Imagine, if you will, how the great Walter Cronkite might have responded, had been asked to do a report in which he gave birthers the same credence as sane people, or if he were asked to present second Amendment solutions as a feasible alternative.  I think Cronkite would have walked away before doing such stories, but journalists then understood something that journalists today do not.  The fourth estate is responsible to truthfully inform the public.  The notion that all ideas, no matter how absurd, are created equal has become the clarion call of modern day broadcast media, but only when the absurd ideas come from the right.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) thinks the media made a big mistake by devoting equal time to every "absurd notion" during the debt ceiling debate.

"And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely," Kerry told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough Friday. "The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it’s exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."

"It doesn’t deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what’s real, of who’s accountable, of who is not accountable, of who’s real, who isn’t, who’s serious, who isn’t?"… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

Here’s the video.

Kerry is absolutely right, but he did not address the problem of bias.  During the run up to the Iraq War, Bush and his cabal of war criminals were plastering America with lies about nuclear, chemical and biological WMDs.  At the time I opposed it, because the evidence was plainly available that Bush’s claims were questionable at best, as did many with far more expertise than I could ever hope to have.  those experts got no coverage.  Media bias shut the truthful people out of the debate.  Left leaning wing-nut conspiracy theories were ignored completely throughout the Bush regime.  The media attempt to muddy the truth through faux equality is only in play during Democratic administrations.

It’s always a refreshing sight, when when Republican representatives go home, hold town hall meetings and try to spread their lies about the economy, only to be shut down by every day Americans.  This is completely different from Astroturf summer in 2009, when corporate criminals bussed Teabaggers all over the country to disrupt meetings.

At a Thursday town hall meeting in Wauconda, Illinois, Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) railed against defense cuts and entitlement programs, telling attendees that Americans refuse to have a discussion about how best to rein in the nation’s deficit and debt. But when Walsh asked how Americans planned to pay for those programs, he was caught off guard by a quick answer from one of the event’s attendees…

…Watch it, courtesy of Americans United for Change:

Republicans continue ignore that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are among the main drivers of American debt and that falling tax rates on the rich have led to widening income gaps between the richest and poorest Americans…

Inserted from <Think Progress>

He doesn’t know where to find the money?  I’ll tell him where!  Find it in the Koch brothers’ wallets!

Update:  I corrected the state in the title.  Apologies.  I had WI on my mind.

I have long said that Republicans politicians are seditionists who are intentionally working against economic recovery in their lust for power.  In their most recent act of economic terrorism, they brought the country to the brink of default, and would have driven it over the edge had not Democrats caved in, trying to prevent Republicans from destroying the economy, more so than they already have.  It came too late.  One of the three credit rating agencies downgraded the US credit rating from AAA to AA+ for the first time in history.  While Obama and Democrats struggled in vain to prevent the downgrade, Republicans remained silent, but the moment the downgrade came, they immediately blamed Obama for what they caused themselves.  Republican mission accomplished.

The Republicans, led by the Tea Party, have finally succeeded in another step in their quest to wreck the US economy, oddly believing that it will help them win the 2012 election.  Their slash and burn, no-revenue dogma that won out in the manufactured debt crisis that came to a head last Monday failed at the one goal it should have set for themselves; that is, to calm the markets and provide assurance of the strength of the US economy.  Their 24/7 assault on the economy and job recovery, all in the name of taking down the President, only succeeded in inflicting the damage that business leaders, banks, and the Treasury begged them not to do.

 

We are now reaping what the Republican Congress has sown.  Not only are the markets jittery after the plunge of worldwide markets yesterday, we were just rewarded with a nice weekend starter:

"The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics."

 

"More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011."

 

"Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government’s debt dynamics any time soon."

… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

The S&P evaluators recognize what Republicans refuse to admit.  Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and middle classes is not possible.  Republican trickle-down economics have already gushed-up most of our nation’s wealth into the hands of the top 2% and criminal corporations.  But these are the people that Republicans represent, and their refusal to compromise, combined with their criminal blackmail, brought S&P to their conclusion.  The straw that broke the camel’s back may well have come Thursday when Bought Bitch Mitch McConnell promised to repeat the blackmail anytime the nation requires a debt limit increase.

Rachel Maddow dedicated five segment of her show to this.  Here are two of them.  In the first, Rachel interviews Business Editor Louise Story, who explains how S&P is merely reflecting the market’s response.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The only thing that weakens US credit is Republican intransigence and blackmail.

In the second, Rachel discusses the practical effects of the downgrade with Columnist Ezra Klein.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The decision was based on political, not economic criteria.  How can we expect the world to trust our credit when Republicans want us to default for political gain?

The Republican Party is a cancer on the US body politic.  That cancer must be excised.

With all the hate going around, individual examples fade from memory, but let us revisit the time when Crawford Caligula was fiddling, New Orleans was drowning, and Brownie was doing a “heck of a job.”  If you remember, police murdered two unarmed black citizens on the Danziger Bridge.  Friday, the beginning of justice arrived, long overdue after almost six years.

A jury convicted New Orleans police officers of violating the civil rights of two people killed a week after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. A fifth was found guilty of a later cover-up, along with the other four.

Jurors deliberated three days to convict the officers of all 25 counts they were accused of. They are to be sentenced Dec. 14 by U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt in New Orleans. The four who fired shots at the bridge are in custody. The fifth, a detective, is free on bail.

The civil rights violations caused the deaths of James Brissette, 17, and Ronald Madison, 40, the jury found separately, meaning the maximum punishment for the four officers directly involved is life in prison.

The jury convicted officers Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso of opening fire on unarmed black icivilians on the city’s Danziger Bridge and conspiring with others to cover up their actions.

The fifth, homicide detective Arthur “Archie” Kaufman, was convicted of conspiring to make the shootings appear justified.

The shootings took place on Sept. 4, 2005, one week after Katrina flooded most of New Orleans and one day after stranded evacuees were airlifted and bused to safety… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Bloomberg>

We will not know whether justice is truly done, until these men are sentenced.  Because they were entrusted to uphold the law, to serve and protect, these men are more culpable than others might be, so light sentences would be most unjust.  I hope that they come to realize the magnitude of their crime, join the grief over what they have done, and change.

I believe that the majority of police officers are professionals who do their jobs well.  However, there is an unfortunate tendency among even good police to form a “thin blue line” and cover up the crimes of their fellow officers.  Therefore, to protect citizens, all police actions should be subject to oversight by independent citizen review boards.