The Hypocrisy of the GOP

[AndyA]

It has been revealed in a stunning display of perfect timing that the FEMA credit cards given to victims of Hurricane Katrina for their emergency living expenses weren't always used as intended. Purchases of diamonds, liquor, vacations, etc., appeared on some of the cards. The outrage from the usual suspects (the mainstream media whores who almost always support the GOP agenda), was deafening. They were so outraged, you could almost see the acid squirting out of their eyes, and the blood dripping off of their fangs.

How dare the victims of Hurricane Katrina (also known as Democrats) abuse such a generous display of love and support from FEMA! How dare they spend the money on anything other than necessities!! How dare they take advantage of the situation!!!

OK, let's ignore the fact that their fearless leader was vacationing, eating cake, and playing the guitar while the devastation took its toll in New Orleans. Let's forget that the Republican-run government totally dropped the ball and allowed things to really get out of hand before they even started making plans to do anything about it. Let's forget that one of the President's cronies was in charge of the rescue effort, a job which was way over his head, and one that he was miserably prepared to perform.

Let's overlook the fact that a GOP whore, namely Ann Coulter, made offensive, disrespectful, and insulting remarks on national television about the wives of victims of the 9/11 attacks. Pay no attention to the fact that this same woman has threatened sitting judges, and encouraged people to cause harm to others who don't follow the GOP message, among other things.

Pretend that $8.8 billion hasn't gone missing in Iraq, and that no one seems to be all that interested in even looking into what could have possibly happened to it, let alone demand accountability for it.

More stunning events worthy of ignoring include the soaring debt load American citizens have had forced upon them by a Republican President; a government bigger than ever, despite promises from Bush that it would become smaller; debt ceilings raised every year since Bush took office; a Republican Administration that conspired to out a CIA operative for political gain, then lied about it and took steps to evade discovery; a Vice President who shot a man in the face and waited to report it; a Republican President who lied about the facts to enable a war in Iraq; and a GOP majority-led Congress that is the most corrupt in the history of the country. The complete list of Republican offenses over the last 6 years would likely take weeks to compile.

All of this is taken in passing, but a few displaced people, likely suffering from shock, abusing a FEMA credit card causes them to explode. I don't approve of the misuse of the money at all, but I think we really need to put this in perspective.

This is what we're dealing with, folks. This is how devisive and manipulative these people are. And they are on television and radio, forming opinions and instigating thoughts with their very words. Meanwhile, out of touch Americans take what they say at face value, never questioning the source or checking the facts for themselves. This is why we need to break up the media conglomerates, and restore the Fairness Doctrine.

America deserves better than what we have now. We need leadership, honesty, and respect. None of which, based on recent history, will be forthcoming from our GOP-led government, nor from the media, whose parent companies are dependent upon continued handouts from the GOP.

[redqueen]

1. they're not out of touch - this is *intentional*. n/t

[AndyA]

3. You're correct - edited for clarity. n/m

[Minnesota Libra]

2. Just because neocons are everything you say and more, does not.........

....give anyone - be it republican or democrat - reason to abuse the system.:wtf:

People in this country try to be generous in a time of need but they also have very long memories. So the only thing abusing the system does is guarantee the victims of the next disaster will feel the affects of this system abuse.

Doesn't matter if we like it, doesn't matter if we think it is or isn't fair, that's just the way it is.:shrug:

[hughee99]

4. How exactly would the "Fairness Doctrine" help in this case?

This is news that should be reported. Sure, it's news that's being given a grossly disproportionate amount of air time, but I didn't think the Fairness Doctrine was about dictating how much coverage each news story gets.

[AndyA]

5. The Fairness Doctrine doesn't dictate how much coverage a story got,

but it did require opposing views to be aired and given equivalent time. It wasn't intended to censor the news, but in a way it did because stations wouldn't report on a story at all if they didn't want to give time to an opposing viewpoint. This is part of the reason the FCC dropped it, which was also about the time Reagan did away with it.

While all of these stories are newsworthy and should be reported, the reporting is often one-sided, and opposing views are not presented at all, or at best are skimmed over, which acts as censorship, since there isn't enough time allowed to present all of the facts and viewpoints.

[hughee99]

6. I guess I'm a little confused then

You're upset about all the time given to the story, but the Fairness doctrine would not do anything to reduce the amount of time this story gets, would it?

They could spend time showing "opposing viewpoints" but without editorializing the story here the fact is, some people apparently used their hurricane relief money for seemingly frivolous items, and other collected money who don't even live in the area. What's the opposing viewpoint, isn't this just basically a statement of fact?

[AndyA]

9. Perhaps I'm not communicating very well,

I'm not upset that the story is being covered. It is wrong that these people did what they did, I do not argue that. My beef is with the media, who are apparently working with the GOP spin machine, to minimize the negatives of the GOP and maximize the negatives of the Democrats.

Time after time, I've seen stories about a Dem get blown out of proportion, reported on day after day, and any opposing view is mentioned in passing only, if at all. Then we hear about something involving the GOP, it can be all over the internet, on blogs, etc., yet none of the MSM deems it worthy to report.

In terms of the money involved, the situation with the FEMA cards pales in comparison with the money missing in Iraq.

Not sure if this makes sense or not, it's been one of those days. I saw a reporter on Faux going ape over the FEMA card deal, and it just got to me, since I see this as a minor tragedy when compared to the much bigger one over in Iraq.

[hughee99]

12. I agree with all of this...

but you lost me a the Fairness doctrine statement. I just don't understand how bring it back would change any of this. Since this seems to be an "equal time on a given issue" sort of law, the media is still able to pick which issues it spends time on. It would be forced to provide equal time, but that would just be providing the equal time on the same idiotic issues.

[AndyA]

13. Here's an example...

I got in the car tonight to drive home, and the radio was on some right winger station. (My Dad drove the car at lunch time.) I think it was Sean Hannity saying, "Today is a really bad day to be a Democrat. In fact, it's been a bad week. Really, a bad month. Really stinks to be a Democrat right now with so much bad news for you, like a strong economy, Bush going to Iraq to visit the troops, we got Zarqawi, Rove has been told he won't be indicted," and it goes on and on.

Well, I know one of the headlines I read today said that the Fed was concerned about signs of the economy cooling off. So what about this strong economy? I listened for awhile, and never heard a thing that there were concerns about the economy. It seems to me if there was a requirement to report all views, something would have been said about the stock market losses, the Fed's concerns, etc. Instead, to the typical listener, they would think everything was rosy with the economy, when it's really not.

In the past, under the Fairness Doctrine, if the media wanted to avoid reporting all the facts, they could simply ignore the story and no one would be the wiser. But that would be more difficult today because of the internet. How many stories on the internet spilled over into the MSM because they became such a hot topic on the net? With the Fairness Doctrine, the media would be required to cover all angles, so a lot of the sneaky little secrets that get buried on the news today would be exposed for all to see.

I think having the Fairness Doctrine reinstated would level the playing field, so the GOP corporate-owned media would have to cover the negative aspect of stories as well as the positive aspects. Of course, the laws would have to be enforced somehow, which doesn't seem to be happening much today. :eyes:

[hughee99]

14. You were listening to Hannity?

In any case, the FD wouldn't have had any affect on what Hannity said, at best, all you would get is possibly a progressive show after Hannity where they talked about the economic news, unless they're going to rework it so that all topics discussed have to have equal time as they're being discussed (so that you couldn't do one viewpoint during one show, and then another viewpoint during another show). If your commute wasn't long enough so that you could listen to the next, progressive show, as well, you're drive home would have been the same. As for dealing with serious news (as opposed to commentary) I just don't see how the FD would help? Would it require that for every "good" story about our troops in Iraq, a "bad" story is also done in the same amount of time? If a killer is arrested, is it unbiased news? If the mayor/police chief/governor is getting some credit for it, some may consider it biased, others may not. Would the media be forced to spend equal time on all theories about 9/11, they can't all be right?

As I see it, it's next to impossible to have this sort of micromanagement of the news written into any legislation, story by story as opposed to editorial discussions and "commentator shows" like Hannity and those on AAR. The only real way to do it is to have someone (from the govt) take each story and decide how "biased" it is, how much time should be spent on it, and which group or story would comprise the "equal time". The biggest issue I see with giving the government the kind of authority to decide (based on the FD) which stories to report, which are political, which are not political, and how much time to spend on them is that the government becomes the de facto boss of any media organization. Yes the rw controls the media, and we all know it. It would seem that there's such a demand for a progressive news outlet that someone would have seen the profit potential and done it by now. There's a lot of us out here starved for this stuff, and a lot of money to be made for someone who does it. I know there talk of one coming, but it's just talk so far, and has been for a while now.

In the end, I wasn't a big fan of the FD as practiced before and my biggest fear is that were it re instituted now and given more control, the same corrupt a-holes who are getting all the good press would be the ones making the decisions as to what's fair.

[AndyA]

16. Hannity was on because my Dad drove the car at lunch,

normally I can't stand to listen to him for more than a minute or two, if that. I started the car, and there he was, in all his glory!

I think the Fairness Doctrine could work, but I also said the media conglomerates would need to be broken up. What we have today is unacceptable, something like 6 companies own virtually everything we read, see, or hear. (I know there's more than 6, but 6 will cover the majority.) And when those companies have an interest in providing equipment or services to the military, and tilt the news they report to benefit their own needs, it's wrong. There's nothing to prevent that from happening, and it's obvious it is happening today.

The media conglomerates make sure the message gets out about how liberal they are, then they censor the news. They all work together. Very clever.

I realize the Fairness Doctrine had problems, and it would need to be updated, but I believe it's easier to get news now, due mostly to the internet, which is why they're trying to take control of that as well. But if the conglomerates were broken up, and the Fairness Doctrine were updated and put into effect, it would be more difficult for companies with ulterior motives to censor the news as they do now.

In the past, news that the media didn't want to report all sides on just got ignored, but with the internet that would be hard to do today. It would be very obvious what they were up to. Today, they can just report the side of the story they want to report, and leave it at that.

The perfect example happened when the NSA spying story broke. I heard over and over again about how getting a warrant first from the FISA court was burdensome, and slowed down investigations, which could lead to allowing the terrorists to get the upper hand. Time and time again, the media did not report that you could go to FISA after the fact to get a warrant. It was just left out.

Then that fact became known on the internet, and was later reported in the media to some degree, but at that point many people were already tired of hearing about it, tuned it out, and never knew the whole story. The impact of this revelation was diminished by the time it was finally covered. People would say, "Well then what's the problem with doing it legally?" And that was exactly the point, Bush felt he was above the law, and didn't need to do it legally, but at the time most people never understood that.

I don't think the Fairness Doctrine is perfect in and of itself, but I do believe it could be a powerful tool in making sure large media conglomerates with special interests can't censor the news like they do now.

[hughee99]

17. We're on the same page here

as far as the problem goes. I also agree about breaking up the media conglomerates. The FD is just where we disagree. I don't see how it would be possible to write legislation that would be able to handle what aspects of a story need to be handled since it's really on a case by case basis. The only way to do this is to put someone or some group (and naturally they would be from the government) in charge of this, leaving some group (probably selected by politicians in one way or another) as the arbiters of what is news.

In the NSA story for example, before any news organization could release the news this new FD (or those implementing it) would have to determine what the story is, what angles have to be covered, and what information must be made available. Of course, in order to really do this effectively they'll have to have a pretty good understanding of these issues already, or they won't be able to provide any guidance. Any news organizations that don't have all of this information can't run the story. If you don't know how difficult it is to get a FISA warrant, you can't report the story until you do. How do you find this out? You could ask FISA judges, Administration officials or certain congressmen, all of which may give you a different answer, or may not comment on it at all. I just don't see any way for government to effectively mandate coverage on a story by story basis, while still keeping the media free and independent. Thankfully, the internet has come along giving people a voice in the matter, and at least allowing us to try to keep them honest about the whole thing.

[RethugAssKicker]

7. Whats the percentage of abusers? Do they even say?

Or do they give the perception that everyone is partying with the money?

I bet its just a small handful of abusers... but of course they won't say that!

[AndyA]

10. I haven't heard how many were involved, but apparently some

government employees did similar things with government issued cards. I guess the intent was to give employees on the scene a higher credit limit, so they could do more without running out of money, and apparently some of them saw fit to charge things they shouldn't have as well.

I suspect it might turn out to be a bigger story when all the details are known, but I fear the emphasis will be on the people displaced by Katrina, and their abuse of the system, instead of looking at the abuse of taxpayer dollars in general, the worst of which seems to be the money pit known as Iraq.

[ComerPerro]

8. And lets certainly not forget that these "atrocities" are the fault

of a Republican congress, a Republican President, and his appointees

[AndyA]

11. But their actions will be minimized by the media.

Yet you get a Dem involved in something, and you'd think it were the worst thing that ever happened! I think anyone who takes advantage or breaks the law should be held accountable, up to and including the President of the United States.

From what I understand, no one is even concerned about the missing $8.8 billion in Iraq. How many people would that money help here in the United States?

[ninkasi]

15. In order to be helpful, lest we are too stupid to connect

abuses with the cards and the traumatized citizens of the Gulf Coast, this morning, AOL had on their home screen, a picture of a hand inserting a debit card into an ATM machine. It was, I'm certain, purely coincidental that the hand was black. Nope, no trying to convey a negative image of black people abusing the cards.. Now, because we all know how reliable and FAIR the MSM is, this in no way compares to pictures taken and captioned after Katrina.

It was purely coincidental that white people were shown, and captioned, as having "located" food, while black Americans were shown in the same poses, although they "looted" their necessities. No, there is no negative portrayals of Dems, or blacks, or gays, or any other group other than WASPs given by the news. It's purely my imagination, and I'm sure they have perfectly rational explanations, although I have yet to see one.