The Media Yawns

By Jeff Simpson

Recent memory shows us that former Dem Party Spokesman Graeme Zielinski compared the size of Governor Walker's legal team(much much bigger) during the John Doe Investigation to that of Jeffrey Dahmer's legal team...suggesting that while he was never charged, Walker paid a pretty penny to make sure he was never charged. The analogy was bad, the fake outrage was worse!

The mainstream media jumped on the story in pure outrage and horror, ignoring the fact that numerous politicians have used the Jeffrey Dahmer comparison to collective yawns from the media.

In the never ending quest to prove to the republican party that they are not the "liberal media" they blatantly attacked someone on the left in a huge bit of fake outrage and even carried it on, until Mike Tate unfortunately gave into the pressure and relieved Graeme of his duties.   


The same media outrage never seems to apply though to Bradley Schneider.   Schneider is a "writer"(term used loosely for the Bradley Foundations PR piece - WPRI.   Unfortunately for the people of Wisconsin, WPRI seems to get unlimited column space in our local newspapers, and if that is not enough, Schneider even gets his own column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.   

We know that Schneider has never let the truth get in the way of a good, PR piece for the republican party, and neither have his editors.   Schneider has blatantly lied about the numerous things from Wisconsin Democracy campaign to the smearing of Mark Pocan and never once been even remotely stopped by an editor.   As Bruce Murphy points out:

In the old days the Journal Sentinel would never have had a columnist who wasn’t a former journalist. Nor would its editors have signed off on a column like Schneider’s without fixing the misstatements of facts. The paper seems willing to pay any price to show its friendliness to conservative activists.

 Schneider is up to his dirty unethical tricks again.  This time he compares Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett toa psychotic narcissist character on Televisions "the Walking Dead". 

On the television show "The Walking Dead," the small zombie-resistant town of Woodbury is ruled by "The Governor," a tyrant who delivers orders to shoot any resident who escapes from the town walls. (Aside from being a fan of residency requirements, The Governor wears an eye patch and keeps severed zombie heads in fish tanks in his house — which means he and Barrett share only one of these three traits.)

 Apparently the Mayor of Milwaukee wanting his Milwaukee public employees to reside in the city that they serve in, is equal too shooting anyone who escapes from the city walls? 

That makes the Mayor equal to "the Governor from "the Walking Dead"!

Unfortunately there are  crickets from anyone who feels he goes to far.

Are Bad analogies and virtual lines in the sand are only enforced on one party in this state or has Schneider proven he is a big enough hack that no one takes him seriously anymore?   

I guess Christian Schneider has a free pass to do or smear whoever he wants, all in the name of the Bradley Foundation and the Wisconsin republican party!

 

IOOKIARDI: The Dahmer Edition

As the gentle reader is fully aware, Graeme Zielinski was demoted from his position as spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin for tweeting about Scott Walker's legal defense team versus that of Jeffrey Dahmer.

The Teapublicans were howling for his head, as were a number of the Democrats as well.

But it is turning out to be a matter of It's Only OK If A Republican Does It.

As Jeff Simpson wrote earlier, former Senator Bob Kasten accused Russ Feingold of being a Dahmer sympathizer.

Before that, I wrote about how Christian Schneider and even Dear Leader Scott Walker did the old Dahmer comparisons.

As it turns out, Schneider had a real attraction to writing about Dahmer.

For those hat might not be aware of some of the wonkiness of the Cheddarsphere, Schneider use to blog under the pen name of Dennis York.

It's Schneider's work under the York pseudonym that really shows Schneider's odd attraction to Dahmer.

He used Dahmer's name in not just one, not just two and not just three, but at least four different posts.

It is the fourth post that shows the demented nature of Schneider's mind:

Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager’s comical attempt to personally prosecute North Woods Shooter Chai Vang has sparked more ideas for character rehabilitation for the AG. It has been announced that Lautenschlager will re-open the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial later this month. Lautenschlager also has plans to exhume the skeleton of Jeffery Dahmer to collect on some old parking tickets.

To refresh the gentle reader's memory, Chai Vang was the Hmong immigrant that killed six deer hunters and attempted to kill two other hunters.

What Schneider finds so comical about the Attorney General taking a mass murderer to trial for his crimes isn't clear, but then again, most of the things that Teapublicans do simply doesn't make sense.

The question that still remains is whether Charlie Sykes, who just can't stop attacking Zielinksi even after he's gone, will hold Schneider to the same high standards, or is he just another hypocritical Megatroll?  My guess is don't expect Sykes to be holding Schneider accountable for anything.  That would require integrity that neither Sykes nor Schneider possess.

Dahmer, Dahmer Everywhere!

Thanks to Uppity Wisconsin where we found out that Scott Walker himself used a Jeffrey Dahmer comparison in politics. 

"The key is, we feel that in particular you are hiding behind these issues that are legitimate issues, but do not necessarily make you a legitimate candidate, any more than in the city of Milwaukee, if Jeffrey Dahmer were to stand up and talk about family values, he’s not a legitimate candidate."

For the lazy press who did not use google, we can also be reminded that Republican Senator Bob Kasten, running against an upstart candidate named Russ Feingold,  actually blamed Feingold for Dahmer!  

The 50-year-old Mr. Kasten, who has championed supply-side economics, is on the attack with a bus tour and television advertisements accusing Mr. Feingold of promoting radical plans to tax the middle class and coddle criminals. Many Grains of Salt
In a televised debate last Friday night, Mr. Kasten associated Mr. Feingold's vote in the State Senate against a no-parole bill, which was enacted, with last week's early release of Gerald M. Turner, a local convict who killed a 9-year-old girl 19 years ago. Then, over the weekend, Kasten volunteers called voters to suggest that Mr. Feingold had voted against preventing serial killers like Jeffrey L. Dahmer from receiving parole releases.

 I guess what got Charlie Sykes gander up, was that he felt that republicans had a monopoly on the Dahmer comparisons and did not like Graeme treading in their territory.  


 



I also have listed below, links to articles who, for context, included either of the above mentions in their story about Graeme.   

GRAEME

By Jeff Simpson

I really tried to not get involved in the Graeme Zelinski twitter Battle, I really really did.  However, the self righteousness of the democrats and dripping hypocrisy of the right wing, along with the cowering to the right wing pressure meant that Graeme Zelinski lost his position today.

It was the wrong move, done by a party notorious for making wrong moves, and everyone in Wisconsin will suffer for the consequences.

Graeme posted a tweet comparing the Jeffrey Dahmer legal bills to the Scott Walker legal defense fund spending upwards of $500,000 to skirt charges.   Well the corporate media, lazy as ever, turned the story onto Graeme and not the fact that "son of a preacher man" is the ONLY governor in the US with a legal defense fund.  

It is beyond the pale to compare anyone and anything to Jeffrey Dahmer so Zieleinski had to go because the right wingers said so.  Thank Goodness, no one on the right ever said or did anyting stupid.


*  It is not like Robin Vos compared recall elections to having cancer right?    As a cancer survivor, that would offend me and a few million people.  If he did that there is no way the republicans would reward him with the speaker position right?

*  If Roger Rivard had ever said that "some girls rape easy" regarding a story about a 14 year old girl who had been raped, there is no way that the republicans would have supported him and cried when he lost right? 

*  Its not like radio hate sqwuaker Charlie Sykes has never libeled someone on the air right? If he had then there is no way he would be rewarded by JSONLINE with his own website!

* It is not like Graeme is  local blogger,  who advocated shooting volunteers who supported the recall effort. 

*  Its not like he is a republican senator who wants to get rid of a national holiday that many African Americans in the United States celebrate 

* It is not like he is a republican senator who went on a childish democrat name calling rant and people still pretend to take him seriously. 

*  It is not like he is a "non-partisan" independent Supreme Court Justice who sat front row and cheered said Senator's childish extreme partisan rant. 

* It is not like he seriously considered adding agent provocateurs to the protest, then refused to answer questions from the local police chief about it.   I took my 4 year old daughter and 7 year old son, to the protests, if our Governor had said that, the press would have skewered him with questions right?

Finally, I get it, any comparison to Jeffrey Dahmer should be the end of your political career.  There is no way the republicans would ever forgive this sin, so the democrats shouldn't either.

I actually agree with Robert Mentzer that Graeme has a checkered history, with much to answer for, BUT i do not agree that this is a fireable offense.  

It is too bad we allowed the right wing noise machine to set Democratic policy.