What are they saying on Fox, Rush, etc. about the debt ceiling? I would guess that Murdoch doesn’t want to see a default, for sure, and I’d guess that Rush is rich enough that he doesn’t want one either.
Reader Interactions
35Comments
Comments are closed.
JPL
Why don’t you listen and let us know.
Han's Big Snark Solo
Not it!
Captain Haddock
Well I watched the Today show this morning and heard from a divorced woman who wrote a book about why less people are getting divorced these days….
AAA Bonds
They’re saying, more or less, don’t raise it without a balanced budget amendment (LOL), but focusing on minutiae in the Congressional debate to talk about Reid and Pelosi because they are reliable two minutes’ hate for the audiences.
Murdoch doesn’t have day-to-day control over Fox News, by the way; that’s Ailes. And whether or not any of these people want to see a default, their audience wants to see them attack Obama.
By the way, if you don’t pay attention to the right wing press, you don’t know what’s going on in America. Just a tip.
Media Matters writes up summaries of Rush’s show, so all of you delicate little princesses might want to start there.
Davis X. Machina
I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, but a little …..turbulence might be the price we have to pay to get that top marginal rate of income tax lowered, and the reduction made permanent. And who knows, properly hedged, you could even make a little more money along the way.
Because when historians look back at empires, the question they always ask is “What was their top marginal rate of income tax, anyways?
AAA Bonds
Here’s a link, people:
http://nation.foxnews.com/debt-ceiling/2011/07/21/rush-gop-don-t-cave-winners-do-not-compromise
Educate yourselves.
cleek
and yet when i do listen, what they say bears no resemblance to any aspect of my life whatsoever.
there is more to America than right wing politics. there’s more to America than politics, in fact.
Jeff Boatright
Still not grokkin’ it, eh?
Those guys have so much money it doesn’t matter. Beyond a certain amount, the actual dollars don’t matter. What matters is that they have so much MORE than everyone else. What happened to the top dogs in Depression v.1? They did just fine. Same is happening in Depression v.2.
The Limbaughs and Murdochs are happy as clams as long as they’re “winning”. Sometimes that means that they’re winning because everyone is winning (see: the mid 90s) and sometimes it means that they’re winning because everyone else is losing. Above all, they’re winning as long as their political ideologies are being implemented as policy. Making the proles suffer is just the cherry on top.
US defaults on the debt? Woop-de-doo. I guess I’ll have to summer in New Zealand instead of Vinelhaven.
AAA Bonds
Oh, and here’s the Media Matters link you SHOULD already be reading:
http://mediamatters.org/search/tag/rush_limbaugh
The top phrase today is “a full-fledged, 130-percent spending problem”.
AAA Bonds
@cleek:
Oh no, you misunderstand. You simply don’t understand the point of view of a sizable amount of Americans unless you pay attention. Without knowing that, you’re unable to understand American domestic politics.
That’s all I’m saying.
cleek
@AAA Bonds:
sure. i get what you’re saying.
i’m just pointing out that right wing politics is a sub-culture, not the whole of America. just to be pedantic :)
AAA Bonds
Media Matters links for Hannity watch:
http://mediamatters.org/search/tag/sean_hannity
I’m really glad that you posted this, DougJ. Good to make BJers tread where they fear.
Joseph Nobles
Grover Norquist says that letting the Bush tax cuts expire would NOT be a violation of the “no tax increases” pledge his organization extracts from GOP Congressional members.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/out-from-under-the-anti-tax-pledge/2011/07/20/gIQAoudbQI_story.html?hpid=z3
Comrade Javamanphil
@AAA Bonds Sorry, man, my backlog of fiction to read is daunting enough as is.
AAA Bonds
One recent fringe line is that Bill Clinton attacked Obama for the threat of default (he didn’t, of course).
http://mediamatters.org/research/201107200017
This one’s been making the rounds, so I thought I’d mention it. You can draw the obvious conclusions about the weak-ass strategy behind this one.
dr. bloor
Cave, game, set, match. We can only hope the Groverites take the torches and pitchforks to his house now.
dmsilev
Huh. So now a sizable fraction of the GOP is to the right of Grover Fucking Norquist. I didn’t think that was even possible.
AAA Bonds
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Hey, when J. K. Rowling decides the actions of the U.S. House of Representatives, you’ll have your priorities straight.
AAA Bonds
Breitbart’s line is that default won’t happen and the idea of any negative consequences for not raising the debt ceiling is just a ploy (by Moody’s somehow?) to increase government spending.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201107180032
NonyNony
@Joseph Nobles
What. The. Fuck.
I swear to Grod that little shit-for-brains had exactly the OPPOSITE interpretation of his little blood oath/suicide pact in the fall when the budget was being negotiated. I’ll need to dig around to see if I can find it, but I swear his weasley little mug was threatening primaries against anyone who dared to let the tax cut lapse.
His accountant must have gotten ahold of him and told him how much he was going to lose if they don’t pass some kind of debt ceiling increase or something.
Fucking Grover Norquist saying out loud that “letting a tax cut expire isn’t the same as a tax increase”. It must be financial Armageddon coming up if he’s backing down and grovelling like that.
AAA Bonds
Key to a lot of these propaganda pieces are purposefully misleading statements as to what the debt ceiling is, how it works and why credit rating agencies care.
These pundits are betting, probably correctly, that anything with the word “debt” can be linked to their favorite issue of the yearly deficit and thus linked to evil government spending.
They’re also betting, and once again it’s a good bet, that their listeners and viewers secretly relish the idea of the entire U.S. government grinding to a halt from federal to local, and nurse fantasies of themselves as a self-sufficient elite who would flourish in such a crisis.
So, on the off chance that you talk to a fence-sitter who’s absorbed some of these lines, you’ll want to be able to explain the likely consequences for business in the U.S. if default occurs.
dr. bloor
You have Yahtzee.
Benen had a piece up yesterday about how Cantor’s big money boys were calling him and telling him that they don’t mind having their taxes bumped up a little bit, and Cantor was responding with some drivel about protecting the middle classes with his freak show. Looks like the money men are having a little trouble controlling their Frankenstein.
Davis X. Machina
Every Robespierre his Danton.
Comrade Javamanphil
@AAA Bonds It’s cool. My parents include me on all the important chain emails.
john
Probably the leader of the nutty Republican freshmen in the house is Joe Walsh, who also happens to probably be the biggest idiot in the House. When you have someone who walked away from his mortgage when he couldn’t pay it leading the charge, it doesn’t surprise me that there is no worry about letting the US default. After all, he ended up being elected, so bad things really can’t happen, right?
rickstersherpa
I knew we were likely to have two years of continuing crisis of debt default and Government shutdown when these idiots were elect last Fall (thank you 2010 electorate, although you were just trying to let the powers that be know that things kind of suck. Unfortunately, they can always suck worse.) And that the Conservative media, dominated by grifters thirsty for ratings would be demanding “no compromise” from the get go. Ailes, Hannity, Limbaugh, Levine, Breitbart, et. al. almost have as much interest in getting Obama reelected as he does sine he is great for their ratings and income. Controversy and crisis drive their ratings.
By the way, even when we get past this one, there will be another Government shutdown moment coming up on 1 October. With short term CRs and debt limit extensions, this crisis will can be played out to November 2012, with a possibility of an impeachment action as I know they would love to do it. They may be keeping that in reserve in case Obama is reelected in 2012 and they keep their house majority in the same election.
joes527
Joseph Nobles
A little late Dr. Frankenstein. The monster doesn’t depend on you any more.
I have to laugh when I see folks who blithely assume that the moneyed interest will pull back the true believers at the last minute. What they don’t understand is that the true believers don’t follow the rich, they worship them.
History shows us that it tends to end badly for the worship-ee when they make a move that isn’t seen to be godly enough.
cleek
@joes527:
yup
chopper
well, murdoch is a crazy fool. also, i aint gettin on no plane, sucka.
Alex
My understanding is that there are two claims going on-
1. Claim that the debt ceiling is fearmongering. August 2nd isn’t really the end date. The government has options to get around it.
2. Commentate that we don’t really need the government anyways. Like border patrol — it isn’t like Obama hasn’t already opened up the border already! There’s plenty of money for old people and the military and everything else is a waste.
Sprinkle in with “Where’s Obama’s plan” and “Job creators”. Of course, that’s so standard that I think they can’t even complete a sentence without saying one or the other.
“Where is Obama’s plan to pass the salt?”
joes527
I’m also coming to the conclusion that the super-rich are actually FOR world wide economic meltdown.
They will retreat into their walled enclaves, and and continue to pass the grey poupon back and forth, just as they always have. But it will relieve them of the burden of mixing with the merely rich.
The merely rich are for it (even though it will wipe them out) because they take their cues from the super rich.
We are so fucked.
Joseph Nobles
Apparently Grover is claiming the Washington Post took him out of context. Just saw it on Twitter, so I’m looking for a fuller version of his explanation.
http://twitter.com/#!/jaketapper/status/94060890978127872
ruemara
AAA Bonds
Don’t break your hand slapping yourself on the back. Many people check out Media Matters, you’re not John the Baptist 2.0.
with regard to what the RW press are saying: Most of it is we have plenty of money, this is just fearmongering, Obama just doesn’t want to have his birthday ruined by not having a deal. It’s huge packet of stupid, but I believe there’s a level of whistling past the graveyard for the audience. Some of them are worried, oddly, Medicare and SS come from the evil gubmint. hooocodanode!
Julie
Judging from the comments at my local newspaper, the current rightwing argument is:
1. The government makes enough money to pay 60% of its bills without borrowing.
2. At least 40% of government spending is useless crap.
3. Therefore, a default would let us instantly stop paying for all the useless crap.
Jado
it sounds like the Rethugs have an army of Trashcan Mans going off-message. I hope the resulting boom only takes them down, and not all of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrD6Qt7Bqvw