Mark Belling: Spittle Man

Cindy Kilkenny has a post up pointing out the silliness which is Mark Belling and his tirade about Tom Barrett not having a water heater inspected after it was installed.

The comment thread has some great lines in it, including this one, which pretty accurately sums things up:

Belling has limited time left. There is no way to grow his audience, and he has to ramp up the rhetoric and fabricate issues to get anyone to listen to him. I feel sorry for anyone who listens to him thinking they are getting content or information. They are getting spittle.

That's Not An Easy Feat

Cindy Kilkenny is finding amusement at how Scott Walker's free advertisement crew, aka talk radio, is preparing to jump the shark in their flailing defense of Walker's ineptitude and complete lack of leadership.

However, she cites an accomplishment by Mark Neumann which is not often done:

I’ll be very honest and say that I also hope another mistake like that press release from Neumann never happens again. I’ll also say I’m very impressed Neumann called into the show this afternoon. He made Belling look like an idiot. Oh. Or maybe I should say even more of an idiot.

When you're dealing with someone like Belling, or even Sykes, it's difficult to make them look even more idiotic or foolish than they already do. After all, they are masters at that task.

Fischer Gets An Early Christmas

Kevin Fischer got an early Christmas present this year, but he will have to wait until next year to enjoy it.

Cindy Kilkenny announced last night that she is going to retire from Fairly Conservative on January 12, 2010. She wants to move on to other projects.

Unfortunately, that means we can expect to deal with several drunken and obnoxious blog posts then.

Aw, who am I kidding? He's doing that now.

Alcohol And Poor Social Skills Don't Mix

Good old Kevin Fischer, the church-going, moral compass of Franklin shows us what he is all about.

In one of his posts tonight, he is all excited because one of his alleged readers told him of some misogynist event happening in Las Vegas.

Not only is he acting like Rush Limbaugh after the arrival of a whole new shipment of Viagra, he goes on to insult the women of the Midwest because they don't meet his ideals of beauty.

But then he displays why all of his old friends, even the conservative ones, have gotten sick of his attitude:

NOTE: Prudes and downright Kevin Fischer haters can e-mail their complaints to Mark Maley at Journal Communications. My guess is that these days, he'd love to hear a protest that's actually interesting rather than , WAHHHH, I HATE THE NEW BLOGGING SYSTEM, I QUIT!

The only problem is, his rudeness is not because he is better than those that have graduated on to bigger and better things, while he stagnates at a site run by someone else.

Nope, what Fischer's real problem is is that he is trying to hide his envy of competent bloggers, like Janet Evans, Cindy Kilkenny and Greg Kowalski. Fischer must subconsciously be aware that if he went out on his own, he would get lost in a heartbeat. He would lose his readership (all four of them if you include his wife), and we all know how desperate he is for any kind of attention.

Let us just hope that someday, Fischer will be able to pull up his big boy pants and start acting like a man.

Charlie Kills Another Squawking Point

Cindy Kilkenny makes an excellent point on her blogsite, Fairly Conservative.

Cindy points out that with Charlie signing a multi-year contract, that this effectively wipes out any credence to the squawker's fear mongering regarding the Fairness Doctrine.

I guess now Charlie, Paddy and the rest will have to settle for the old "Barack Obama wants to make this a Marxist country and open the borders to illegal Muslim gay terrorists who want to raise our taxes while singing the national anthem in Spanish while they're burning Bibles and eating dead babies.

Or something like that.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

This is the first time I've seen a Fischer Fry when Fischer fries himself. We all know how Fischer seems to be having problems with orientation towards time, what with not even knowing how much vacation time he gets, how much he used, or what hours he's supposed to work.

Poor fella.

Now it just gets worse. In his fervor to attack Greg Kowalski, he somehow manages to get a post up dated at 1:30 in the afternoon. The same post is reposted later in the same day, without removing the first one.

Old Kev said that it was a technical problem, but Cindy Kilkenny points out that not one other NOW blogger seems to have that problem. Nor would it explain why both posts were put up. After all, we all know that Kevin knows how to delete posts.

But in honor of Kevin's ongoing problems, here is a little cult classic for him to start his weekend jam:

Vanity Fair

Common knowledge tells us that if someone is really good at whatever they do, people will notice, and tell you about it. If you have to tell people that you are good, then you're probably not good at it at all.

Like some sort of freak show at the vanity fair, the local right wing squawkers have to tell people that they are good, meaning they're not.

On his blog, Sykes "Hot Read" of the day is someone named Marvin Olasky who is recommending his 50 Rules book as a graduation gift. The funny thing is that if you read Mr. Olasky's recommendation, it looks like a copy and paste of the books inside cover, and not really a review or recommendation.

An even better example is shown to us by Cindy Kilkenny*. She notes that Fischer likes to have a weekly "Best of the Blog" post in which he highlights the five most popular posts from his blog during the previous week.

She points out the most popular post is written by his wife. Cindy continues:

Of course, the second most popular was whipping on another blogger for daring to take a job with a private not-for-profit organization. The third was about food. Any real news came in at 4th and 5th.

Cindy is much too fair to Fischer though. His fourth post is saying that the citizens of Franklin don't deserve to have a tornado warning system, because saving people's lives is just too dang expensive, in his opinion. His fifth post is a YouTube of the presidential candidates making fools of themselves at WWE.

Like I said, if you have to tell people how good you are, you aren't.

*Can a conservative be part of Whallah!? Or is that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Friday Night Fischer Fry, Reheated

Cindy Kilkenny wraps up the ongoing saga of Fischer and his curious use of vacation time (emphasis mine):

I was right. Kevin Fischer used more vacation time in 2007 than he was allotted. Today I learned the state took a deduction from his January 2008 paycheck to true up the balance overused on 2007. Fischer had gone negative on vacation hours in 2006, too. That was 46 hours that had to be returned in 2007.

Kevin Fischer likes his vacation time. Let’s hope 2008 is a little more true to what he earns. The Senate administrator that just gave me a call indicates they are doing their best to tighten up these policies. He also indicates that there are very few employees that have this much trouble keeping their vacation resources in check.

You can read her entire post here.

No wonder the state budget is always in trouble if people like Fischer are involved. If he can't handle first grade math, how would he be able to handle big numbers. He just doesn't have that many fingers and toes.

I don't know what state policy is regarding this sort of behavior, or if it is different for someone in Fischer's position. Most jobs I have had would have considered this a cause for disciplinary action, including termination.

But in Fischer's defense, it is my understanding that he would, on the days he came in late to work, would make up for it by leaving early.

The Growing Influence of Whallah!

You know you gotta be doing something right when you become a part of the everyday lexicon on both sides of the aisle.

From our own kr, who left a comment at folkbum's (emphasis mine):

Well, this is a by-product of this Democratic contest dragging on. If it were down to one Democrat and McCain, Wallah! The concern trolling, which is the usual cynicalness of these guys, would evaporate.

And from the conservative side, a posting from Cindy Kilkenny (again, emphasis mine):

On this blustery day with the “s” word in our extended forecast, it’s time to look for diversions. Try out this Japanese site that ages photographs online. Follow your instinct to upload a photo from your computer. Wait patiently, and whallah! (I know it’s a bit of an inside joke.) Before you know it you’ve a photo that looks like it came from Grandpa’s barn.

Today, the blogsophere. Tomorrow, the world!

Bad, Cindy! Bad!

But when she's bad, she's pretty dang funny!

A Spectacle of Speculations

Earlier this week, as some of you may have noticed, McBride closed her blogs to the public. Yesterday, Xoff informed us that McBride self-reported that she closed the blogs due to "being too busy."

All of this has led to a small wildfire of speculation as to why McBride deprived us of her witticism and biting insight (well, something about her insight really bit).

There's been speculation that it may be due to pressure from her husband, Paul Bucher, the super trial lawyer, and a big case he is active in.

Likewise, there's been some that wonder if it deals with a lawsuit the Buchers have filed.

Some have proposed that UWM had finally put pressure on her to knock it off.

Then there is some thought that this could stem from a possible actionable offense done during the lead up to the Supreme Court elections.

Cindy Kilkenny offered us a plausible theory that Paul is again planning to run for an office again.
This theory appears to have been debunked by Owen Robinson and James Wigderson.

Another theory is that she was just sick and tired of being bombarded with criticism in her messages and emails. (But why would anyone question her? She's a UWM School of Journalism "faculty member", dang it!)

As for yours truly, I have no idea why she did what she did. Nor do I really care. While it is true that I, and the others here at Whallah!, have watched her like a hawk, and was always happy to point out flaws to her logic and arguments, I personally hold no animosity towards McBride or Bucher. Just to their wrong-headed, mean-spirited stances.

If something comes out of this, of course we will notify you,, the reader, about it. In the mean time, we will enjoy the silence, and pick up where we left off with Sykes, Belling and the rest.

Friday Night Fischer Fry On Thursday

As I mentioned yesterday, Cindy Kilkenny was not with her investigation into Fischer. Today, she shares with us some of her findings.

She writes (emphasis hers):

When trying to determine vacation benefits, the senate human resource department sent me to this state benefit site. According to this, as an exempt employee with less than five years employment, Fischer should be using 120 hours per year of vacation. I don’t know if he has prior state employment that would increase the benefit. I do know he was let go from a TV station in October of 1996. Even if he had more, 5 to 10 years is 160 hours, and if he’s worked for the state since 1996 that would be 176 hours.

I’m getting somewhere with this, I promise.

Fischer consistently defends his time spent on WISN as his own. He takes vacation for it. When he filled in every day the week of 12/3 to 12/7, it’s on the time sheet for 2 hours each day. Lots of other WISN/vacation days line up, too. (He’s got most of the dates on his blog.) The wild thing is, in 2007 - even with September’s number unk(n)own - Fischer claimed (and Lazich signed off on) 209 hours of vacation. Ok, I thought, there’s something I’m missing.

I checked to see if compensatory or “comp” time is used. No, the time sheets all call these hours vacation, even though there is a box for “comp” time. An e-mail to Senator Lazich confirmed that she doesn’t keep overtime hours, so there’s nothing to draw against. Maybe it’s personal time - the site says employees gets an extra 4 1/2 days. Yes, there are actually 5 1/2 days or 44 hours called personal. The state gives 36, so I’ll back 36 hours off. That’s 173 hours of vacation sans September.

Her investigation is not complete yet, but it is looking like Fischer is practicing some of that Republican math to balance the time sheets. If her numbers keeping coming out the way they are looking, he's not looking too good.

Fischer Makes The Big Time, Again!

I received my copy of Milwaukee Magazine in the mail today. I opened it up, to see what they were talking about and say in their "Insiderpressroom" part, they're talking about our good bud, Kevin Fischer, for the second time.

Here is the part on Fischer, with my interjections (because I'm the King, and I can do that sort of stuff):

Multiplicity

Kevin Fischer is everywhere as a media pundit. He’s also apartisan
legislative aide, Can you say conflict?

by Erik Gunn

Kevin Fischer is a busy guy. He does a blog on FranlklinNOWcom. He’s a guest host on WISN-AM 1130, filling in for Mark Belling and Jay Weber. He’s one of the regular pundits for Milwaukee Public Television’s InterChange program.

And he’s a full-time Republican legislative aide.

I'd question that full-time business. You'll see what I mean later.

That latter gig has drawn scrutiny toFischer’s peripatetic media career. Our March Pressroom noted he was one of the bickering bloggers on Journal Communications’ MyCommunityNOW Websites. Since then, his critics have turned up the heat on his role as an aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin).

Brookfield blogger Cindy Kilkenny made an open-records request for Fischer’s time sheets from the state to see whether he was blogging or commenting while on the taxpayers’ clock. Kilkenny says that while Fischer’s blog entries appear to have been posted on his off hours, she believes he has gone back into some of his comments to other blogs and changed the times of entries.

Yeah, and who first broke that story of name-calling? Uh? Maybe moi?

It appears that Ms. Kilkenny is not done checking things out. She is now inquiring about exactly how much vacation time legislative aides get.

Fischer denies any wrongdoing.‘Whenever I blog, it’s on my own personal time - usually on nights and weekends,” he says. Mindful of the 2001 caucus scandal that rocked the Capitol over the use of legislative aides for political campaign work, he adds, “I am very meticulous about when I’m on state time and when I’m not.”

Fischer blames the “nonstory”on a small group of people who don’t like his politics. “They were trying to not only silence me but get me in trouble with my livelihood. And I don’t take too kindly to that.” But while he singles out “lefty bloggers,” Kilkenny calls herself a conservative, and says she was motivated by Fischer’s penchant for bombastic insult. “People like Kevin Fischer give Republicans a really bad name,” she says.

Um, Ms. Kilkenny is nothing if not conservative. (One of the good ones, too. When she's not supporting Scott Walker, that is.) But she is wrong here. He gives all bloggers a bad name.

Lefty bloggers? Kevin, the name is Whallah! Remember it.

Lazich insists she demands professionalism of her staff: “I don’t tolerate nastiness and name-calling.” But Fischer says he’s never been counseled about the content of his blog.

Oh? And why hasn't he been reprimanded yet for the nazi comment, eh?

Fischer also denies preparing for his media appearances on state time (though there’s no way to prove or disprove this by checking his time sheets). He notes that he discloses his job as a legislative aide on all his broadcast appearances, and - after some pushback from critics - FranklinNOW. com has begun identifying him as such in his accompanying biography.

Yet, by the very nature of his work as a political operative, anything he writes or says is arguably in the interest of his boss. That’s the assertion of Michael Mathias, among the liberal bloggers who have also raised questions about Fischer’s many roles. Fischer’s job working for Lazich includes communications - for instance, helping with Lazich’s, blog, which also runs on FranklinNOW.

For more of Mike's comprehensive labors, look here.

“Can you really separate his work on behalf of her office or Republicans in the state senate that cleanly?” Mathias asks.“His job is to make sure his boss gets lots of great publicity and that she is well-positioned to win re-election. To what extent is [the JS] participating in that? I think that’s really troubling.” Indeed, the same question could be asked ofMilwaukee Public Television and WISN.

Fischer really has no counterpart among Democrats - a government-paid insider who doubles as a news commentator. NOW's online editor, Mark Maley, says the Web site has an open-door policy: “Any Democrats/liberals who would like to present opposing views are welcome to start a NOWblog.” But would that solve the problem or compound it?

Sheesh, MM names Fischer, Mathias and Kilkenny. But no mention of ol' capper who started this whole ball a-rolling. I mean, where's the love here, guys? (Oh, I know that it probably has to do with my anonymity, but still...They could've at least mentioned Whallah!)

But it is good to see this guy get exposed to the light of day and shown for what he really is.

That's So Much Better

A couple of days ago, Whallah! pointed out the work of John Michlig, author of the blogsite, Sprawled Out, who highlighted the deception that the right wing print media was trying to pull.

Well, it appears that Mr. Michlig got someone's attention. He shows us that this week, the FranklinNow has changed they way that they present who Kevin Fischer is. But instead of being forthcoming, they just made it even more ambiguous.

And while we are talking about Fischer, Cindy Kilkenny, author of the site, Fairly Conservative, has come to some interesting conclusions about Fischer's work ethic, or lack thereof.