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

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?

Right Wing Faux Outrage - The Jeff Simpson Edition

On Sunday, my colleague, Jeff Simpson, wrote a post at his site on Purple Wisconsin, a collection of bloggers and paid right wing propagandists hosted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  Simpson's post, which he replicated here, was about how Jim Bender, the face of the education profiteering group, School Choice Wisconsin, had sent out open record requests asking for personal information on all the kids in over 30 different school districts.

In his post, Simpson expressed his concern about not only what Bender's intentions were, but also the precedent he was setting.  Simpson feared that sex predators, stalkers and angry ex-spouses could follow this routine and expose the children to harm.

Simpson was hardly the only person to express these concerns.

However, Simpson's post at Purple Wisconsin was enough to send Bender on a bender.  Bender went whining and crying to Ernst-Ulrich Franzen, a member of the paper's editorial board, complaining that Simpson compared him to a pedophile.  Even though Simpson went to great pains to do just the opposite, Franzen jumped on the chance to stifle the truth and took down the blog site.

On Monday, squawk show host and adulterer Charlie Sykes went on a rampage against Simpson.  With the sound of his spittle hitting the microphone, Sykes said that Simpson lived in a "fever swamp" and called him "demented," "sick," and "a liar."

Sykes went on to say how MJS was wrong for ever giving Simpson their format to use and that he should be banned from the site.  The real kicker was when Sykes mewled that if a conservative had done this, they would be banned from writing there ever again.

Sykes' tirade does show that he is a damn slow learner, since he's already been sued for libel before.  (Ironically, the only reason that Sykes is still on the air is because of the unions he loves to bash on a daily basis.)

Sykes also shows what a bloody hypocrite he is, since he has willingly and freely admitted that he makes crap up on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, Franzen and his boss, David Haynes, pandered to the faux outrage from the right wing nuts and have taken Simpson's blog down entirely.

This only goes to show that they are as big hypocrites as Sykes is.

I would remind the gentle reader of the time that Christian Schneider ran with the fabricated story of how Kyle Woods, a gay Republican operative, was supposedly beaten up by the partner of US Representative Mark Pocan.  When it was revealed that Schneider was not telling the truth, the paper did not ban him as Sykes asserted would happen, but promoted him to being one of their paid columnists.

It should also be noted that Sykes himself continues to have Schneider, as well as Brian Sikma, who also lied about the Woods story, as regular guests on his radio and TV shows as well as contributors to his website, Right Wisconsin (funded by Wisconsin Club for Growth).

Heh, a liar hosting liars, yet we're supposed to be upset about a guy who actually tells the truth.

In summary, we have further confirmation that Sykes is a bloviating, pompous ass who is a liar and a hypocrite.  It is little wonder he needs to have the financial support of his corporate masters to still have even the illusion of relevance.

We also have further confirmation that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and all of Journal Broadcasting is nothing more than a right wing propaganda machine that isn't as interested in telling the truth as they are with squashing dissent.  It is not surprising that their circulation numbers have dropped so low that they needed to sell out to out of state interests before they went belly up.

If you somehow still subscribe to this tabloid and haven't cancelled your subscription yet, you should seriously ask yourself why you haven't done so already.

On a closing note to Jeff, congratulations on kicking the hornets nest.  This kind of uproar shows that you hit close to home.  But you haven't truly made the big time until you get nominated to Sykes' Deep Tunnel Award.

News Flash: Road Construction Causes Traffic Delays

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has some breaking news from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation:

The Department of Transportation recently released its first "Travel Time Reliability and Delay Report," which analyzes two seasons of travel and delay data for major freeways around Milwaukee and Madison.

The conclusion: Riders on almost half of Milwaukee-area freeways are doing double time on most drives.

The study shows that this past spring, eight of the city's 20 freeway segments were so congested that an average trip at peak travel hours took twice as long as it would on clear roads.

Gosh! What a shocker!

Just because Scott Walker is paying back the road builders for all their donations by having them doing work on almost every stretch of highway in Milwaukee County and people can't use side streets because they are in such a state of disrepair and full of potholes, who'd have thunk that there'd be traffic jams on the freeways?

I don't know which is worse - that the DOT had to squander taxpayers money to tell us the obvious or that the paper thought that this was newsworthy.  At least one can not subscribe to the paper immediately.  We can't get rid of Walker until November.

Corporate Media Question Of The Day

Early Monday morning, I wrote a post about how Scott Walker is screwing over corrections officers again, this time by withholding a raise that was written into the state budget.

Late Tuesday afternoon, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the corporate media giant, finally got around to covering the story.  Don't worry, they didn't give me any credit for breaking the story.

The question of the day is this: Would the paper have even covered the story if I hadn't made it public in the first place?

Walkergate: Abele Doubles Down On Cover Up

A few days ago, I reported that Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele was giving aid and comfort to Scott Walker by refusing to do his job by not calling for the return of the Walkergate emails and documents, which are rightfully county property.

Abele's willful failure to perform his duties had become so egregious that the Milwaukee County Board, in a move spearheaded by Supervisor John Weishan, passed a resolution saying that Abele should do his job.

Now, seven months after my first call for Abele to do his job, the editorial board at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has finally figured it out as well:

But on Tuesday, county corporation counsel Paul Bargren said Abele could not release the documents because he doesn't have them and the decision to release them should be left to the judge. On Friday, Abele told us that he had essentially asked the judge, "Whatever you can release, please release." And that, if Nettesheim feels he can, he should release the records directly to the Journal Sentinel.

In the district attorney's office's response to the Journal Sentinel's request for return of the records, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf said the Journal Sentinel has no standing to ask for the records, at least partly because Abele hasn't asked for them, and that the records should remain under lock and key because they were once part of a secret investigation.

Those are bogus stances. Abele could — and should — make his request stronger. He should say in no uncertain terms that the records the Journal Sentinel is seeking belong to the public and should be released to the public. Merely saying he doesn't have the records is insufficient. Abele says he's an advocate for transparent government, and he has been in other cases. He can demonstrate that by asking for these records, as the County Board has asked. The judge may disagree; certainly, the district attorney's office will disagree. But if he is the open government advocate he claims to be, Abele should put more pressure on the judge rather than just leaving it up to Nettesheim.

Wait! What?! Did you catch that?!

And that, if Nettesheim feels he can, he should release the records directly to the Journal Sentinel.

So Abele claims to have made some weak call for the release of the emails and documents but then says the court should just give them over to the paper.

On second thought, maybe that isn't so shocking. Abele, like his BFF and mentor, Scott Walker, loves to give away public assets and property to the private sector.  Why not turn over the evidence of misconduct so that it can be properly buried or selectively revealed to protect the guilty and harm the innocent?

It is simply wrong for Abele to even suggest giving the emails and other documents to the corporate media. There would be no way to verify that the paper was releasing everything or that the documents weren't edited to fit their agenda.

Besides the questions that have been with the Walkergate saga all along - such as just how deep and how far did the corruption spread - another question has come up with Abele's stonewalling.

Who is Abele trying to protect?

The Walker Agenda Is Still Working! Part CCXIV

Remember how Scott Walker kept bragging about how Wisconsin was "Open for Business" and how optimistic "job creators" were?

Yeah, neither does Tramont Corp.:

Tramont Corp. informed state and local officials today that it plans to go out of business effective May 5.

The company will cease operations and close its two Milwaukee facilities as part of a chapter 128 receivership process.

All of the company's 137 employees will lose their jobs. Some of the employees are represented by the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America Local 1103.

Tramont is a manufacturer of diesel fuel day tanks and sub base tanks for industrial engine-generators.

"The company has been actively seeking capital over the last several weeks in the hopes that acquiring such capital and investment would allow the company to avoid or postpone this decision," said Michael Polsky, receiver for the company. "Unfortunately, Tramont has been unsuccessful in these efforts."

To add to the growing outrage, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tries to soft soap the story as saying the workers "may" lose their jobs, only to contradict themselves in the story.

It's bad enough that we get daily reminders of what an epic failure Walker is, but to insult our intelligence that way is just too much.

ACA - The Good, The Stupid and the Smackdown!

By Jeff Simpson

The Affordable Care Act, ie..Obamacare has obviously been all over the news and recently we had the pleasure of seeing the extreme's  

First the Stupid:  

Local fiction writer and unexplainable Journal Sentinel Columnist and Bradley Foundation gopher Christian Schneider took a shot at the Democrats and Obamacare(and miserably failed). 

 Given that the language of modern progressivism is hopelessly rooted in the past, it's no surprise Democrats exhumed this calcified nugget of wisdom last week. In response to a Congressional Budget Office report that estimated Obamacare could effectively reduce the number of American workers by 2.5 million over the next decade, Democrats immediately began explaining how much better off workers will be when they are freed from the suffocating shackles of employment.

Then in response to his silly red-baiting and spewing of excrement, our friend Jay Bullock laid the smackdown on Schneider.  

 Lacking even a trace of self-awareness, early in his op-ed Schneider writes that "the language of modern progressivism is hopelessly rooted in the past," and then he proceeds to red-bait contemporary Democrats in a way that would make the 1950s jealous. Within a few dozen words, Schneider moves easily from Nancy Pelosi to genocide ("The collectivism of agriculture in Russia in the early 1900s led to the murder and starvation of tens of millions of peasants") as if the first thing Nancy Pelosi will do if the Democrats take back the House this fall is organize the death squads.

While its always fun, and yet too easy, to make Schneider look like a fool, the reality of it is, the CBO did NOT say that the ACA will cost 2.5 million Americans their jobs at all!   As Dean Baker puts it:

The CBO assessment was that because people could now get access to health insurance through the exchanges rather than having to get insurance through their jobs, many people might decide not to work or to work fewer hours. This voluntary reduction in work hours is one of the goals of Obamacare, it is not an unforeseen consequence.
There are millions of people who struggle at their jobs with serious health conditions in the hope of reaching age 65 when they can qualify for Medicare. The exchanges will make it possible for many of these people to get insurance at prices they can afford, since insurers are not allowed to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. As a result, some of these older workers will opt to either retire or to possible work fewer hours at a job that doesn't provide insurance. Giving people this option was one of the main goals of health care reform.
Similarly, there are many workers with young children who would like to be able to either take time off from work to spend with their kids, or alternatively to work at a job part-time. However they may not have this option if their only way to afford insurance is by working at a full-time job. As a result of the ACA these people will work fewer hours.
This also was also one of the goals of Obamacare. Advocates of health care reform thought it would be good if the parents of young children had the opportunity to work less to be with their kids, if that is what they choose to do.
When CBO did its analysis and said that Obamacare would lead to some reduction in work hours, it was saying the ACA would have its intended effect. It was freeing people from health care related job-lock. This is a feature, not a bug.

It really is too bad for all of WI, that Christian Schneider is allowed column space!





Photo from Christianschneiderblog! 

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 Schneider Smackdown

Everyone knows that Bradley funded right wing WPRI and their servant Christian Schneider get way to much free press to spew their propaganda in WI. It is refreshing when someone actually prints the truth. Thank you Robert Kraig for this smackdown of the biggest hack in WI!

From JSonline(in its entirety):

In last week's Crossroads, Christian Schneider tried to defend the practically indefensible, Gov. Scott Walker's immoral and fiscally irresponsible decision to reject hundreds of millions of federal dollars to strengthen Wisconsin's popular BadgerCare program.

In the process, Schneider deploys every propaganda trick he can muster to defend Walker's controversial decision. In so doing, he provides a textbook example of the right-wing conspiracy to confuse public opinion about the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) as we approach its critical full implementation phase.

Deconstructing Schneider's melange of misleading claims and chopped logic can help clear the air as we undertake the vitally important task of reforming our nation's badly frayed health care system by guaranteeing that every American has the freedom to obtain quality affordable health coverage, no matter what.
Schneider begins his diatribe by making light of a public statement I made that if Walker succeeds in turning down enhanced federal funding to strengthen Badgercare "there is no doubt that many Wisconsinites will die as a consequence." Schneider tries to laugh off my grave conclusion by making flippant remarks about police reports, chainsaw-wielding madmen and even Mao and Stalin. These weak attempts at humor can't cover the fact that Schneider has no facts to refute the public health research establishing a higher premature death rate for people without health coverage. Access to affordable health coverage is no laughing matter; it is a matter of life and death.

As a second level of defense, Schneider makes the counterfactual claim that Walker is actually greatly expanding health coverage. This is highly misleading because it gives Walker credit he does not deserve for expanded private market health coverage created by Obamacare, which the governor bitterly opposes. In his recently signed budget, Walker forces nearly 90,000 people off BadgerCare. He did broaden eligibility for childless adults in poverty, but this would have happened anyway, and at much lower cost to Wisconsin, if Walker had taken the Affordable Care Act dollars.

The Walker administration's own budget papers, as well as the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, clearly show that the governor's budget decision to reject enhanced federal BadgerCare dollars will result in thousands (and possibly tens of thousands) fewer people with health coverage, while costing the state $149 million more. It is irrefutable that in 2014, as a direct result of Walker's irresponsible decision, fewer Wisconsinites will have health coverage and that the state will pay more for inflicting completely avoidable misery.

As thin and misleading as Schneider's initial defenses of Walker are, they are robust compared with the rest of the column, which leaps to the ridiculous assertion that some over-hyped bumps in the road in creating the new health insurance marketplaces (or exchanges) under the Affordable Care Act somehow vindicates Walker's decision to turn down federal dollars for BadgerCare.

Schneider claims Walker relies on BadgerCare, a "traditional state program," but the fact is that the hundreds of millions of dollars Walker turned down would have gone directly to that very program. That any additional money that comes as a result of the Affordable Care Act is somehow different than other federal dollars Walker is happy to accept is absurd on its face.

Schneider uses this nonsensical claim to launch into a recitation of standard right-wing talking points, which allegedly establish that Obamacare is, in his words, "imploding." His main evidence for this is the recently announced one-year delay in assessing fines on large businesses that do not provide affordable coverage for their workers. While I think this delay is a mistake, it is a ridiculous leap in logic to say that an adjustment in the timeline for implementing one provision of the health care law justifies Chicken Little-like pronouncements.

The fact is that the Affordable Care Act is one of the largest and most pragmatic reforms that America has undertaken in decades. It has many moving parts because it seeks to fix rather than replace our current health care system. There are going to be many bumps in the road.

Making the law work is a critically important task because if it is repealed, and the private health insurance system is allowed to continue to implode, the freedom of all Americans to control their own health care decisions will continue to decline. Insurance companies will continue to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, throw people off coverage when they are diagnosed with cancer and other life-threatening diseases, charge discriminatory rates to women, early retirees, small businesses, the self-employed and throw young adults off their parents' policies.

Conservatives commentators such as Schneider and politicians such as Walker are muddying the waters in every way they can because they have no real answers for average Americans who just want the freedom and opportunity to obtain affordable health care for themselves and their families, no matter what. The misleading propaganda they are using to poison the critical public discussion of health care reform also threatens our democratic capacity to reason together about vital public issues.

Robert Kraig is executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin.

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!

 

Cog Dis Again Scoops Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The local paper finally got around to reporting how Scott Walker got a temporary reprieve from jury duty due to a fire at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

Of course, the savvy Gentle Reader already knew that, since I reported about Walker's jury duty on Friday, three full days before the paper.

Score another one for the good guys.

Addendum: Two of my other bigger scoops include naming Kelly Rindfleisch as a role player in the Walkergate investigation five days before she was arrested and reporting the fight between Sean Duffy and his then political opponent, Dan Mielke, at a TEA Party in Oconomowoc.

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.

Just Another Day in Wisconsin!

By Jeff Simpson

A quick look at the headlines, and you will find out that April 30, 2013, is just your typical day in Wisconsin.  

First thing we see is that there are more Wisconsinites losing their jobs, 100 at one plant and 90 Wisconsin workers at another.  

While we lose hundreds of jobs a day, the two papers of record are on it.  The Wisconsin State Journal is so upset that they decided to attack public school teachers (yet again) in their editorial.  JSOnline has decided to prioritize advocating for less democracy in Milwaukee County. 


While we all wish that our media was more competent, its the legislators that can really get something done. With Wisconsin dropping to 44th(out of 50) in jobs created and obviously losing jobs by the day, let us check in and see what the legislature has on its plate to help fix this:

1.    The extremist personhood law, declaring life at first date!

2.    Limiting voting hours.

3.    More Austerity!

These days all of this right wing extremist crazy and hundreds of job losses in WIsconsin are so common place that no one even blinks*.

Except AFP-WI who parties everytime we have bad Wisconsin news!

MJS, David Haynes Still Can't Be Honest About Walkergate

The editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, led by David Haynes, finally got around to addressing the Walkergate story...sort of.

They have two major flaws with their editorial.

One is the part where they wrote this:

Among the unanswered questions: Has the 2½-year-old John Doe investigation run its course? If not, where might it go from here? The district attorney isn't saying. So far, four people have been convicted.

While there may be nothing illegal about any of what Landgraf says happened, the alleged activities inside the courthouse are the antithesis of good government. And they appear to violate Walker's pledge to separate his work as county executive from the campaign.

Do you see their contradictory statements?

First, they acknowledge that four people, including Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch, have been convicted. In the next sentence, they say there might not be anything illegal about what happened.

Excuse me, but if it weren't illegal, people wouldn't have been arrested, tried and convicted. Duh! Obviously, what they did was indeed and most emphatically illegal.

The other major problem throughout their editorial can be exemplified by their last paragraph:

We have no idea if there is more here than meets the eye. But what's clear from the emails is that Walker's campaign staff was helping to manage county government for the benefit of only one citizen - Scott Walker. How is that acceptable conduct?

I'm sure the gentle reader has noted that Haynes and company refers to Walker's campaign staff. However, they omit the fact that Walker was an active player in these emails and media group.

They include Walker's name in the list of the members of Walker's "Campaign Group." So why did they not include his role in the fact that the campaign was running the county, but rather blame just his staff? The only logical conclusion is that they omitted it intentionally to deliberately mislead their readers by downplaying Walker's role in this.

Perhaps Haynes and the rest of the editorial board should also be reminded of this statement from Walker:

"Anything that happens in the county, the buck stops with me."

Apparently that doesn't hold true to illegal campaigning, either by Walker or the editorial board.

I won't pretend to know what their motivation for lying to their readers is. It could be because they don't want to eat crow after endorsing Walker twice. It could be that they are being good little corporate media serfs. Or it could be something else entirely.

What I find disconcerting is that, even though they've had a significant drop in subscribers over recent years, there are way too many people who rely on the paper as their only news source. These people are unaware that they are being lied to on a daily basis.

I can't help but wonder if the paper would be honest and objective in their reports and editorials, whether Walker would have even remained in office as county executive, much less ever see the governor's mansion as anything but a tourist.

But to be fair, I have to give Haynes and his colleagues credit on one thing.

Even though their representation of the story was false and misleading, at least they admitted its existence. If someone relied on one of the other propagandists, like Brian Sikma, Owen Robinson, James Wigderson, et alia, for their news, they wouldn't even know that Walkergate existed.

The Misnamed Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

This ad was published in Sunday's edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Well, at least they're no longer trying hide who their target audience is anymore.

But it also finalizes the fact that the daily rag is sorely misnamed.

Their target is no longer Milwaukee. It hasn't been for years as they have pandered to the red county of Walkersha. The only time they really talk about Milwaukee is when they are bad mouthing it.

And the word Journal is all wrong too. It would imply that they are practicing journalism, which is pretty far from accurate. Journalism requires investigative, nonpartisan reporting. Yeah, not much of that going on there either. Heck, look at how often that Cog Dis or other blogs have scooped them on the news and have actually gone into details about the story.

And Sentinel? Puh-lease. Sentinels are guardians, protectors. The paper is a sell-out, if anything. They most definitely do not have the best interest of the public in mind with the offal they publish.

I would propose that they change the name of their daily, if for no other reason, than to be accurate.

Perhaps something like the "Walkersha Republican" or the "Fitzwalkerstan Corporate Media." At least then there would be some honesty from the paper, something that hasn't happened for years.

Coverage Contest

As I just wrote, the teahadists are going to be having a revival and snake oil sellathon this Saturday.

President Barack Obama will be in Milwaukee the very same day day.

Which do you think the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will write about more and which one do you think they'll give the more favorable pass to?

TMJ Reporter Arrested, TMJ Doesn't Report It

One of WTMJ-TV's "investigative reporters" - in other words, one of their sensationalist gotcha reporters that they're so fond of - got himself all wee wee'd up:

According to the Glendale police report:

A Bayshore security guard caught Rob Koebel, 41, urinating outside of the Apple store at 10:11 p.m. Aug. 21. Koebel, an investigative reporter with TMJ4's I-Team, lives in an apartment above the Apple store.

The security guard told police he saw Koebel and his friend, a 52-year-old man, leave Bar Louie on their way back to their apartments. The friend told police Koebel had been drinking. When Koebel started urinating outside of the Apple store, the security guard told him to stop, but Koebel ignored him.

[...]

Police arrested Koebel after he refused to follow commands. When an officer tried to lock the handcuffs, Koebel kept swaying, and officers attempted to steady him against the wall of the business. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, bringing an officer down with him.

When police brought him back to the station, Koebel was uncooperative with officers. When an officer stated he was going to remove his handcuffs, Koebel warned him to "be careful."

Koebel became increasingly uncooperative, saying "Don't play games with me" and "Do you want to take the gloves off or no?" As he was booked, Koebel called an officer names such as "(expletive) face", as well as a derogatory term for homosexual.

Glendale police cited Koebel for disorderly conduct.

Now, when a local celebrity gets himself in a jam like this, this would normally be fodder for the local paper. Oddly, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel hasn't printed a word about the misconduct and subsequent arrest of this knob.

Then again, as the gentle reader either already knew or could have surmised by the TV station's call letters, they are both owned by Journal Communications.

This perfectly illustrates the problem with the erosion of the regulations of the airwaves over the years allowing corporate media to buy up and monopolize whole media markets.

And it would be poetic justice since Koebel is the same guy that cost a school bus driver her job by playing his gotcha game.

It could also be that TMJ is just holding off on reporting anything until they have Koebel installed as their newest squawk radio host, like they did with the sensationalist political hack John Mercure, who should thank his stars that impersonating a reporter isn't against the law.

Cross posted at Whallah!

Piggly Wiggly Is Coming To West Allis

I have learned today that the Majdecki Sentry food store in West Allis will be switching over to the Piggly Wiggly brand in August.  I would presume that the other Sentry store in Menominee Falls will also be converting to the Pig.

I have mixed feelings about this.  Sentry used to be a regular stop, but for the past several months, they haven't been able to keep up with the price wars with Pick'N'Save.  I had also been eager for a Piggly Wiggly to open up in my area, but after their union busting maneuvers, I'm not so keen on them anymore.

I also realize that this doesn't really matter to most of you, but I can't resist scooping the local paper whenever I can.

Disgraceful Reporting Dishonors Victims Of The O'Donnell Park Tragedy

On June 24, 2010, tragedy struck Milwaukee County.

As people were streaming in to enjoy the first days of Summerfest, a 27,000 concrete facade fell off the O'Donnell Park parking garage and struck three people, killing fifteen year old Jared Kellner and injuring two others.

Kellner's parents have since filed a lawsuit which has been working its slow way through the courts. Recently, expert witness reports have been filed with the court. The reporting on this by Steve Schultze of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is absolutely disgraceful in its inaccuracy (emphasis ours):

Milwaukee County has long blamed faulty installation for the 13-ton concrete panel falling from O'Donnell Park two years ago, killing a 15-year-old Greenfield boy.

Implicit in that view was that the county had no blame in the tragedy, in which two others were injured.

New theories advanced in the accident shift the focus back on the county, alleging that improper maintenance may have played a role or that snow removal equipment bumped and loosened the panel that dropped from the O'Donnell ramp facade over the Lincoln Memorial Drive exit, according to expert witness reports filed in a lawsuit that is a year away from trial.

[...]

Advance raises a series of possible contributing factors to the panel collapse, including water infiltration weakening the connections, pressure on the panel connection caused by problems in the ramp construction and impact damage. Snow removal equipment and heavy trucks likely damaged the panel and it may have been slammed from inside the ramp by vehicles parked near the panel that fell, according to a Thornton Thomasetti report.

There is absolutely not one thing new about the concern regarding deferred maintenance and its role in the O'Donnell Park tragedy.

As Milwaukee County Executive, Scott Walker was infamous for his preference of kicking the can down the road by deferring maintenance and delaying repairs on many county buildings, especially those in the parks. In an audit done just six months before the tragedy, the county auditors presented a report listing almost $300,000 in deferred maintenance and delayed repairs just to the parks buildings.

Nor was it the first time that a county building fell apart from the poor care they received under Walker's watch. A piece of cornice fell off of the Milwaukee County Courthouse fell off just months before the tragedy.

Immediately after the tragedy, then Milwaukee Board Chairman Lee Holloway issued a statement of sympathy and ordered that the rest of the county buildings immediately undergo inspection.

Not only did Walker show deplorable behavior by condemning the statement, but his own actions showed exactly where his priorities were, and they weren't with the victims:

What makes Walker’s accusations even more egregious is that the first thing Walker did was to check in at the courthouse to see if there was any deferred maintenance. At the press conference that occurred shortly after the tragedy, after appropriately expressing his sympathy for the victims, Walker felt it necessary to keep repeating that there was no deferred maintenance that he was aware of. It was as if his first concern was that he didn’t get blamed for this catastrophe.

If one wanted further proof that deferred maintenance is not a new theory by any stretch of the imagination, one would not have to go further than the same paper. On July 6, the paper had a report that included this snippet (emphasis ours):

Though the connections are drawing the interest of investigators, including the sheriff’s department and district attorney’s office, it’s not yet clear whether a change in design would explain why the panel dislodged and fell.

Engineering experts caution that there is rarely one villain in such accidents, and unlikely suspects can play a surprising role.

“Usually the small details cause big problems,” said Al Ghorbanpoor, chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s civil engineering department.

Also to be explored is whether the county took steps over the years to block moisture from getting into the joints connecting the panels to the walls. Moisture could have corroded the connections, said Ghorbanpoor, who has investigated building failures.

And then on the very next day, they had another article which had this in it (again, emphasis ours):

Experts agree that the top of the slab, where the panel was connected to the parking garage wall, is the key weight-bearing point. They also say that hanging such panels – which are purely a decorative feature – is a straightforward job that doesn’t require sophisticated engineering.

“There could be 10 different ways of doing this,” said Al Ghorbanpoor, chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s civil engineering department. Investigators will want to check the design, the quality of construction and maintenance of the panel, he said.
Indeed, a review of the maintenance records from the 2009 audit shows that a lot of work needed to be done on the parking structure.

Walker and his apologists claimed that the repairs had been made in the six months between the audit and the tragedy.

However, an independent study of the building by Inspec revealed otherwise. It was so bad that engineer Dwight Benoy said that the parking garage was "one of the worst ones" of the hundreds of buildings he's ever seen. Their 66-page report verifies that the building was in horrendous condition with many needed repairs as a result of obviously very poor maintenance.

Perhaps the most egregious part of the whole story is why the maintenance was deferred and the repairs went undone.

In a article appearing in the BizTimes, Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan exposed the fact that in Walker's eight years as county executive, he raided the the capital fund, diverting $112 million in sales tax revenue, which was earmarked for maintenance and repairs and used it to fill gaps in his operating budgets.

Whether the recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is the result of sloppy reporting or part of the paper's ongoing history of under-reporting Walker's responsibility for many of the problems that Milwaukee County has and is still experiencing as a result of his poor leadership skills, it is utterly disgraceful and downright shameful for the way it dishonors the victims of this horrid tragedy.

It also is a gross disservice to the people who rely on them for factual and honest reporting.  They have the solemn responsibility to do better than that.

Cross posted at Milwaukee County First.