Uppity Wisconsin

.Republican radio's Charles Sykes has stepped in it big time, calling the hateful work above "pure genius."

Milwaukee's ecumenical Interfaith Council begs to differ.

Jim Rowen summarizes thoughtfully on the national Daily Kos blog, and Mike Plaistad weighs in with, "Sykes bravely fights coexistence."

Marquette Prof. John McAdams, taking a brief respite from defending policies that lock up 10 times as many black people, per capita, as white, has taken offense at my recent post about Charlie Sykes's bullying of former we energies exec Dick Abdoo.

I'll have to thank Illusory Tenant for pointing that out.  Can't say I'm a regular reader of McAdams's drivel. (If you're attacked and don't know it, does it make a sound?)

He was so taken with the comment of one Sykes fan who responded to my post on this blog that he reprinted it in its entirety.  He didn't however, bother to reprint my responses, so I'll do that here:

There's a name for what Sykes did.

It's called bullying.

It is one thing to disagree with someone. It's quite another to try to silence them.

That's what Sykes did.

The right wing continues to complain that their new attorney general, J. B. Van Hollen, isn't enough of an activist. (They wanted a new attorney general, they claimed, because the last one, a liberal Dem, was too much of an activist.) Just because he's the attorney general doesn't mean he should be hamstrung by little things like the law or the Constitution, they say.

The latest flap is over a ceremony to honor and commemorate murder victims, held at the State Capitol and sponsored by the State Dept. of Justice, which Van Hollen heads. After some militant atheists, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, complained about some religious content in the event, a hymn and a prayer were eliminated.

It's just coincidence, probably, that the two wingnuts complaining the loudest about JBVH are people who wanted the AG job -- Jeff Wagner, a failed candidate in 1994, and Jessica McBride, who wanted it for her husband, Paul Bucher, an even bigger failure in 2006, losing to JBVH in the primary. (One conservative blogging lawyer, Rick Esenberg, demurs.)

McBride has now taken second swing at it, wondering why JBVH can't be more like Scott Walker and include "God Bless America" and "Thank You to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts" on the program, and apparently even Charlie Sykes, who has not run for AG (and isn't a lawyer) has joined the list of whiners.

WELCOME, MCADAMS & SYKES READERS. When you've finished, you may want to read this as well.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Since late in 2001, under the title McCarthyism Watch, Matt Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, has collected and chronicled abuses of civil liberties in the post-9/11 era in the United States.

His book, You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression, tells 82 stories of people caught up in the web of the Patriot Act and other heightened security measures. (Rothschild will speak at a book-signing event Thursday, Sept. 28 at Harry W. Schwartz bookstore, 2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee.)

 

Charlie Sykes calls this gas-passing "Patrick McIlheran at his best." and says it's "a trenchant analysis."

Here's Paddy Mac, the Journal Sentinel's farthest-out columnist:

The question isn’t why we tolerate these inequities [between rich and poor] so much as why we tolerate the personal dysfunction that is behind them.

I suggest it’s because what we find more intolerable would be the kind of intrusiveness into the lives of the very poor that could help them become as prosperous as most Americans are. We cannot bring ourselves to forcibly make people not become pregnant while unmarried. We will not force children to pay attention in school or, for that matter, attend school. We won’t mandate a longer time horizon, a change in personal outlook, a resulting ambition to learn a useful career at MATC.

This from Jonah Goldberg, a self-righteous bag of gas from the National Review's Dept. of Calling the Kettle Black, cited gleefully by Charlie Sykes:

But the Left has another solution. Under its system, you can still be a moralizer. You can still tell people what to do and how to live. And, best of all, you can still fall short of your ideals personally while guiltlessly trying to use government to impose your moral vision on others. All you have to do is become a liberal moralizer.

Once you become a liberal, you can wax eloquent on the glories of the public schools while sending your kids to private school. You can wax prolix about the greedy rich while making a fortune on the side. You can even use the government to impose your values willy-nilly, from racial quotas and confiscatory tax rates to draconian environmental policies and sex-ed for grade-schoolers — all of which will paid for in part by people who disagree with you...

The point is simply this: Hypocrisy is bad, sure. But it’s a human failing that should fall upon the individual in question. What the left wants to do is use hypocrisy as a cudgel to declare that conservative ideals are categorically illegitimate because some conservatives fail to live up to them.

An Iowa school superintendent sounds off on Charlie Sykes's 50 rules.

 UPDATE: You will read it on Sykes's blog, however. He's proud that educators disagree with him. Which proves his point, of course: He's smarter than they are.

Too bad he didn't choose to spend his time in the classroom, doing something worthwhile, instead of in the studio. Maybe it's the pay.

From Whallah!

The Nutosphere continues its crusade to report every crime that involves an illegal immigrant.

They've been at it for a long time, starting with a Memorial Day shooting in 2006 that was commited by someone who turned out to be here legally.  It was truly an Emily Litella moment.  Jessica McBride blamed the police for providing the wrong info, but she had been claiming, long before any police announcement, that the shooter must have been an illegal.

McBride challenges the news media every time an illegal is found to have committed a crime or even been accused.

Her mentor, Charlie Sykes,does the same.

Fresh from their fierce defense of US Attorney Steven Biskupic against claims that politics affected his prosecutions, Wisconsin wingnuts are complaining that their new Republican attorney general isn't putting politics ahead of the law.

J.B. Van Hollen, who took office in January, has come under fire for failing to prosecute -- or at least dirty up --the Democratic governor, Jim Doyle. The wingnuts are also unhappy about opinions he's issued on abortion and affirmative action issues.

Van Hollen was praised by the conservative Madison newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal, for his even-handedness. In an editorial, it said:

He also has shown he's not the far-right ideologue or partisan opportunist that some had feared.

And that's his problem with the right. Jessica McBride, an Ann Coulter wannabe whose husband lost the GOP primary for AG to Van Hollen, wrote:

Wisconsin State Journal praises Van Hollen for not being a "right-wing ideologue"

With all due respect, the only problem with that analysis is that he PROMISED to be a right-wing ideologue.

I think it's a gubernatorial strategy.

Van Hollen was grilled Wednesday on Charlie Sykes' conservative talk show on WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee. Sykes likes hunting RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), and seems to have Van Hollen in his sights.

Charlie Sykes gets a plug from Michelle Malkin:

THANKS, MICHELLE

Michelle Malkin gets an advance peak at "The 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School" and has some kind words.

"Charles J. Sykes has long been one of my favorite chroniclers of our dumbed-down education and the corrupting effects of the self-esteem movement. I just received his new book, set for release on August 21, titled “50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education.” Witty, acerbic, reality-grounded. It’s a great purchase for college-bound friends/family or parents with school-age kids. "

The book will be officially released in about two weeks.... watch this space for updates and announcements.

An advance peak?

This from the guy who wrote "Dumbing Down Our Schools?"

A rule Sykes forgot: Sometimes, Spell Check ain't enough.  Ya hafta spell your own self.

UPDATE: The spelling's been corrected.

Here is today's Sykes post, in its entirety:

THE MILWAUKEE TAX REVOLT

is over.

That's based on Tuesday's special county board election in the heart of Tax Revolt Central -- South Milwaukee, Cudahy, St. Francis and Oak Creek.

In that south suburban area, where huge rallies sponsored by Citizens for Responsible Government helped fuel the recall campaign against Tom Ament, voters said that enough is enough.

A hand-picked Scott Walker candidate, who pledged to do whatever Walker wanted, lost to a candidate who's criticized Walker budget cuts and favors a referendum on an added one cent county sales tax to pay for parks, transit and property tax relief.

Walker says he'll veto the resolution rather than even let the voters express themselves on it. Now we know why.

It's time for a serious candidate to step up and challenge Walker's reelection bid in April. His one-trick, no-tax pony act is getting very old and tired.

UPDATE: Progressive Majority has more:

Looking for even a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel, the right wing warmongers, including radio talker Charlie Sykes, cite a new USA Today/Gallup poll to claim support for the Bush war effort is increasing.

It's pretty thin soup. Here's the "good news" for Sykes and Company:

In the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, taken Friday through Sunday, the proportion of those who said the additional troops are "making the situation better" rose to 31% from 22% a month ago. Those who said it was "not making much difference" dropped to 41% from 51%.

About the same number said it was making things worse: 24% now, 25% a month ago.

The number of those who favor removing virtually all U.S. troops from Iraq by next April 1 has dropped a bit, though two-thirds of those surveyed still support the idea.

In the July survey, a record high of 62% had called the invasion of Iraq "a mistake." That view is now held by 57%, roughly where it's been for more than a year.

(Also posted on the Whallah! blog.)

State Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) suggested she might outfit State Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) with a cone hat and a sheet for his opposition to affrirmative action.

Which brings Jessica McBride -- who's always big on apologies as long as she's not the one making them -- to say Grigsby owes an apology to Grothman. Says McBride:

This is a common tactic on the left, and it needs to be called out whenever it's spotted.

When a conservative disagrees with a liberal, they often accuse them of being "racist" to shut down debate because they can't win on the merits of their argument.

Oppose illegal immigration? You're a racist. Oppose Michael McGee Jr.? You're a racist. Oppose gangsta rap? You're a racist. Oppose affirmative action? You're a racist. Want to lock up criminals? You're a racist. Criticize Eugene Kane? You're a racist.

Glenn Grothman has every right to express his opinion against affirmative action without being compared to a KKK member.

Spare us the righteous indignation, please.

With Eliza Doolittle McBride having succumbed to the Peter Principle, Milwaukee's right wing king/queenmaker Charlie Sykes has begun to work on his next project, one James Harris.

Harris has started to get The Treatment. Sykes and other conservative talkers link to his blog regularly. WTMJ-AM has given him a weekly Sunday night radio show. Now he's showing up as a guest on Sykes's Sunday TV show.

And what is it that makes Harris so special in the eyes of Sykes and Company?

He's an African American conservative who writes things like this:

Will things ever get better in the inner city?

My response: Sure they will. When the civil rights generation that allowed this crap to happen either repents or dies.