Uppity Wisconsin

Funny how big a crowd of 5,000 (if it really was that big) played in the media when it was right-wing teabaggers coming to protest paying for their government services. It was portrayed as a mammoth grassroots uprising, a taxpayer revolt.

When perhaps twice that number of people marched in Milwaukee Friday for immigration and labor rights, the stories were about how much smaller the crowd was than last year's 30,000.

The May Day rally organized by Voces de la Frontera had no official crowd estimate. The estimated attendance at the Republican-organized teabag rally at the state Capitol came from the organizers.

Given that precedent, Voces should have told reporters there were 50,000 at Veterans Park.

Update: They did estimate 30,000.

Many more marched than stayed for the speeches, but the photos are impressive.

This week's cause celebre in the Wisconsin Rightysphere appears to be alleged email improprieties on the part of Tony Evers and Jeff Dieckert.  Starting off with a barrage of claims on the part of Mari Belling on the radio, there've been allegations that Tony Evers has had campaign discussions with Dieckert on government email. 

Now of course, Belling has not appeared to have actually released the documents in question, so at the moment we have his word for it.  

Madison’s Air America affiliate, The Mic 92.1, lost Lee Rayburn. And Lee Rayburn is fighting back. From your site, please link up to Lee Rayburn Radio at http://www.leerayburn.com/. Rayburn is continuing his hard-hitting radio show on the Net, so please post a permanent link on your blog. Funny, insightful, brilliant and one entertaining performer, Lee's talent is needed now more than ever. Emily Mills has some good background on the story. Tune into to http://www.leerayburn.com/.

OK, America, so I pulled a tiny prank tonight—and it was so classic that I have to tell you all about it. It involves freedom of speech, a friendly message to one of those crazy Republicans we all know—and it forced that crazy Republican to get up at three in the morning because he could not handle the threat to his world view. Wanna hear all about it? Then come along and follow the story…because it’s worth it. So here’s the deal: we have a neighbor who just has not been able to let go of the fact that McCain lost.

Update: Complaints prompt The Mic 92.1 to bring back 'Thom Hartmann'

I listened for the Lee Rayburn show on 92.1 (Madison)  today, and asked around and found out that Rayburn quit.

Rayburn had the best local show pretty much in the history of Madison, excluding WORT Radio.

There are lots of programming changes going on for the worst at Madison's progressive radio station, for example, there's some religious-financial guru where Thom Hartmann used to be. 

Emily Mills has the story a Lost Albatross:

"I am thoroughly bummed. Madison's only progressive talk radio station, the Mic 92.1FM, is undergoing some sort of strange programming flip. This change has already resulted in two terrible casualties of the airwaves: the loss of Thom Hartmann's show, and more recently, that of Madison's own Lee Rayburn."

Meeting tonight:

The new foreign policy team - Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates who will stay on as secretary of defense - are named.

And so do the networks use the occasion to comment on the lies of the Iraq War, the sham of the War on Terror, the obscene amount of money used on armaments? The deaths of 100,000s? Perhaps speculating on whether this will change?

No, the talk of the day is will Hillary get along with Robert and will Hillary get along with Barack? Will the U.S. be okay and recover from its mistakes?

If anyone doubts that Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky are spot-on in their institutional analysis of the corporate mass media in their Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon, 1988), I recommend reading the book or the transcript of Chomsky's talk delivered at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, March 15, 1989.

This weekend, I stumbled across this radio script I wrote for a commercial aired in February 2006 by the Greater Wisconsin Committee. Given the flap over whether Sarah Palin owns the word lipstick, I thought it was amusing.

GWC 022406 LIPSTICK 

They say you can put lipstick on a pig – but it’s still a pig.

(SOUND EFFECT: OINK!)

An ill-advised constitutional amendment, once called TABOR, is back with a new name, the Taxpayer Protection Amendment.

Update: Broder was in Madison last night offering his piercing insights.

David Broder is truly the Dean of American corporate journalism and commentary: Inane and living in a comfortable bubble of ideology.

No one is ever quite sure whether the Broders of the world are lying or deluded.

Today, Broder musters out a typical column in the Post: It's too early to call the presidential election for John McCain, no matter the opinion of the "party pros" Broder is in touch with.

Good, Mr. Broder, but what the frack are you talking about?

This is the same guy who can never quite get the nerve to call the Republicans bald-faced liars (we know these guys are liars), so I guess we should not be too surprised at any given Broder column, but he offers this beauty:

Update: The Right Dictates MSNBC's Programming Decisions What makes a political host incendiary? Holding Republicans accountable and asking questions.

These sins of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews have caused MSNBC to take the two politicos off the anchor chairs, leading the cable channel’s election coverage.

Olbermann and Matthews are apparently not aware that their mandate is that of a stenographer and propagandist delivering insipid descriptions of GOP-approved narratives.