At the end of last year, Charlie Sykes hung up his headphones and retired from his long-running squawk radio show in Milwaukee. What he did do was turn in his microphone for frequent flier miles as as a regular contributor on MSNBC. He also gave up much of his influence in Southeast Wisconsin, with the exception of Right Wisconsin, a fake news aggregator hosted by Scripps Media and "Powered by Charlie Sykes":
Anyway, just before Sykes left the airwaves of Milwaukee, he claimed to have some sort of epiphany where his eyes were suddenly opened to the hatred and racism from conservatives, especially the Trumpkins:
“When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not,” Sykes says. “When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this—‘Oh shit, did I not see that?’
“I kind of had that reaction this morning, with that woman: Did we ignore this? There’s got to be some serious introspection, because of the things that we either didn’t see, or that we ignored, or that we enabled.”
Sykes promised he would do some serious introspection and change his ways.
Well,as anyone from the greater Milwaukee area can tell you, Sykes is like most conservatives and Republicans. What he says and what he does are two different things and any similarity between the two are purely accidental.
On Friday, Sykes named Kelly Gallaher as his "Loser of the Week." Gallaher is a rebel rouser and a community activist from the small town of Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.
Sykes got all bent out of shape over Gallaher because she dared to file a complaint about a guy who was illegally running a business from his home, in violation of zoning laws. The guy has gotten away with it for 25 years because he schmoozes with the town's leadership, so they always turn to a blind eye to his infractions. Because the guy wasn't officially registered, there were no fire inspections and he has already had a couple of major fires at his woodworking shop.
Then when this guy and his wife complained that the common folks should stop their complaining and pay for special assessments for a controversial water and sewer project, while they've enjoyed their special deferment, Gallaher took action.
It didn't take long for the predictable results to happen.
First, the newly elected village president attacked Gallaher:
Then one of Sykes devoted followers went to Gallaher's personal Facebook page and proceeded to call her and her friends the "c" word:
Note: I blacked out the names and pictures to protect her friends and the perpetrator's name because he had the decency to profoundly apologize and delete the thread after learning the truth, admitting that he would never have learned it from Sykes' website:
In other words, Sykes was intentionally misleading people, knowing that they would attack Gallaher.
So much for his epiphany. It was nothing more than a snake oil salesman selling the same old shit with a new label on it.
Congratulations, Charlie Sykes! YOU are the Loser and the Liar of the Day!
H/T to Jeff Simpson at Cognitive Dissidence