Let's not kid ourselves: MSNBC is only the "liberal" network because the executives thought it was a good market niche. But if they're going to sell themselves as such, it's time that viewers got a little more demanding about what the cable network actually delivers.
So I was thinking about this: When Ed Rendell appears on MSNBC to shill for Fix The Debt, he gets paid -- as an MSNBC contributor. Let's presume he's also getting paid by the Pete Peterson front (either directly or through other career-related benefits) and the Greenhill & Co. investment bank, while also serving as special counsel to Ballard Spahr, a law firm specializing in public/private partnerships (i.e. privatization of public assets).
Ed loves to present himself as just an "aw shucks", down-to-earth kinda guy, but he's not. He's not even a real Democrat anymore, let alone a liberal. He's nothing but a member of the 1%, and that's whose interests he serves.
Now, I'm not going to go after Ed for selling out. We always knew he would, it's not a surprise. It's MSNBC who muddies the ethical lines here, by bringing on a salesman and then paying him as if he's an honest broker! Why, hello there, massive conflicts of journalistic interest!
Look, we know the corporate ownership of NBC/Kabletown is actually in full agreement with the agenda pushed by Fast Eddie. But we can at least make them follow the rules.
And the next time he appears on Hardball, or Rachel Maddow, you might want to let MSNBC know that you're not happy about it.
Mayor Bloomberg wants to cut off painkillers for the poor. Yes, there is a problem with junkies. There is also a problem with people in pain who use the ER as their primary source of medical care.
(h/t Video Cafe for the vid) The corporatist elites have been relentless in their attacks on earned benefits for Americans and are trying to seize upon Disaster Capitalism tactics to try and swindle the 98% out of needed entitlements using the mask of bipartisanship. The loathsome Ed Rendell was back on MSNBC and continued his assault on working-class Americans. He even went as far as to throw support for the election of more Republicans like Steve Latourette, who wanted to cut government spending tremendously.
RENDELL: The people want us to get together and do something. That's why I was sad to see Steve not run for re-election because we need Republicans, we need more Republicans who are going to stand in there and say, spending is the issue, but we gotta have reasonable revenue to come in into the mix and we got to look at everything when it comes to spending. Defense cannot be a sacred cow, we've got to look at everything and we've got to have legitimate entitlement reform. .
And on our side Mike, we've gotta do this. I was on The Cycle, one of MSNBC's shows and I suggested that raising the age in Medicare, given the fact that we're living longer, isn't a necessarily bad idea. The three progressive hosts, you would have thought that I'd proposed treason to the American government.
It is evil for a political hack to demand retirement ages go up and fewer benefits be paid to the many, many millions of people who need them to survive while he collects a fat check to sit on TV and spew bought-and-paid-for propaganda. In my last post, I labeled him a traitor -- so he obviously took it to heart.
RENDELL: And he has to also deliver a message to Democrats that we're going to have to compromise. Now give the President credit, he said he would consider chained CPI, he said back in 2011 that he would raise the age limit on Medicare with carve-outs. Those are things he's going to have to deliver if we're going to get Republicans to go along with more increased revenue and doing something finally on the debt. But only one person can take this on his shoulders and cross the finish line and that's the President of the United States. He has to lead.
No ifs ands or buts about it. He has to lead. And boy, I’d love the whole Congress, this new Congress and the President, they should all go see a screening of Lincoln together, because Abraham Lincoln led on the 13th Amendment when everybody on both sides told him he was crazy.
My God, he even used a slavery fight analogy from the movie Lincoln to justify his wickedness.
MSNBC's Steve Kornacki was so shocked by what he heard by this supposed lefty that he forced him to clarify his remarks.
KORNACKI: Well, Governor is... I heard you right there, are you saying you would be okay with raising the Medicare eligibility age?
RENDELL: With proper carve-outs for people who are, you know, have health challenges, absolutely
WTF does he mean by carve-outs and health challenges? Geeze, I couldn't transcribe any more from this Benedict Arnold traitor in a suit.
Latourette's ego is so big that he says Rendell and himself would solve all our problems in a week and a half if he was allowed to. Rendell goes on to support the idea that it's fine if more reasonable and conservative Republicans are elected to Congress. Did it ever cross his mind to maybe mention that electing many more progressive Democratic politicians would be the best solution to the crisis?
Rendell: Look, even if it means there are a few more Republicans in the Senate and the Congress, if they're reasonable Republicans who are moderate-conservative then that's a good prescription for America.
Republicans holding the House hostage isn't enough for Rendell, he wants a few more, just in case their majority isn't strong enough -- and wants to add a couple more in the Senate, which would give R's one-party rule. Ed Rendell, a major league embarrassment!
As billionaires go, Pete Peterson is certainly not one of the wingnut billionaires by any stretch. But if our criteria for evaluating philanthropy is wingnuttery, we're surely lost in a vortex of our own making. Start with this: Peter G. Peterson was a Republican, just like his pal Mike Bloomberg. Not just any Republican, either. A Republican who served under Richard Nixon. And now he is a deficit hawk, which means his efforts support the right wing effort to undermine social insurance while lifting up corporate interests.
Take the latest Peterson PR campaign, Fix the Debt. The Institute for Policy Studies released a report last month about the billionaire CEO coalition standing behind the effort, showing it to be a Trojan Horse created to serve corporate interests. Among their findings:
The 63 Fix the Debt companies that are publicly held stand to gain as much as $134 billion in windfalls if Congress approves one of their main proposals — a “territorial tax system.” Under this system, companies would not have to pay U.S. federal income taxes on foreign earnings when they bring the profits back to the United States.
The CEOs backing Fix the Debt personally received a combined total of $41 million in savings last year thanks to the Bush-era tax cuts. The top CEO beneficiary of the Bush tax cuts in 2011, Leon Black of Apollo Global Management, saved $9.9 million on the Bush tax cuts. The private equity fund leader reaped $215 million in taxable income last year just from vested stock.
Of the 63 Fix the Debt CEOs at publicly held firms, 24 received more in compensation last year than their corporations paid in federal corporate income taxes. All but six of these firms reported U.S. profits last year.
So you see, the "Fix the Debt" effort isn't quite as non/bi-partisan as you might think, nor is it intended to serve progressive interests. But wait, there's more:
So this is the group who is calling for Social Security checks to be reduced and Medicare eligibility age to be moved up to age 67. A group of people who think our national debt is so serious, so utterly doom-ridden, they're fearmongering even while they set up their fat pensions and healthcare plans for themselves.
Here at C&L, I and a few others been bashing MSNBC and demanding that Ed Rendell be kicked off for impersonating a Democrat. He shouldn't be allowed to go on the air since he joined up with a gang of rich, arrogant scumbags, fronting for a group called Fix The Debt. They are demanding that working class Americans and seniors pay for the federal deficit that the wealthy elites on Wall Street created by having their social safety nets gutted. So when Susie says Rendell is no liberal, she's absolutely right!
Apparently, MSNBC hasn't heeded our message and put this vacuous fool back on the teevee. Listen to his moronic rant on what the President should be doing about the federal debt so conservatives can screw most of the people in America because they refuse to deal in reality.
RENDELL: And he has to also deliver a message to Democrats that we're going to have to compromise. Now give the President credit, he said he would consider chained CPI, he said back in 2011 that he would raise the age limit on Medicare with carve-outs. Those are things he's going to have to deliver if we're going to get Republicans to go along with more increased revenue and doing something finally on the debt. But only one person can take this on his shoulders and cross the finish line and that's the President of the United States. He has to lead.
Which does Rendell sound more like? A) Liberal; B) Democrat or C) Fox News Republican from the House of Representatives? C is the correct answer.
Rendell: No ifs ands or buts about it. He has to lead. And boy, I’d love the whole Congress, this new Congress and the President, they should all go see a screening of Lincoln together, because Abraham Lincoln led on the 13th Amendment when everybody on both sides told him he was crazy.
My God, he even used a slavery fight analogy from the movie Lincoln to justify his wickedness.
MSNBC's Steve Kornacki was so shocked by what he heard by this supposed lefty that he forced him to clarify his remarks.
Kornacki: Well, Governor is I heard you right there, are you saying you would be okay with raising the Medicare eligibility age?
Rendell: With proper carve-outs for people who are, you know, have health challenges, absolutely.
He mumbles this response because he knows he's shillin' for the billionaires and sounds like a Larry Kudlow wannabe to people of the left. WTF does he mean by carve-outs and health challenges? Geez, I couldn't transcribe any more from this Benedict Arnold traitor in a suit.
All told, chained CPI raises average taxes by about 0.19 percent of income. So, taken all together, it’s basically a big (5 percent over 12 years; more, if you take a longer view) across-the-board cut in Social Security benefits paired with a 0.19 percent income surtax. You don’t hear a lot of politicians calling for the drastic slashing of Social Security benefits and an across-the-board tax increase that disproportionately hits low earners. But that’s what they’re sneakily doing when they talk about chained CPI.
That’s why watchdog groups like the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities argue that the only fair way to do chained CPI would be to pair it with an increase in Social Security benefits, and to exempt Supplemental Security Income, which provides support for impoverished elderly, disabled and blind people. Otherwise, it’s just a typical “raise taxes, cut benefits” plan, and an arguably regressive one at that.
Most of us fought for President Obama to get his second term, but none of us fought for cuts to the social safety net programs as part of the bargain. Ed Rendell gets paid to shill against all of us of the working class who fought for Obama to get reelected.
I met Ed Rendell during the DNC in Denver back in 2008. He was very likeable and you knew after spending a few moments with him that he knows how to politic. So it's very sad to see him on MSNBC pathetically hawking the phony rich man's front group calling themselves Fix The Debt.
In addition to his current duties as professional-liberal-even-Joe-Sixpack-can-love on MSNBC, Ballard Spahr court jester, and corporate consigliere atGreenhill & Co investment bank, Rendell is currently co-chairing the steering committee of something called The CEO Campaign to Fix the Debt—a blue-chip cabal of 130-plus plutocrats who have anted up a $43 million kitty to fund a multimedia stealth campaign/public relations offensive to convince the turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving.
Fix the Debt is pushing for radical alterations to the tax code to legalize a hundred-plus billion dollar corporate tax dodge and pass the buck onto the middle/working/underclass in the form of deep cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, all the while masquerading as a selfless crusade to save the nation from going over the [cue thunder and lightning] financial cliff. Bless their blackened hearts.
Ed is slapping the backs of all his liberal TV pals, hoping they'll come over to his side of reverse-engineered Robin Hoods.
So at this point you might be asking yourself: If the likes of GE and Honeywell are paying zero in taxes, where is Fix the Debt going to get the money to pay down the national debt? Simple. They take it from old people. On Monday, Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, a Fix the Debt signatory, told CBS News:
“[Social Security] wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career … You’re going to have to do something, undoubtedly, to lower people’s expectations of what they’re going to get, the entitlements, and what people think they’re going to get, because you’re not going to get it.”
Last year, Blankfein earned $16 million. His net worth is $450 million. Seventy-one Fix the Debt CEO signatories have at least $9 million in retirement funds, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. A dozen have in excess of $20 million to retire on. Honeywell CEO David Cote is sitting on a $78 million nest egg, which is the equivalent of a $428,000 Social Security check every month after he turns 65.
It’s Robin Hood in reverse: rolling old ladies to give to the rich. And who’s steering this pirate ship? Edward G. Rendell, a man who, when you get right down to it, isn’t really a Democrat. He just plays one on television.
Rendell has been harping on the deficit for a long time, but now he's gone too far. I have a request for all of my lefty TV hosts. The next time he goes on your show, please ask him how it feels to be playing a Democrat, and if Hollywood has been calling.
So Erskine Bowles, an alleged Democrat/Wall Street lackey who's rumored to be Obama's choice to replace Tim Geithner, is endorsing a New Hampshire Republican against a progressive Dem so there'll be one more vote in favor of the beloved Grand Bargain. But it doesn't stop there: Pete Peterson is pouring millions into post-election advertising for a lame-duck deal. Gee, I can't wait:
WASHINGTON -- Billionaire private equity mogul Peter Peterson is investing millions of dollars in a new Washington-based campaign for austerity, planning to blanket the airwaves after the election to bolster the case for a "grand bargain" in Congress' lame-duck session that would slash Medicare and Social Security spending in exchange for new tax revenue.
The new Campaign to Fix the Debt is chaired by former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, and former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican. It's priming for lame-duck negotiations over the expirations of the payroll tax cut and the Bush tax cuts, as well as scheduled cuts to defense and non-defense spending.
Peterson's allies aren't waiting for the election, however. In New Hampshire, the co-chairmen of the 2010 Simpson-Bowles commission -- former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson and former Clinton White House official Erskine Bowles -- have endorsed incumbent Republican Rep. Charlie Bass, who supported a budget bill with many of their austerity recommendations, over progressive Democrat Annie Kuster. Bowles and Simpson have become fashionable politically, so Bass is taking full advantage of their endorsement, running full-page ads in newspapers across the state.
Kuster, who lost a squeaker to Bass in 2010, has hit back hard. "Let me be clear: I will never cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. My Tea Party opponent will," she said in a statement.
But it will take more than Annie Kuster to stave off the coming campaign to cut federal spending. The two parties have been in budget talks for the better part of two years, and Bob Woodward's new book, "The Price of Politics," portrays a president obsessed with getting a "big deal." President Barack Obama was ready before to agree to dramatic cuts, including to Social Security and Medicare, in exchange for new taxes, but Republicans ultimately refused to yield.
Except with us. Like most Wall St. billionaires, he just can't stand the thought of workers having dignity in their old age -- especially when he and his buddies want to get their hands on that Social Security money. He's pouring massive amounts of money into persuading us otherwise, and he's already bought off most of the politicians.
Don't fall for it.
P.S. You can donate to Annie Kuster's Blue America page here.
It sure pisses me off to see former Gov./Mayor Ed Rendell on my teevee, talking against the Chicago teachers strike and pushing the Grand Bargain! (You'd think Stephen Colbert would know better.) In a recent post, Rich Eskow really puts Fast Eddie in perspective:
Consider former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who said today that the Chicago strike is "an important issue, because Rahm Emanuel is showing again that Democrats can stand up to unions when their demands are unreasonable."
Banker/Democrats always need to show they're tough, since they're not willing to be do it where it's really needed -- by prosecuting their colleagues. Who makes a better scapegoat than the teachers who educate our kids? And if teachers don't like the public bashing, hey -- it serves 'em right for causing the financial crisis with all those toxic derivatives.
Banker/Democrats are always practicing their "tough" lines in the mirror. I can see them now asking their advisors, How's this for tough? "Hey, kids! Ask your homeroom teacher if she's better off now than she was four years ago!"
Rendell's a folksy sounding guy with a flair for feisty, if nonspecific, leftish rhetoric. He came to the Governor's office by way of a Philadelphia law firm called Ballard Spahr. The firm was first established in 1885, right around the time that the phrase "Philadelphia lawyer" became a synonym for "moneyed elite" -- and for good reason. It continues to specialize in real estate, mergers and acquisitions, municipal bonds, and other forms of high-finance law.
Ballard Spahr received $22 million in legal fees from the state of Pennsylvania while Rendell was Governor. And when he left office, our "Man of the People" went right back to Ballard Spahr. It's nice when things work out, isn't it?
There's no indication that Rendell ever applied for a job with the Philadelphia School District upon leaving the Governor's office. In addition to his post-gubernatorial Ballard Spahr partnership, however, Rendell is now a "Senior Advisor" with the investment banking firm of Greenhill & Co.
He is also a regular commentator for MSNBC -- the "liberal" alternative to Fox News.
As I tell people about Rendell, "We like him. We just don't trust him as far as we can throw 'im." Perfect example: He's one of the beloved centrists working to sell us that mess of magic beans called the Grand Bargain. His little group is called Fix The Debt. Charles Pierce puts it all in perspective:
Last week, the group, calling itself Fix the Debt, went public at a news conference urging the president and Congress to embrace a deficit-reduction plan along the lines suggested by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission, which included reforms of a tax code that produces too little and entitlement programs that spend too much. "Think of it as Simpson-Bowles 3.0," said former Republican senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who is co-chairman of the effort along with Ed Rendell, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania.
No, I don't think I will think of it that way, and not just because the blog's First Law of Economics — Fck the Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money. — prevents me from greeting the words "Simpson" or "Bowles" with anything except gales of derisive laughter. Rather, I will think of it as the Plutocrats Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of My Wallet. A little clumsier, but more accurate, I think.
(And manly man Ed Rendell can just get stuffed at this point. He's as much a Democrat where it counts as Tagg Romney is.)
Let me put it this way: If Ed Rendell's for something, you can be pretty sure it's not liberal.
Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. "Aw Shucks" Huckabee, Lady Ann Coulter-Crazy, Van Jones and Ed Rendell on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Poor Ann. She starts blathering inanity, Van Jones and Ed Rendell jump on her statement and she clutches her pearls. "All you mean boys are interrupting me! Please, someone help poor little me!"
But I also love when she says that Bill Clinton is very frustrated with the "far left" President Obama. Host George Stephanopoulos, of course, remains silent when the proper response would be hearty laughter. But he adheres to the Very Serious Journalist Code of The View From Nowhere.
And she also asks where are the Democrats upset about drone attacks when we were all howling about everything George Bush did! (You'll have to excuse Lady Ann, she doesn't get out much. Her servants bring her booze now.)
I also love the part where she waxes rhapsodic about Mitt Romney and his magical touch (I get an icky feeling just thinking about it):
COULTER: Then, at Bain -- I mean, about, what 75 percent, 80 percent of the businesses that were going to bankrupt, he does turn around. He's a green eyeshade kind of guy. He will do what no president, not even Ronald Reagan, has ever done, and that is go through the budget and cut the spending. And there's a lot to be cut.
And the Olympics, which was also going bankrupt and is an enormous business. And the Midas touch man comes in and turns around this nearly bankrupt institution. It is not just Bain. It is everything he touches.
And then she wriggled erotically in her chair. Okay, maybe not, but it felt like it.
Yes, the Olympics were going bankrupt until Mitt glommed onto $1.5 billion in FEDERAL MONEY to cover himself in glory. And a lot of that money went to pay off corrupt organizers who were caught taking bribes - just to make them go away. (Several of them have since resurfaced as Romney campaign donors).
Hounddog Huckabee also says this, with a completely straight face!
HUCKABEE: You know, I like -- anybody he picks I believe is going to be the result of a very thoughtful and methodical choice. The one thing I admire most about Mitt Romney is that he is not a guy that just acts out of some impetuous visceral reaction. He's very thoughtful, methodical.
He will make what would really be a very careful business decision. And whoever he selects, I believe, will be the result of a very thoughtful process. And we'll all get behind him as a Republican.
Yes, Mitt Romney is a robot, and the Republicans just don't care!
I have to agree with Ed Rendell on this one: Obama's not going to lose any votes he already has if he comes out in support of marriage equality:
During an appearance on MSNBC Tuesday morning, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) — who supported marriage equality while in office — called on President Obama to back the cause and lead on the issue. “I think he should do exactly what [former RNC chairman] Michael Steele said he should do. He should man up and say, this is what I believe. And I think he doesn’t lose any African-American votes,” he said.
“The people who vote solely on this issue, single issue voter, gay marriage, none of them are voting for Barack Obama now and they’re not going to vote for him whether he says he’s against it.”
Absolutely true. I'd be surprised if anyone decided not to vote for Obama on this issue — and we live in Pennsyltucky!
As to Obama's perceived risk in offending black church members, there's a glimmer of truth — but only a glimmer:
Since the passage of Proposition 8, much has been said about the supposed dramatic opposition to marriage equality among African Americans, fueled by National Election Pool (NEP) figures based on sampling in only a few precincts that erroneously indicated 70 percent of California’s African Americans supported Proposition 8. The study found that when religious service attendance was factored out, however, there was no significant difference between African Americans and other groups.
In other words, people of all races and ethnicities who worship at least once a week overwhelmingly supported Proposition 8, with support among white, Asian and Latino frequent churchgoers actually being greater than among African Americans.
“We clearly need to redouble our work with people of faith to overcome the notion that civil marriage for same-sex couples somehow threatens religious liberties and to convince them that protecting all families equally is the just and moral thing to do,” said the Rev. Mark Wilson, coordinator of African-American minister outreach for And Marriage for All.
Moreover, the study found that the level of support for Proposition 8 among African Americans was nowhere close to the NEP exit poll 70 percent figure. The study looked at pre- and post-election polls and conducted a sophisticated analysis of precinct-level voting data from five California counties with the highest African-American populations (Alameda (Oakland), Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco).* Based on this, it concludes that the level of African-American support for Proposition 8 was in the range of 57-59 percent. Its precinct-level analysis also found that many precincts with few black voters supported Proposition 8 at levels just as high or higher than those with many black voters.
As discussed earlier, the 57-59 percent figure — while higher than white and Asian-American voters — is largely explained by the higher rates of African-American religious service attendance: 57 percent of African Americans attend religious services at least once a week, compared to 42 percent of whites and 40 percent of Asian Americans.
“This study debunks the myth that African Americans overwhelmingly and disproportionately supported Proposition 8. But we clearly have work to do with, within and for African-American communities, particularly the black church,” said Andrea Shorter, director of And Marriage for All.
Besides, pulling the lever to support Prop 8 is still very, very different from pulling the lever for Republican Mitt Romney. I think Rendell's right: Obama doesn't have much to lose on this one, and he may gain some votes among those who are disaffected by his waffling on the issue.
