Medicare vs. Britney (MATT TAIBBI)

[laststeamtrain]

Step right this way for a bracing dose of vitriol; um um good.


THE LOW POST: Medicare vs. Britney
Why a brainless Mouseketeer gets more ink than the federal budget

MATT TAIBBI

"Now, after she shaved her head in a bizarre episode that culminates a months-long saga of controversial behavior, it's the question being asked by her fans, her foes and the general public: What was she thinking?"

-- Bald and Broken: Inside Britney's Shaved Head, Sheila Marikar, ABC.com, Feb. 19

What was she thinking? How about nothing? How about who gives a shit? How's that for an answer, Sheila Marikar of ABC News?

I'm not one of those curmudgeons who freaks out every time that Brangelina moves the war off the front page of the Post, or Katie Couric decides to usher in a whole new era of network news with photos of the imbecile demon-spawn of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. I understand that we live in a demand-based economy and that there is far more demand for brainless celebrity bullshit than there is, say, for the fine print of the Health and Human Services budget.

But that was before this week. I awoke this morning in New York City to find Britney Spears plastered all over the cover of two gigantic daily newspapers, simply because she cut her hair off over the weekend. To me, this crosses a line. My definition of a news story involves something happening. If nothing happens, then you can't have "news," because nothing has changed since the day before. Britney Spears was an idiot last Thursday, an idiot on Friday and an idiot on both Saturday and Sunday. She was, shockingly, also an idiot on Monday. It will be news when she stops being an idiot, and we'll know when that happens, because she'll have disappeared for the good of the planet. Britney Spears cutting her hair off is the least-worthy front-page news story in the history of humanity. Apparently, from now on, every time a jackass sticks a pencil in his own eye, we'll have to wait an extra ten minutes to hear what happened on the battlefield or in Congress or any other place that actually matters.

On the same day that Britney was shaving her head, a guy I know who works in the office of Senator Bernie Sanders sent me an email. He was trying very hard to get news organizations interested in some research his office had done about George Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which was unveiled two weeks ago and received relatively little press, mainly because of the controversy over the Iraq war resolution. All the same, the Bush budget is an amazing document. It would be hard to imagine a document that more clearly articulates the priorities of our current political elite.

Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are in the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this country. The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about $442 billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense budget (minus Iraq war expenses). But what's interesting about these cuts are how Bush plans to pay for them.

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13545365/the_low_post_medicare_vs_britney
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[jobycom]

1. Very Clever! he uses Britney Spears to sell a boring budget article.

I'm genuinely impressed.

[Demit]

2. If his article bored you, you have made his point.

[jobycom]

3. If I've made it, he hasn't, because no one has read it.

Which is not at all what I said in the first place, but I'll pretend for a moment.

[Demit]

5. You pronounced the subject of his article boring. Did you not?

So, even as a (presumably) well-informed DUer interested in what's happening in our country, you find budget facts boring and the use of Britney Spears as a hook impressive. The point you illustrate for him is the one he makes toward the end of the piece:

"... Here's the thing about the system of news coverage we have today. If the Walton family, or Lee Raymond, or the heirs to the Mars fortune actually needed the news media to work better than it does now, believe me, it would work better. But they have no such need, because the system is working just fine for them as is. The people it's failing are the rest of us, and most of the rest of us, apparently, would rather sniff Anna Nicole Smith's corpse or watch Britney Spears hump a fire hydrant than find out what our tax dollars are actually paying for.

Shit, when you think about it that way, why not steal from us? People that dumb don't deserve to have money."

[jobycom]

7. Yes, and I congratulated him on making a boring subject interesting

I'm quite sure he understood what he was doing, and would understand what I said, though it may have escaped some.

[ccpup]

4. In the article,

he mentions that Britney humped a fire hydrant, but I've been watching CNN all day and haven't seen one word -- ONE WORD -- about it. Damn mainstream media ignoring the important stories again. Grrrrrr ... :sarcasm:

[DemBones DemBones]

6. Great article. Maybe if enough of us send it to "journalists,"

they'll start covering the real news. I've thought all along that Anna Nicole Smith could not have died at a more convenient time for *.

Matt Taibbi makes the "boring" budget interesting by showing what/who * wants to take $$$ from and what/who * wants to give it to.

"And so on and so on. Sanders additionally pointed out that the family of former Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who received a $400 million retirement package, would receive about $164 million in tax breaks. Compare that to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which Bush proposes be completely eliminated, at a savings of $108 million over ten years. The program sent one bag of groceries per month to 480,000 seniors, mothers and newborn children."

"Somehow, to me, that's the worst one on the list. Here you have the former CEO of a company that scored record profits even as it gouged consumers, with gas prices rising more than 70 percent since January of 2001. There is a direct correlation between the avarice of oil company executives and the increased demand for federal aid for heating oil programs like LIHEAP, and yet the federal government wants to reward these same executives for raising prices on the backs of consumers."

<snip>

"It's one thing to complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once a month for some struggling single mom in eastern Kentucky. But when your taxes are buying a yacht for some asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour...I sure don't remember reading an excuse for that anywhere in the Federalist Papers."

(He's referring to the Mars family of Mars candy as the asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour.)

Even the most strident opponent of "welfare moms" ought to object to his taxes paying for yachts for the Lee Raymonds, the Mars family, the Walton family, etc.

I've also noticed that people who complain about welfare moms don't have any trouble taking their Social Security and Medicare benefits. These people might have a change of heart if the media would do their job.

How can anyone believe it's compassionate conservatism to take away the money that provides one bag of groceries per month for 480,000 senior citizens, mothers, and newborn children? Are these people going to be allowed to starve to death?

Newborns can't "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps," many senior citizens aren't able to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" (often it's a physical struggle for seniors just to put on their shoes) and mothers of young children are often in no position to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps," unable to find work that allows them to support themselves and their children and pay for child care. Even a college-educated woman may find herself in dire financial straits if her husband abandons her and their young children.

What is with people who can't see the realities?

Seriously, give it a try -- e-mail this article to Lou Dobbs, Keith Olbermann, hell, even Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and all the network news shows. Maybe even Tweety has a shred of conscience somewhere .

And raise hell (politely, of course) with your senators and rep about this horrendous budget.

[hatrack]

8. Interestingly enough, there was an article in the local paper . . .

It noted that viewership has plummeted in the past year or so for morning network news shows.

Hmm, I wonder why? Could it be that Mrs. America & her 2.3 kids aren't too concerned with the latest diets, the latest clothes, the latest celebrity bulimia/anorexia/alcoholism/drug dependency/pedophilia scandal?

Or is it that she and her 2.3 kids have had to take on that second or third job recycling aluminum cans or Running for the Border wrapping up enchiladas at Taco Bell?