Get To Know Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Wants To Buy Time Warner

Posted by on July 23, 2014 at 9:10 am. NO Comments :

Last week there was a surprising announcement that international media baron Rupert Murdoch had made a bid to expand his empire even further. He submitted an offer to acquire Time Warner in an $80 billion stock transaction.

Rupert Murdoch

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This would be an atrocious development for a myriad of reasons. It would create an anti-competitive monopoly in several media markets including film production and distribution, and cable TV operations. Furthermore it would make Murdoch the most powerful force in media with control over an unprecedented percentage of both news and entertainment businesses. This would only enhance his already dominant position in worldwide newspaper publishing and satellite television.

Murdoch has demonstrated his cravenly biased approach to business management with his current corporate holdings. These include the world’s most flagrant disseminator of right-wing propaganda, Fox News. Particularly notable is the shift at the Wall Street Journal where, prior to his acquisition, it was a respected leader in business and general reporting. Today it is a hollow shell of its former glory. It had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for news journalism thirty-four times in its celebrated history, but has not received a single one since Murdoch assumed control seven years ago and turned it into just another of his tabloid rags.

Taking all of that into consideration, it is important to know precisely the sort of man who is proposing to become the head of the most powerful media conglomerate in history. So here is a brief summary of Murdoch’s recent resume:

  • Murdoch’s News of the World hacked into phone and email accounst of hundreds of private citizens, celebrities, and politicians, including a murdered schoolgirl.
  • Murdoch called the victims of his hacking “scumbags.”
  • Murdoch’s New York Post repeatedly publishes racist political cartoons.
  • Murdoch posts anti-Semitic Tweet.
  • Murdoch’s criminal enterprise protects him from any negative reporting.
  • Murdoch’s Fox News deployed hundreds of fake blog accounts in order to rebut critics on the Internet.
  • Murdoch’s companies deleted incriminating emails to avoid responsibility in the hacking scandal.

The scope of the corporate megalith that would result from a Murdoch takeover of Time Warner should be more than enough to prohibit the acquisition. It would create an unholy monopoly that our anti-trust laws were specifically put in place to prevent. But the depraved and criminal character of Rupert Murdoch should also be a fatal impediment to a Time Warner deal. There are morals clauses in business that ought to exempt Murdoch from completing this purchase. In fact, they ought to force him out of his current position and commence a discussion of whether his citizenship should be revoked.

If you’re interested in taking some concrete action to hold Murdoch accountable and protest the proposed Time Warner deal, Media Matters has started a petition to fight back against Murdoch’s encroaching media tyranny. Please sign it and share it with everyone you know.

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Let The Tea Party Begin: 4.7 Million At Risk Of Losing Their Health Insurance

Posted by on July 22, 2014 at 12:05 pm. 20 Comments :

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
For there IS joy in Teaville…

…A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 2-to-1 along party lines that subsidies for health insurance premiums made available under the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) are only available to those who purchased their coverage in state-based exchanges, invalidating the 4.7 million citizens who used the federal exchange and therefore…

…they have been shut out.

ObamaCare Ruling

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In this case, the “favored land” where the sun is shining and hearts are light, is the land of Tea Party Republicans who are falling all over themselves celebrating this decision that puts the health – and lives – of millions in jeopardy. And, as usual, it is those who are favored who reap the benefits. Nothing gives right-wingers more undiluted ecstasy than making life even more difficult for people on the lower end of the income scale. These are the same people who cheer executions and holler and spit at children. You know, conservative “Christians.” Even the GOP judges recognized the potential hardship they were creating:

“Our ruling will likely have significant consequences both for millions of individuals receiving tax credits through federal exchanges and for health insurance markets more broadly.”

The good news is that this ruling means very little at the present time. First of all, it was stayed by the court pending an expected appeal. Secondly, the administration will likely request an “en banc” hearing by all eleven members of the court. Presently the court has seven judges appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans. This, by the way, was made possible when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid removed the super-majority requirement for judicial appointments. Prior to that Republicans were filibustering nearly all of President Obama’s nominees, and even proposed eliminating the three vacancies on the D.C. court. Subsequent to Reid’s maneuver, three of Obama’s nominees received a majority vote and were seated on the court that will re-hear this ruling.

Finally, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia ruled today on the very same issue and found that the federal subsidies were proper and intended by the Congress when the law was passed. As it stands now there are two courts of appeal that have arrived at opposing decisions, but the en banc review by the D.C. court is likely to agree with the 4th Circuit. If so, both courts will have upheld the subsidies. That is significant should additional appeals be brought to the Supreme Court. There is no telling where the Supreme Court might come down, but there is a possibility that they won’t even take the case if two appeals courts agree that there is no constitutional issue.

Whatever the outcome of the legal wrangling, this is another opportunity to observe the right-wing at their worst. They are palpably giddy over the prospect of millions of Americans becoming either uninsured or bankrupt. This is an issue that can have some play in the midterm elections as the threat hanging over the heads of these citizens weighs on their political decisions. In Florida and Texas alone there are 1.5 million people who could lose their insurance. Those are highly motivated votes for Democrats in November making both states more likely to turn blue. Now we just have to get the rest of the Democrats to get motivated and VOTE!


American Expect-ionalism: Why Is Every World Crisis America’s Responsibility?

Posted by on July 21, 2014 at 1:34 pm. 6 Comments :

The tragic downing of a civilian aircraft in Ukraine has opened a window on a peculiar phenomenon that emerges whenever there is an event, anywhere in the world, that has some international significance. The spotlight that this particular event casts is instructive because of the specific details and how they relate to the global distribution of obligations.

Let’s begin with the fact that the plane that was shot down was owned and operated by Malaysian Air. The passengers were from many nations, but mostly the Netherlands. There was only one American on the flight. The attack occurred along the eastern border of Ukraine on a flight path through Europe and Southeast Asia. And the perpetrators were almost certainly pro-Russian separatists with help from Russia itself.

American Expect-ionalism

So obviously it is up to the United States to take control of the situation and resolve all of the mysteries and criminal conspiracies that arise. It is expected of us. Never mind that there is almost no direct American connection to the attackers or the victims.

Conservative American politicians and pundits have been vocal in demanding that President Obama assume a leadership role in investigating the affair and punishing those responsible. Some have harshly criticized him for not being more aggressive. John McCain positioned himself in front of every TV news camera he could find to imply that Obama has been derelict by not imposing stiff sanctions in advance of possessing all the facts. McCain was joined by several other hyperactive Republicans whose advice ranged from empty rhetoric to declaring war on Russia.

One of the worst reactions from the press was from Fox News (surprise) anchor Jeanine Pirro. She launched into a tirade that called for the President to “put on his big boy pants.” Her venomous spew could only be interpreted as a call to arms. She had the audacity to cite Vladimir Putin as an example of the virile leadership she advocates. The very same Putin who is likely complicit in the jet attack. Pirro’s other example of manliness was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who she admires for his deployment of 50,000 troops in Gaza. In both cases she is clearly expressing her fondness for military involvement and her opinion that no other response is sufficient. What’s more, she falsely projects her bloodlust unto the American people by claiming that…

“Americans don’t want a spectator, they want a leader who’s also not kidding around. Americans want a president not afraid to get in the game, secure our future and re-assert himself on the world stage.”

Actually, Americans have made their views known in recent polling, and they do not agree with Pirro’s assessment of them. Only 17% of those polled said that the U.S should do more to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine. Furthermore, only 23% favor continuing a military presence in Afghanistan, and only 19% want us to go back to Iraq. Pirro obviously has her finger on the pulse of some other country, because she really doesn’t understand Americans.

Pirro’s lament included the already debunked comparison of Obama’s response to the Ukraine incident and Ronald Reagan’s response to Russia shooting down a Korean airliner in 1983. It’s just another of her detours from the real world. Although she is consistent in that she advocates for American military intervention in Iraq, Syria, and Israel, in addition to Russia. That’s what the macho man in her feverish fantasies would do. And after defeating Putin and Assad and various factions of Al Qaeda, he would carry her off to his Fortress of Solitude.

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There is no question that the United States has a role in the world that includes varying degrees of intervention. But a wise leader would always exhaust every diplomatic measure available before committing to warfare. The U.S. currently has a great many options that include diplomacy, economics, and international pressure. The conservative war mongers who believe that every foreign dust up requires the Marines to invade are delusional and dangerous. This is a time for collective composure and strategic thinking, not panicky overreactions. And our nation is fortunate that people like Pirro and McCain aren’t in positions of power where they could act on their bad judgment.


The Lone deRanger: Sarah Palin Thinks Her Impeachment Talk Is Making Obama Nervous

Posted by on July 20, 2014 at 2:05 pm. 5 Comments :

This weekend the Right-Wing Grousers of America are meeting in Denver to complain about how terrible the country is, and how near to destruction due to the black, Muslim, foreigner who has occupied the White House in defiance of the people (except for the majorities who voted for him twice). The Western Conservative Summit is being hosted by the Colorado Christian University in furtherance of their mission to establish a theocracy in the United States.

Among the far-right fringe’s celebrity speakers at the affair are Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Michele Bachmann, and Allen West. In other words: the Brain Trust of the Tea Party. And perhaps the event’s superstar is former half-term governor, Fox News pundit, and reality TV star, Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin

Palin’s speech was a half-hour of whining about how delinquent the country is in its obligation to impeach President Obama. She castigates everyone from Congress, to party regulars, to ordinary citizens, for not harboring the same maniacal urgency to rip the nation apart that she does. Yet even as she claims that the country isn’t doing enough to advance the cause of impeachment, she also brags about the impact she’s having and implores her followers to keep the pressure on, saying “Let’s talk more about impeachment, because it’s got them nervous.” Yeah, right. Here’s the evidence of just how nervous Obama is:

In the course of her address she hits all the wingnut talking points: the IRS, the Veterans Administration, ObamaCare, Benghazi (of course), and what she refers to repeatedly as the scourge of “open borders.” In fact, the only subject she spends more time on than impeachment is immigration. She regards it as the single greatest justification for impeaching the President. Her characterization of the issue is that of an “invasion” of gang members, drug dealers, terrorists, moochers, and disease carriers who were invited to America in order to inflate the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Immigrant Kids

One topic was conspicuously missing from her speech. Palin never mentioned the downed Malaysian aircraft in Ukraine. In fact, she hasn’t commented on it since it occurred. The only reason that she might be avoiding the matter is that she would have to repudiate her BFF, Vladimir Putin. Recall that not so long ago she was extolling the manly virtues of the Russian leader and comparing his bear-wrestling prowess with our own mom-jeans wearing president. She can hardly betray the man on whom she has developed such a strong crush by acknowledging his complicity with the murder of nearly 300 innocent civilians.

However, it was impeachment that Palin concentrated on with a fervor that bordered on obsession. She sings the chorus, popular now among the crackpot constituency, that Obama is a tyrant, an imperial president. And She believes that, literally, the only path to survival is impeachment.

Palin: Friends if we let Congress refuse to use the power the Constitution gives it, Barack Obama will continue to rule however he wants. And the fabric of America will unravel. So don’t be afraid to raise this and know that there’s no other recourse.

It is endlessly perplexing that the pseudo-patriots on the right consider America to be resting on such a shaky foundation that it will unravel if leaders with a different political philosophy hold power for a while. Apparently they love a country that they see as weak and susceptible to crumbling into dust in the face of a light breeze. Liberals were certainly not fond of George W. Bush, and some even thought he should be impeached for lying the nation into a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq. But no one on the left, with the party profile that Palin has on the right, ever speculated that the United States would cease to exist if Bush were not driven from office immediately.

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That is just one of the many differences between left and right. The left believes that democracy is a process wherein the people are endowed with the power to direct the course of the nation, even if they are sometimes mistaken. The right believes that their positions are ordained by God and that any variance from that holy path is a detour to hell. Consequently, for the right, the choice is always between righteousness or ruin, and compromise is sacrilege.

For Sarah Palin and her disciples, impeachment has nothing to do with law or governance. It is a holy crusade that the faithful are required to accept. It is an obligation unto the lord. Palin’s friends among the world’s most devout practitioners of religious extremism have another word for it: Jihad.


Myth vs. Reality: Reagan vs. Obama On Planes Being Shot Down

Posted by on July 18, 2014 at 1:06 pm. 12 Comments :

The compulsion of right-wing politicians and pundits to reflexively denigrate President Obama is once again outstripping their devotion to country or respect for the truth. It is uncanny how predictable it is that conservative blowhards will leap at the opportunity to bash the President, even as events of critical significance to our national security are still unfolding.

Reagan vs. Obama

That is the case as information continues to be uncovered concerning the shooting down of Malaysian flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine. Some of the more obscenely irresponsible comments come from the usual suspects, such as…

John McCain: I don’t understand this president … this is what we used to call in the military AWOL. There’s a direct loss of American lives here.
Rush Limbaugh: I don’t want appear to be callous here, folks, but you talk about an opportunity to abandon the Obama news at the border?
Todd Starnes: Obama won’t comment on Malaysian jetliner crash until he’s had a chance to read tomorrow’s paper.

On Fox News there has been a specific effort to compare the response of President Obama to that of President Reagan following the shooting down of a Korean jet on September 1, 1983. Of course the Fox position is that St. Reagan acted quickly and boldly to assert America’s outrage and leadership. However, an examination of the facts present a very different picture.

The gist of the criticism hurled at Obama was that his reaction was too timid, too slow, and tainted by his decision to keep his previous obligations with meetings on his schedule. The evidence provided to illustrate the differences between Obama and Reagan was a video of an Oval Office address by Reagan regarding the Korean jet disaster.

The first notable fact that was undisclosed by the right-wing nags is that Reagan’s Oval Office address came five days after the Korean jet was shot down. The Malaysian jet was downed only yesterday but, according to his critics, that is still too long for Obama to have waited to comment. As for the video itself, the depth of Reagan’s outrage extended to his declaration that the attack was a “crime against humanity [that] must never be forgotten” and that the Russians “owe the world an apology.” That’s telling ’em, Gipper. Make them say they are sorry.

Compare that to Obama’s initial remarks that stated that the attack was “An outrage of unspeakable proportions,” and included a challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a decision whether to continue to support violent separatists.

Obama: Time and again, Russia has refused to take the concrete steps necessary to deescalate the situation. […] We have been very clear from the outset that we want Russia to take the path that would result in peace in Ukraine, but so far at least, Russia has failed to take that path. Instead, it has continued to violate Ukrainian sovereignty and to support violent separatists.

There you have it. Obama laid the blame squarely at Putin’s feet and reiterated his demand that Russia take concrete steps to deescalate. Additionally, Obama called for an immediate cease-fire and an end to Russia’s provision of weapons and training to the separatists. It is an unarguably more aggressive first-response than Reagan’s, but he didn’t ask Putin to apologize so he must be weak.

Fox News and other conservative outlets have also been criticizing Obama for not canceling a couple of previously scheduled fundraising events. But there are some very good reasons for not doing so. First of all, the United States president should not be seen as being so easy to manipulate that an isolated terrorist act, not directed at the U.S., can force him to alter his plans. We are not, and must not be, at the mercy of the terrorists. Secondly, the President made an obligation to the people that organized and attended the events and he should honor that unless his presence would prevent him from taking necessary actions elsewhere, which was not the case.

Furthermore, those making the Obama/Reagan comparison also failed to note that Reagan himself jaunted off to fundraising events shortly following the Korean jet attack. On September 14 he helped raise funds for the Republican National Hispanic Assembly. On September 20 he helped fill the coffers of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. On September 27 it was a dinner for the Republican Majority Fund. Apparently it’s OK for St. Ronnie to engage in financial glad-handing after an international incident, but not a malingerer like Obama. For the record, less than a month after Reagan’s tour of GOP fundraisers, terrorists blew up the military barracks in Beirut killing 250 Marines. Can we say he was really on the job? Maybe Darrell Issa should open an investigation into that.

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Perhaps the most peculiar change in the right-wing media due to the Malaysian jet attack is that it has soured the right on their former hero, Vladimir Putin. For months pundits at Fox News and elsewhere were singing the praises of Putin as the model of strength, leadership, and Christian purity. Folks like Ben Carson and Sarah Palin expressed their glowing admiration. There was even a featured article on Fox News that asserted that “Putin Is The One Who Really Deserves That Nobel Peace Prize.”

At this point it’s hard to tell who the right admires more: Reagan or Putin. But it’s clear that they have a visceral hatred for our current president. You know, the one who is charged with leading the nation right now, and for whom patriotism would ordinarily compel conservatives to support in troubled times. But for some reason, right-wingers have chosen to disparage their president at every turn and before they even have facts to form a credible opinion. Not that they ever cared about facts. For them it’s shoot first and ignore the facts later. God Bless America.


The Republican’s Dr. Strangelove Promotes Book By Nazi Sympathizer On Fox News

Posted by on July 17, 2014 at 7:18 pm. 10 Comments :

In the most recent polling of Republican voters, their top choices for president almost always include Dr. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon-turned-Fox News pundit who viscerally hates President Obama and advocates Christian supremacy in America.

Carson appeared on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News program last night to warn that the United States is “going down the tubes” like the great empires of the past because we have “become enamored of sports and entertainment,” and have “lost our moral compass.” This downward spiral, Carson says, is an extremely dangerous situation that threatens to subject America to the same dreadful fate as previous historical dynasties like Greece, Rome, and Britain.

Ben Carson

The segment was mostly a paper thin discourse on vague apocalyptic generalities that provided scant insight into anything other than Carson’s embarrassingly poor grasp of history and government. His main points were cliched right-wing admonitions against progressivism and straying from Christian faith. And in the midst of this harangue, Carson made a note of the risks of divisiveness:

Kelly: To what extent do you feel divisiveness is playing a role in what we’re seeing right now?
Carson: It’s playing an extremely large role in what we are doing.

In what “WE” are doing? That was certainly a clumsy phrasing that Carson would probably like to retract. However, it is also ironically truthful. For the better part of the eight minute segment Carson was fiercely divisive, referring to his ideological foes as neo-Marxists, specifically aligning them with Marx, Lenin, and one of the right’s favorite bogeymen, Saul Alinsky. Which is why his unintended admission that divisiveness plays a large role in what “WE” are doing rings true.

Even Kelly observed that calling people neo-Marxists could cause others to view him as unpresidential and too extreme to ever be elected president. Carson’s response to that was to encourage viewers to do their own research. He then offered this as an example of the sort of troubling things they would find:

Carson: Number one rule of Saul Alinsky: You make the majority think that what they believe is no longer in vogue; that nobody with any intelligence thinks that way; and that the way you believe is the only way that intelligent people believe.

The only problem with that example is that it does not happen to be the number one rule of Saul Alinsky. Nor is it any other rule. It appears that Carson just made it up as it doesn’t even resemble any of the actual rules that Alinsky laid out in his book “Rules For Radicals”. Or, more likely, he adopted it from some disreputable source that he naively believed. [For reference I have included all of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals at the bottom of this post] But it wasn’t until Carson sought to buttress his criticism with additional girders of fringy philosophy that he went spinning off the rails entirely. And in the process he demonstrated how vulnerable he is to disreputable sources.

Carson: There was a guy who was a former CIA agent by the name of Cleon Skousen who wrote a book in 1958 called “The Naked Communist,” that laid out the whole agenda. You would think by reading it that it was written last year. Showing what they’re trying to do to American families, what they’re trying to do to our Judeo-Christian faith, what they’re doing to morality.

W. Cleon Skousen was a disgraced Mormon whackjob whom even the Mormon church repudiated. He was a rabid anti-communist who veered off into conspiracy theories and fabricated prophecy. His extreme views led him to support other contemporary opponents of communism, better known as Nazis. And for good measure, Carson shares his admiration of Skousen with another popular whackjob, Glenn Beck, who insisted that his followers read Skousen’s “The 5,000 Year Leap,” which Beck said was divinely inspired.

And so it has come to pass that Ben Carson is the darling of the Tea Party and other far-right dimwits. It is a strange love, so to speak, because despite having absolutely zero expertise in government, law, social sciences, public service, or any other study relevant to statecraft, the Republican base has embraced him and are striving mightily to persuade him to throw his hat in the ring for the presidency, a job for which he is profoundly unqualified.

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But what is truly dumbfounding is that he isn’t much less qualified than many of the other prospective GOP candidates (Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio) or candidates past (Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin). Scary, isn’t it?

From Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals:

  • Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
  • Never go outside the expertise of your people.
  • Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.
  • Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
  • Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
  • A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
  • A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
  • Keep the pressure on. Never let up.
  • The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
  • The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
  • If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.
  • The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
  • Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
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Desperate Wingnuts Revive The “Hillary Cackle” In Lame Attack On Clinton

Posted by on July 17, 2014 at 10:59 am. 4 Comments :

When you’ve got absolutely nothing with which to criticize your political opponent, then resort to childish and sexist personal insults. That’s the Republican strategy for taking on Hillary Clinton’s possible campaign for the presidency.

Fox Nation Hillary Clinton

The Fox News community website (and lie-riddled propaganda rag) Fox Nation proudly posted a video compilation of Hillary Clinton’s appearance on The Daily Show Tuesday that consisted of only her laughing at Jon Stewart’s jokes (video below). This is the best evidence yet that right-wingers have completely run out of ideas and have concluded that their only hope of beating Clinton, should she run, is to act like snotty little brats by making fun of irrelevant personal traits.

This should also help to drive away virtually every woman voter from the transparently anti-woman GOP. It’s not enough that Republicans want to deny reproductive health care, allow corporations to come between women and their doctors, vote against equal pay, oppose non-discrimination, cut funding for single mothers and day care, and just this week, advise Republican men to talk “down to a woman’s level.” Nope, now they have to lower the bar even further with lame insults.

Media Matters compiled a surprisingly long list of press references to Clinton’s laughter during the 2008 campaign. It was characterized as everything from a “cackle” to a “maniacal giggle,” but always in manner that was distinctly sexist. Comparing one’s laugh to witches and harpies is not something that would be done to male politicians.

The video posted by the Fox Nationalists was provided by the ultra-rightist Washington Free Beacon, a pseudo-news enterprise that is run by Republican operatives and affiliated with the Koch brothers. So the partisan parentage of this silliness is clear. It’s also clear that the people responsible were emotionally stunted at sometime around junior high school. If this is representative of the campaign tactics that Clinton will face if she decides to run, then she’s got an open path to the White House.

Here is the video from the Free Beacon’s edit of Clinton on The Daily Show:

And here is video of Fox News mocking Clinton’s laugh six years ago:


Stupid GOP Tricks: Slash The IRS Budget As Revenge For Phony Tea Party Scandal

Posted by on July 16, 2014 at 12:34 pm. 4 Comments :

Anyone looking for idiotic ideas from the Tea Party Republican Congress wouldn’t have far to travel before stumbling over a mountain of them. Some of the more obvious examples include denying reproductive health care, cutting taxes for the rich, suppressing the vote, shutting down the government, and promoting creationism. But wait, there’s more.

Ayn Rand Wet Dream Act

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Since the do-nothing GOP-run House isn’t doing anything else, they have had plenty of time to come up with ever more asinine initiatives in a committed effort to advance the cause of stupidity. The latest step forward in that regard is their bill to cut the budget of the IRS by 25 percent:

“The GOP-controlled House has voted to slash the budget for the Internal Revenue Service’s tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it.”

Brilliant! This is a win-win for Tea-publicans who hate government in general and the IRS in particular. This bill would make it harder for the IRS to carry out its responsibility for collecting revenue that the nation needs in order to function. Thus, it would open up the agency to criticism for inefficiency that was created by this budget cut. It would also create inefficiencies in every other branch of government that is starved for revenue by the reduced tax receipts which, in turn, would make them subject to criticism. It would increase the federal deficit by leaving untold billions of legitimately owed taxes uncollected. This, of course, would incite additional fury by the pseudo-deficit hawks of the GOP who would ignore the fact that they created this problem in the first place.

At the same time, a crippled IRS would be unable to audit the corporations and millionaires who routinely practice – shall we say “creative” accounting. Consequently, these folks, who are the benefactors of the Republican Party, would have free rein to rob the American people of billions of dollars necessary to run critical federal programs including Social Security, the military, public safety (food, water, consumer products, etc.), transportation and infrastructure, medical research, criminal prosecution and prevention, and so much more.

The severity of these cuts will disrupt detection and prevention of criminal activity such as fraud and identity theft, leaving average Americans more vulnerable to victimization. They would also hamper the agency’s ability to provide service to every taxpayer seeking assistance with common filing questions.

So these cuts would have the triple purpose of weakening vital services upon which every American relies, granting amnesty to tax cheats everywhere, and artificially creating excuses to lash out at Big Government. They should call it the Ayn Rand Wet Dream Enhancement Act of 2014.

For the record, these Wet Dreamers are proposing cuts that have a demonstrably negative impact on the nation’s finances. And they come on top of previous cuts that have already impeded the IRS from performing its duties. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) in a detailed and enlightening analysis…

“[P]olicymakers should not ignore the damaging effects of the significant cuts that have occurred in IRS funding, which remains well below its 2010 level even before adjusting for inflation. The cuts have led the IRS to reduce its workforce, severely scale back employee training, and delay much-needed upgrades to information technology systems. These steps, in turn, have weakened the IRS’s ability to enforce the nation’s tax laws and serve taxpayers efficiently”

Even worse is the impact on the federal deficit caused by an understaffed, underfunded IRS. The CBPP report also reveals that…

“…from a fiscal perspective, starving the IRS makes no sense, as the return on the investment is high. Each additional $1 spent on IRS enforcement yields $6 of additional revenue from collecting taxes owed.”

Where else in the federal government can the allocation of funds generate that kind of return on investment? It is an act of profound folly to kill such a productive and beneficial pathway to economic sustainability that doesn’t rely on new taxes or program cuts. So what would inspire House Republicans to behave so foolishly?

“The cuts reflect GOP outrage over the agency’s scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status and frustration over the agency’s failure to produce thousands of emails by Lois Lerner, the official formerly in charge of the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.”

That’s right. A trumped up scandal that has elicited nothing but partisan animus and lie-riddled accusations is the impetus for choking off funds that would protect and benefit every citizen. It is the height of petty politicking that comes at the expense of the nation’s economic viability. It is transparent pandering to wealthy special interests.

In the end, it is law abiding Americans who will have to shoulder the burden for these deadbeats. So the question is: Are the GOP really stupid, or they shrewdly executing their mission to starve the government, crush the middle-class, and enrich their benefactors?

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Glenn Beck’s Vainglorious Brand Of Charity And The Ugliness Of His Fans

Posted by on July 15, 2014 at 12:11 pm. 6 Comments :

Much is being made of reports that politi-vangelist Glenn Beck is planning to deliver food and toys to the immigrant children that are suffering under harsh conditions in detention facilities in Texas. Beck’s convoy is expected to roll into McAllen, Texas this weekend. One wonders if it will be met by the same protesters who showed up to holler and spit at the buses of children seeking safe refuge.

Glenn Beck

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While it’s difficult to find fault with the result of his project, it cannot be left unsaid that the whole thing smacks of self-serving motivations aimed at improving his ultra-rightist image and reputation for prejudice, and openly expressed hatred for the very people he is pretending to help. In a video appeal last week, Beck said…

“Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire. And while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help. It is not either/or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts.”

Well, that sounds very nice, but it must be remembered that this is coming from the same conspiracy-rattled demagogue who just last month said that it was Obama who “engineered a humanitarian crisis in order to advance progressive policies on illegal immigration.” So the political crossfire of which Beck spoke is largely of his own making.

The way Beck has gone about promoting this gesture reeks of undisguised boastfulness and worse, near messianic posturing complete with allegations of death threats. Beck sermonized to his disciples that “I’ve never taken a position more deadly to my career than this.”

Really? After saying that President Obama has a “deep-seated hatred of white people;” that if America reelects Obama then God’s response must be that “we have to be destroyed because we will be a remarkable evil on this planet;” that the Obama administration “aided and abetted” the Boston marathon bomber; and agreeing with his guest that the only hope for America “is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

Beck has a long record of being dishonest, divisive, and downright dumb, which led to hundreds of advertisers refusing to permit their ads on his Fox News program. That, in turn, led to Fox canceling his show and relegating him to his current status as an Internet video blogger. Yet after all of that, and so much more, Beck believes that his initiative to provide relief to kids undergoing a severe hardship holds more mortal risk to his career than anything he’s ever done?

What does that say about Beck’s fans? Apparently Beck’s own opinion of the people who follow him (and who knows them better) is that they would be so outraged by this act of charity that they would respond by ditching him in droves. If Beck’s assessment is correct, then his audience is closely aligned with many others in the conservative ranks who have been viciously protesting these immigrant children with taunts and barricades and displays of hostility that surely frighten the kids who have no idea why they are the objects of such vile hatred from residents of a place that they believed to be the “shining city on a hill.”

Beck has already disclosed that his subscriptions have declined since the announcement of his charity drive. So the ugliness of his fan base is already surfacing. It remains to be seen if his relief trucks will be greeted by hostile protesters, or if that sort of repulsive behavior is reserved for frightened kids.


Brand Spanking New Fox News Conspiracy Theory Has Obama “Murdering” The Middle Class

Posted by on July 14, 2014 at 4:03 pm. 4 Comments :

It’s getting difficult to keep track of all of the plots against America that have been perpetrated by our Satanic Kenyan socialist president. When Obama isn’t conspiring to provide material support for Al Qaeda and other terrorists, he is scheming to use the EPA or health care to transform Americans into his personal stable of slaves. But those are small potatoes compared to what seminal birther Wayne Allyn Root is now alleging with the help of Fox News.

Fox News

Root’s newest Obama derangement is that he is purposefully orchestrating “The Murder of the Middle Class,” (which just happens to be the title of his new book, but I’m sure that’s merely coincidental). Root commences his anti-Obama escapade with the assertion that “This is the boldest, grandest criminal conspiracy in world history.” Wow. Even bolder and grander than the Nazi holocaust, the Gunpowder Plot, or the betrayal of Jesus by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane? As the Impeachy Queen Palin would say, “You betcha.”

This isn’t the first time that Root has exposed Obama’s obsession with destroying America. In fact, Root alleges that Obama has been planning this since his days as a student at Columbia University. However, Obama’s new and nefarious designs on the nation, that elected him as its leader twice, put past conspiracies to shame. Root writes that…

“Although the man at the center of this massive world-class fraud is Barack Obama and in my book I prove it…there are many moving parts and co-conspirators. These include famous billionaire businessmen, corporate CEOs, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street bankers, central bankers, government employee unions, the IRS, EPA, NSA, the Bar Association, assorted communists and America-haters, and even some well-known D.C. establishment Republicans. It’s quite a shocking list of conspirators.”

It certainly is. especially when most of them (the billionaires, CEOs, bankers, etc.) have profited handsomely during the Obama era. That’s just how devious this plot is. It has incorporated the beneficiaries of Obama’s policies as participants in his cabal to crush the very system that has enriched them.

Root has identified pretty much every component of the Obama agenda as a critical gear in the super-destructo machine that Obama is building. Never mind the administration’s claims about assuring health care for everyone, or protecting the environment, Root has uncovered the true and frightening aspirations of this president and his team of evildoers. Here is what he says lies behind Obama’s campaign of fraud and lies:

The Real Objective…

  • Of ObamaCare: “is income redistribution (through higher taxes and higher premiums) to make the middle class poor and dependent on government.”
  • Of Environmental Regulation: “is bankrupting the middle class by tripling utility bills, gas bills and grocery bills.”
  • Of Immigration Reform: “is to create 12 million new low-wage employees in the labor force” and “12 million future Democratic voters.”
  • Of Income Equality: “is income redistribution and starving the biggest donors to conservative causes and candidates- small business and the middle class.”
  • Of Higher Education: “is enriching teachers unions so they can funnel hundreds of millions back to Democrat politicians.”
  • Of Quantitative Easing: “is printing enough fake money to pay for $3.7 trillion in government handout bribes to Obama’s voters.”

There is so much contradiction in there that it’s hard to know where to begin. For instance, where is the income redistribution in health care if the money is going right back into the pockets of the wealthy insurance companies? Likewise, higher utility bill would also benefit the rich energy concerns (Hello Koch brothers). However, would that be possible if those bills were bankrupting the middle class who would then be unable to pay them? Also, who does Root think it would help if immigrant labor produced more low-wage employees? That is certainly not a redistribution of wealth to the poor. And the liberal solution to raise the minimum wage, which would actually bolster the middle class, as does affordable health care, is ignored by Root entirely in order to continue bashing unions and stereotyping the poor as lazy moochers who will vote for whoever throws cash in their path.

There is really only one thing in this pile of tripe that stands out as motivation for having published it. And that is the frequent and shameless references to the book Root is peddling. The whole article is nothing more than an advertisement for a work of fiction that mangles the facts, distorts reality, and disparages the American working class. And Fox News presents it as a piece of opinion journalism rather than as a crass pitch for a disgraced author’s latest collection of lies.

Speaking of shameless book peddling, have you read
Fox Nation vs. Reality? It’s Available now at Amazon.

But then what else could we expect of Fox? Their whole media enterprise is a collection of lies and partisan garbage aimed at advancing an agenda that benefits the rich, advocates for war, and proselytizes hate for minorities, women, and progressives.