The Corporate Media Needs Its Ass Kicked Over Its False Equivalence Shutdown Narrative

"The Tea Party is acting like lemmings, just going over a cliff. You shouldn't be taking your toys and just throwing a fit and threaten government shutdown, and that's what this strategy is."

Devin Nunes (California Republican) on CBS Early Show today

"the 'they're all bums' reaction is off-base. This shutdown, the first in 17 years, isn't the result of two parties acting equally irresponsibly. It is the product of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, controlled by a disaffected base that demands legislative hostage-taking in an effort to get what it has not been able to attain by the usual means: winning elections.Call it the Tea Party shutdown. The group will wear the badge proudly. (USA Today, editorial, 'The SHutdown Party')

Right now, unbeknownst to most Americans, we are in the middle of a new Civil War. No, there are no bullets, not yet anyway , but the consequences in terms of pillaging the nation's treasure are just as real. The last time a shutdown happened, in 1996, it cost $2.1 billion in today’s dollars. Breaching the debt limit would be far, far worse, likely destroying this country's credit and ruining the savings of millions of Americans. But don't blame "congress"   What we have is one (mainly former Confederate ) faction of one extreme Right party -Repukes-  comprising maybe 50 in number, holding all three branches of gov't hostage to a terrorist demand: defunding an already passed and legit LAW.

As Chris Hayes aptly put it two night ago, on his 'All In' program,

"We have one thirtieth of the government holding the whole nation hostage".

And yes, I use the term "terrorist" responsibly, because that is what the fuck they are. Anyone who doesn't believe so is either brain dead, or a Tea Bagger. Let's get it clear here: These Tee Pee -driven Republicans are demanding that Democrats unwind their signature achievement – a piece of legislation that took 18 months to pass, survived a Supreme Court challenge and a presidential election – in exchange for a stopgap budget resolution. On Saturday, they tacked on a provision that would limit access to contraceptives. Are you kidding me? Every REAL American with real blood in his veins ought to be up in arms and bombarding the Tee Pee fruitcakes to tell them to stop this barbarism.

Idiots and fools like Condi Rice (this morning)  - but more often the whole blow-dried corporo-punditry axis of bimbos and himbos keep saying they "hope both sides can sit in the same room and settle this."

Both sides? Let's get it fucking clear here once and for all that there is no "settling" anything when one side (a minority contingent of extremists) has a loaded gun to the other side's head. The gun in this case is effective repeal (they call it "defunding") of an already passed law.

Apart from the fact that this is ALL on one side, so silly talk of "congress" being responsible misses the point (it's a core of assholes within congress) think of the god-awful precedent being set. Imagine if after a repuke administration got a defense funding law passed, a majority liberal caucus in the House held the nation hostage via a shutdown unless they got their way - having it repealed or "defunded".

The whole country would erupt in outrage.

But the corporate media, the wimps who looked the other way while the NSA went hog shit wild in mass spying, are trying to portray it as a "pox on both houses" - equally blaming Repukes and Democrats. This is pure unadulterated codswallop.

Blogger Joshua Holland has exactly the correct take on BillMoyers.com:

"Beltway reporters who see their professed neutrality as a higher ground bear an enormous amount of responsibility for encouraging this perversion of democratic governance. With a few notable exceptions, the media have framed what Jonathan Chait called “a kind of quasi-impeachment” in typical he said-she said fashion, obscuring the fact that the basic norms that govern Congress have been thrown out the window by a small cabal of tea party-endorsed legislators from overwhelmingly Republican districts."


He goes on to observe (again, spot-on) that the "corporate media treat unprecedented legislative extortion as typical partisan negotiations, and in doing so they normalize it."

Indeed, by normalizing it the "fifth estate" betrays its responsibility to inform and educate the American public. Yet only ONE person, interviewed last night in an ABC News segment, correctly pinpointed the Tea Bagger faction as the ones responsible - all the others employed generic mush references to "they" and "congress". Can't these people THINK? Well, it's hard when: a) one isn't already a political junkie and b) one can't depend on the press to clarify issues.

But why be surprised at this media obfuscation and irresponsibility? It's been going on for years, hell decades! Look at the media's inability to properly  discuss the JFK assassination in context without employing their usual dopey "tin foil hat" narrative BS. Michael Parenti in his book, The Dirty Truth, as well as his essay The Gangster State, has well documented how the media has become committed to the "one lone nut" myth almost since the Warren Commission received its specious benediction from LBJ. It didn't help that CIA disinformation hirelings were ensconced at both The New York Times, and Washington Post, so controlled any anti-Warren narratives. This was documented by Kathryn Olmstead in her book, Challenging the Secret Government (University of North Carolina Press, 1996)

In the same sense, to use an analogy, what is happening now in the U.S. shutdown coverage would be like German media equally blaming holocaust deniers and holocaust survivors,  offspring for any new civic turmoil over the trial of  Nazi Beate Zschäpe,   see e.g.  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-are-new-german-nazis-really-up-to.html


But make no mistake that sober publications, like The Financial Times, put the onus foursquare where it belongs on the Tea Bagger- controlled House Republicans.  There are also responsible bloggers and media people in the U.S. that do the same - but one must make an effort to find them, But if you believe the shutdown crazies are wreaking havoc, wait until the debt ceiling fight begins and these terrorists take it to another level!  As reported by Ezra Klein:

In return for a one-year suspension of the debt ceiling, House Republicans are demanding a yearlong delay of Obamacare, adoption of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s tax-reform plan, construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, more offshore oil drilling, more drilling on federally protected lands, looser regulations around ash coal, a suspension of the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of carbon emissions, more power over the regulatory process in general, reform of the federal employee retirement program, changes to the Dodd-Frank Act, more power over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget, repeal of the Social Services block grant, expanded means-testing for Medicare benefits, repeal of the public health trust fund and more.

Are we going to stand for this? Isn't there some punishment for treason? Isn't it hanging or putting before a firing squad?  All of the above to me indicate blatant nativist, domestic extortion and terrorism (hence treason)  no different from what American "enemy combatants" are using, as in Yemen and Somalia. If those fuckers can be taken down by a drone.....well.....don't get me started!

The Monied Vermin Seeking Government Chaos Via Extortion and Shutdown

As I showed in an earlier blog, i.e. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/yes-there-must-be-higher-taxes.html

the liars, thieves and Rightist extremists are on the wrong side of why the deficit has reached $16.7 trillion. In fact, it has been THEIR unpaid for wars and tax cuts that have largely driven us into this position. Also, they extorted the nation back in 2011 and they plan to do it again. This according to a new front page story in The New York Times, exposing who these groups are and how they extort by way of election-based fear of all those House Reepos that don't cooperate.

Consider the case of Aaron Schock, a conservative Republican from Illinois. Schock became a "traitor" when he (sanely) voted to increase the debt ceiling in 2011 (as had been done perfunctorily 7 times in the Bush Jr. years), and, in 2012, compounded his "crimes" by voting for a stopgap spending bill that prevented a government shutdown. Worse, he refused to vote to defund the Affordable Care Act. ("Obamacare"). 

Nor is Schock the only person now in the cross hairs. The Time notes that besides him, "10 other lawmakers considered suspiciously squishy by the Club for Growth were designated as RINO’s (Republicans in name only), and the club has vowed to find primary opponents and support them with cash — a formidable threat considering that it spent $18 million backing conservative candidates in the 2012 cycle." 

Thus, we identify the Club for Growth, as really "the Club for Chaos" who obviously can't wait to wreak havoc not only on health care, but also would have no qualms about suffering vets denied their VA disability checks, or oldsters who can barely scrape two coins together for bread and meds being denied their Social Security. For these assholes, the only thing that matters is making the rich richer and if they have to squash government to do that, so be it.

So who comprises the rest of the monied,  vermin network?

Well, readers won't be surprised, if they have followed my ten or so blogs on the Tea Party, that Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers group- is also involved up to its ears stirring the shit storm toward shutdown.  Like the Club for Growth's rich renegades,  the billionaire Kochs are hoping Americans will be stupid enough to screech against a sane debt ceiling increase, in order to make the nation safer for the wealthiest. Never mind, according to the Denver Post yesterday (p. 19A) the nation's billionaires are even wealthier than they were two years ago, with Bill Gates alone worth $72 billion and all of them in concert equal to the net worth of 100 million ordinary Americans. I mean, is this insane or what? How much more are we going to give these people?

How many MORE of these $65,000 all copper bath tubs :
do these fuckers need? Ten? Twenty? Can Bill Gates or the Kochs sit in all of them at once? How many 150,000 sq. foot homes do they need? Ten? Fifty? Why isn't there a rational limit to the money - property, that they can own in order for those with less to have a roof over their heads and some food? What kind of nation are we to allow such inequity?  But I digress. Sorry, after being privy to REAL poverty - seen in places as remote as the villages near the Pitons in St. Lucia - where women are infested with schistosomiasis parasites merely from washing clothes in the river - I have little patience or tolerance for people with excess wealth. I do not suffer them kindly, or the fools that seek to defend them. There it is. What can I say?


Anyway, the Koch brothers group has already spent millions on ads fighting health reform,and (as the Times reports) is beginning a new campaign to delay the law’s effects. Why can't ordinary people - families struggling with stagnant wages- have what these rich turds have: decent health care? And by that I mean access to care without going bankrupt.

But this is what we've come to expect from the economic barbarians. But who are the rest of these extremist vermin? Vermin who, while puffing "patriotism" out of one side of their mouths, have no problem destroying the basis of positive government with the other - by defunding it - unless they get their nefarious ways. And in so doing they spit on the will of the people and the general welfare held up in the Preamble of the Constitution.

Add to the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, the National Liberty Federation, (amazing how many of these right extremists appropriate the term 'liberty') another “social welfare” group that- as the Times notes-  "sees dollar signs in shutting down the government." In other words, they see dollar signs in depriving impecunious seniors of their Social Security, and paralyzed vets of their disability benefits. Some Americans these! They sound more like Nazis, and no, that's not overblown. Not from where I sit.

How determined are these traitorous vermin to take down the government if they don't get their execrable way? According to The Times,  very determined - citing a Republican operative (Brian Walsh) who recently noted in U.S. News and World Report that the Right is now spending more money attacking Republicans than the Democrats are. He said: “Money begets TV ads, which begets even more money for these groups’ personal coffers. Pointing fingers and attacking Republicans is apparently a very profitable fund-raising business.”

The idea is clearly one of blackmail and extortion. Vote the way we demand, to defund or shut down the government (sending vulnerable citizens down the crapper) or we will take you down from the Right. We will get an even more extremist (but cooperative) pawn to help us achieve our goals. And the Devil take the hindmost or most of the nation!

Citizens need to be aware of the forces at work at this new debt ceiling crisis unfolds, and a government shut down becomes more imminent. Know who the enemy is, and in the next cycle of elections, i.e. next year, refuse to vote for any of the extremists' pawns!

Getting A Perspective on the IRS Hysteria

In a perverse way, one has to admire the always seemingly victimized Repukes for their innate ability to set off phoney outrage, brouhahas, assorted political diversions and specious scandals (e.g. Benghazi) which they insist have national security dimensions.  The latest one is the IRS issue which - to hear the Reeps tell it - has seen one of the most powerful agencies in the country singling them out for far more detailed screening of their 501(c)(4) applications - for reduced taxes to "social welfare" groups, than their political counterparts.

What a freakin' bunch of hooey! And the worst part of it is how most of the press, with few exceptions, has jumped on the Reepo outrage bandwagon without more carefully examining the facts. (One exception is Michael Grunwald's excellent essay in TIME - June 10, p. 35- 'One Nation, Tax Exempt' - asking why any charity or social welfare group would need a tax exempt status, unless it had to shelter profits. Good question!)

First, let's set the stage: under the criteria set for 501(c)(4) groups:  the degree to which they can claim tax exempt status hinges on the extent to which they are not embroiled in political opportunism, partisan political attacks and self-styled political hackery. Does anyone seriously believe the Tea Party groups qualify? Groups that have viciously attacked Obama and his administration from the get-go,  to the extent of toting loaded weapons to public meetings on his Affordable Care Act, and painting him as a Hitlerite or Nazi pond scum.

As Exhibit A,  note the photo-shopped depiction of Obama extracted from one Tea Bagger's website in the run up to last year's election. Now, can anyone with all brain cells active and with an IQ over room temperature seriously tell me that this is not only politically biased material but politically OFFENSIVE? Do you seriously believe any nimrod who would belong to a group that publishes such crap ought to receive a tax relief benefit under the IRS code? Gimme an effin' break already!

In other words, it requires no jumps in latent popular IQ to grasp why the IRS would invoke a more lengthy and detailed application form for these types of groups and people. And bear in mind again, they are obliged to scrutinize more such types specifically because of the tax code's own requirements!  But to hear the little Tea Party types whine - you'd think they had been unfairly molested. Jeezus Peace! You'd think they were all brought up on tax evasion charges or something when it was merely they're having to use a more detailed 501(c)(4) form to explain themselves!

Might the IRS have taken a document short cut and paid more attention to Tea Party brands? YEEEEESSS! So what? When one understands the extent of how IRS funding has been cut by the GOP in the last few election cycles one would grasp the need to look for high profile giveaways, like TEA PARTY - behind the name. Especially of groups that put up crap like that phoney Obama as Hitler TIME image! (And please don't interject any bollocks about the IRS' 'Star Trek' training video which cost maybe $200k and is fully understandable in an agency where probably too much of the work is tedious, boring and where a novel approach can get more results, say with new employees. If you're really about waste, go after CEOs who use inflated share money to make million dollar vids and have $15m  escapades....errrrr...'conferences'  in Vegas, complete with strippers.)

Besides which, even if the IRS spent several million on conferences, training etc. it pales besides the BILLIONS that secretive Tea Party support groups  (like Americans for Prosperity and the Koch brothers) want protected from Uncle Sam's taxes!  But see, when 'pukes set off this kind of hysteria, it's always the rational perspective that becomes the first casualty.

Second, regarding the hidden Tea Party support groups like Americans for Prosperity, columnist Jim Hightower has noted ('Wolves in Do-Gooder Clothing', Col. Springs Independent, p. 10):

"This privileged status (of being designated a 501(c)(4) social welfare group) would allow them to take unlimited bags of corporate cash without ever revealing to voters the names of the corporations putting up the money. The caveat is that the 501(c)(4) groups are supposed to do social welfare work and cannot be attached to any particular party - nor can politics be their primary purpose."

Did the U.S. mainstream press cover any of this? Did you hear about this side of the issue? I doubt it, not like we heard it discussed over German News networks! You likely heard no more about it than you heard of the global anti-GMO, anti- Monsanto protests.

Hightower's next point is even more salient in connection with why the IRS was duty bound to scrutinize these little peckerheads even more:

"Forget what the 501(c)(4) rule says. Karl Rove and the Koch brothers have cynically set up their own pretend social welfare groups to run secret money-election political campaigns. Suddenly, hundreds of wannabes were demanding special 501(c)(4) designation, brazenly lying about their overt political purpose, even asserting they were engaged in no political activity."

Seriously? Like the group that put up that Obama -Time Hitler image?

Next time you hear about this IRS "over stepping", please remember to roll your eyes and ask the pertinent question: WHO was it that was really targeted and WHY? And to what extent would their being granted social welfare status have harmed the rest of us?

On that note, this letter in today's Denver Post from a reader is well worth a look, in fact more than one look:

"I’ve had about enough of the GOP wailing and gnashing of teeth over this IRS thing. It should be obvious to the most casual observer that the reason mid-level managers at the IRS would look for buzzwords indicating the far right is that they were tasked with identifying organizations applying for tax exempt status for which they were not eligible.

Who do you think constituted the bulk of such applications? Obviously, the Tea Party, in all its iterations. Have you heard of any new left-wing organizations lately? I don’t think we, the people, should have to subsidize political speech by anyone, and that’s exactly what this is. There are no Tea Party “social welfare” organizations, and we all know it. It’s time for the GOP to back off and let the IRS do its job, a job it was obviously doing very well, indeed." - Pete Lister,



Bingo, Mr. Lister! You were smart and savvy enough to nail it! Maybe others will in time.
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Footnote: A recent sub-kerfuffle has erupted over a putative change in language in the 501(c)(4) code from "exclusively" (i.e. social welfare groups having to exclusively operate in that purview) to "primarily". The latter has been noted by the new IRS commissioner to be applicable to the "implementation" of the reg, whereas the former word is in the original law. While this inconsistency definitely needs to be removed, it doesn't change the fact that Tea Party groups, organizations still wouldn't qualify since we know - as the letter writer points out- none of them meet even the lowly "primary" social welfare standard. In other words, the IRS - despite the change in lingo- was still justified in applying a higher level of scrutiny for the TeePees applying for tax exemption under 501(c)(4).