One Wisconsin Now

Hey, check out this post from Media Matters:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200810020004

In reporting on new NRCC ad, Cillizza did not note GOP support for Rangel earmark Summary: In a blog post, washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza reported that the National Republican Congressional Committee released an ad attacking a Democratic House member who voted in favor of an earmark for "the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service," but Cillizza did not note that 89 House Republicans also voted in favor of the earmark.

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.

But it has the same flaws as the earlier version, the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern says.

Taxpayers need protection, all right - protection from this same old bad idea.

The Beloit Daily News calls it "gimmicky nonsense." The Appleton Post-Crescent says it's "an example of wrong-thinking government."

Local officials, seniors, nurses, firefighters, teachers, and retirees are opposed to the amendment. They know it will cut vital services for the people who need them the most.

Wisconsin doesn't need a constitutional amendment to hold down spending. It needs state legislators who will make some tough decisions.

Call your legislators today at 1-800-362-9472. Ask them to oppose the so-called Taxpayer Protection Amendment.

(SOUND EFFECT: OINK!)

Paid for by Greater Wisconsin Committee

On Thursday evening the Institute for One Wisconsin is hosting the Protect Wisconsin’s Vote Education Summit in Milwaukee. It will feature a panel of experts discussing voting rights, voter suppression and other related issues. There will be a partial viewing of the documentary Uncounted and informative videos produced by Milwaukee’s MATA Media.

Such an event is necessary because of the consistent and concerted efforts to disenfranchise certain voters by conservatives. The same bogus charges of “voter fraud” are parroted around every major election. Sadly the false accusations are given front page treatment only to be proven wrong later. Last year the first complete analysis of allegations from the 2004 presidential election was released. It found that the vast majority of allegations were unfounded and that there was no real voter fraud problem in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or the rest of the country for that matter.

On May 27, the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance did a new report showing Wisconsin dropped out of the ranks of the 10 highest-taxed states for the first time in more than 25 years. Indeed, going all the way back to 1963, when the state first adopted a sales tax, Wisconsin has ranked in the top 10 every year except 1980 and 1968.

As recently as 1999, when Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was near the end of his long tenure, Wisconsin ranked as the third-highest taxed state. Today, Wisconsin has dropped to 11th-highest. That's quite a change, and it got extensive coverage in the Wisconsin State Journal . The story was picked up by other newspapers statewide.

But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sat on the report for nearly a week and then barely reported it: The disclosure came in the 23rd graph of a story telling us "Property taxes jump 3.8%, most in 3 years." At the very end of this story telling us taxes are going up, the paper devoted just four paragraphs to the news that the state dropped out of the top 10, and used a quote from Taxpayers Alliance President Todd Berry saying the ranking merely showed that some other states increased their taxes.

With a voice vote that confirmed the near-unanimous sentiment of senators who had heard from hundreds of thousands of Americans demanding that they act, the legislators moved to nullify an FCC attempt to permit a radical form of media consolidation: a rule change designed to permit one corporation to own daily and weekly newspapers as well as television and radio stations in the same local market.

Once again John Torinus has written a column trying his best to minimize the serious violations of Justice Annette Ziegler. Like Ziegler, Torinus is willfully ignoring many factors in the unprecedented decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to discipline one of their own. Once again he fails to inform readers of his own conflict while at the same time putting hypocrisy on full display.

John Torinus again failed to tell his readers that he is hardly an objective viewer of the Ziegler scandal. He is a long-time board member for corporate lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC). They shattered all kinds of records by spending unprecedented millions to get Ziegler elected. They not only spent more than Ziegler did on her own campaign but they spent more than both campaigns combined. To present his severely biased views of the Ziegler scandal without making full disclosure of this conflict is deliberately misleading.

What follows in an op-ed submission following my continued disgust with the media’s reporting on conditions in Iraq.

For some reason WTMJ radio insists on poisoning Milwaukee airwaves with the constant venom flowing from right wing talker Michael Savage. Apparently, for him and WTMJ, nothing is sacred. Savage is the same guy that wished aids and death on a caller that identified himself as being gay. His list of poisonous and offensive comments is a mile long and touches just about everyone. His most recent attack came against U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy on the same day that doctors announced that he had a malignant brain tumor.

In the opening of his show Savage played a montage mocking Senator Kennedy splicing in news reports about his tumor and audio from Kindergarten Cop in which Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character says, “It’s not a tumor.” As if that were not enough, Savage then played a song from the group “Dead Kennedys.” How far will WTMJ allow Savage to go before they finally see his vitriol for what it is? How long will they subject the public and our airwaves to the worst hate speech available? WTMJ should have pulled the plug on this Savage attack on decency long ago.

Senator John McCain and the media have manufactured a squeaky clean image for the Arizona Republican. They pretend that he is above reproach while, at the same time, his actions belie much of the rhetoric. Although there are other examples in his long legislative past, several recent developments also go to the heart of the issue.

John McCain has practically built an industry of criticizing our campaign finance system and the influence of lobbyists in Washington. While repeatedly taking that stand publicly, it turns out that he is not so discriminating when it comes to raising campaign cash. He has at least 59 lobbyists bundling money for his presidential bid. He has also brought on staff that were lobbyists for things like the big drug companies and shady lenders. Recently McCain’s choice to run the GOP Convention had to resign amid reports that his firm represented the military regime in Burma.

On Friday, the Wisconsin State Journal fawned over Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen in an editorial. It was about a recent opinion that he issued regarding open records on traffic accidents and crime in local communities. While the paper praised Van Hollen for sending a “strong signal” it would have been nice if they also called for a consistent one. Neither Van Hollen nor his office have been the sterling example of openness that the WSJ portrays in its editorial.

One good example of inconsistency involves an open records request for state emails from One Wisconsin Now to Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman. We requested any emails on his state email account that fit a list of mostly political names and terms. After seeking counsel from J.B. Van Hollen’s Department of Justice, Gableman determined that eight of those emails could be classified as “purely personal.” As a result, Gableman refused to turn over those emails from his taxpayer funded email account. We submitted a scaled down list of keywords and even suggested that Gableman redact any “purely personal” items in the eight emails. Unfortunately they just ignored our requests, using the advice from the DOJ as the basis for hiding the public records.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Laurel Walker reported this week that between 65 and 100 people in Oconomowoc voted at the wrong place last week. Actually it seems that this has been going on for several years. The voters in question live in two 24-unit condo buildings and have been voting in one district while actually living in another. A discrepancy between mapped voting districts and district poll lists was cited as the reason for the confusion.

It is interesting that this story failed to garner any other attention. Something tells me that if this (years long) “mistake” had taken place in the City of Milwaukee, we would have seen a week of headlines and accusations of “voter fraud” being leveled at everyone within eight feet of this condo. Heck, we may have even seen a few of our favorite politicians doing press conferences outside the property. But alas, this remarkable situation didn’t happen in Milwaukee, it happened in the heart of the most conservative county in the state. It appears that one person’s “mistake” is another person’s act of “fraud.”

Twenty-one years to the day after he attended the second meeting to put pressure on federal regulators which became known as the Keating Five scandal, John McCain is showing how out of touch he is by continuing to cozy up to lobbyists.

A new report from Public Campaign Action, shows a real mixed record on McCain's support for public financing -- despite overwhelming public support for real change for the way campaigns are financed.

Whether it's Keating Five or the recent revelations about his questionable intervention for Paxson Communications, McCain's reputation as a good government champion is under serious scrutiny.

Exactly one year ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel thundered with rage at Linda Clifford.

The Supreme Court candidate had the temerity to use the name of the might Journal Communications newspaper's name in an autocall going to potential supporters that referenced, well, the Journal Sentinel's endorsement of her.

In virtually the last seconds of the race, the Journal Sentinel's coverage of this "infraction" included two big news articles, a condemning editorial and a "cease and desist" letter from the corporate media giant's team of well-priced lawyers.

Last week Republican Congressman Paul Ryan scored some press coverage by unveiling his annual “Budget Boondogle Awards.”  The coverage included a blurb in the state’s largest newspaper, complete with a comparison to the late Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire.