Ms. Maddow, for whom I have a considerable fondness, is in possession of a swan’s neck, a girlish giggle, and a mind like a steel trap. What she does not have is a billion dollars.
Maddow continually grasped at straws in order to tie Christie to Bridgegate. Her agenda was to lie about Christie. The end result is that three investigations have now failed to find that Christie was involved, in any way. None of Maddow’s claims trashing Christie proved to be based on fact or truth.
Maddow made many false Bridgegate claims. Claims that Christie wanted to punish Ft Lee, NJ, false claims that Christie wanted to punsish Mayor Moron of Ft Lee for not supporting Christie’s re-election, false claims of punishing Democrats over Christie’s refusal to reappoint a NJ Supreme Court Justice, false claims that Christie withheld hurricane Sandy funds, false claims that Christie was punishing Weinberg, the Democrat leader of the NJ Senate, false claims that a multi-million dollar development project in Fort Lee was being threatened, blah, blah, blah. None of them have proven to be true.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/an-alternate-theory-of-the-bridgegate-scandal-111611971764
It appears that Maddow let her emotional involvment (hatred of Christie?) cloud her judgement and she desperately grasped for any lie that she could use to keep the false Christie/Bridgegate story in front of her viewers.
“I am totally obsessed with the Christie story, unapologetically,” Maddow responded.
Her corporate masters at Comcast do have a billion dollars. Plus.
Are her “corporate masters” intent on electing progressives? Are they willing to spend like Kochs to do so?
All things considered, with or without the billion of Maddow’s alleged corporate masters, how would you estimate the relative effects of Maddow and Koch on American politics?
Maddow gets an hour a day. The Kochs get 30 seconds. No contest.
Yes, they are.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375116/how-comcast-bought-democratic-party-matthew-continetti
Maddow doesn’t reach swing voters, she’s reaching liberals who were going to vote that way anyway. She isn’t swaying anything.
Then we’re back to my suggestion that we can solve this problem by only allowing ads during political shows, when people already are demonstrating an eagerness for political content.
Let’s have those uninterested never see an ad at all.
Huh? I’ll ask for a cite here. Maddow’s hour goes to X number of households. The Kochs run Y number of commercials per day (or per weekday, to compare it properly) that reach Z number of households.
X * 1 hour = Maddow’s “influence” just in terms of eyeball time.
30 seconds * Y * Z = Koch’s “influence”.
If you think Maddow’s influence is greater than the Kochs’ (using these numbers), then let’s see a cite with some values.
I think there’d be a pretty serious opposition, on the basis that “speech is not consumption” (though obviously buying ad time is).
But yeah, this is one thing a progressive consumption tax could deal with really well.
Me, I’d go for Confiscation.
I agree with this.
Take a moment, if you will, to reflect on their libertarian agenda, how eager they are to free us from oppressive government regulations. Like the EPA. Primarily, the EPA. The EPA is to the Koch Brothers like Van Helsing is to Dracula, an oppressive entity determined to restrict their enjoyment of their private property.
But hey! They support ballet! Swell.
Here’s the thing about the Kochs. They don’t actually spend their money just to get favorable treatment from the government. They spend their money to push an ideology. I’m not sure you can write a constitutional amendment such that it would allow Congress to limit their spending on that.
One of the Kochs’ issues is criminal justice reform:
Oh, goody! So their concerns are not limited to using our nations lakes, rivers and air as their personal industrial toilet? How very reassuring! I hear they are also generous supporters of The Arts, especially the arts attended by people who own their own tuxedos and are not required to rent them.
Well, others here tried to draw a distinction between Rachel Maddow and the Kochs. Maddow is pushing an ideology, whereas supposedly the kochs were just trying to get favors for Koch industries. When in fact, both are in the same business of pushing an ideology that goes beyond their self interest.
Others have complained about secret money or the Kochs not having to stand by their messaging. I think the Kochs have proven that they’d be happy to comply with both requirements if that was the law. Yet that still isn’t good enough.
So I have to ask again. Why does Rachel Maddow have special rights?
Rachel Maddow is probably the best journalist on television. What she presents is meticulously researched, she freely admits errors when they are made, and she invites guests with opposing viewpoints on the air to state their case and she treats them with courtesy and respect. She’s everything that Fox “News” is not.
It is possible to present the news with a liberal viewpoint without being unfair. She does that. It may be theoretically possible to do the same from the right, but thus far there are no examples of this. But she doesn’t campaign for individuals or causes and she does not have a monetary stake in how effective her message may be. The Kochs simply want to buy elections so they can amass more wealth for themselves.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Regards,
Shodan
Unfortunately Bob, you can’t make government the arbiter of who is a good messenger and who is a bad one. If you’re going to make distinctions between speakers, they have to be objective.
There is a distinction between being a news commentator with a professional journalist staff keeping you from telling lies on one cable network and carpet bombing ALL the news media with political advertising that is often false and misleading.
Another brilliant and insightful argument! And so carefully crafted! *Five *exclamation points, precisely the number. Four would have been too lax, too casual, six might have been a bit much, but five! Just so!
(Seven, of course, would have been right out!)