A Sad Day For Milwaukee and Journalism, As One Of My Favorite Curmugeons Passes Away

 I wasn't close friend of Joel's but we did travel in the same circles and it was always a pleasure to see him! So this is sad news for me, and as I said, Milwaukee and Journalism as well::

'Voice of resistance,' longtime Milwaukee columnist Joel McNally dies at age 80

Janesville Gazette Changes Name to the Paul Ryan Messenger

By Jeff Simpson

Lost in the Magic of the Christmas season, was an apocalyptic op-ed from the Janesville Gazette, which was a jumble of drool over the Boy Wonder child from Janesville - Paul Ryan.  

Politico recently broke a story about how Speaker Ryan was considering retiring at the end of 2018.  As Joel McNally pointed out, the "leaked" retirement story was just a front, to get the national political reporters to talk about what a great guy Paul Ryan (R- Wall St.) is.     

The Janesville Gazette, abandoning all pretense of objectivity, liberality and honesty, took the story - hook, line and sinker.  

Just in time to be buried the day before they reposted - Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Claus (showing us the best of what an editorial is meant to be), the Janesville Gazette posted - Please Don't Go Paul.  

Let's take a look:

Rumors about House Speaker Paul Ryan possibly leaving Congress next year dampened excitement over passage of the nation’s first tax overhaul since the Ronald Reagan era.
Some athletes try to retire at the top of their games, and maybe Ryan is having similar thoughts as he contemplates this major legislative victory.

The majority of people do not like the new tax overhaul bill, as they know it is a huge give-away to the rich and will increase the deficit approximately $1.5 trillion! 

Despite its depth, the report reveals little about Ryan—“friends say he feels like he’s running a daycare center”—that we don’t already know or suspect. The story highlights Ryan’s torn feelings over his job, zooming in on the dysfunction afflicting our nation’s capital.
Small wonder Ryan should want to leave. He’s endured withering, often unfair criticism from both the left and right not to mention a parade of protesters stalking his home in Janesville.
We can hardly blame Ryan for wanting to escape the spotlight and spend more time with his family. For many politicians, “spending more time with family” is code to cover up their real reason for leaving. But Ryan has been sincere in his dedication to his family, notably insisting on coming home during weekends as a condition of accepting the speaker job.

Can we please stop with the Paul Ryan family man myth?  Does he really come home every weekend to "spend time with his family"?  Or is he running around the country on weekends fundraising and trying to sell The Donalds border wall?   

$10,000 a plate is a hefty price for a kid's meal.  

Ryan exhibits a kind of humanity and decency too often missing in politics today. D.C. lost its way long ago, and much of the cynicism directed at Congress is justified, though Ryan pulled off a minor miracle by shepherding several bills through the House this year.

Like the Obamacare repeal bill, which Ryan passed through the House, but would have left millions of Americans without healthcare but was too extreme for the Senate to pass.   It would have also ended the pre-existing condition clause in the ACA, which means it would have killed me(literally).   

The GOP tax bill is by no means a perfect document, and we cannot claim the middle class emerges as a clear winner. But the bill is a genuine attempt to simplify the tax code, placing limits on, for example, deductions for mortgage interest and paid property taxes. The bill also seeks to make American companies more competitive by lowering the corporate tax rate.

"We cannot claim that the middle class is a winner"?  Yet you declare it a major victory?  What do you think Janesville is made up of?  Will the private jet deduction be a big hit in your circulation area? By the way any responsible journalism, would tell us that the US does NOT have the highest corporate tax rate and a corporate tax cut will not spark the economy. 

 Under a Republican-controlled Congress and presidency, the tax overhaul should signal greater legislative victories to come. But in this fractured Congress, many Republicans are greeting the tax bill’s passage with a sigh of relief, not so much the jubilation of conquerors.

You are really calling the GOP "conquerors?  I agree but it is hardly a compliment. 

As anyone familiar with Twitter knows, Congress is operating under unusual circumstances thanks largely to President Trump’s unpredictable leadership. Ryan has fortunately avoided getting into a tweet war with Trump, which might explain why Ryan has been spared from Trump’s infamous 140-character assaults. Nevertheless, working with Trump must be exhausting (in the daycare sense).

Paul Ryan(R-Trump's lackey), has not been attacked by The Donald lately because HE AGREES WITH EVERYTHING THE DONALD DOES.   Why would anyone attack a yes man?  

Through it all, Ryan has refused to debase himself by hurling insults at his critics. He reminds the Beltway of what life used to be like before Twitter, and he’s an example of how a leader should behave.

Let's just pretend incidents like this have never happened:

 Or this:

Or This:

“Right now about 60 percent of the American people get more benefits in dollar value from the federal government than they pay back in taxes,” Ryan said. “So we’re going to a majority of takers versus makers in America and that will be tough to come back from that. They’ll be dependent on the government for their livelihoods [rather] than themselves.”

Or this:

 But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.

• Speech at a 2005 Atlas Society event  

Brit Hume, FOX News: What is your view of Ayn Rand? Are you an Ayn Rand disciple? 
Rep. Paul Ryan: No. I really enjoyed her novels, Atlas Shrugged in particular. It triggered my interest in economics. That's where I got into studying economics. That's why I wanted to study the whole field of economics.
I later in life learned about what her philosophy was, it's called Objectivism. It's something that I completely disagree with. It's an atheistic philosophy. But I think what she's done is she's showed -- she came from communism. She showed how the pitfalls of socialism can hurt the economy, can hurt people, families and individuals and that to me was very compelling novels. Which says freedom, free enterprise, liberty is so much better than totalitarianism and socialism. Those novels, I thought were interesting. But her philosophy, which is different, is something I just don't agree with.

There is a reason why Charles Pierce calls Ryan a "zombie eyed granny starver" and the "Biggest. Fake. Ever." 

Charles Pierce describes perfectly, what the folks at the Janesville Gazette think a true leader is:

 As the deciding votes were cast—recorded in green on the black digital scoreboard suspended above the floor—the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, threw his head back and slammed his hands together. Soon he was engulfed in a sea of dark suits, every Republican lawmaker wanting to slap him on the shoulder and be a part of his moment.

His moment. Thirteen million Americans lose their health care.
 Paul Ryan, threw his head back and slammed his hands together.
His moment. Eighty-percent of the benefits going to the top one-percent.
 Paul Ryan, threw his head back and slammed his hands together.
His moment. Millions of dollars shoved upwards to people who already have billions of dollars. A deficit entering the orbit of Mercury.
 Paul Ryan, threw his head back and slammed his hands together.
His moment.

 

William Rivers Pitt @truthout had a similar disgusted reaction: 

When the president of the United States of America signs this bill into law, he will, among many other things, be signing a check to himself and men like Bob Corker. That check has a great many zeroes to the left of the decimal. These are the people the Evangelicals embrace as "theirs," though their pockets will be picked and their futures plundered, once again.

They cheered. It would be bad enough if they did this with their heads hung low in shame, knowing as we all know that this is only happening because the big GOP donors demanded the key to the Treasury and refused to donate again until they got it. We're sorry, they could (but would never) say, but they made us do it. We had to, we're sorry.  

 Instead, they cheered.  They actually cheered.

But Wait there is more:

 It’s not fair to blame Ryan for the antics of a president with little self-control.Congress would lose a great deal—namely integrity—if Ryan were to leave. Paul, please don’t go.

Yes if you were to ignore the career politicians complete record and just be mesmerized the one day a year he graces the Gazette with an interview, then you would definitely think that Paul Ryan was a man of integrity.   

However if you look at his record, listen to his words and as the late great Maya Angelou told us - "When someone tells you who they are. Believe them.".   Then you would know that there is not now, nor has there ever been an ounce of integrity coursing through Paul Ryan's body. 

Please Please Please Paul Go AWAY...and do not let the door hit you on your way out!  

Biggest. Fake. Ever.   

Edit Note:  There are two people running to dethrone Paul Ryan and actually for the first time allow the people of the first CD to be represented in Washington.   

Cathy Myers and Randy Bryce! 

Let's make sure one of them does! 

 

In Search Of Wisconsin's Top Chef

Joel McNally's take on Walker's hypocritical brown bag nonsense:

Politicians who feast in glass restaurants shouldn’t throw hard rolls.

McNally hits it right on with this:

But there is something particularly jarring about Walker presenting himself as your average working guy carrying a bag lunch.

It’s all those average working guys with bag lunches employed by Milwaukee County who have been laid off or had their wages and benefits slashed with unpaid furloughs and other contractual givebacks.

Walker has claimed the right to refuse to live up to county contracts negotiated with unions under special “emergency powers” as county executive. The emergency was that Walker was running for governor and did not want to raise taxes enough to pay the county’s bills.

Walker, who has eliminated jobs throughout his tenure as county executive and heads a government on the brink of bankruptcy, now claims to have the power to create -- citing a totally made-up number -- 250,000 jobs as governor of Wisconsin.

A whole lot of Milwaukee County workers believe job creation should begin at home.

A working class hero Walker is not. His lack of respect for the basic principles of labor relations was demonstrated when Walker submitted a county budget that included drastic wage and benefit reductions that had never been negotiated with county unions.

Rather than bargaining in good faith with unions to reach a mutually beneficial agreement through a process of give and take, Walker expects union leaders to enter into sham negotiations where working people do all the giving and Walker does all the taking.

Working people in Milwaukee County who really do have to eat bag lunches saw their family-supporting jobs disappear as Walker outsourced their work to private, profit-making companies operated by wealthy campaign contributors.

McNally once said that he doesn't read blogs, but one's got to wonder...

Well, That Just Plain Sucks

WMCS-AM, where I made my radio debut, just canned Joel McNally and Cassandra Cassandra.

I hope they both land on their feet.