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Rupert Murdoch and GOP Credibility 7/25/2011 8:36:34 AM
With their track record, you can't believe a word
Republicans say.
The Rupert Murdoch scandal involving hacking into private phone conversations and paying off the police in England calls into question the credibility of the news mogul’s entire organization and the politicians who cater to him. Murdoch and his son James claim to have no prior knowledge about what was happening. This from a man who formed Fox News under the “fair and balanced” network. Fox News is so far right they don’t even bother to hire legitimate journalists. Sean Hannity flunked out of college. Glen Beck took one course (at Yale) and dropped out half way through.
Meanwhile during the skirmish on the debt ceiling John Boehner referred to himself as a “former small businessman.” He was a millionaire plastics manufacturer. I don’t know about you, but to me, a small businessman is the corner barber shop or the Laundromat down the street, not some big shot who makes those water bottles that could circle the planet three times.
Then there’s good old Michelle Bachmann who claims to be a tax lawyer. Trouble is, she got her law degree from Oral Roberts, a school that lost its accreditation twice and closed the year after she left. What did she study there, Hammurabi’s Code? You know, an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, and if you steal something they cut off your hand. This woman maintains that Joe McCarthy was right about communists infiltrating the government. She’s been elected to Congress three times and has never passed one single piece of legislation. You see, that’s the idea; Conservatives believe Ronald Reagan’s nonsense about the government not being the solution; it’s the problem. Without a strong federal government, we’d be in the same boat as the colonists were under the Articles of Confederation, or the Confederates who couldn’t get their bickering states to agree on anything.
Bachmann gave a speech to some Christian group the other day in which she told about how she became a born-again Christian. She said she and her friends went to the altar of some abandoned church, confessed their sins, and dedicated their lives to Christ. Sounds like she was already drinking the Kool-Aid long before she went to that church. And how about that Christian therapy clinic her husband owns. He was in the news for counseling some guy about how to overcome his homosexuality. Well, if you heard Marcus on the Jon Stewart show the other day calling gays barbarians, you might be wondering if somebody ought to be counseling Marcus about coming out of the closet. If he’s not gay, Richard Simmons is a macho man. Michelle says those 23 girls they foster-parented had nothing to fear from Marcus. Little did we know. She also has five children of her own. Further proof of the Immaculate Conception.
How about those Teabaggers who are screwing things up in regard to the debt limit. They really ought to rename themselves the anti-Federalists because that’s really their bag. According to a NAACP investigation, five out of six of the Tea Party’s top organizations have ties to White Supremacy. Teabaggers also claimed to have 50,000 supporters show up at the Wisconsin demonstrations to show their approval for Scott Walker’s policies. According to the head counters it was more like 1,500, and they weren’t from Wisconsin. Kind of like the Tea Party members who flew into Harry Reid’s Nevada home town during his campaign. The Koch brothers and the Cato Institute must have awfully deep pockets.
Let’s take a look at Rick “Two Gun” Perry in Texas, shall we? Texas, that’s where forty percent of the new jobs have come from since the recession ended. Problem is most of them are minimum wage or less jobs. That ought to tell you where these jewels are coming from. One would think that any corporation CEO worth his salt would know that you’ve got to pay your employees a living wage. They’re your most loyal customers. Ford employees don’t buy Chrysler cars. It’s just logical that a strong middle class makes for a strong economy. It’s illogical to attack public employee unions when they constitute 100,000 well-paid jobs in Wisconsin. The rich people conservatives want to protect don’t spend their money from paycheck to paycheck the way most of us do. They either invest it or they send it to some tax haven someplace. Perry also campaigned for fundamentalist who now control the Texas Board of Education, which has decided that “history is bunk,” so they might as well rewrite it, claiming that slaves fought on the side of the Confederates for one thing. The Texas Board of Education may think history is bunk, but there’s such a thing as historiography that students study in order to get an advanced degree in history. Historians use primary sources wherever possible, and they include a bibliography and footnotes so you can check their sources out for yourself if you don’t believe something. History is far from bunk, unless you’re reading a Texas textbook that is. Worse yet, textbook publisher’s tend to use Texas guidelines for the entire country. Not for long, I’d expect.
Almost forgot about the biggest fraud of them all, Grover Norquist. He's been in the news lately because of the "no new revenue" pleges Republicans all over the country have been signing. 41 senators, 236 House members and 1263 state legislators have signed on to a pledge initiated by a man who was involved in the Jack Abramhoff scandal. Abramhoff was a lobbyist who stole money from Native American gaming interests. Ralph Reid, former leader of the Christian Coalition, was also involved. Seems like Abramhoff laundered some of his ill-gotten gain through Norquist's front group. Norquist used to be the Andrew Breitbart of his day. You know, the guy who called Shirley Sherrod a racist?
A conservative politician once said, “Once we can get voters to believe everything we say, then we’ll have things our way.” If the last election is any indication, he seems to have got his wish.
Dave Schwinghammer's novel, SOLDIER'S GAP,is available at Amazon.com, used and new. Please check out the reviews. Thanks.
