The cherry on top of the scoop of outrage was the layout of the story’s jump. It was next to a jump of a story about 21 Milwaukee Public Schools nurses losing their jobs because Walker is proposing to cut a $1.5 million grant that helps pay for them.

A $250 million giveaway for big business vs. $1.5 million for nursing services for mostly impoverished children. Not a tough choice for the gov, apparently.

Nice package, JS.

Mark Furlong, the M&I chief executive who piloted the bank to a shotgun wedding with BMO Financial Group, got a raise last year! The JS reports:

In a separate report with regulators Friday, M&I disclosed that Furlong received total compensation in 2010 of about $5 million, up more than 200% from almost $1.7 million in 2009. According to the company’s proxy statement, Furlong received a salary of $875,000, stock salary awards and restricted stock awards totaling $3,624,997, a change in the value of retirement benefits of $569,607 and other compensation of $24,432, for total compensation of $5,094,036. The biggest change from 2009 was in the stock awards.

BMO also is going to pay Furlong $18 million in a very big, wet, sloppy, full-tongue goodbye kiss.

The JS reported the story without a hint of irony although it really, to do the situation justice, should have dripped with sarcasm as it recounted the stellar results M&I achieved under Furlong’s leadership:

In its report Friday, M&I noted that nonperforming loans decreased 19% from the first quarter of 2010, and early-stage delinquencies fell 17% from the same quarter last year.

But the bank said write-offs of bad loans rose $8.9 million, or 2%, from last year’s first quarter – an increase M&I said was driven by the sale of a small-business portfolio. Net interest income was $352.1 million, down $57 million, or 14%.

M&I is the largest bank based in Wisconsin, with assets of $49.6 billion. However, it’s about 12% smaller than a year ago at the same time, when its assets were $56.7 billion.

Someone, quick, explain to your kids how thsis fits in with the concept of justice and consequences.

The proof is in the long haul, of course, but its debut hints at very good things to come.

Kudos, folks.

This is just embarrassing.

Yup. And the paper should give away its content on the Internet, on the theory that some people will still subscribe to the dead tree edition.

Oh, wait!!! The JS did that! We can all be relieved that there are still some subscribers to the paper paper and that the JS suffered no negative consequences from the change. It’s all about freedom! People should be totally free to take what they want from the paper and give absolutely nothing in return, just like city employees should be able to take their paychecks to the suburbs and give Milwaukee nothing in return!

The JS also opines that an MPS teacher won’t be any less dedicated if he or she lives in a suburb.

Yup, and those Internet JS readers are no less dedicated, either. It’s just that they also no longer have any responsiblity for paying the costs of staff, newsprint or anything else that goes into making a newspaper. They have absolutely no skin in the game and are able to totally externalize the the newspaper’s costs of doing business — isn’t that great for the paper? Everyone’s happy! Except maybe those newspaper staffers who lost their jobs, or the Journal Communications shareholders who have been financially ruined, or newspaper readers who see their favorite daily spiral downward in both quantity and quality.

Wow. It’s a great deal, isn’t it?

It’s odd how folks argue that working stiffs should pay more and more of their health care costs because it gives them some economic interest in keeping their health costs low and so they are more likely to use medical services only when they are really needed. Yet, when it comes the city, there is apparently no need for the folks who earn their living from it to make any sort of investment to keep it healthy.

Go figure.

States all over the country add freight rail, but Wisconsin does not. Freight arrives at the Wisconsin border, where it must be transferred from rail to truck for the last couple hundred — or maybe just a hundred or even 10 — miles of the journey.

Deliveries are delayed. Costs increase.

Figure that into your state’s economy, Scottie boy. You are just screwing your constituents.

That same problem won’t exist in reverse, when goods are shipped out of the state, because manufacturers won’t locate here because of that very issue.

And one more thing — a story that ran in the Journal Sentinel today about Chicago’s freight rail expansion plans originally ran in the Washington Post on Dec. 20, 2009 — more than a year ago! Wowee, JS. C’mon.

One day after I complained about the JS’ PolitiFact giving suburban officials a free pass on the fact-checking beat while holding city of Milwaukee officials under the microscope, PF reporter Jim Nelson weighed in on the half-pay promise made by Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima, one of those always-entertaining officials who is loads of fun to read about as long as you are not actually one of his constituents.

It’s good to see the JS look beyond city borders.

So, a question: don’t suburban municipal officials ever, ever say anything that should be subject to the Truth-O-Meter? Is anything uttered by a Milwaukee official more deserving of scrutiny than everything said by suburban folk?