Uppity Wisconsin

When Milwaukee County Supervisor Peggy West mistakenly said recently that Arizona didn't border Mexico, she became an instant celebrity and object of ridicule, both locally and on the national scene.

A one-second search of the JS found at least seven articles about West's gaffe.

And it was a bad one. Whether she really didn't know about the Arizona-Mexico border or experienced a brain fart while she was debating on the County Board floor, she really embarrassed herself.

Fast forward now to this week, and a TV commercial by Senate candidate Ron Johnson, airing statewide at saturation levels, in which Johnson claims that Russ Feingold was the only Great Lakes Senator to vote against an energy bill cooked up by Dick Cheney and the oil companies in 2005.

That wasn't the headline, of course. But it could have been.

A survey shows 49% for I-94 expansion, 41% for high speed rail and 42% for commuter rail. So the Journal Sentinel played up the lack of support for rail -- in the four-county metro Milwaukee area, which includes three conservative red counties and one big blue one.

Margin of error? Plus or minus 5 per cent. So support for I-94 expansion could have been as low as 44%, and support for rail as high as 47%.

But that wouldn't fit the newspaper's template, as my old friend Jessica McBride used to say.

OK, you followed the news today. What's Wisconsin's unemployment rate?

Unemployment rate continues downward trend, reaches lowest point in over a year

MADISON – Department of Workforce Development (DWD) Secretary Roberta Gassman announced today that Wisconsin’s May unemployment rate dropped significantly to 7.7 percent, its lowest level since early 2009, and that Wisconsin added over 40,000 jobs in May, demonstrating its continued economic recovery. -- Dept. of Workforce Development.

Wisconsin’s unemployment rate continues to drop

Wisconsin’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.7 percent in May, its lowest level since early 2009, as more than 40,000 new jobs were added during the month, the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) announced today. -- BizTimes.com

State jobless rate fell to 8.2% in May

Wisconsin's economy lost 7,900 private-sector jobs in May but federal, state and local governments hired enough workers to offset the private-sector declines, according to the state's latest employment report, released Thursday. Adjusting for seasonal factors, the state unemployment rate fell

How many people marched in Milwaukee on May Day in support of immigrant rights?

Thousands, say the Journal Sentinel and its sister TV station, WTMJ.

Tens of thousands, says WITI-TV, the Fox affiliate.

Sixty thousand, says WISN-TV, the Hearst ABC station.

Sixty-five thousand, say organizers at Voces de la Frontera.

Fewer than 65,000, says WDJT-TV, the CBS station, which didn't offer its own number.

Even given the usual high-side estimate from organizers, who tend to inflate the numbers, there is a huge difference between "thousands" and 60,000 to 65,000.

To report that "thousands" marched really trivilizes the magnitude of the event. "Thousands" were reported to attend a Tea Party event in Madison, although it was probably 2,000.

And I haven't read anything in the "real" media about a dustup at the Tea Bag Gabfest/American Dream event in the Dells, between the wife of GOP golden boy Sean Duffy and his primary opponent, Dan Mielke.  Even though a police call was involved, the media have reported only on the predictable speeches and nothing on the spontaneous fireworks. The two are competing for the nomination to oppose Rep. Dave Obey.

Fortunately, there are other sources of news these days:

Milwaukee News Buzz, a brand new entry from Milwaukee Magazine.

WisPolitics.com

UPDATE: The video that started the ruckus.

The Journal Sentinel reported in November:

Study says most adults read newspapers

About three-quarters of U.S. adults, or nearly 171 million people, read a newspaper - print or online - in a given week, according to a new study by Scarborough Research.

In a given week that's probably true, but if I were publishing a daily newspaper I don't think I'd be happy about once-a-week perusers.

Here's a different take, from recent study:

Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day.

Here's what they say they do on that "typical day":

When Tom Barrett's campaign website didn't seem up to snuff to an Associated Press reporter in January, the AP carried almost 700 words about it, trashing Barrett's website in a story carried in many media outlets.

The AP put a lot of effort into the non-story, even finding an expert from Fordham University to comment.

So ... when will we be reading the AP story about Barrett's impressive new website?

With global warming, the chances of Hell freezing over seem dimmer every day. So don't get your hopes up.

And what I read in the Journal Sentinel sounds like good news:

Journal Communications posts $7.2 million profit

Journal Communications Inc. said Thursday it posted a profit of $7.2 million in the fourth quarter as the company's expenses dropped significantly from a year earlier.

The Milwaukee-based media company had earnings of 12 cents per share on its A and B common stock. That compares with a loss of almost $223 million, or $4.46, in the fourth quarter of 2008. Et cetera

Then there's this report, from Broadcasting and Cable online, which covers the industry:

Journal Station Revenue Down 15% in Q4

Journal Communications reported television station revenue of $28.3 million in the fourth quarter, a 15.2% drop from the same quarter a year before.

I'm seldom accused of being too kind in my commentary, but maybe I pulled my punch a little on a recent post about Journal Sentinel Managing Editor George Stanley's series of cheerleading articles for the war in Afghanistan.

An online column by Milwaukee Magazine Editor Bruce Murphy makes my comments seem tame.

Murphy calls the series "...at times, embarrassing, and at its heart a boy’s view of war... It’s a comic book view of war, with no room for nuance."

Murphy on Stanley's insistence that we commit to "winning" the war:

Our government’s leadership has spoken, and Obama has set a deadline of 2011 for ending the war in Afghanistan. Stanley proceeds to undercut this idea, telling us every soldier and Marine he talks to wants to stay there as long as necessary to “finish the job.” Well, yes. And football players always want to go for it on fourth down rather than take the safe bet of kicking a field goal. That’s why you have a coach. The American tradition of civilian oversight of the military has long assured that cooler heads on the sidelines determine strategy.

Did you ever have to make up your mind? Pick up on one and leave the other behind... 

Did you ever have to finally decide? Say yes to one and let the other one ride...

New Hampshire just joined the list of states allowing gay marriage, after a quick trip through the legislature and a world-record-breaking signing by the governor. 

And yet, Wisconsin has somehow lost its progressive way on this issue.  2006 was the sad year in which Wisconsin legalized discrimination, both legally and morally.  It's time to fix this. Let's try again.  Let's keep trying until we get it right.

A big headline across the top of the Metro front page, and a huge pull-out quote on this piece of phony baloney suggesting that a proposal to require prevailing wages be paid on public construction projects would prevent volunteers from working on them. Here's the big pullout:

Update: After I had posted this article, I inadvertantly stumbled across this organization.   They are called "LEAP" or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.   It's definitely worth a look see.  These are the folks who have dealt with the "War on Drugs" and its many guises such as "zero tolerence" policies.  The LEAP link.

******* 

Noticeably,  there is a new study out claiming older people are in more denial of their abilities while drinking than "young people".  This study, although I am having some difficulty finding the actuals regarding it was plastered all over the news a few days ago.  I found it odd that the MSM was all over this thing. (Where are they regarding the single-payer health care proposition?)  Tsk. Tsk.

Time had this to say:

"Researchers deliberately chose "young" adults around 30 to make sure they were at least several years removed from the undergraduate binge-drinking culture."  Is it me.... or does "around 30" sound awfully high to be in the young adult category?  But it gets better, they also said:

It's not as if I needed more proof of this, but it appears that right-wing bloggers just can't grasp the concept of satire .  Even when it is written by people in their own fold. 

There's been a minor blow-up in the conservative blogosphere over a report that the White House and the military are having a pitched battle because Obama wants soldiers to pledge allegiance to him rather than to the nation and the constitution.  Well, I agree, this would be really troubling if there were any truth to it.  The article was tagged as satire originally, but apparently this went unnoticed by those who wanted to find yet more bogus evidence that the new president was turning himself into a replacement for God and country.  Why is the right-wing willing to believe the silliest stories about Obama, and then to repeat them as undeniable truth?  I'm not even as amused by the fact that a number of bloggers fell for this as the crazed explanations in this article as to why the charge was so believable.  A giant house of cards built on misinformation.  Rather a lot like the last administration.

So I was watching this documentary film based on a book the other day.  Apparently there is evidence of a parallel universe inhabited by tiny and immense people, and countries that are at war over how they break their eggs.  They have proof.  Eye-witness accounts.  This is yet more evidence of the evil being done by the Obama administration.  The fact that war can spread over such a silly matter on Obama's watch is shocking, and I'm sure that the mutant-sized people are the result of some sort of stem-cell research gone amuck.  Apparently this Swift guy has access to a lot of suppressed information.  I say we impeach!.  

By the way - as a footnote I do realize that Gulliver's Travels is a satire.  I'm a liberal.  I know the difference. And I promise this will be the last time I link to the WorldNet daily site.