Thru nov 14 ABC, NBC, PBS, NPR, nytimes, latimes, & AP have run nothing on Gruber

[Oldstyle]

I seem to recall a Ray McGovern warning that a US attack on Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein would be catastrophic because the Iraqis would use their chemical weapons against any invaders. Would that be the same Ray McGovern you cite as an "authority" on intelligence?

 

[Bfgrn]

Why do these media institutions so brazenly mislead america on everything?? You have to figure the govt is paying them a fortune to do so.

Currently ABC NBC PBS NPR nytimes latimes AP have run nothing on Gruber. InvestmentWatch

November 15th, 2014
Just imagine the reaction of the liberal media if a video had surfaced of a George W. Bush administration official admitting that “lack of transparency” was “a huge political advantage” in selling the Iraq war and that they relied on the “stupidity of the American voter” to launch an attack on Iraq? That video would be everywhere.

However, the clip of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber using those exact phrases in talking about the passage of the Affordable Care Act has yet to be reported on ABC or NBC’s evening or morning shows. The sum total of Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network coverage was a 2 minute, 50 second segment on Thursday’s CBSThis Morning – six days after the tape was first discovered. On the print side the Washington Post offered a front page story on Gruber on Thursday. But the Gruber comment has yet to show up in the pages of The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times or even the Associated Press.

can you say "state controlled media" ? Can you say government indoctrination? Can you say Pravda and Politburo?

Orwell and Rand were right, they predicted this.

LOL!

Ray McGovern, a retired CIA agent whose expertise was the old Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries says the propaganda coming out of Fox News is at the same level as Pravda. But I suspect most Russians knew Pravda was propaganda.

Interesting concept, Bfgrn...except that Pravda was the propaganda arm of the Soviet government...not a news outlet that CRITICIZED the party in power.

My God man, Fox News ONLY criticizes Democrats in power.

"Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party."
David Frum - Speechwriter for George W. Bush

 

[Oldstyle]

Why do these media institutions so brazenly mislead america on everything?? You have to figure the govt is paying them a fortune to do so.

Currently ABC NBC PBS NPR nytimes latimes AP have run nothing on Gruber. InvestmentWatch

November 15th, 2014
Just imagine the reaction of the liberal media if a video had surfaced of a George W. Bush administration official admitting that “lack of transparency” was “a huge political advantage” in selling the Iraq war and that they relied on the “stupidity of the American voter” to launch an attack on Iraq? That video would be everywhere.

However, the clip of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber using those exact phrases in talking about the passage of the Affordable Care Act has yet to be reported on ABC or NBC’s evening or morning shows. The sum total of Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network coverage was a 2 minute, 50 second segment on Thursday’s CBSThis Morning – six days after the tape was first discovered. On the print side the Washington Post offered a front page story on Gruber on Thursday. But the Gruber comment has yet to show up in the pages of The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times or even the Associated Press.

can you say "state controlled media" ? Can you say government indoctrination? Can you say Pravda and Politburo?

Orwell and Rand were right, they predicted this.

LOL!

Ray McGovern, a retired CIA agent whose expertise was the old Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries says the propaganda coming out of Fox News is at the same level as Pravda. But I suspect most Russians knew Pravda was propaganda.

Interesting concept, Bfgrn...except that Pravda was the propaganda arm of the Soviet government...not a news outlet that CRITICIZED the party in power.

My God man, Fox News ONLY criticizes Democrats in power.

"Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party."
David Frum - Speechwriter for George W. Bush

And MSNBC only criticizes Republicans...what's your point?

 

[Redfish]

Why do these media institutions so brazenly mislead america on everything?? You have to figure the govt is paying them a fortune to do so.

Currently ABC NBC PBS NPR nytimes latimes AP have run nothing on Gruber. InvestmentWatch

November 15th, 2014
Just imagine the reaction of the liberal media if a video had surfaced of a George W. Bush administration official admitting that “lack of transparency” was “a huge political advantage” in selling the Iraq war and that they relied on the “stupidity of the American voter” to launch an attack on Iraq? That video would be everywhere.

However, the clip of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber using those exact phrases in talking about the passage of the Affordable Care Act has yet to be reported on ABC or NBC’s evening or morning shows. The sum total of Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network coverage was a 2 minute, 50 second segment on Thursday’s CBSThis Morning – six days after the tape was first discovered. On the print side the Washington Post offered a front page story on Gruber on Thursday. But the Gruber comment has yet to show up in the pages of The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times or even the Associated Press.

can you say "state controlled media" ? Can you say government indoctrination? Can you say Pravda and Politburo?

Orwell and Rand were right, they predicted this.

LOL!

Ray McGovern, a retired CIA agent whose expertise was the old Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries says the propaganda coming out of Fox News is at the same level as Pravda. But I suspect most Russians knew Pravda was propaganda.

Interesting concept, Bfgrn...except that Pravda was the propaganda arm of the Soviet government...not a news outlet that CRITICIZED the party in power.

My God man, Fox News ONLY criticizes Democrats in power.

"Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party."
David Frum - Speechwriter for George W. Bush

are Bob Beckel and Juan Williams conservative republicans? Unlike the MSM, Fox does give air time to both viewpoints.

Your problem with Fox is that when both sides get equal time, the left always loses because leftist dogma is not based on facts, logic, or rational thought.

 

[Oldstyle]

People like Bfgrn despise Fox News because Fox offers news that isn't controlled by a liberally biased main stream media. If Fox didn't exist then there wouldn't BE a Gruber scandal because it wouldn't be covered elsewhere. The same is true of Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives & the Justice Department targeting journalists...

People like Bfgrn hate Fox because it's the only television news outlet shining a light on the failings of the Obama White House.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

People like Bfgrn despise Fox News because Fox offers news that isn't controlled by a liberally biased main stream media. If Fox didn't exist then there wouldn't BE a Gruber scandal because it wouldn't be covered elsewhere. The same is true of Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives & the Justice Department targeting journalists...

People like Bfgrn hate Fox because it's the only television news outlet shining a light on the failings of the Obama White House.

Even without fox, there is still the internet covering the liberal scandals. But it is nice to have at least one TV network willing to criticize Captain Choom.

 

[Bfgrn]

People like Bfgrn despise Fox News because Fox offers news that isn't controlled by a liberally biased main stream media. If Fox didn't exist then there wouldn't BE a Gruber scandal because it wouldn't be covered elsewhere. The same is true of Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives & the Justice Department targeting journalists...

People like Bfgrn hate Fox because it's the only television news outlet shining a light on the failings of the Obama White House.

Faux did a great job of covering the Bush administration...

For the most part, the 'scandals' have been shown to nothing but smear campaigns by the right. It IS what the right does every time there is a Democrat in the White House...WASTE taxpayer's money on phoney investigations.

 

[skookerasbil]

The Gruber thing will grow steadily by word of mouth over time........particularly when 2015 hits and peoples heads start exploding when they see their insurance premiums going into orbit and they have to wait 40 years to see a specialist. In neighborhoods and in the workplaces, peoples jaws will be picked up off the floor by people who will be reminding these suckers that they said "meh" when Obamacare passed. Word of mouth over time made Bush a foul name as it related to the war. Word of mouth over time will make Obama a foul name as it relates to Obamacare.......nothing makes people more pissed than to feel like they have been suckered.

 

[Vigilante]

 

[skookerasbil]

Hey Vigilante.....think Franco is a homo??

 

[Bfgrn]

What is funny is a GOP operative for 20 years revealed that Republicans count on misinformed low information voters.

Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

 

[Oldstyle]

People like Bfgrn despise Fox News because Fox offers news that isn't controlled by a liberally biased main stream media. If Fox didn't exist then there wouldn't BE a Gruber scandal because it wouldn't be covered elsewhere. The same is true of Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives & the Justice Department targeting journalists...

People like Bfgrn hate Fox because it's the only television news outlet shining a light on the failings of the Obama White House.

Faux did a great job of covering the Bush administration...

For the most part, the 'scandals' have been shown to nothing but smear campaigns by the right. It IS what the right does every time there is a Democrat in the White House...WASTE taxpayer's money on phoney investigations.

What scandal has been shown to be a "smear campaign"?

Fast & Furious? Eric Holder is STILL stonewalling that four years after the investigation started and is the only sitting Attorney General ever to be held in contempt of Congress for his actions! President Obama invoked Executive Privilege for the first time in his Presidency to keep from releasing documents related to that case.

Benghazi? Obama and Clinton took part in a pre-election cover-up of what took place in Benghazi. Once again...this Administration LIED to the American people and once again they got caught.

The IRS? Once again...the Obama Administration tried to lie their way out of another scandal...labeling what happened the work of a few "rogue agents" in Cinn. when in fact it was a deliberate campaign to hamstring conservative groups overseen by Lois Lerner the Head of Exempt Organizations for the IRS.

The wiretapping of James Rosen's phone? That was Eric Holder's Justice Department lying to a Federal Judge...telling them that James Rosen was being investigated for criminal activity so they would be allowed to spy on a journalist's phone calls and emails.

For the most part...each and everyone of these scandals have been shown to just that...a scandal. They show a pattern from this White House of an "the end justifies the means" mindset that has had them playing fast and loose with our laws.

 

[Oldstyle]

What is funny is a GOP operative for 20 years revealed that Republicans count on misinformed low information voters.

Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

Truthout? Seriously?

 

[Bfgrn]

People like Bfgrn despise Fox News because Fox offers news that isn't controlled by a liberally biased main stream media. If Fox didn't exist then there wouldn't BE a Gruber scandal because it wouldn't be covered elsewhere. The same is true of Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives & the Justice Department targeting journalists...

People like Bfgrn hate Fox because it's the only television news outlet shining a light on the failings of the Obama White House.

Faux did a great job of covering the Bush administration...

For the most part, the 'scandals' have been shown to nothing but smear campaigns by the right. It IS what the right does every time there is a Democrat in the White House...WASTE taxpayer's money on phoney investigations.

What scandal has been shown to be a "smear campaign"?

Fast & Furious? Eric Holder is STILL stonewalling that four years after the investigation started and is the only sitting Attorney General ever to be held in contempt of Congress for his actions! President Obama invoked Executive Privilege for the first time in his Presidency to keep from releasing documents related to that case.

Benghazi? Obama and Clinton took part in a pre-election cover-up of what took place in Benghazi. Once again...this Administration LIED to the American people and once again they got caught.

The IRS? Once again...the Obama Administration tried to lie their way out of another scandal...labeling what happened the work of a few "rogue agents" in Cinn. when in fact it was a deliberate campaign to hamstring conservative groups overseen by Lois Lerner the Head of Exempt Organizations for the IRS.

The wiretapping of James Rosen's phone? That was Eric Holder's Justice Department lying to a Federal Judge...telling them that James Rosen was being investigated for criminal activity so they would be allowed to spy on a journalist's phone calls and emails.

For the most part...each and everyone of these scandals have been shown to just that...a scandal. They show a pattern from this White House of an "the end justifies the means" mindset that has had them playing fast and loose with our laws.

Start here...

The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal - Fortune

 

[Bfgrn]

What is funny is a GOP operative for 20 years revealed that Republicans count on misinformed low information voters.

Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

Truthout? Seriously?

OH I see how it works...the AUTHOR is:

Mike Lofgren is an American who is a former Republican U.S. Congressional aide. He retired in May 2011 after 28 years as a Congressional staff member.

 

[Vigilante]

Hey Vigilante.....think Franco is a homo??

He doesn't have the brains to be one!

 

[Listening]

What is funny is a GOP operative for 20 years revealed that Republicans count on misinformed low information voters.

Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

From the article:

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

**********************************************

Yep.....both parties are rotten.

 

[Bfgrn]

What is funny is a GOP operative for 20 years revealed that Republicans count on misinformed low information voters.

Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

Truthout? Seriously?

Will THIS source make you read it?

Goodbye to All That

 

[Bfgrn]

What is funny is a GOP operative for 20 years revealed that Republicans count on misinformed low information voters.

Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

From the article:

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

**********************************************

Yep.....both parties are rotten.

That's it...cherry pick...

If both parties are rotten, why do you always defend Republicans?

 

[Bfgrn]

What is funny is a GOP operative for 20 years revealed that Republicans count on misinformed low information voters.

Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

From the article:

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

**********************************************

Yep.....both parties are rotten.

The very next paragraphs...

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.

The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation.