Wisconsin

MRC's Bozell on August 12 'Fox & Friends' Discussing How Media Downplayed Wis. Recall Elections
By NB Staff | August 12, 2011 | 4:21 PM EDT

Editor's Note: Mr. Bozell will be on Fox News's "Your World with Neil Cavuto" around 4:45 p.m. EDT today to discuss the Wisconsin recall results and may also give his thoughts on last night's Republican presidential debate.

"These [Wisconsin] protests were supposed to be the rebirth of the Left going into the 2012 campaign" and yet when the "unions threw everything they had" they came up short of taking the state senate from Repubilcans, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on today's "Fox & Friends."

Because the effort completely fizzled, it's no surprise the liberal broadcast media spent very little time reporting the results of Tuesday's recall election. "This was a huge Republican victory that nobody heard about," the Media Research Center founder added.

ABC Ignores Failure of $14 Million Effort by Liberals to Recall Wisconsin's GOP State Senators
By Scott Whitlock | August 10, 2011 | 12:06 PM EDT

ABC's Good Morning America on Wednesday ignored the $14 million failure of labor and liberal groups to win back the state senate in Wisconsin through a recall vote. Both CBS's Early Show and NBC's Today covered the effort to retaliate against that state's legislation stripping collective bargaining rights for public workers.

Early Show's Elaine Quijano covered the story in a full report (though not until the 8am hour). The Today show, a four hour program, mentioned it only once. Quijano explained that four of the six GOP senators held on and added, "For Wisconsin Democrats, Tuesday's vote was supposed to be a chance at revenge." However, these same networks, back in February, found time to feature signs comparing Scott Walker to Hitler and other dictators.

Whoops! Teaser Headline in Today's WashPost: 'Wis. GOP on the Ropes'
By Ken Shepherd | August 10, 2011 | 10:26 AM EDT

Oh the perils of an early deadline.

On the bottom of page A4 in a teaser that reads "Wis. GOP on the ropes," the Washington Post alerted readers to a story on page A4 about how "Six lawmakers are fighting to survive recall challenges spurred by the governor's efforts to weaken unions."

 

Ed Schultz Falls Flat on Face, Says Dems Were 'Brilliant on the Basics' in Wisconsin
By Tim Graham | August 10, 2011 | 8:50 AM EDT

MSNBC host Ed Schultz wants to be taken seriously as a TV host, but he hasn't yet learned not to promote victory for liberal Democrats before the results are all in. On Tuesday night, even after the polls closed, Schultz was touting a possible Democratic wave. Twice, he proclaimed before his 10 pm show came on that Democrats were "brilliant on the basics" in the Wisconsin ground game -- before they lost four and won two.

At 6 pm, Schultz told Al Sharpton "And if the Democrats are successful tonight, it is really the template on how to get it done. I mean, I think that the progressives in this state, as profound as it is, they have been brilliant on the basics. They have gone door to door. They have talked to their neighbors. They have taken people by the hand to do what they've got to do."

New Jersey Miracle: What About the Rest of Us?
By Cal Thomas | June 28, 2011 | 11:44 AM EDT

Something astonishing happened in New Jersey last week. A majority Democratic legislature and a Republican governor agreed on a measure that will cut benefits for the state's 750,000 employees and retirees.

Like Wisconsin and other states that are being forced to deal with large budget deficits caused mostly by sweetheart deals struck in more prosperous times between politicians who need votes and labor unions who deliver them, New Jersey couldn't afford to go on like this.

Madison's Historical Liberal... Balloon?
By Tim Graham | June 24, 2011 | 8:39 AM EDT

Vicki McKenna, the conservative radio talker in a very liberal town (Madison, Wisconsin), alerted us to how the Wisconsin State Journal carries a very obvious torch for the leftist rabble that trashed the state Capitol earlier this year to protest conservative Gov. Scott Walker's collective-bargaining proposal. They're touting as "news" a protester's persistent Mylar balloon:

The tens of thousands of protesters have left. The metal detectors are gone. 

But a small reminder of the massive demonstrations that rocked the state Capitol for weeks on end remains. A mysterious heart-shaped red balloon still floats inside the Capitol dome, where it has hovered high over the rotunda since mid-February. 

Vicious Death Threats Against Scott Walker Elicit Little Media Hand-wringing
By Lachlan Markay | May 17, 2011 | 5:56 PM EDT

Pro-government union protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere have provided some stunning insight into the double standards that pervade coverage of major protest movements. One such double standard lies in media treatment of threats against public officials. News of the release of more than 100 pages of documented threats against officials of both parties in Wisconsin has brought that double standard to light.

Very often such threats are most intensely focused on a single individual perceived as the leader of the ideological or political opposition. President Obama was the target of perhaps less overt, if certainly as menacing threats during the early stages of his administration when a handful of demonstrators brought firearms to a presidential town hall meeting. That of course dominated the airwaves for the following week, as many in the media bemoaned what they presented almost uniformly as hints at assassination.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, like President Obama, became the target of much of the rage from pro-union demonstrators. And like Obama, Walker received some very vocal - and in many cases more overt - threats against his life. Unlike threats against the president, however, those directed at Walker have received scant press attention outside of Wisconsin media.

New York Times Etiquette Columnist Takes Time to Write Chiding Note to GOP Gov. Scott Walker
By Clay Waters | April 26, 2011 | 2:18 PM EDT

Not even the light sections of the New York Times Sunday paper offer an escape from politics. In “Social Q’s,” his Sunday Styles column on modern etiquette, Philip Galanes got political when answering a question from Amanda from Grand Island, N.Y., criticizing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for teacher bashing during his recent battle to reduce the influence of public-sector unions.

Q: I asked one of my professors if he would write a letter of recommendation for an internship I was applying for. He did, and I thanked him. And I got it. Am I supposed to thank him again? I don’t know the protocol.

AP Failing to Update Prosser-Kloppenburg Election Tally, Claiming Moral Victory For Dems
By Tom Blumer | April 8, 2011 | 9:09 PM EDT

It may be laziness, or it may be failure to recognize reality, but the Associated Press's official tally of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race carried at JSOnline (but note the AP-based URL) still shows Democrat JoAnne Kloppenburg with a 204-vote lead over incumbent David Prosser, and hasn't been updated since Wednesday at 4:00 p.m.

This failure to update has occurred despite the following statement made at the 3:00 mark of the video (HT Hot Air) showing Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus explaining why over 14,000 country votes were not originally reported to the Badger State's Government Accountability Board (GAB), which oversees state elections, at a late Thursday press conference:

These numbers will be reflected in my official results, canvass report, that was submitted to the Government Accountability Board.

Ms. Nickolaus mixed up tenses, but it seems pretty clear that by using the word "official" she is saying that the GAB now has the results, and that they should be reflected in any official reports.

Accordingly, yours truly has updated the AP's non-current scoreboard with the Waukesha County correction and a couple of smaller ones:

As With Death-Threat Arrest, AP Treats Wis. Union Intimidation of Businesses As a Local Story
By Tom Blumer | April 4, 2011 | 2:30 PM EDT

Once again, despite almost two months of national coverage Wisconsin's collective bargaining law and the protests and bad behavior which have accompanied it, the Associated Press is deciding that the nation's news consumers outside of the Badger State don't need to read, hear, or see news relating to unions and leftists acting illegally.

In a post on Saturday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that the wire service treated the arrest of Katherine Windels for issuing death threats to all but one of the GOP's state senators as a local story. Later on Saturday, NB's Noel Sheppard noted the virtual absence of media coverage of Windels' arrest on any broadcast network newscast or cable new show (except Fox's O'Reilly Factor).

The AP apparently believes that unions attempting to intimidate businesses into supporting their agenda -- or else -- isn't something that anyone outside of Wisconsin should care about. Even then, there is a palpable reluctance by the wire service to provide much in the way of accurate detail.

Here are some those details, as reported at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's online blog (bold is mine):

NPR: Schumer Ties Scott Walker to Deadly 1911 Fire
By Tim Graham | March 27, 2011 | 7:42 AM EDT

Liberals have a bad habit of mixing funerals (or death anniversaries) with political rallies. On Friday night's All Things Considered, NPR's Robert Smith offered a story that was 100 percent about union activists and liberal politicians, with no rebuttals.

NPR anchor Melissa Block began: "New York City today marked the 100th anniversary of one of its worst disasters: a fire at the Triangle shirtwaist factory that killed 146 people. NPR's Robert Smith reports that the city's unions used today to voice their anger over recent union setbacks."  

Smith revealed Sen. Charles Schumer somehow connected Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to those long-ago fiery deaths:

MSNBC's Mitchell Gushes Over Dem. Mayor's Budget Reform After Blasting Gov. Walker's Plan
By Alex Fitzsimmons | March 25, 2011 | 5:33 PM EDT

Within the same sentence, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell spurned the budget repair law crafted by Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin as "drastic" and celebrated a similar plan championed by Democratic Mayor Antonia Villaraigosa of Los Angeles as "a good deal."

On the March 25 edition of "Andrea Mitchell Reports," the daytime anchor praised the Democratic budget bill in Los Angeles as a "landmark deal" that "greatly increases workers's health care and pension contributions" after mischaracterizing the Republican plan as an attempt to "fight union workers by drastically cutting their pension and health plans."