Biggest Paper In State Fails To Report On Biggest Slumlord

Last fall, 17 people were poisoned by carbon monoxide in Mantiwoc, Wisconsin. The three buildings in which the people were poisoned are owned by Republican State Representative Paul Tittl:

The incident took place Oct. 31, 2016, and affected Susie Kay’s Café at 1110 Washington St., the Republican Headquarters office at 1112 Washington St. and the five apartments at 1112 Washington St., all owned by Tittl.

Ten people from the apartments and seven from Susie Kay’s Café were taken to the hospital to be treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. Four of those people were taken to Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee to be treated with a hyperbaric chamber. Another one was in serious condition and had to be flown to Milwaukee by helicopter.

Susie Kay’s Café was reopened and the families returned to their apartments after Nov. 8, 2016.

During the police investigation into the incident, a detailed examination of the boiler servicing the apartments and the café was performed. According to the police report, a couple pipes coming from the boiler had been blocked with various materials, including insulation, which could have affected the combustion in the boiler. Another possible cause for the carbon monoxide buildup was a cracked heat exchanger or having no water in the boiler tank.

When the boiler was checked for carbon monoxide after everyone had been evacuated from the buildings, it was giving off 700-800 ppm (parts per million) when it should have been giving off zero ppm.

The boiler was later confiscated by Manitowoc police as evidence.

Not reported is that at least one person suffered severe brain damage and is still in a nursing home.

To make the story even worse, Tittle barely got a slap on the wrist for endangering all these lives, having to face three minor citations.

One would think that the biggest newspaper in the state, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, would have covered the story.

One would be sorely mistaken. At the time of this writing, the paper has not even mentioned it once.

It would have undoubtedly been a different matter if Tittl had been a Democrat, African-American and/or a woman. If they had done what Tittl was done, they would have hounded the person until they resigned or were charged.

For example, let's look at what the paper breathlessly covered, getting the story out before they got all the facts straight.

Democratic State Representative Christine Sinicki got into a financial bind when she had to help her in-laws get and stay in an assisted living center, something that many people, including myself, can relate to from personal experience. I'm sorry, but I just don't see any shame in getting into a hole in taking care of one's family because the state wasn't willing to help. The reporter, Dan Bice, tried to make it seem that way.

Bice went after Sinicki another time because she got mileage reimbursement for driving from Milwaukee to Madison and back while her license was suspended. She didn't even know her license was suspended until it was brought to her attention and she paid her fine immediately and got the licensed reinstated.

The kicker to this attack was that Bice's source was Media Trackers, a right wing propagandist group with a horrible track record for hyping false narratives and getting their facts wrong. But that never slowed Bice down for a minute.

And the Journal Sentinel wonders why their circulation has dropped to a mere fraction of what it used to be.

Remind me again, how is the corporate media liberal? By only slamming Democrats, women and African Americans while letting Republicans get away with almost killing people?

MJS Almost Catches Up To Cog Dis On Nepotism Story

There is yet another story in which the largest newspaper in the state is busy playing catch up.

In June 2013, Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express broke the story about the rampant nepotism and cronyism that has invested the state's Income Maintenance Program in Milwaukee County.

Last month, I did a follow up on this story, pointing out how the nepotism and cronyism was playing a large part of the problem the system was having with fraud:

And just like he did as county executive, Walker is setting up the program for failure. While the county had a unit of people working on investigating fraud, Walker had just one person for the entire county for a long time. When the stories started to break about the fraud that was being allowed, Walker hired a few more workers to do these investigations. Sadly, the people that were hired were hired based on rather than their qualifications. (On top of that, these new hires were paid more than the one existing fraud investigator who has apparently left the job for someplace that will respect him.)

Lo and behold, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is just starting to catch up on this, sort of:

Leadership within MiLES — specifically the alleged favoritism — definitely interferes with the department's work, employees told the Journal Sentinel. Especially when it comes to weeding out fraud.

A Journal Sentinel investigation published last month exposed how federal incentives to boost enrollment in food and medical assistance programs have led to pressure on front-line workers to issue benefits even when they suspect people might not be eligible.

Robertson and Kamin are ultimately responsible for hitting target numbers. As a result, workers say, they are instructed by supervisors to process benefits for people already receiving aid in other states, people in jail — essentially anybody with an ID card.

Workers outside the favored circle who object or question the tactics are considered troublemakers and quickly lose any shot at ever advancing, they said.

"That's the disease of nepotism," said one worker who was hired around the same time as Robertson's son. "It falls into so many categories. And it spreads like cancer."

At least the article gave credit to the Shepherd Express for their part in breaking the story. That is usually something they only do for propagandist organizations like MacIver, Wisconsin Reporter and Media Trackers.

But again, they are a month late - at best - and a dollar short.  Notice how they failed to even mention that the nepotism and cronyism was made possible by Act 10?    They're still unable to hold Scott Walker accountable for anything.

But that's what you get from the corporate media.

The Corporate Media Bias On Public Assistance Fraud

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been doing an ongoing "investigative reporting" series about public assistance fraud.  The corporate media does occasional stories or series of stories like this to promote the corporate agenda that public assistance is bad and should be cut based on these anecdotal stories.

The paper wrote about how the public assistance system works on the 'honor system,' which can be abused.  They have also written about how it's all the federal government's fault for "pushing bonuses" on states to ease the process of being enrolled and for retaining people on public assistance.

Most recently, they snarked on Scott Walker for saying action would be coming regarding the fraud but not offering any details to use as red meat for the conservative Teapublican base they pander to.

But there are some things that one will not find in all of their reporting, things that somehow eluded their in-depth look at what is going on.

The first overlooked item is that many of the people that are receiving benefits - whether it be food stamps, energy assistance or Badger Care - are the working poor.  They are the people that work at Walmart, Aurora Health Care, fast food restaurants and yes, in some cases, even for the public sector, whose pay is so low that they are eligible for benefits.  If these places paid a living wage, this would cut back on the number of people who need assistance and thus make it easier to make sure fraud doesn't happen.

Another thing that is overlooked in all of this reporting is how the individual systems are being managed.

The gentle reader will not see any mention that while Scott Walker was Milwaukee County Executive, he left the Income Maintenance Program extremely short-handed, expecting five workers to hand the work of thirty.  This was, as one might suspect, a thinly-veiled attempt to manipulate the system so that he could privatize it.

But despite his intentional sabotaging of the program, fraud investigators were able to find fraud and recoup the money.  The glowing example of this by far is a now retired county worker named Cindy Jaeger who had single-handedly recovered $5 million in just three years.

Because of County Executive Walker's maleficent and inept management, the Income Maintenance Program eventually was taken over by the state in order to avoid a costly class action lawsuit.  And now that Walker is governor, he is again in charge of the public assistance system.

And just like he did as county executive, Walker is setting up the program for failure.  While the county had a unit of people working on investigating fraud, Walker had just one person for the entire county for a long time.  When the stories started to break about the fraud that was being allowed, Walker hired a few more workers to do these investigations.  Sadly, the people that were hired were hired based on who they knew and/or to whom they were related rather than their qualifications.  (On top of that, these new hires were paid more than the one existing fraud investigator who has apparently left the job for someplace that will respect him.)

Also like the old days, Walker is still leaving the systems short handed.  In Milwaukee County, the state is still pulling workers from their assigned duties to hand the call center or do walk-ins as well as other duties while their own work is piling up, delaying assistance to the people who have a genuine and desperate need for assistance.

The paper's reporting also includes no mention about how Walker was working with the current County Emperor Chris Abele (Milwaukee's version of Mitt Romney) to kick out the food pantry and as well as oust the Hunger Task Force, who has committed the double infraction of helping people - especially those who speak a foreign language - in getting services as well as reporting infractions by the state.

In summary, while what the paper does report might be true, it is far from the whole truth.  They are only reporting what fits the corporate agenda and nothing else.  Especially not anything that what they don't want the people to know about.

The Penokee Pinkertons

Through the last 150 years of our country's history, some of the worst examples of mercenary violence and mayhem involved the jackboots of the Pinkerton Government Services.  Their "services" ranged from private security guards to private military work.  Their specialty was union busting and intimidating the public.

Over the years, these groups have sadly flourished, with two of the most notorious examples being Blackwater and Wachkenhut (one of Scott Walker's favorites!).

Now we can add the name of Bulletproof Securities of Arizona to that list of shame.

These are the mercenaries that the Florida mining company, Gogebic Taconite, has hired to protect their investment in the mining privileges of the pristine Northwoods area of the Pekonee Hills.

The have recently been seen haunting the woods of Iron County, running around like some wayward members of the Posse Comitatus, intimidating people who even happen to look at them the wrong way.

Besides the obvious harm that these thugs will do to the tourism business - I don't remember the threat of armed jackboots being in the Zucker commercial - there are two other major problems.

First of all, the land that the Penokee Pinkertons are protecting from the public is public land. Apparently the mining company presumed that when they bought the Teapublicans that passed their bill, they got the land included in the sale.

The other issue is that Bulletproof Services might be here illegally.  To do the kind of work that they are doing, they need to hold  Wisconsin licenses and permits first.  I have seen nothing to indicate that this has yet been looked into.

I would add to this that since this is public land, and thus accessible to the public, the gang of thugs needs to go through background checks.  I mean, the type of people these groups hire are in no way considered the most reputable.

This has, as the gentle reader might have suspected, created quite a stir, but not with just the citizenry, but with elected officials as well.  Senator Bob Jauch and Representative Janet Bewley issued a joint press release which was very measured in tone while very firm in meaning:

State Senator Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) and Representative Janet Bewley (D-Ashland) sent a letter to Gogebic Taconite President Bill Williams today calling on him to immediately remove the heavily armed masked commando security unit recently hired to protect the company’s property in the Penokee Hills.

The legislators called the images of the armed guards horrifying and the action by the company to hire this high security Arizona firm appalling. They added that “these kinds of security forces
are common in third world counties but they don’t belong in Northern Wisconsin.”

Jauch and Bewley acknowledged the company’s right to protect their property, but called the decision to hire this new security firm nothing more than an effort to intimidate citizens. “No one
in their right mind can justify the excessive force. These individuals are not deputized, they can’t arrest anyone. What they can do is unjustifiably scare people, and that appears to be your
intention.”

The Northern Lawmakers reminded the company that they do not own the Penokee Hills and urged them to make sure their security detail recognized and reflected that fact.

With only one incident reported at the site in over a month, the lawmakers questioned why the company decided to take such a “confrontational and incendiary step that will clearly do more to
intimidate local citizens and increase local tensions than it will to make you, your staff, or your equipment any safer.”

Jauch and Bewley added that reversing their decision could help improve the company’s relationship with the community. “By rescinding this very misguided decision, you can send a message to Northern Wisconsin citizens that despite the heated rhetoric coming from the company over the last several weeks, you are interested in working with your new neighbors and willing to cooperate rather than relying on intimidation and threats.”

There are two things about this whole affair that are conspicuous by their absence.

One is any reaction from the Teabublicans.

Scott Walker, Robin Vos and Alberta Darling are all publicity hounds. They cannot get enough time in front of the cameras. If they go more than a day or two without being the center of attention, I don't think that they would survive.

Yet on this issue, there is nary a peep from the lot of them.

The other thing missing is any indication that the mainstream media has even bothered to attempt to contact them, much less ask them any questions.  The closest I've seen is Wisconsin State Journal mentioning that it was the Teapublicans who rammed this bill through.

With the corporate media, the corporate-controlled Teapublican legislature and all the other signs of organized greed, is it any wonder why they tried to take the unions out first?

PolitiFact Needs To Refocus

Erik Gunn, another one of the few remaining journalists in the area, wrote a thought-provoking piece about the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's PolitiFact.  Like most of us, Gunn's not a big fan, and explains why:

The piece demonstrated the classic PolitiFact obsession with trees at the expense of understanding the forest, investing 800 words in the process.

Why not save space by simply showing the governor’s “cherry-picking” in a chart that presents the his quote and then lists conflicting business climate surveys and their findings?

Meanwhile, a much more far-reaching issue – and one that would have admittedly required much more investigation to reach a definitive judgment – would be critically examining just how accurate and predictive such climate surveys are, versus how much they are bent by ideology.

To Umhoefer’s credit, he didn’t ignore the frequent criticism that such surveys are ideologically bound and do more to promote corporate self-interest than community economic well-being. But having noted the criticism, the story kissed off the critics: PolitiFact wasn’t going to weigh in on that issue.

Yet those surveys can deeply influence political discourse, whether in a campaign or a legislative session. So assessing their validity would seem much more beneficial to readers and society than simply calling out a particular pol’s self-serving cherry-picking of those reports – especially when readers have no clue as to whether the surveys are even worth anything.

Why not a detailed assessment of the surveys themselves, looking at their conclusions and rankings when compared with actual, objective data on how states are doing in terms of economic well-being? Which surveys actually offer some value in predicting actual state performance and outcomes? And which ones are consistently wrong?

Gunn goes on with an exchange he had with Greg Borowski, the PolitiFact editor. Borowski takes a cop out on the issue, claiming that they put links on the online article so that people will investigate the issue on their own, if they choose to do so.

That explanation is unacceptable on a couple of levels. One is that the online links don't work well on the printed edition of the paper. That is hundreds of thousands of people that aren't getting those links daily and are not able to do their own investigations. This leaves them in a position of being forced to take what the paper gives them at face value.

Secondly, Borowski probably understands that not everyone is going to have the time, energy and/or ability to check out everything on their own.  Besides, they are the reporters and journalists.  It's their job to do the reporting, not just give some selected links and expect people to do their work for them.

While I understand Gunn's point, I think where the issue lies is with the fact that it's still the corporate media.  The Journal Sentinel's op-ed section is filled with the tripe that comes from paid corporate hacks like Christian Schneider and Mike Nichols.  They also pollute the place with ghost writers like Aaron Rodriguez who do nothing more than regurgitate some politicians or political party's talking points  in order to curry political favors.

And there are papers, including MJS, that will use the propaganda that is spewed by such front groups like Wisconsin Reporter, MacIver Institute and Media Trackers and treat it as legitimate news stories.

Until the mainstream media - whether it be print, TV, and especially radio - decides to reinvest in itself and get back to the job they are supposed to be doing, I wouldn't take anything reported as being objective.

Objectionable? Probably. Objective? Not so much.

The Walker Agenda Is Still Working! Part CLXXXIII

Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon turned teahadist evangelical preacher, was in Walkersha recently, as a guest of the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity.  By all reports, he was to instill that old time corporate religion into the masses just in time for Scott Walker's election campaign.

The usual suspects and paid hacks sung his praises, but it took the corporate media* to give the tell on why he was here:

AFP-Wisconsin state director Luke Hilgemann said that during a private reception earlier Thursday Carson said he sees Wisconsin government as an example for the rest of the country to follow.

Well, that only goes to show that Carson, like the rest of the corporate controlled sheeple, has no clue as to what he is talking about.

Because even as Carson was giving his spiel to the gullible masses in Walkersha, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia was coming out with their quarterly reports.

The April 2013 State Coincident Indexes are out and they show that Wisconsin is one of the two states that has had a drop in economic activity:

Keep in mind what the state coincident indexes are:

The coincident indexes combine four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic. The four state-level variables in each coincident index are nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing, the unemployment rate, and wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average). The trend for each state’s index is set to the trend of its gross domestic product (GDP), so long-term growth in the state’s index matches long-term growth in its GDP.

In other words, Walker has continued his two year pattern of taking our state down the tubes.

But Walker wants to be reelected in 2014 and has aspirations of being President of the United States in 2016, so surely he'll do what it takes to turn the state around, right?

If anyone believes that, they are either getting paid to say that or they just haven't been paying attention to the budget process.

But the folks at the Federal Reserve Bank has been paying attention.  Their forecast for Wisconsin for the next six months isn't very promising at all:

Sadly, yes, the gentle reader is interpreting the map correctly.  Wisconsin is projected to keep having its economic nosedive.  We can't even laugh at Mississippi because they are projected to do better than us.

And the states that Walker likes to compare his record to - California and Illinois - are creaming us.

So if Walker, Carson or any of the other fools try to tell you that "It's working!", you'll know better.  And knowing is half the battle.

*Unsurprisingly, the same corporate media and paid political hacks who gushed all over Carson has willfully failed to mention the Federal Reserve Bank's reports.

Journalism Is Dead: Part 12,587

Just check out the headline that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel chose to go with regarding the committee reassignments for Milwaukee County Supervisors:

Dimitrijevic is lucky she is a woman, or they would have ran with "Dimitrijevic won't say if he's stopped beating his wife."

The amazing thing is that the tabloid has taken great pains to avoid covering Milwaukee County Executive Emperor Chris Abele's retaliations against underlings that didn't kiss his ring.  Or the simple fact that his whole usurpation bill stems from the fact that the County Board were the first adults in his life to tell him no.

It truly is a sad thing when the biggest paper in the state is revealed to be nothing more than a glorified conservative blog.

Where I Again Show Up A "Newsman"

Vince Vitrano, of WTMJ4*, made a rather misleading and quasi-political statement on his Facebook page:

I find it interesting that a Milwaukee County Board committee is

discussing a resolution concerning City of Milwaukee taxi permits.

My interest is not in the Board's position on taxi cabs, but rather in its desire to medal in City politics. This is the same Board screaming bloody murder over the State's desire to impose changes at the County level.

Hello pot? This is kettle. You're black.

Actually it had nothing to do with meddling with city business, but to protect county taxpayers, as I pointed out in my admittedly snarky comment to him:

Well, the county has a $1.1 million dollar contract with the cab company for their dispatch services. Since they have the monopoly on cab licenses, the county is at the mercy of the cab company. Increasing competition will help drive the cost to taxpayers down. And here I thought you were supposed to be the newsman. Heh.

I'm not which is worse - the fact that I, as a mere blogger can again show up a "professional newsman" or that people actually watch and believe the crap they are spewing out.

*They're still waiting for approval to change their call letter to WGOP.

Corporate Radio's Double Standard Exposed

When WTDY canned their staff, including the legendary John "Sly" Sylvester, the right wingers tried to claim it was related to poor ratings.  But it wasn't.  They were actually seeing an uptick in their ratings the last two years.

Last month, when WMCS fired their on air staff and decided to switch programming, again came the claims that it was because liberal radio isn't popular and doesn't bring in the money.

This too is so much poppycock.

If it was all about money and ratings, they would have taken Rush Limbaugh off the air a long, long time ago as his misogynistic comments have cost them scores of sponsors.

More proof of this double standard broke over the weekend, when we learned that WTMJ-AM isn't doing so well in the polls either:

Local broadcaster Joe Scialfa was ousted Friday as WTMJ-AM (620) program director after 15 years with the station. He joined the station as a producer in 1998 and became assistant program director in 2008.

He replaced the late Tom Land as program director in July of 2011.

He had also worked as a producer of Charlie Sykes show.

In a memo sent to the staff announcing his departure, Scialfa attributed it to the fact "the station has been underperforming for the last year."

It's pretty easy to surmise that the stations poor performance had anything to do with Scialfa. Sykes' White Wisconsin, predictably, is bombing out. And Sykes is not a real draw himself either:

If changes like this was really about ratings and money, Sykes would have been the one getting bounced.

What it is really all about is the corporate media needing to control the message.  And for better or for worse, they've chosen to make the adulterous, self-admitted liar Sykes their face and voice on Milwaukee radio, so they're not about to oust him until he really screws up.

What they haven't realized yet is that more and more people are seeing through their lies and distortions.  By the time they do realize this, it will be too late for them.

More Of That "Liberal Media"

WISN-TV and Patch have announced that they are joining forces in their news reporting.  They are quite pleased with themselves in this announcement:

"Patch teaming up with WISN 12 is a win-win for both news organizations — and for our respective readers and viewers," said Mark Maley, Patch's regional editor in Milwaukee. "By combining what each of us does best, both audiences should see more coverage of suburban Milwaukee than ever before." 

“We always strive to bring our viewers important local coverage. Our partnership with the Patch will put more journalists in more communities to bring distinctive and relevant stories that impact the lives of our viewers," said Ed Reams, assistant news director at WISN 12. "This partnership will strengthen our coverage on air, and help us report on multiple angles to stories that viewers will be able to get online and on their mobile phones."

I would point out that at least they did not claim that it would be "fair and balanced" news coverage.

I point this out because once again, the fallacy of the media being liberal, or even impartial, is once again dispelled.

One of the Patch editors, Denise Konkol of Muskego, isn't exactly a flaming liberal when she posts stuff like this on her Facebook page:

I would point out that the first post appears to be deleted now, but my tipster was able to catch it before it went poof.

Now, being anti-choice is one thing.  Going gaga over an irresponsible statement - funded by taxpayer dollars is a bit worse.  You know Clarke's announcement goes beyond the pale when even James Wigderson felt compelled to call him out on it.

But these two are mild when compared to the third capture we made.  That one is so bad that for the first time in all my years of blogging, I'm going to put it below a long gap so it won't upset people with delicate demeanors.  Before you go there, it involves Hillary Clinton and the worst word a person can call a woman.  Consider yourself warned before you go there...

The Waukesha Rifleman, er, Freeman

It's darn near impossible to make it through the day without hearing some right wing crank complaining about the "liberal media."

I'm still waiting for someone to show me a news source that is liberal.  The closest they can come is one that simply tells the truth.

Usually, the papers will keep the most egregious of their bias limited to the editorial page, such as Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's David Haynes and Ernst-Ulrich Franzen.  That said, their bias seeps through in the way their news stories are edited as well.

But this is to be expected, I suppose, when the newspapers are just another facet of the corporate media that has taken over the industry.

The Waukesha Freeman is no exception.  If anything, they are a little further right than even most newspapers.

Their "guest editorial" calumnists include James Wigderson, Mark Belling, Jessica McBride and Owen Robinson.

Not one intellectual, one one honest person, not one progressive or liberal. (Yes, I realize that was rather redundant.)

But as unfathomable as it might seem, that daily has gone even more to the right.

They just hired a new overnight editor.  In the newspaper business, a night editor can control copy and make executive decisions on content.  So one would expect that a newspaper would want to make sure that their night editor is level-headed, objective, intelligent and most of all, sane.

They failed in every category with their new overnight editor, Steve Van Dien.

Check out some of these Facebook driveling he has posted and tell me if you would trust any news that comes from a paper he worked for:

And that's just a flavor of them.

Perhaps it's time for the paper to change it's name to the Walkersha Rifleman.

Why You Should Unsubscribe From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Part ∞

You should drop your subscription because while they still won't ask Walker about his shady behaviors regarding his Legal Cooperation Fund or even ask Walker who is bankrolling it,  but they will talk about how it's "unlikely" Tom Barrett will get more than $24 million in the eight days between now and the election.

Why did they report on this? They even admit it won't affect the election that much. I haven't heard anyone, not even the most out of the world wing nut, speculate on this.  So they go with the non-story and do nothing to follow up on that.

Really? And these guys claim Pulitzers?

If you subscribe, drop your subscription now.  If you don't subscribe, call up the companies and explain to them if they don't stop supporting this corporate propagandist rag, you will stop supporting their company.

McCarthy Journalism

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is proudly announcing that they are now hosting the recall signatures online in a searchable database.

My question is when will they host an online searchable database for the people that signed Scott Walker's nomination papers, both in 2010 and 2012?

How do we know that his nomination papers weren't signed by Adolph Hitler or Mickey Mouse?  Plus we have a right to know what judges, what elected officials and what reporters at MJS and other news sources signed the nomination papers.

To do any less gives them the appearance of bias.

Big Business Group Overzealous In Trying To Buy Election For Walker

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce PAC had its greedy little hand slapped by the Government Accountability Board.   The MMAC PAC was fined a measly $500 and had to take back $170,000 in illegal campaign donations to the Walker campaign to help him buy his seat back during the recall election.

The fact that Walker's campaign was accepting illegal donations is nothing new.  The first conviction to come out of the Walkergate investigation was when railroad maven William E. Gardner was caught giving illegal donations to Walker's campaign.

But there is something that is interestingly missing from the reporting on the MMAC story.

The Journal Communications, which claims to have an interest in producing unbiased news, failed to mention that its CEO, Steven Smith, is an officer of MMAC's board.  I guess their transparency is like of the two-way mirror variety.

Go figure.

More Fallout For Walker's Supporters, Er, Wisconsin Reporter

Last week, I pointed out to the relationship between the propagandist organization that euphemistically calls itself Wisconsin Reporter and Scott Walker fund raisers and campaign consultants.

The very next day, Wisconsin Reporter experienced some fall out due to this revelation, when the Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a scathing letter to papers and other news media around the state asking them to be conscious of exactly who and what they are citing when they use anything from this group of campaign staffers in disguise.

Today, Erik Gunn, author of Pressroom Buzz for Milwaukee Magazine, writes about the developments in this story, with a mention of my exposé on them, in a must read piece.

Gunn finishes with these thoughts on this group:

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Reporter stories I’ve read usually seem superficial. Many do appear to be straight down the middle on controversial issues. But others have been questionable at best. An inexcusably thin one, for example, was hung on the claim of a pro-Walker talk radio host who says an unnamed fan e-mailed to tell her that someone had signed the host’s name to a recall petition. 

Then there was the $12,000 WR spent on an investigation that found just under 1,000 dead people still on the state’s voter rolls – barely three people in 10,000. There was no new evidence of dead people voting (five previously reported cases were mentioned), but that became the premise for a string of talking points on measures like picture IDs for voters. Meanwhile the story completely ignored countervailing arguments that such Republican-backed policies wind up disenfranchising Democratic voters. 

Flawed stories like those just heighten a much more critical concern: Who’s funding them?

Gunn finishes his article with some serious consideration to the relationship between the funding source and the reliability of the story, making points with which I agree.  Secrecy of the funding source, or having a heavily-biased and or partisan funding source doesn't necessarily mean that the media source is unreliable, but it should be treated with a healthy amount of skepticism.

MSJ Doesn't Report The News, They Fabricate It

I would expect that the Friends of Scott Walker will have to list this as an in-kind contribution unless they want complaints filed against them.

Will Ernst-Ulrich Franzen Apologize To Supervisor John Weishan?

A couple of years ago, Supervisor John Weishan, in light of Darlene Wink's illegal activity, filed an Open Records Request against Scott Walker's office.  After being grossly overcharged, all Weishan got was a few lousy sheets of paper, which we now see were grossly in violation of the law regarding ORRs.

At the time, Ernst-Ulrich Franzen, part of the distinctly conservative editorial board at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel agreed that Weishan was overcharged and underserved, but then added this snide comment:

Weishan should remember that not every fishing trip pays off.

Recent events, that Franzen's paper has documented surprisingly well, goes to show that the record given to Weishan isn't accurate at all, nor is it complete.

Methinks that Franzen owes Weishan an apology for that off-hand and off-target comment.

Then he can apologize to the paper's readers, if they have any left, for carrying water for the corrupt Walker.

Walkergate vs Capitol Chaos

Just a point of interest regarding the supposedly liberal media.

Last year when Wisconsinites gathered by the tens and even the hundreds of thousands in Madison to protest the outrages being done upon our fair state and its people, the local media was quick to coin the phrase "Capitol Chaos."  They did so despite the fact that even though the crowds were huge, they were also very well  behaved and under control.

However, as the investigation into the corruption of Scott Walker's campaign/county executive office* is coming to the light of day, they continue to refer to it as "the John Doe investigation into Walker's aides."

I may be biased, since I was one of the first, if not the first, to publicly refer to the scandal as Walkergate, but I think that is a much catchier name.

At least The Ed Schultz Show recognizes it:

You can catch the whole clip here.

So, peaceful protests deserves being labelled as chaotic, but the most corrupt governor in state history gets a pass.  Exactly how the heck is that being liberal?

And on another point, just when the heck is Ed Schultz or Rachel Maddow going to ask me on their show? Sheesh!

*Walker's campaign staff and Walker's county staff are, for all practical purposes, apparently interchangeable.

Walker Shows He CAN Do The Right Thing -- When He's Forced To Do It

While running for governor, Scott Walker regularly touted what a success Family Care was for Milwaukee County and how it helped get services to frail senior citizens who had been on waiting list for year. This was a rather perverse position for him to take since Milwaukee County's Department of Aging was one of the pilot programs in the state and started years before Walker weaseled his way in as county executive.

To add to his depravity, Walker actually tried to sabotage the program by laying off the CPAs who were overseeing the program to make sure there weren't costs overruns. Walker said that he laid those people off to save money. The end result of his money saving scheme was two years of massive deficits running into the millions of dollars.

But despite his continued praise of the Family Care program, as soon as he started wielding his budget ax around, one of the first things he did was put a two year cap on the program.

What this meant was that about 10,000 of our most vulnerable citizens were being denied services for no other reason than Walker wanted to do that. The only way that these poor souls were to get services would be if that someone already receiving services moved away, aged out or died. And if the denied disabled person happened to live in a county that had not transitioned to Family Care yet, they were completely screwed over.

Walker claims he did this as a cost saving measure, but the hard truth is that it actually ran up the bill faster for taxpayers:

Allowing an expansion of Family Care and related similar programs would lead to "quality services at a lower cost," said Terry Metzger, an executive with the Southwest Family Care Alliance. The savings figure in the study was a statewide projection based on actual costs for 28,000 Family Care clients from northeastern Wisconsin.

If the freeze is enacted, many people now on waiting lists for Family Care could wind up in nursing homes, said Barbara Beckert, Milwaukee office manager for Disability Rights Wisconsin. That would drive up state costs because nursing home care typically costs $5,000 a month or more. Average costs in Family Care are about $2,800 a month for care services provided at home.

Milwaukee County has at least 2,000 on its Family Care waiting list. Some of those would likely wind up at the county's Mental Health Complex, where acute care costs more than $1,300 a day, if program enrollments are frozen, Beckert said.

It was further reported that the state was already saving $90 million a year on the people already enrolled, which is almost the same amount Walker figured he would save by denying these people services.

Like I said, he only did it because he could.

Now let's fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.

Walker arranged one of his usual grandstanding press conferences to announce that they had suddenly found all sorts of savings and were now going to lift the cap on Family Care, at least eighteen months before he originally planned on doing so:

Earlier this year an enrollment cap was placed on Family Care in response to a Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) evaluation which found a number of areas the program could be improved and made more efficient. After a briefing on the hard work done by DHS over the past couple of months, today Governor Walker announced a plan to lift the Family Care cap. Governor Walker’s plan also calls for Family Care to be expanded to additional counties.

“I am confident that Family Care can continue to be implemented efficiently and cost effectively,” said Governor Walker. “Lifting the cap will be done in a way that respects taxpayers and is mindful of their investment, while at the same time providing care for those who are truly in need.”

The 2011-2013 state budget and the Legislative Audit Bureau required the Department of Health Services to do a thorough review of the program given its rapid growth. The LAB report released in April 2011 offered recommendations for improving the program. A very critical issue raised in the report was that the cost effectiveness of Family Care was difficult to assess. Because the Department was able to take the time to strengthen the program, Wisconsin now has the detailed data needed to develop solutions to ensure Family Care is on sound financial footing for those in the program now and for future enrollees.

Wowsa! What a great governor he is, right? Not in the least, actually.

You see, the thing is Walker didn't suddenly find any savings. What he did find was a scathing letter from the feds telling him he is in violation of their agreement and needed to cease and desist his malfeasance immediately:

Because the currently approved waiver includes and entitlement to waiver services, we are instructing the State to operate the waiver as it was approved by CMS. Therefore, we are directing the State to identify any individuals not currently enrolled onto the Family Care or Self-Directed Supports waivers since the July 1, 2011 implementation of the newly instituted enrollment caps, and immediately enroll those individuals in the waiver programs. This includes individuals living in any counties who had or would have had an entitlement to the waivers as of July 1, 2011, and includes individuals who were or would have otherwise been selected for enrollment from other participating counties.

There is no denying that Walker is a weasel and cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless he is literally forced to do so.

But his problems might not end there.

He made the grave error of embarrassing the media when he told his outright lie, knowing that they were going to most likely regurgitate it. But unlike when he was Milwaukee County Executive, and had the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covering up for him, he is dealing with media sources that he doesn't have in his back pocket. That would explain why so many of the news stories regarding the Family Care issue starts like this one from the Green Bay Press Gazette:

Gov. Scott Walker failed to reveal that the federal government had ordered him to immediately lift an enrollment cap on a state program to help the disabled and elderly stay out of nursing homes, instead telling reporters that his administration removed restrictions after identifying tens of millions of dollars in efficiencies in the program.

The rest of the article focuses on Walker's lies instead of the positive spin he was hoping for.

Oh, and if any reporters out there that do happen to come across this little old blog post of mine, I'd be glad to help you catch up to speed on the other ways he has bamboozled you.

Quote Of The Day

This comment, lifted from Illy-T's blog, really hit home in light of a couple of pieces from Rick Esenberg which I  had to correct:

The trend seems to be for an "expert" to make public statements about the content of the law that are inaccurate. The purpose of the statement is not accuracy, however, but rather to influence public opinion.

Most news readers tend to react to new information and arrive at an opinion about that information rather quickly. These first impressions in the minds of readers are "sticky," and readers will rarely revise their initial opinion even if later legal proceedings (or the lack thereof) demonstrate that the original source of the information was wrong. The latest political science research on the way that our minds form opinions demonstrates that it is first impressions that counts.

It is not surprising that those who wish to influence public opinion might adopt these "quick hit" tactics. What is surprising is that a major media corporation is apparently either ignorant of these tactics or else views itself as under no obligation to push back.

Perhaps one response (admittedly imperfect) might be if the State Bar were to discipline or rebuke any lawyers who make obviously reckless mistatements about what is or isn't fraud, or about what the law is generally. In paragraph 6, the preamble to Chapter SCR 20 states that all lawyers "should further the public's understanding of and confidence in the rule of law." Playing games designed to influence public opinion would seem to be inconsistent with the obligation of furthering the public's understanding of the law.

Apparently the prospect of shame or ridicule is not sufficient to deter some people.

'Nuff said.