From this Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill takes Mitt Romney to task for his carping over the made up non-controversy that President Obama supposedly wants to take the word God off of our money. And then you had the Republicans making a big deal about whether god was removed from their platform or not at this year's convention.
As Bill pointed out, worrying about whether the word is on our money or not is redundant, since our god is already the almighty dollar, and in Mittens' case, probably parked over in the Cayman Islands in one of those tax shelters he loves so much.
Obama celebrates at the Lincoln Memorial, Jon Kyl rounds up abortion statistics to the nearest 90, and "Fox & Friends" explains why there's no need for Planned Parenthood.
It turns out that Fox News' Glenn Beck isn't the only one that can follow the money.
Comedy Central's Jon Stewart pulled out his chalkboard Wednesday and discovered that Fox News' parent company had been supplying one Republican group with loads of cash.
News broke Tuesday that News Corp. had donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association (RGA) without a similar donation to Democratic Governors Association (DGA).
It isn't like this is a complete surprise, but still, there is something incestuous about News Corp. donating $1 million to the Republican Governors' Association in order for the Republican Governors' Association to mount high-profile attack campaigns on Democratic candidates. I think it's safe for everyone to eliminate the terms "fair" and "balanced" from any discussion of Fox News.
"We all know deep down inside in our hearts, in our stomachs, in our mind that money is corrupting our political process, a festering sore on the body politic," began Stewart. "But it's complicated. Luckily there's one organization that is tenacious at exposing the gangrenous rot."
What followed was a flurry of clips showing how Fox News hosts like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck had attempted to expose partisan donations to Democratic causes.
In March, Stewart first performed an epic impersonation of Beck. The comedy central host used Beck's mannerisms and grand gestures in the 15-minute parody.
Stewart reprised that role Wednesday to cover News Corporation's big donation.
"News Corp. owns Fox News. This is going to get a little tricky but follow me," Stewart said to the audience as he put on Beck-style glasses, headed to the chalkboard and got out his pointer.
Only hand motions and gestures were needed as Stewart discovered the truth written in chalk. News Corp. had funneled $1 million straight to Republicans.
"Follow me people. You're not going to believe... the money starts here and goes directly there," announced Stewart. "It's a straight line. It's just a straight line. It comes from Fox News and goes straight to Republicans."
"This is a travesty. I think if anything Republicans should be paying Fox News millions and millions of dollars. Not the other way around," he concluded.
Well, it looks like Turdblossom isn't too good at doing right wing radio during his stint filling in for Rush Limbaugh, but that wasn't going to stop Bill O'Reilly from goading him that he should have gotten more money for his three hour appearance for which he was paid $1,650 to sub for Limbaugh for three hours. That means they were paying him the pittance of $550 an hour for his time. Who knew substitute propaganda paid so much?
I'm not sure where Bill got his numbers from on Limbaugh's salary, but if they're right the $550 an hour they paid Rove was a pittance in comparison. Isn't it wonderful that these millionaires are pretending to speak for every day Americans and what we're going through? I'm just not quite sure how Rove is going to get by with only making as much in a couple of hours as most families make in a week. I guess he'll manage somehow. In the mean time he can cry about how underpaid he was for his time along with Bill-O on ClusterFox.
Ed Schultz whacked him for how terrible of a job he did filling in for the Drugster as he likes to call Limbaugh. It's too bad more Americans can't make Rove's "princely sum" for their time as well. I guess if the rest of us just figured out how to latch onto that gravy train that's called right wing radio all the problems with our economy would be solved. We can all be rich and no one will ever have to actually work for a living any more and we can all earn our living like Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove shoveling the latest bullshit to anyone who's willing to listen.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan believes that the US should "follow the law" and let the Bush tax cuts lapse. He disagreed Sunday with Republicans who say that tax cuts pay for themselves.
"I am very much in favor of tax cuts but not with borrowed money," Greenspan said during an appearance on NBC.
"The problem that we've gotten into in recent years is that spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous and my view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here," said Greenspan.
"You don't agree with Republican leaders who say tax cuts pay for themselves?" asked NBC's David Gregory.
Even Fox News' own poll says plurality of Americans want some Bush tax cuts to expire and one host just can't believe it.
50 percent of Americans favor letting taxes increase on at least the richest Americans, according to a Fox News and Opinion Dynamics survey taken July 27-28. 44 percent want to keep the lower tax rates for everyone.
Of the Americans that favored raising taxes on some Americans, 36 percent want to keep the tax cuts for people making less than $250,000 while 14 percent want to let all the Bush tax cuts expire.
"I'm astounded that a plurality there, 50 percent, said they should go up on some level," said Fox News host Alisyn Camerota Monday.
"Asking people if they like tax cuts is asking if they like chocolate ice cream. Everybody likes tax cuts yet 50 percent there -- if you added the bottom two categories together -- think there should be some tax hike of some kind," she explained.
Fox News host Steve Doocy took the opportunity to speak for Americans. "Because ultimately we would like to keep our own money because ultimately we don't trust Washington to spend it effectively," he said.
"Indeed," Camerota agreed. "That was your campaign speech. Nice."
Even though I still agree that those who have been damaged by the oil spill in the Gulf getting something from BP right now is better than what we saw happen after the Exxon Valdez disaster -- where those who had claims got stalled for years and our wonderful corporatist Supreme Court decided that if they weren't dead yet ages later they were going to get next to nothing for their suffering -- it looks like Kenneth Feinberg is going back on the Obama administration's promise that taking money from BP now will not prevent anyone who has been damaged and who takes money from the escrow fund now from having the right to sue BP later.
Here's a portion of a press release from the Obama administration on June 16th of this year.
This $20 billion will provide substantial assurance that the claims people and businesses have will be honored. It’s also important to emphasize this is not a cap. The people of the Gulf have my commitment that BP will meet its obligations to them. BP has publicly pledged to make good on the claims that it owes to the people in the Gulf, and so the agreement we reached sets up a financial and legal framework to do it.
Another important element is that this $20 billion fund will not be controlled by either BP or by the government. It will be put in a escrow account, administered by an impartial, independent third party. So if you or your business has suffered an economic loss as a result of this spill, you’ll be eligible to file a claim for part of this $20 billion. This fund does not supersede either individuals’ rights or states’ rights to present claims in court. BP will also continue to be liable for the environmental disaster it has caused, and we’re going to continue to work to make sure that they address it.
Kenneth Feinberg directly contradicted that statement during his meeting with Louisiana residents on July 15th.
It's subscription only but you can read more about Kaufman and his work at his blog AmericanStomach.com.
UPDATE: One of our readers was kind enough to send along a link to the full article. It's available here.
Thom shared a little of the article during his interview with Kaufman.
Hartmann: "The history of food took an ominous turn in 1991, at a time when no one was paying much attention. That was the year Goldman Sachs decided our daily bread might make an excellent investment."
And then towards the end of the story, just a couple of sentences here. "Bankers had taken control of the world's food, money chased money and a billion people went hungry." Remember the food riots of a couple of years ago around the world?
"The world wide price of food had risen by 80% between 2005 and 2008 and unlike other food catastrophes in the last half century or so, the United States was not insulated from this one." Could it be because it was our banksters that were doing it?
"As 49 million Americans found themselves unable to put a full meal on the table, one in five kids came to be dependent on food kitchens. In Los Angeles nearly a million people went hungry. In Detroit, armed guards had to watch over grocery stores." And then the question, "Could this happen again?"
Really great interview. Too bad our "mainstream media" isn't touching this one. As they noted during the interview, it looks like there's nothing that these bankers won't exploit to make a buck. Really disgusting. And all we've got going on in the United States is some half-baked sorry excuse for "reform".
