All posts tagged MSNBC

Jeenyuss Programming

It’s official. MSNBC is sinking.

You may have heard about the network’s struggles with ratings and its attempt to fix things. One of those fixes appeared today for his two-hour slot beginning at noon central time: “MSNBC Live With Thomas Roberts.”

Now, before he was jockeying to have his own show, I saw Roberts guest-host on MSNBC in the morning and afternoon a few times and he could be quite good, in terms of asking guests tough questions. Then he moved to “Way Too Early” at 4:30am and began appearing regularly on “Morning Joe” and, before you knew it, what edginess he had was gone, and he was transformed into a harmless, almost fluffy, corporate-safe talking head.

Today, to end his brand-new show, Roberts had on, uh, Donald Trump. I knew, as I heard Trump introduced, that MSNBC, long the home of some decent progressive-leaning programming, was on its way into the crapper of corporate nothingness.

The real hook for having Trump on the show was—and I shit you not—to celebrate his “genius.” Yes. That’s right. MSNBC is part of something the 92nd Street Y in New York is doing called “Seven Days of Genius.” The network says:

As marquee media partner of the 92nd Street Y’s second annual 7 Days of Genius festival, msnbc [sic] will showcase on-air and online conversations with well-known personalities on the qualities that define “Genius,” and who and what has inspired them throughout their careers.

It turns out that there is a survey of Americans associated with this nonsense. And all you have to know to know how dumb an idea this survey is, or how dumb the surveyed are, is found in this headline and subheadline from Fast Company:

Americans Think Geniuses Are Men: Inside Our Contradictory Attitudes On Brilliance

More people think Donald Trump is a genius than Bill Clinton. And 15% of people think that they are a genius themselves.

Roberts, during his interview with Trump, actually took seriously the idea that this jeenyuss was seriously thinking about running for president. And then he actually asked him how he felt about being rated higher on the genius scale than both Hillary and Bill Clinton. And Trump said it was great, that he wanted to be higher on the list. He said he always wanted to be ranked up there with Albert Einstein.

Yes. He said it. He actually wants to be in the same conversation with Albert Bleeping Einstein. And worse than that, Thomas Roberts didn’t crack up laughing when he said it.

Goodbye, MSNBC. I think I’ll wait until the evening to tune in from now on.

 

by R. Duane Graham on March 2, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on March 2, 2015

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/jeenyuss-programming/

“Jus Niggaz Bein Niggaz”

Last night, while watching a segment on “All In With Chris Hayes,” I heard a reference to Nat Turner.

Now, these days, you don’t often hear references to the slave Nat Turner, so a little history is in order before we get to the reason his name was invoked on MSNBC last night.

Nat Turner—the surname being the name of his owner—was born in 1800. He became a religious zealot, who believed, essentially, that God had put it upon him to lead an uprising against slave-owners, starting in Virginia. His rebellion, which began on August 21, 1831, lasted no more than 48 hours, and resulted in (the estimates are problematic) the brutal deaths of 55 to 65 white folks, including women, the brutality, presumably, meant to “strike terror and alarm,” as one newspaper reported at the time.

When the slave-loving establishment was finished with its form of justice, an estimated 100 to 200 blacks were dead, including some who were executed by the state for allegedly being part of Turner’s rebellion and some, including some who had nothing to do with the revolt, who were summarily killed by reactionary white mobs with guns, affectionately known as militias. As Wikipedia put it:

Blacks suspected of participating in the rebellion were beheaded by the militia. “Their severed heads were mounted on poles at crossroads as a grisly form of intimidation.”

Turner was eventually caught and tried for his ill-conceived rebellion. He was quickly strung up and killed, his dead body then flayed and ripped apart like an animal. As American Heritage.com put it:

His skin was made into a purse, his flesh turned to grease, his bones divvied up as souvenirs. His head was permanently separated from his body and made the rounds as a curio, reportedly spending much of the twentieth century at the College of Wooster, in Ohio.

Nice. Good Christian Justice.

I said all that to say this: since Nat Turner’s rebellion there has been a fear among many whites, sometimes open and sometimes not, that there is a sort of unruly animal spirit residing in black folks that is just waiting to rebel at even the slightest provocation, just waiting to get even with whites for the sin of slavery, for the disgrace of systematic and ongoing oppression.

Enter Fox’s Bill O’Reilly.

Billo was in typical form on Tuesday night, commenting on the George Zimmerman murder trial (which I have watched fairly religiously and about which I will likely have something to offer, if I can stomach writing about it).

Naturally, O’Reilly claims, journalists are responsible for distorting racial issues and for causing “racial division.” He cited a Rasmussen poll that purported to show that more than one-third of Americans—including almost one-third of blacks!—believe that blacks are the most racist group in America (one-half of the conservatives and one-half of Republicans surveyed believe most blacks are racist). He then, also following form, predicted:

If George Zimmerman is acquitted, there will be racial animus.

By “racial animus,” of course, Billo means Niggas Gone Wild. Blacks, being filled with the spirit of Nat Turner, ain’t gonna tolerate Zimmerman getting away with shooting to death an unarmed black teenager for the crime of being, among other things, a suspicious-looking black kid.

To be fair to the unfair Bill O’Reilly, he’s not the only one sounding the Nat Turner alarm. In Florida, the Broward County Sheriff’s Department “has coordinated a response plan in anticipation of the verdict.” The response includes the enlisting of “basketball star James Jones of the championship Miami Heat.” This is James Jones:

As you can see, Mr. Jones is well-qualified to urge certain pigmented “young people not to let their emotions get the best of them.”

This is the Sheriff of Broward County:

Scott J. Israel

As you can see, he is not necessarily well-qualified to urge certain pigmented “young people not to let their emotions get the best of them.”

The Blaze, founded by Glenn Beck, is no stranger to racial issues. It weighed in recently with an article with this header:

‘IF ZIMMERMAN GET OFF, IMA GO KILL A WHITE BOY’: TRAYVON MARTIN SUPPORTERS MAKE SHOCKING THREATS AHEAD OF VERDICT

The article consisted of stupid tweets from stupid people promising to do something violent in retaliation for an acquittal. Here was just one example among many:

Trayvon Martin Fans Tweet Death Threats If George Zimmerman Is Found Not Guilty

You get the point.

Naturally, a Glenn Beck-inspired outlet is going to document and promote such trash because doing so, predictably, results in a robust expression of the white angst that fuels so much of the subtle racism that flows through parts of conservative White America. Here is a sample of the nearly 700 responses the article received:

  • some of those tweets sound a little similar to the reports of what martin was saying the night he was shot. didn’t work out so well for him, but hey…
  • Well one more reason to own a gun and have a CCW permit. My father always said this country was ripe for a civil war of blacks vs whites and he would not live to see it. My father dies in 2011 […]
  • The apes are throwing threats again what a surprise. All I can say is BRING IT BITCHES I have some lead pie filling for ya.
  • Wow, who knew Obama had so many “sons”?????
  • Negroes are all judging Trayvon based on the color of his skin, while ignoring the content of his character. It’s sad that 95% of negroes are racist.
  • Truth be told, the WORST racists in this country are blacks….taught to be that way by the constant divisive BS pounded into them by the democrats. I figured that out when I worked at Ford in the Detroit area for 32 years.
  • It is crazy, sick, destructive and evil and it emanates from the Oval Office “design team”. Maybe martial law enacted just prior to the 2016 election………
  • You have to recall that these are the descendants of the ex-slaves that missed the free boat ride to return to Africa and they are still angry.
  • Let them try. I’m not worried about these creatures. The gun I carry is bigger and carries many more rounds than Zimmerman’s little Kel-Tec PF9. Let them try. Let them die.
  • He will be found not guilty of course and many many folks will be waiting for you boys to misbehave.
  • Ok all you afro heroes, talk your sh+t, I’ve got lots of rounds, magazines, and replacement barrels. I wonder how quick you will run when your homies bodies are being stacked like wood,eh.
  • You boys are outnumbered, even if you add the bleeding heart lib whites to help you. The race war that you yearn for won’t end the way you want so by all means let’s get this party started.
  • Civil war anyone?
  • Even these animals can see that this pig star witness is a big time failure! Hehehehehehe!
  • why aren’t these douchbags all arrested for death threats?? Come on NSA you afraid to go after them because they’re black?? As for you black punks threatening to kill a whitey, I say bring it on MF. Bring your black ass on!!
  • A Cracke_r is a person who works for a living in the hot sun herding cattle. Black MOFO’s are lazy parasites..
  • Big word from behind a computer. I am a white guy and I will be ready for that day.

As I said, that kind of stuff went on for pages and pages. Tough talk from keyboard-courageous gun-toters. But there was one particularly insightful commenter on the Blaze story, who went by the name of “BANNEDFROMCNN,” who wrote:

Jus niggaz bein niggaz.

When you think about it, that’s not much different from what Bill O’Reilly, the most popular TV conservative in America, said on Tuesday night.

Congratulations, Billo.

by R. Duane Graham on July 10, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on July 10, 2013

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/jus-niggaz-bein-niggaz/

Margaret Thatcher, R.I.P.

She was Britain’s first and only female prime minister and served longer in that capacity than anyone in the twentieth century. If that weren’t remarkable enough, the iconic Meryl Streep portrayed her in a major movie.

On Monday morning, as the news of her death broke, on MSNBC—what some, somewhat overstating the case, call the broadcast home of American liberalism—the Iron Lady’s death brought forth mostly effusive praise of her and her accomplishments. On Morning Joe again this morning, more praise.

I confess: when I was a conservative, she was one of my heroes. Okay, my heroine.

Thus, it is only fitting that the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, as historically important as it is, deserves more than hagiographic commentary, and Chris Hayes, new to MSNBC’s evening programming, did Thatcher’s legacy justice, at least from the point of view of a thoughtful liberal, in two segments:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Finally, as only he can do, Lawrence O’Donnell put in perspective the important relative differences between British conservatism and American conservatism, differences overlooked by those who essentially put Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the same ideological boat:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

by R. Duane Graham on April 9, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on April 9, 2013

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/margaret-thatcher-r-i-p/

Woodward On Hannity–UPDATED

It was bad enough that Bob Woodward, once an esteemed reporter, told a falsehood about President Obama (which everyone but the right-wing now clearly sees was a falsehood). It was even worse that he then strongly implied that someone in the White House threatened him (which, now that we can see the email in question, we know was not true).

But Thursday night Woodward made it all completely intolerable by going on Sean Hannity’s show, once again. Hannity, a man who never misses an opportunity to slander President Obama, or pour gasoline on the fire of Obama-hate that rages throughout the wing-nut right, or feed the white-man angst so prevalent in our politics, was up to the task of sullying, just by being himself, the reputation of a once-proud reporter.

On Hannity’s show, Woodward continued his claim that he was a victim of an intimidation play, by a man, Gene Sperling, who by all accounts couldn’t intimidate Pee Wee Herman. But never mind. Woodward, now a fool, was very comfortable—smiling and laughing—in the presence of one of the most despicable personalities in the history of Milky Way broadcasting.

To give you an example of the kind of shtick Hannity gets paid to do every night, and to show why any journalist with Woodward’s reputation should avoid him at all costs, I give you this: Just before the first commercial break, Woodward sat and listened to Hannity tell viewers that Ann Coulter—humanity screeching across a chalkboard—was coming on the program to help him “expose the countless other examples of how the Obama White House has obstructed the freedom of the press for more than four long years.”

Then, Hannity told viewers that his feud with congressman Keith Ellison—the first Muslim elected to Congress—was still ongoing and that he was “going to investigate his radical background,” blah, blah, blah.

I waited with some anticipation, maybe hope, that when Hannity came back from the commercial break Woodward would tell him that his appearance on Hannity’s show was all a big mistake and that he did not know what he was thinking and that, yes, Sean Hannity was certifiably nuts.

Ah, but that didn’t happen. Woodward was all smiles when Hannity came back, especially after Hannity flattered him, telling the journalist, who had earlier noted his advancing age, that he didn’t look “a day over fifty.” How sweet. How perverse.

Woodward went on to equate Fox “News” and MSNBC (“a lot of people who support Obama who just believe he can do no wrong”), a notion that is as false as his claim that Gene Sperling threatened him. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, comparable to what Fox does every hour, every day, every week. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

“I get calls and emails from people telling me I’m insane to come on your show,” he told Hannity. Those weren’t just people, Bob. Those were your friends, who were trying to save you from yourself, from perhaps your advancing age. At one point, Woodward seemed to praise Hannity’s, uh, journalistic reflexes (“you dig into things”). Oh, my.

It’s one of those times where you had to see it to believe it: a man who has had a mostly sterling career in journalism laying his credibility, his integrity, on the altar of a man who makes a titmouse look like an intellectual giant.

It was sad is what it was.

______________________________

UPDATE: On Friday’s Morning Joe, Woodward once again claimed that he did not say Sperling’s email contained a threat, that others interpreted it that way. He refused to admit that he in any way suggested or implied that he was threatened. He had nothing but good things to say about Gene Sperling.

Yet both CNN and Politico, after interviewing Woodward—before the actual email in question was released—reported Woodward’s comments as suggesting he was threatened. If you watch his appearance on CNN, you can see for yourself that he wanted everyone to draw the conclusion that an attempt was made by the White House to intimidate him, something he reiterated on Sean Hannity’s show.

Woodward also continued to defend the falsehood he has been promoting, that the deal in 2011, which produced the sequester, essentially took revenue increases off the table and that President Obama was “moving the goal posts” by insisting on those increases now. Yet on Morning Joe this morning, the only one who attempted to hold Woodward accountable for his false reporting was David Axelrod. Joe Scarborough and company were in defensive mode on behalf of Woodward. That is how tribal Washington works.

Now we know that Gene Sperling’s suggestion to Woodward, that he would regret his false reporting, was prophetic.

by R. Duane Graham on February 28, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on February 28, 2013

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/woodward-on-hannity/

If You Don’t Learn Anything Else About Social Security “Reform” Learn This

A frequent contributor to this blog (HL Gaskins) sent in a fantastic and informative clip from MSNBC’s The Last Word that aired last November. I am posting it here because the five-minute essay by Ezra Klein needs to be seen by anyone who gives a damn about Social Security and what it means to so many working people. And after you watch it, pass it on to others.

My parents, both gone, are the kinds of folks Klein is referencing in his piece. When I hear knuckleheads on TV and radio, fretting over the national debt or pretending they want to “save” Social Security and Medicare, saying that we ought to raise the retirement age or the Medicare eligibility age or otherwise penalize working folks for the sins of Wall Street gamblers, I think of my parents. And then I get pissed.

Fortunately, Ezra Klein expresses my outrage in a much more civilized manor:

by R. Duane Graham on February 25, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on February 25, 2013

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/if-you-dont-learn-anything-else-about-social-security-reform-learn-this/

Corporate Crybaby-Callboy

Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Whiners Commerce and the biggest crybaby big-bidness lobbyist in the country, was on The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd this morning.

Naturally, Donohue was asked about Republicans’ willingness to use the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool and how that might hurt the economy. Donahoe’s biggest worry, of course, is not the economic chaos that flirting with default would bring, but it is our entitlement programs, which, he says, are soon going to consume the entire budget.

I will only post a tiny part of the interview, but before I get to it, I want to show a big, fat graphic that MSNBC put up during the segment:

corporate profits

As that— “the largest after-tax profit quarter in the nation’s history” — fires up your synapses, as you contemplate how much whining these corporate bastards have done about Obama’s allegedly bad-for-bidness policies, follow this:

CHUCK TODD: Corporate profits are up. A lot of corporations have money. Why aren’t they spending that money on creating jobs?

TOM DONOHUE: Well, they have a very serious question—and I hope you’ll do a show on this—the real cliff that’s really scaring us now is the regulatory cliff. They don’t really know how all this Obama health care is gonna go…You look at Dodd-Frank—we’ve only done 25% of the rules—you look at what’s coming out of the EPA, you look at what’s coming out of the Labor Department—

CHUCK TODD: You really believe it’s regulation that is holding business back from spending?

TOM DONOHUE: I think if I’m running a big company, I’m waiting to see what happens on taxes, I’m waiting to see what happens on spending, and I’m waiting to see what happens on the regulatory circumstances. Do I decide two fundamental things: Am I gonna hire more people, am I gonna expand, and where am I gonna do it.

It’s the same old waiting game. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. The cash is piling up, opportunities are sitting there, but corporations fear regulations, fear having to play by a set of rules that they don’t get to write all by themselves (although they are getting to help write them). Such BS. What a bunch of patriots these bidness people are.

Left out of MSNBC’s graphic on corporate profits, and unfortunately left out of Chuck Todd’s questioning, was this sobering reality, as reported by CNN:

But the record profits come at the same time that workers’ wages have fallen to their lowest-ever share of GDP.

Here is a chart to help us see both corporate profits and workers’ wages as a percentage of the economy over time:

image

You see that red line? That’s the Donohue line. That’s corporate profits (CP/GDP). See that declining blue line? That’s workers’ wages (WASCUR/GDP), which are going down, down, down, as corporate profits go up, up, up, and their CEOs whine, whine, whine, and wait, wait, wait, and sit, sit, sit, on unimaginably tall piles of cash.

And Tom Donohue, an overpaid corporate callboy, has the nerve to go on television and declare that entitlement spending is going to ruin the country and that,

the real cliff that’s really scaring us now is the regulatory cliff.

If that doesn’t make you chunder chunks in chagrin, nothing will.

by R. Duane Graham on January 11, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on January 11, 2013

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/corporate-crybaby-callboy/

Delusional

Just a few minutes ago, I saw Steve Siebold on MSNBC.

Siebold is billed by HuffPo as “one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of critical thinking and mental toughness training.” He has also authored a book subtitled, “How Delusional Thinking is Destroying America.”  He was asked about what we should do to prevent future Sandy Hooks, and the “expert” on critical and delusional thinking said that part of the answer was, you guessed it, arming teachers.

When he was pressed on the matter, when he was asked what to do if a teacher didn’t want to go to work with a gun in tow, Siebold said that he would not want his kid in that teacher’s class. Obviously this critical thinking expert believes that a teacher’s primary classroom credential should be marksmanship not pedagogical prowess.

Siebold also indicated that college kids ought to go to school armed to protect themselves, and he didn’t seem to be sure whether 18-year-old high school kids should do the same.

Steve Siebold, by that one appearance on MSNBC, has truly demonstrated How Delusional Thinking is Destroying America.

by R. Duane Graham on December 21, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on December 21, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/delusional/

No “Breaking News” On Fox For This One

Tagg Romney was asked by a conservative talk show host what it was like during the debate “to hear the president of the United States call your dad a liar.” A chuckling little Romney said:

Jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the stage and take a swing at him. But you know you can’t do that because, well, first because there’s a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but also because that’s the nature of the process.

Keith Boykin, an African-American broadcaster and former aid to Bill Clinton, was on a discussion panel on MSNBC this afternoon that included Steve Deace, a conservative radio host. Boykin responded to the Tagg Romney thing this way:

This is the most privileged, pampered group of people I’ve ever seen, complaining about everything along the way…and the idea that somehow they get away with it makes no sense to me, because you know, everyone at this table, everyone on this panel knows, if by chance Barack Obama had a son, and his son was an African-American and said he wanted to take a swing at the President of the United States, there would be an uproar from Steve and the conservative media and Fox “News.” This is a double standard at its highest level.

Who can doubt that?

For his part, the conservative Deace compared Tagg Romney’s macho response to one his eleven-year old girl might give if Deace were under attack from Boykin. “In the heat of the battle, I think you cut people a little bit of slack when family’s at stake,” Deace said.

The problem is that Little Mittens is 42 bleeping years old.

Again, who can doubt that if Obama’s black son, of any age, suggested he wanted to take a swing at a President Romney, that Sean Hannity would feature a “Breaking News” segment tonight complete with that nutty Fox “News” psychiatrist—you know, the one who suggested that Joe Biden’s debate performance was attributable to “dementia”—telling us about pent-up black rage in the Obama family?

by R. Duane Graham on October 18, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on October 18, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/no-breaking-news-on-fox-for-this-one/

Bias

Liberal media bias? My ass.

Donny Deutsch—a regular guest on MSNBC’s non-liberal morning show, a guest who adds exactly nothing of substance to any discussion—said this morning that Romney’s “47% blunder” can be turned into a winner, if Romney will only “draw the harsh line” and say,

“You know what…maybe I didnt’ say it eloquently. The sentiment is right; this is an entitle [sic] country; it’s a weak country, and things have gotta change.” You take up the rage factor. I think there’s something there, I really do.

Yeah, Donny. That’s what Romney needs is more rage. That’ll get him those few undecided votes left.

But it wasn’t Deutsch’s stupidity that appalled me this morning. It was Joe Scarborough’s reply to it:

I really do, too. And Ronald Reagan, if he were around right now…Margaret Thatcher, other conservatives, would use this—and be optimistic about it; he’s been pessimistic about it—but would use this to say, “Listen, we’re getting to a point where one out of two Americans don’t pay income taxes, don’t contribute to the federal government, don’t contribute to schools, don’t contribute…”

Not one person on the weak panel, including Mika Brzezinski, who spends most of the show in silence in the face of such outrageous claims made by right-wingers, bothered to remind Morning Joe that he was an ignorant fool, that almost all Americans, and certainly all working Americans, do contribute to the national well-being, and most of them contribute a higher percentage of their resources than Mitt Romney, and, dare I say it, Joe Bleeping Scarborough.

As I said, liberal media bias my ass.

For the gazillionth time, here are the facts:

It’s true that some Americans don’t pay federal income tax. But virtually all Americans pay some form of tax, whether it’s sales, payroll, state income, or property tax.

Over 60% of those who don’t pay income tax are working; they pay payroll tax, which goes to support Social Security and Medicare. Another 22% of those who don’t pay income tax are the elderly; most of them don’t work.

In fact, only about 8% of Americans pay neither federal income tax nor payroll tax, because they are unemployed, are students, or are disabled.

What is missing from all this talk about tax is the fact that although the rich pay higher taxes than the poor, middle-class people actually pay a higher percentage of their income in total taxes. True, federal income tax rates are progressive, with rates going to 35% for the top earners. But deductions and special treatment of capital gains reduce actual tax rates for the top earners. So what we end up with is upper-middle-class taxpayers paying the highest actual percentage of their income, over 31%, according to a 2010 study by the group Citizens for Tax Justice.*

And finally, from the same article:

Digging deeper into why 47% don’t pay federal income tax, what we find are many former taxpayers: Twenty-two percent are the elderly, living mostly on Social Security, a benefit they got by working and paying payroll taxes. Others are unemployed or are paid close to the minimum wage, so they don’t have enough income to file any taxes.

What about Romney’s claim that these people believe they have a right to government assistance? Our research shows that over 50% of older people looking for work (but who are too young to collect Social Security) do not receive unemployment insurance or any other government assistance. They are living close to the poverty line with no help other than family.

Far fewer poor Americans get government assistance for low incomes. For the last 30 years, less than 4% of the U.S. population has received a full year’s worth of payments, like food stamps, which are based on level of income.

Romney can choose whom he cares about, but he can’t be allowed to choose his own facts and distort reality in service of divisive politics. Focusing exclusively on federal income taxes hides the fact that most Americans pay plenty of other taxes.

Finally, Romney says that the 47% can’t be convinced to take “personal responsibility.” Tell that to the single mother working the night shift to put her kids through school, or the 78-year-old widow living on Social Security, or the handicapped Iraqi war veteran who relies on government health care for his service to his country. Along with millions of working Americans, they are paragons of personal responsibility, not Romney’s caricature of self-pitying victims seeking to live off government benefits.

__________________________________________

* I add the following, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

When all federal, state, and local taxes are taken into account, the bottom fifth of households pays about 16 percent of their incomes in taxes, on average.  The second-poorest fifth pays about 21 percent.[8]

by R. Duane Graham on September 21, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on September 21, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/bias/

Lazy Journalism

Nothing angers me more than lazy journalists, like the kind I heard on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning discussing the state of our national politics.

The easiest thing in the world is to say about what is happening what Mike Barnicle said this morning:

There’s no certainty in this country as to what’s gonna happen to my children. We are now living in a country, where—because of the way this campaign is being waged on both sides—where too many people no longer can afford to dream, and that’s a huge hole in the American fabric. A huge hole.

The huge hole, of course, is in Barnicle’s careless, almost comatose, analysis. If he built his journalistic career on such sloppy, inattentive thinking he has been one lucky guy.

The uncertainty in the country belongs squarely on the Republican Party, whose leaders from the beginning of Obama’s term decided that the best political course for them to follow was to create as much uncertainty and cultural angst as possible. There is simply no disputing that.

And the Romney presidential campaign is following that myopic political script written after the 2008 election by trying to capitalize on the almost complete Republican obstruction of the Democrat’s attempt to fix the massive economic problems left to them by years of governance according to Republican Party principles.

On that note, today’s Joplin Globe editorial played the same kind of game that Mike Barnicle was playing on television this morning. Oh, the piece, titled, “Stop pointing fingers,” started out just fine:

In 2001, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the federal government would collect surplus funds in the amount of $5.6 trillion during the period 2002 through 2011.

Instead, we incurred a deficit of $6.1 trillion resulting in a gross loss in federal revenues during that period of time in the amount of $11.7 trillion. The question, of course, is why such a miscalculation occurred.

Well, that is certainly one question. But another one would be, who was responsible for the reversal from surpluses to deficits? Huh?

On the way to answering its question, the Globe cited some studies by the CBO, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Government, and the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative, all of which came up “with the same answers”:

 • The overall weakened economy was the primary cause. Growth for the entire period was predicted to be 3 percent. But from 2002 through 2007, growth was only 2.6 percent. Then during the period 2008 through 2011, growth was only an average of 0.2 percent. This overall lower-than-expected growth caused a 27 percent drop in federal revenue expectations during those years.

• The second highest cause was a 13 percent drop in federal revenues caused by enactment and continuation of all the Bush-era tax cuts, amounting to a 13 percent drop in federal revenues. Other smaller contributors were the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, increases in discretionary spending, defense spending increases not related to wars, the Obama stimulus, and the 2010 tax cuts.

Now, a fair-minded person, upon discovering that the Republican Party was in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House during most of the time the country’s economy was in decline and collapsing and when the path toward massive deficits was first being cleared of surplus brush, would naturally blame the Republicans for most of the mess. Right?

Except that the Joplin Globe editorialist, shielding Republicans from the blame they deserve, had a better idea:

It seems rather naive to be arguing about which party alone caused today’s American economic problems. Again, they both did so big time by cutting federal revenues as shown above, yet continuing to spend at historically high levels.

“Both sides” are apparently equally responsible, it turns out, despite the facts cited in the piece and despite what is plainly clear to anyone paying attention.

All of this, from Mike Barnicle’s dumb statements this morning to the Joplin Globe’s dumb editorial conclusion, serves the right-wing reactionary Republican Party very well, as it requires very little thought to simply assert that both parties are equally guilty, that both parties are equally to blame for the mess we’re in, and therefore the economic philosophy that brought us to our knees can be tried again.

by R. Duane Graham on July 26, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on July 26, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/lazy-journalism/

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