Republicans

GOP Debates Confirm That Fox Is More Cult Than News

Posted by on September 13, 2011 at 2:35 pm. 3 Comments :

In May of 2007 I did an analysis of the ratings of the GOP 2008 presidential primaries broadcast on cable news. The conclusion showed that Fox News viewers remained glued to Fox regardless of what else on the air. I wrote at the time that…

“Fox viewers are married to the channel and couldn’t care less what’s playing down the dial. Their hypnotic attachment filters out all other sensory stimulation, even if it’s something that would ordinarily excite them. […] Fox viewers appear to be more loyal to Fox than to Republicans or conservatism. This misdirected allegiance bestows a far more influential authority onto a media entity than ought ever to be considered. It suggests that the bombastic demagogues that Fox has shaped into celebrity anchors truly do weigh down their transfixed disciples.”

The Cult of Foxonality™ was affirmed when Fox acquired Glenn Beck and saw his ratings (temporarily) skyrocket. Fox viewers were wholly uninterested in the conservative schlock-jock when he was on CNN. Switching channels, even to see someone they would later slobber over, was too much trouble. But when he moved to Fox their slobbering could begin in earnest.

Now the Republican primary debates for 2012 demonstrate that little has changed in four years. Fox viewers are simply not inclined to stray from their electronic hearth no matter the attraction. The GOP debate on MSNBC was watched by more than 5.4 million viewers. CNN’s Gop/Tea Party debate drew 3.6 million [Note: It was competing against Monday Night Football and the U.S. Tennis Open Finals]. However, the ratings for Fox News hardly budged. The primetime average for Fox News in the second quarter of 2011 was 2.184 million viewers. On September 7, during MSNBC’s debate coverage, Fox’s primetime average was actually a little higher at 2.253 million. On September 12, during CNN’s debate coverage, Fox’s primetime average dipped to 1.791 million.

Clearly Fox News viewers can’t be bothered to dig the remote out from under the cushions in order to see what the next Republican nominee for president might say if it’s on another channel. That’s too bad because they missed Rick Perry complaining that Michele Bachmann underestimated the price for which he could be bought.

Perry: “I raise about thirty million dollars, and if you’re saying I can be bought for five thousand, I’m offended.”

That’s telling her. Perry knows how important it is to defend your brand, or else cronies and lobbyists will start to lowball you. And that can really cut into your profit margin. So the question is – How much can he be bought for?

Fox viewers also missed the Tea Party audience at the debate express their compassion for their fellow Americans. In a discussion about access to health care, moderator Wolf Blitzer presented Ron Paul with a hypothetical patient who required intensive care but had no insurance. “Are you saying that society should just let him die?” Blitzer asked. Paul’s answer in the negative was nearly drowned out by numerous audience members shouting “Yeah!” It looks like Republicans owe former (and perhaps future) Florida representative Alan Grayson an apology for vilifying him when he said that the GOP health care plan was “Don’t get sick! And if you do get sick, die quickly!”

The next GOP debate will be carried by Fox News so the FoxPods won’t have to worry about what’s on opposite O’Reilly. They can lean back and scarf down their Happy Meal without missing anything important. Or, at least, anything that Fox thinks is important.

Remember This While Watching The CNN/Tea Party GOP Debate

Posted by on September 12, 2011 at 10:35 am. 3 Comments :

CNN Tea PartyWhen the Republican debate tonight airs it is important to put into context the venue in which the candidates will appear. This debate is being broadcast on CNN along with their co-hosts, the Tea Party Express (TPE).

From the start, the notion of elevating any Tea Party group to the position of national debate sponsor was ludicrous. The Tea Party is nothing but a fringe element of the Republican Party. It has very little support, even amongst Republicans, and its approval ratings have been on a path of rapid descent. It’s most recent nationwide bus tour, which is scheduled to conclude today at the Tampa site of the debate, has been an utter failure with record low attendance.

Contrary to the general practice of engaging impartial partners for debate presentations, TPE is hardly impartial. It is a political action committee that has actively engaged in campaigning on behalf of specific candidates. They supported senate candidates Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and Joe Miller in Alaska (all lost). They have also been vocal proponents of Sarah Palin who has appeared as a sort of mascot for the group. Palin is supposedly still considering joining the race president herself (although I submit that she is perpetrating something of a hoax in conjunction with Fox News), so TPE cannot now be reasonably be portrayed as fair presenters. They have far too many obvious conflicts of interest.

What makes matters worse is that TPE is a corrupt organization that has even been rebuked by the rest of the so-called Tea Party movement. They were created by Sal Russo and his Republican PR firm, Russo Marsh, and their brief history is fraught with scandal. Rival Tea Party groups were harshly critical of them for directing nearly half of the money they raised from citizen supporters to Russo’s firm. Their former spokesman, Mark Williams, was forced to resign after publishing a racially offensive article on his web site. TPE was booted from the National Tea Party Federation for these and other ethical lapses.

What might have have prompted CNN to make this unholy alliance with a discredited and over-hyped entity? Undoubtedly CNN’s new president Ken Jautz had something to do with it. Jautz, who took the reins at CNN last September, was previously in charge of their sister network HLN. It was there that he made history by giving Glenn Beck his first job in television. At CNN he has already distinguished himself by hiring Andrew Breitbart’s Editor-in-Chief, Dana Loesch, as a political analyst and being alone in airing Michele Bachmann’s embarrassing Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union message.

The CNN/Tea Party Express alliance is an unprecedented partnership between a news organization and an active political action committee that has already taken sides in the debate. Would CNN ever consider partnering with MoveOn.org for a Democratic debate? Ironically, the American Dream Movement (of which MoveOn is a part) is now asking for equal time in the form of a post-debate response. Since CNN gave Tea Partier Michele Bachmann just such an opportunity, it would be only fair to grant the same courtesy to a legitimate enterprise with far more popular support. And what’s more, CNN should partner with the American Dreamers to co-host a debate in the upcoming election.

CNN is embarrassing themselves with this association with Tea Party Express. This debate is a farce that lacks the sort of credibility that an honest news enterprise would set as a goal. They ought to take measures to try to redeem what’s left of their tattered reputation – if it isn’t too late already.

[Addendum] CNN has posted an article today about how an “Angry electorate helps sustain tea party.” In it they assert that the Tea Party has “moved toward the mainstream.” CNN’s evidence for this is that CNN chose the Tea Party to co-host a debate that is airing on CNN. And this absurdly circular logic was the work of – you guessed it – a CNN political producer. So CNN is validating their own choice for debate partner by having a CNN analyst write an article for CNN praising the partnership with CNN. How convenient.

Lowlights From The Republican Debate

Posted by on September 8, 2011 at 3:13 am. 2 Comments :

Thank goodness the President’s speech before congress was put off until Thursday. I would not have wanted America to miss this spectacle of GOP brilliance.

Setting aside the predictable skirmishes and automatic spewing of stump speech sound bites, there were some classic moments of insight that can only be attributed to the chronic psychosis of Republicanism. So without further ado…

Biggest Whopper of the Night:

Rick Perry on Obama saying that the border is safer than ever: “Either he has some of the poorest intel in the history of this country or he is an abject liar.”
However, violent crime rates along the U.S.-Mexico border have been falling for years and border cities of all sizes have maintained crime rates below the national average.

Comic Relief (which is pretty much everything else):

Perry flubbed his grasp of border security by calling for patrols with unmanned drones, apparently unaware that such patrols have been in use since 2009, including in Texas.

Michele Bachmann wants to make sure that immigrants seeking citizenship have a basic knowledge of American history. I assume that’s so she’ll have someone to teach her.

To illustrate how unreliable science is with regard to Global Warming, Perry cited Galileo as an example of a scientist who was disputed by fellow scientists. The problem with that is that Galileo was disputed by fundamentalist Christian authorities, not other scientists. You know, the kind of non-scientist, fundamentalists Perry hangs out with.

Ron Paul expressed his dismay with border fences because, instead of keeping foreigners out, they could be used to keep Americans in. He may be the only candidate speaking out in support of expatriates fleeing to Mexico.

Newt Gingrich complained that the debate moderators were trying to foment disagreement between the participants. And as we know, political debates are supposed to be completely free of any disagreements between the candidates.

Herman Cain advocates for the Chilean model of retirement programs. Chile essentially has a program wherein people pay in to private accounts. In other words, Cain wants to privatize Social Security. Which is marginally better than Perry’s plan to abolish the whole Ponzi scheme.

Perry praised Michael Dukakis’ job creation record as governor of Massachusetts saying that he “created jobs three times faster than” Mitt Romney. Romney didn’t disagree.

Bachmann again spoke of her five biological children and 23 foster kids. This time it was to shore up the child labor vote by asserting that what kids need today are jobs. Makes you wonder what she was doing with all those foster kids.

This was great television. I can’t wait for the next debate. We have a couple of promising events on the schedule. One with CNN and their co-host, Tea Party Express. And another by Fox News with questions submitted via Google. What I wouldn’t give for a debate co-sponsored by Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment and the National Rifle Association, with their moderators Ted Nugent and Victoria Jackson. And a special half-time tribute to Ann Coulter.

The GOP Agenda Becomes Fox News Programming

Posted by on September 7, 2011 at 12:02 pm. 6 Comments :

Long ago it was established that Fox News is not a legitimate journalistic enterprise. It is the PR division of the Republican Party. Fox bristles at that characterization despite the fact that they have admitted that they approach the news from “the other side” of what they consider the liberal media. They have even been caught reading “news” items straight from Republican press releases.

Now Fox News is promoting a special slate of programming for next week that they are calling “Regulation Nation.” The promotion shows Fox bragging that “We expose how excessive laws are drowning American business.”

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that next weeks special programming, on both Fox News and Fox Business, was scheduled at precisely the same time as the Republican Party’s announcement that they will be pursuing an anti-regulation agenda for the remainder of this year. The GOP’s House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, just published his list of the “Top 10 Job-Destroying Regulations.” Cantor describes the list as a memo on the jobs agenda, but the list is nothing more than a collection of health, safety, and environmental regulations that he and the GOP oppose (and one anti-union bill for good measure).

The effects of these proposals will serve only to produce dirtier air and water, more hazardous working conditions, and astronomical leaps in costs related to health care. And that isn’t even addressing the human toll of disease, disability, and death. Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic summed up the fallacy embraced by the GOP plan with an example taken from Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-WY) analysis of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (which is included in Cantor’s Top 10 list).

“By 2014, the agency predicts, the new rule will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 71 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 52 percent.

“Of course, the companies that still maintain plants with high emissions will have to spend money to comply with the new rule. And, according to the Barrasso memo, the bill for that compliance (including, as far as I can tell, higher prices the companies might pass along to customers) comes to $2.4 billion a year. But the source of that figure is the EPA’s own assessment, which notes that $1.6 billion of that represent a one-time-only capital investment, already underway – and that even the $2.4 billion pales next to the $120 to $280 billion in annual benefits that the regulation will generate. Those benefits include reduced emergency room visits, missed days at work, and mortality.”

The entire Republican deregulation campaign is fraught with similar examples of proposals that oppose measures that may require modest investments, but will produce far more in savings and new revenue, not to mention a higher quality of life. And despite the Republican deceit of calling these anti-regulation proposals a jobs agenda, there is no evidence that any part of it would create a single job. As pretty much every credible economic expert has affirmed, the current employment situation is not the result of taxes and regulations. It is due to lack of demand. And demand increases when middle-income consumers have more money to spend, not when wealthy people and corporations are taxed less.

What the Republicans are seeking, by their own admission, is competitiveness in global markets, and their deregulation plan is certain to achieve that. It will finally make the United States competitive with nations like China for having the lowest wages and the highest levels of pollution, and the worst standard of living.

And isn’t it convenient that Fox News would choose this time to produce programming that adopts the very same positions on the economy and the agenda going forward as the leaders of the Republican Party?

[Update 9/12/11] Media Matters has posted an excellent article with additional research affirming that taxes and regulations have little impact on job creation.

The GOP War On Voting Is In Full Swing

Posted by on September 2, 2011 at 3:19 pm. 25 Comments :

Rolling Stone just published an enlightening, albeit disturbing, article detailing the coordinated effort on the part of the Republican Party to roll back voting rights for millions of Americans. With the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC], the billionaire Koch brothers, and other rightist allies, the GOP has already succeeded in passing legislation that inhibits and/or prohibits voting by students, seniors, minorities, and the poor.

GOP War On Voting

The article goes into great depth describing the GOP assault on democracy and the potential for disenfranchisement and electoral chaos. Some groups, including the ACLU, are challenging the new laws in court. But if these laws can’t be overturned in time for 2012, citizens will need to more aggressively pursue registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns than ever before.

The movement to Block the Vote has become such a critical part of the Republican agenda that they are casting aside the pretense of voter fraud as a justification for their efforts. They were never able to provide evidence of that anyway. Now, Matthew Vadum, a conservative columnist associated with WorldNetDaily, American Spectator, and BigGovernment, wrote an article for the ultra-conservative American Thinker provocatively titled, “Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American.” Here’s an excerpt:

“Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. […] Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn’t about helping the poor. It’s about helping the poor to help themselves to others’ money.”

When the right is this comfortable openly expressing their hostility toward both democracy and working-class Americans, either the wheels are about to come off that wagon, or we have an epic battle on our hands. It’s all out in the open now. The conservative view is one that would permit only landowners (and preferably just the male, white ones) to vote. Any American that does not represent the elite class is somehow invested in the nation’s ruin and is only concerned with narrow, self-interests. And of course, the rich are never so selfish. They never vote for their own interests. All they want is what’s best for everyone, even the little people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Whatever would we do without these benevolent guardians of virtue watching over us and voting on our behalf? And if you think it’s just wackos like Vadum saying these things…..

John Stossel (Fox News): “Let’s stop saying everyone should vote.”
Rush Limbaugh: “If people cannot even feed and clothe themselves, should they be allowed to vote?”
Judson Phillips (Tea Party Nation): “If you’re not a property owner, I’m sorry, but property owners have a little bit more of a vested stake in the community than not property owners do.”
Steve Doocy (Fox News): “With 47% of Americans not paying taxes – 47% – should those who don’t pay be allowed to vote?”

It’s hard to imagine a more repulsive philosophy. These are the same people that align themselves with the Founding Fathers and a return to Constitutional rule. These are the same people that have deceived a small, gullible segment of the electorate, that calls itself the Tea Party, and has manipulated them into advocating policies that are harmful to themselves. And these are the same people who now want to take away the most fundamental right of every American – the right to vote.

Whatever we do, we cannot permit this cynical agenda to succeed. This is a fight that will determine the outcome of every other fight we undertake. It is imperative that real patriots commit themselves to ensuring that everyone who wants to vote has an opportunity to do so. The more people who participate in the electoral process, the more representative our political institutions will be. And it’s about time that they represent the people and not corporations and wealthy special interests.

[This Just In] Sen. Dick Durbin will hold a hearing September 8, on the “New State Voting Laws – Barriers to the Ballot?”

Some additional resources:
ThinkProgress
People for the American Way

And then there’s this:

Debt Wish XI: The GOP/Tea Party Plan To Tax The Poor

Posted by on August 24, 2011 at 10:45 am. 1 Comments :

America’s Republican/Tea Party contingent, who are defined by their dogmatic devotion to lower taxes as a panacea for everything, have finally found a sector of society that they can comfortably saddle with a higher tax burden: The Poor.

That’s right. These anti-tax zealots have concluded that fairness cannot be achieved in the country’s tax code as long as there are disadvantaged freeloaders who are allegedly not paying into the system. While they fight tooth and nail to protect wealthy individuals and corporations from contributing even modest amounts to the nation’s recovery, the rightist brigade is marching lock-step in favor of soaking the poor in order to heal the malaise on Wall Street and the misery of long-suffering bankers. Their battle cry goes something like this: “Half of the Country Doesn’t Pay Any Taxes At All.” Fox News has been pushing that theme for quite a while. For the past two years they headlined it on Fox Nation right at tax time.

Fox News Tax Payers

This movement is not some scruffy assemblage of disorganized trust-funders seeking to upgrade their yachts. It is a coordinated campaign that has pulled together high profile proponents from politics and the press. Here is a sampling of the breadth and unity of the movement and the message:

  • Rick Perry (R-TX): We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.
  • Michele Bachmann (R-MN): A system in which 47% of Americans don’t pay any tax is ruinous for a democracy.
  • Sarah Palin (R-AK): The problem is more than 40% pay no income taxes at all.
  • Orrin Hatch (R-UT): 51 percent don’t pay anything.
  • Jim DeMint (R-SC): Over half of Americans pay no federal income tax.
  • Mitch McConnell (R-KY): In fact, about half of Americans don’t pay any income taxes at all.
  • John Boehner (R-OH): Fifty-one percent — that is, a majority of American households — paid no income tax in 2009. Zero. Zip. Nada.
  • Eric Cantor (R-MD): We also have a situation in this country where you’re nearing 50 percent of people who don’t even pay income taxes.
  • Alan West (R-FL): Currently we have some 40-45% of Americans who are not paying any taxes.

We’re not through yet.

  • Donald Trump (R-HisOwnEgo): You do have a problem because half of the people don’t pay any tax.
  • Bill O’Reilly (Fox News): 50 percent of Americans don’t pay any federal income tax now.
  • Stuart Varney (Fox News): About half the people who work in America, half the households, actually, pay any federal income tax at all.
  • Dave Briggs (Fox News): [A]lmost half of this country pays no income tax whatsoever.
  • Gretchen Carlson (Fox News): But what does that mean when you factor in that 50 percent of the nation doesn’t even pay federal income tax? Is that fair?
  • [Idiot Award Winner] Steve Doocy (Fox News): With 47% of Americans not paying taxes – 47% – should those who don’t pay be allowed to vote?
  • Sean Hannity (Fox News): 50 percent of Americans no longer pay taxes.
  • Neil Cavuto (Fox News): I’ve discovered nearly half of this country’s households don’t pay any taxes at all.

Oh yes, there’s more.

  • Dave Ramsey (Fox News): This idea that 42% of Americans don’t pay anything…that’s just morally wrong.
  • Brian Kilmeade (Fox News): Fifty-one percent of the country isn’t paying any taxes at all.
  • Eric Bolling (Fox News): 43 percent of households don’t pay any federal tax.
  • Glenn Beck (Right-Wing Radio): There was like 48 percent say they pay their right amount of taxes and 49 percent don’t pay any tax.
  • Rush Limbaugh (Right-Wing Radio): Meanwhile, 45% of Americans pay nothing.
  • Gary Bauer (Right-Wing Evangelist): But the reality is that nearly half of Americans don’t pay any income tax.
  • Rick Warren (Right-Wing Evangelist): HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero.
  • Ted Nugent (Right-Wing Douchebag): This, of course, will not apply to those 50 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes.

Is there anyone who could seriously argue that this is not a coordinated effort aimed at demonizing low-income and working class citizens? The conformity and ubiquity of the identical messaging from such a broad spectrum of players is audacious and disturbing. And what’s worse, it is deliberately misleading and/or false.

First of all, claims that half the population pay no taxes at all are factually wrong. (See the chart at the left from the Wall Street Journal). There are about 46% who do not pay federal income taxes, but most of them do pay many other taxes including Social Security, state and local, sales, property, gas, etc. Secondly, it should come as no surprise that those with little or no tax liability have little or no income. The majority of this group is comprised of senior citizens, students, the disabled, and the unemployed. Those are the folks that the right wants to tap for new revenue rather than the rich who they have taken to calling “job creators” despite the fact that they haven’t created any jobs since they got the Bush tax cuts a decade ago.

To put this into perspective, federal income taxes account for just 20% of all taxes. When you include all the other sources of tax revenue, people making $20,000 a year pay approximately the same effective tax rate as people making $500,000, give or take 5 percent. However, those earning a half-million have seen their rate decline almost 50% since 1980, while the rate for the 20K earners barely budged.

What’s more, corporate taxes as a percentage of federal revenue dropped from 27.3% in 1955, to 8.9% in 2010. During that same time period individual income/payrolls as a percentage of federal revenue skyrocketed from 58% to 81.5%. Thus the burden of paying for our government shifted broadly from corporations to ordinary people (notwithstanding the Supreme Court ruling that corporations are people). These facts prove that the whole faux controversy over the tax liability of low income Americans is, in technical terms, a crazy zombie lie.

Also worthy of note is that one of the main reasons that many Americans owe no federal income tax is due to the earned-income tax credit that was introduced by Republican President Gerald Ford and expanded by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And now the GOP is threatening to impose a tax hike on working people by opposing the extension of President Obama’s Payroll Tax reduction. This relief was passed as a temporary measure and is set to expire at the end of this year. Obama has proposed extending it for another year, but House Republicans are balking, saying that “not all tax relief is created equal” (Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX), and that tax reductions, “no matter how well-intended,” will push the deficit higher (Rep. David Camp, R-MI). Camp is a member of the deficit reduction seeking Super Committee. A spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), says the legislator “has never believed that this type of temporary tax relief is the best way to grow the economy.”

Really? Is this the same Eric Cantor who fought so fiercely for the temporary tax relief produced by Bush’s tax cuts for the rich? Cantor, and the rest of the Tea-publicans, are putting their deficit cutting necks on the line to raise the 120 billion dollars that would be restored to the treasury by letting the Payroll tax relief expire, but they will take the fight to Hell and back before considering the recovery of 800 billion dollars from the expiration of Bush’s gift to taxpayers earning more $250,000 a year. Apparently Republicans are opposed to temporary tax relief when it benefits the middle and working classes, but they are wildly in favor of it when it benefits the wealthy.

How can the GOP get away with portraying themselves as tax-cutters while advancing an agenda that would increase taxes for most Americans who happen not to be rich? How can the Tea Party assert through their acronym that they have been “Taxed Enough Already” when they view seniors, and other low-income Americans as not taxed enough? And when will the media expose this brazen hypocrisy?

The Superiority Of The Super Committee: Women And Minorities Snubbed

Posted by on August 17, 2011 at 11:39 am. NO Comments :

The brand new Congressional Super Committee that is charged with pulling America’s butt out of a fiscal fire is sorely underrepresented by major groups of the American people. In addition to the disturbing associations that members of the committee have with wealthy campaign contributors, they are also notably homogenous in terms of race and gender.

Republicans appointed an entirely white male panel of members. At least the Democrats included one woman, one African-American, and one Hispanic. Still, that ratio is a long way from proportional representation.

When large groups of citizens are excluded from participating in the democratic process, the result is bad policy, uneven playing fields, and a disheartened and/or outraged electorate. Take for example the representation of women in American political life (or rather, lack thereof) that has produced a legislative War on Women:

War on Women

These inequities are generally unaddressed by the media. Unless that changes there will be continued division and a failure to resolve the most pressing issues of our time. We need to include everyone in the effort to right the nation’s course. And we must not be afraid to embrace the fight for progressivism, civil rights, feminism, and liberty and justice for all.

Mitt Romney: Corporations Are People, My Friend

Posted by on August 12, 2011 at 12:24 am. 5 Comments :

The front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, Mitt Romney, took a courageous stand today in support of the browbeaten, wealthy corporations of America:

That’s right. Corporations are people. They’re born, they live, they dream, they love. And that’s not all…

Soylent Green is people. Corporations are people. And don’t even get me started on Depeche Mode.

It’s about time somebody stood up for the downtrodden multinationals. When will society treat them fairly and allow them to marry and to serve in the armed forces? While they can’t vote, at least they can manipulate elections with their riches because the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech. And since corporations have more money than “ordinary” people, they get more speech.

Aint Democracy grand? Way to go, Mitt.

S&P Downgrades United States Congress: Thank You Tea Party

Posted by on August 6, 2011 at 4:00 am. 14 Comments :

Tea Party Downgrade

Standard & Poor’s on Friday downgraded the United States Congress. You may have heard media reports that it was the country’s credit rating that was downgraded, but the statement issued by the S&P is unambiguous with regard to their reasons for the downgrade and whom they hold responsible:

[T]he downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges […] The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.

To be sure, the S&P threw in a few references to the outstanding debt and the inadequacy of the remedies contained in last week’s legislation, but their persistent focus on political failings was inescapable. Notwithstanding the challenge from the White House that their math was “fundamentally flawed,” the S&P proceeded with the downgrade because the math isn’t the main driver of their analysis. They made plain that the primary reason for their decision was the bad behavior of the political players and that it is Congress who deserves the downgrade.

Not surprisingly, the American people agree. A new poll from the New York Times/CBS News shows the disapproval rating for Congress at 82%. Breaking that down further reveals bad news for Republicans who were dominated by their tiny Tea Party flank:

  • All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.
  • Forty-three percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April.
  • Sixty-three percent of those polled said that they supported raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year, as Mr. Obama has sought to do — including majorities of Democrats (80 percent), independents (61 percent) and Republicans (52 percent).
  • Forty-four percent said that the deficit was mostly caused by the Bush administration.

The same poll showed President Obama’s approval rating to be more than twice that of the Tea Party. But that didn’t stop Fox News from posting a link to the poll on their Fox Nation web site with a headline that said the exact opposite.

Perhaps it is not within the jurisdiction of the S&P to rate the performance of Congress, but it is difficult to dispute their conclusion. It would be nice if the media analysis of recent weeks in Washington were this astute. Yet the press continues to treat the Tea Party as if it were a popular expression of the people, rather than an AstroTurf invention of wealthy special interests.

The statement from the S&P effectively declares that, were it not for the intransigent extremism of the Tea Party, the country’s credit rating would still be triple-A. And if the press would stop pretending that the Tea Party has any real significance, the country would be better off in a multitude of ways. So thanks to Tea Party dementia and media madness America can proudly enter the 2nd Dip of its Great Recession.

While The GOP/Tea Party Was Blackmailing The Nation…

Posted by on August 3, 2011 at 10:16 am. 2 Comments :

For the past month our country has been embroiled in a contentious debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling, a routine congressional function that has been done without controversy dozens of times. The farthest right faction of the Republican Party was determined to hold the nation hostage in their yearning to dismantle the social safety net and protect the wealth of billionaires. While that carnival was in progress, Washington and the press missed something else that holds some importance to the American people and the economy:

Jobs vs Debt(Source for job loss data: private sector / public sector)

Despite the GOP’s promise to focus on jobs when they assumed the majority in the House of Representatives, they have not produced a single jobs bill. In fact, they have endeavored to kill legislation that would create new jobs. Just before they left for recess after passing the debt ceiling bill, they left unresolved a bill to fund the operations of the Federal Aviation Administration. As a result, over 90,000 workers will be sidelined until congress returns in September. Not to mention, the Treasury will lose $1.2 billion in fees that will go uncollected.

That’s the GOP’s commitment to working families and reducing the deficit. In other words, it’s a hoax. And the media is their accomplice. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that 52% of news stories last week were related to the debt ceiling debate. Notwithstanding the fact that polls show that the American people are more concerned about jobs than debt, the media virtually ignored the issue of job creation and unemployment.

Now that the debt ceiling debate is at least temporarily resolved, it will be interesting to see what issue dominates news coverage next week. Jobs or the Obama’s dining at a fast food restaurant?