Foundation isn't allowed to get all the money, Sykes and his wife, Janet Riordan - who is the director of communications for Bradley Foundation - won't get their hundreds of thousands of dollars for being good little propagandists.

But I digress. 

On his show, he played the audio for part of this song, which is called "It's Free Swipe Yo EBT."  I must warn the gentle reader that this is most definitely Not Safe  For Work.

The video is full of exaggerated racial stereotyping of black women that one would expect from racists 

Here is the transcript for the part that Sykes played for the seven people who still listen to him:

“Will the restaurant accept the EBT cards where they have food, Jack In The Box, KFC, Subway, El Pollo Loco, Rally’s Burger, most of the donut shops, and the burger stands, Woody Barbecue, R Fish Market, the beauty supply stores on Crenshaw, and Rainbow on Lebrea, you can buy you some clothes. How much you got on your EBT card?” 

“Girl,  I got enough to get turned up, and I took the kids to the baby-sitter, and which liquor store take the EBT card where you get that Patron last time?” 

“Public Service Announcement. This is where the taxpayer money goes. 

“Come to California. Free welfare, free liquor, free food!”

You can read more about the video here.

Even though it's been days since Sykes played this offensive piece of offal, there has been no series of stories by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as they did to Graeme Zielinski.  There's been no hypocritical, selective outrage from the left or the right about this, as there was with Zielinski.

In fact, the only ones to even mention Sykes' race baiting at the time of this writing is the Wisconsin Democratic Party and Zach Wisniewski at Blogging Blue.

I find this double standard very disappointing.  What is good for the goose is good for the gander.  

And as Zielinski had consequences for his ill advised tweets, Sykes should receiving consequences for this, the latest and most severe of his race baiting stunts.

UPDATE: Sykes says he'll be as racist as he wants to be.  What a classless and hypocritical fool he is.

The Difference Between Fitzwalkerstan And Michigan

Meet Paul Smith, a city councilman from Sterling Heights, Michigan. Please pay attention to the signs that Mr. Smith is holding in this taped interview, courtesy of Crooks & Liars, and keep in mind that he is an elected official:

 For more background, here is an excerpt of a story which appeared in The Detroit News:

In the video posted on YouTube, Smith, a tea party member, displayed signs showing illustrations of the impaled head of the president, then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm with a noose around her neck and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with bullet holes in her face. The signs also included slurs against undocumented immigrants and gay people. [...] Reached Wednesday, Smith said he sees nothing offensive about the images, which he said were "good old First Amendment speech." "Yeah, it's harsh, but it's a harsh world, it's a harsh game," Smith said. "As long as you don't use a real weapon, it's fair game."

Now, we've had our own fair share of these nut job Teapublicans in Fitzwalkerstan, serving in the state legislature, the governor's office and even the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. Hell, we've even sent some of these damned fools to Washington. So, while I find that Mr. Smith's behaviors are of course offensive and regrettable, they aren't shocking. What did amaze me is their reaction to Smith's outrageous behaviors:

The City Council called for Councilman Paul Smith to resign over a video that shows him holding inflammatory signs depicting violence against President Barack Obama and others during a tea party rally in 2009. The council on Wednesday passed a resolution, 6 to 1, with Smith the "no" vote, urging Smith to resign. He is in his first term on the council. Mayor Pro Tem Michael Taylor said he began drafting the resolution after he saw the video. He described the images in the video, which runs 3minutes and 15 seconds, as "incredibly disturbing." "It's beyond unreasonable for anyone to do, and it's obvious we're dealing with someone who is completely irrational," he said.

Mind. Blown.

They're actually holding this goof accountable for his behaviors and taking him to task for them.

If Mr. Smith was in Fitzwalkerstan, he'd be defended by squawk radio and right wing bloggers. Then Media Trackkkers, MacGuyver Institute and Fitzwalkerstan Distorter and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would suck up to him and call him a state hero. He'd end up getting a cushy spot, with a hefty raise, in Scott Walker's administration.

And if anyone were to criticize him or boo him, well, it'd be that person that would be harassed and pilloried for it.

If you don't believe me, look at what happens every time Robin Vos, Glenn Grothman, either Fitzgerald, either Kleefisch or Scott Walker opens their mouth.

Doubling Down On His Double Standards

Last week, Professor Rick Esenberg took it upon himself to try to chastise me for pointing out the story of Walkergate.  He did not get the response he expected.

Instead of leaving well enough alone, he decides to double down on his previous post with another - one which is more verbose, more convoluted and more self-contradictory that his first.

Just trying to follow his leaps of illogic is enough to make one's hair hurt. But to save the reader some hair pain, Professor's Esenberg's post can be pared down to a few talking points:

• Apparently I didn't do what I did, or is it I did what I didn't do? I told you, it's rather confusing.  He also said that he wasn't comparing my saga to Walkergate, and admits he can't, but then proceeds to do so anyway.
• He said we don't know what's behind Walkergate or what they're investigating and because of that -
• He feels it's inappropriate for me, or any other lefty blogger, to "speculate" on the facts.
• And that every time I post on Walkergate, I'm supposed to have a full confessional of what I did and didn't do attached to the post.

I don't need to provide a rebuttal to his first point, since the Professor's self-contradictions are painfully apparent to anyone but him and less than a handful of allies, two of which don't really help his cause at all.

But I would point out to Professor Esenberg, who said that what I was accused of, reading JSonline and some blogs, is no different that posting contents, that there is probably some unfathomable number of authors who could explain the difference between reading a book and actually writing one.

As to the second point, Professor Esenberg wrote:

But here's the thing. I don't know - and he doesn't know - that any of the people that he thinks are being investigated did anything worse. He doesn't know that the Governor did anything at all. When he knows something, then he can crow...

Well, cockadoodle-doo to you, sir.

We already know that William Gardner was investigated, charged and pleaded guilty about illegal campaign contributions.  And as for Tim Russell, apparently Professor Esenberg doesn't believe me or his own eyes.  And does the good Professor really expect to believe that the FBI would be invading homes with battering rams at the ready for leaving a comment on JSOnline.  Nor would they be granting immunity to so many people, including people that would have had absolutely nothing to do with campaigning on county time because they weren't county employees.

And as for Scott Walker, we do know that he, and many of his top people, were doing the same thing that I was accused of., by their own admission.  Ironically, nowhere does Professor Esenberg mention this, much less dedicate a number of blogs of faux outrage towards it.  Maybe I should feel honored.

The third point of Professor Esenberg is that it's just wrong for me, Emily Mills or anyone else to speculate on Walker did or didn't do.

The irony here is that is exactly what Professor Esenberg does throughout his entire post!  What he claims he does know what spurred the investigation into me, but he does not state that the claims have thoroughly discredited - repeatedly even. If one is basing their "knowledge" on a demonstratively false premise, it would seem to me that they don't really know anything.  Also, when you use terms like "must have," "could be" and "seems to me," well, those are indicative of a speculative declaration.

Furthermore, the events of a disciplinary hearing, whether the accused is guilty or innocent, is a private matter and what happens in those are in no way to be discussed publicly, by any party.  I will bend that rule a little by stating that I do not recall Professor Esenberg being there at any time, so he couldn't possibly know anything, by his own reasoning.

Lastly, Professor Esenberg feels that every single time I post about Walkergate, I need to include a full disclaimer on what he thinks happened.  Maybe I should also where a giant sandwich board while I type?

I scoured his site, but there wasn't one post calling on Charlies Sykes to recount how the union saved his job every time he decides to bash the unions.  Nor did I find a post condemning Scott Walker for complaining abut outside money coming in even as he was reaching out for Koch money and not saying a word about it.  And surely, since he feels so strongly about disclosure, he'd expect Michael Gableman to mention his lying commercial whenever he accused a fellow Supreme Court Justice of lying - but alas, I could not find that post either.

So all in all, this is just another post by Professor Esenberg exemplifying a double standard and faux outrage over something that makes them look bad.

Given that, I would offer some free unsolicited advice to the Professor, with the full understanding that there is no obligation that he takes it.  That advice would be that if he doesn't like that I am writing about Walkergate or any of the other examples of misconduct by Scott Walker, don't blame me, blame Walker and his people for their misdeeds.

But I would be ungracious if I did not at least thank the good Professor for being a reader, so thank you, Professor Esenberg.