Doug Schoen is a classic "Fox News Democrat": his demeanor is annoying, he's painfully repulsive to look at, and he is constitutionally incapable of saying anything good about Democrats, or bad about Republicans. That, and he hates dirty fucking hippies.
Yesterday, Schoen contributed an op-ed to the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal that supposedly offfered an analysis of his firm's poll of American attitudes toward the Occupy Wall Street movement. Nobody remotely familiar with Schoen's work over the last decade or so will be surprised to learn that his op-ed was profoundly dishonest, but I thought Judd Legum (at Think Progress) made a great point when he said that Schoen was conflicted.
Of course he is!
Here's a relevant portion culled from an old version of Schoen's bio:
Dr. Schoen has also provided preeminent strategic research to an extensive list of corporate clients, including AOL Time Warner, Procter & Gamble, Major League Baseball, AT&T, Frito Lay, and Citibank.
Turns out, Schoen got to be part of the 1% but serving a slew of corporate masters. This editorial is just one more big wet-kiss to his betters. He's sucking up.
The funny thing is, yesterday I had a chance to ask him about exactly this. And he gleefully confirmed my suspicions.
A coordinated campaign of liberal callers infiltrating Limbaugh's show, circumventing the screener, and peppering the host with a wide range of questions that Rush cannot possibly answer adequately (honestly, anyway), seems to be getting under his skin.
Today, Limbaugh was tearing into Dick Durbin because the Senator gave a floor speech that suggested Bank of America account holders should close their accounts and bank with some other institution that would not be so quick to nickle and dime them. (BoA just announced that they'd begin charging debit card users a $5 monthly fee).
The nut of Limbaugh's argument was that a United States Senator has no business interfering in the private sector like that. It's just not the role of elected officials, Rush says.
So I called and pretended to be Kevin from Clifton Park, NY. I told Snerdley that Rush can't have it both ways. If he's going to condemn Durbin for interfering in private sector markets, then he should equally condemn Republicans for interfering with the market services Planned Parenthood provides. Snerdley liked it and put me on hold.
While on hold, I started thinking of other times that Republicans attacked market actors. Like the Dixie Chicks. The New York Times... And then I remembered reading an old story about how Limbaugh came to be carried by the Armed Forces Radio network: Republican Congressman pressured the Pentagon's brass until they caved.
So I waited about an hour, and finally Rush got to my call. This is what I said, but you should really watch the video to get the full context of why this call is so revealing:
Me: "Hey Rush, you've talked about how Durbin... It's just not his place as a Senator to get involved. But I've heard Republicans get involved in telling women where they can get health care with Planned Parenthood, they said don't buy Dixie Chicks records, they've railed against the New York Times and I know of at least one impotent, pill-popping propagandist on the radio that got his start on the Armed Forces talk radio at the behest of Republican interference. So please don't tell us that it's not the place of a politician to talk out...talk out... speak out about issues that are important to millions and millions of people."
Rush: "I don't know what politician told people not to buy the Dixie Chicks records. What are you talking about? Planned Parenthood? You know... you... again... identify yourself and the way you think as another obstacle all the rest of us face for our freedom... you're just a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance... you're an arrogant snob... and arrogant, full-fledged snob and you don't know 10% of what you think you know... because you've been ill-informed, misinformed by a faulty education system or whatever it is. But, people like you... you're part of the pack we're gonna hafta run over... you're just part of the pack we're gonna look at and smile in the rear-view mirror in 2012. Take care Kevin, have a great day."
Rush's response to me could be considered humorous, but it's important to keep watching the video. Rush just absolutely empties both barrels into the next caller. He's clearly agitated.
These two calls to Juan Williams are notable for two reasons.
The first is that he defends NewsCorp's ownership, saying that top management figures have been fired for their role in illegally spying on various public figures, including victims of terror and crime, the British Royals and high profile celebrities. In coming to NewsCorps defense, however, Williams conveniently omits any mention of the timing of the firings, or the fact that Rupert Murdoch's son signed off on a multi-million dollar settlement without firing anyone for the underlying offense. Indeed, the firings came only recently, after several high-profile arrests and public hearings. Moreover, several executives have come forward to report that James Murdoch lied in his testimony about what he knew and when he knew it.
Williams also made a point of mentioning that all of these events happened in another country and had nothing at all to do with Fox News. I tried to ask Williams if he would vouch for the integrity of Fox News under Roger Ailes, but the call ended before I could do so.
The next caller asked why Williams would go on Fox in the first place, given their affection for ridiculous stories made up out of whole cloth. Williams said he agreed with the caller, and that he is an independent voice at Fox that is there to provide a more accurate perspective. Williams referenced the value of "honest debate" over and over again. Of course, that's exactly why the caller asked the question: there is no good faith, honest debate on Fox News. Fox hosts and contributors remind me of Robin Williams during his cocaine days, only instead of stream of consciousness hilarity, what we get is a non-stop geyser of prevarication.
Carl Gibson, one of the founders of US Uncut, just steamrolled the drugged one. It was a thing of beauty. Rush would take a punch, hit the canvass, struggle to his feet, only to be flattened again. Eventually, as is always the case when right wing talkers find their asses handed to them, Ruash cheated. He spoke over Gibson, cut him off, spewed a slew of irrelevant right wing talking points, hung up on him, and then spent the next 10 minutes flailing desperately in an effort to make his audience forget what Carl’s question was.
So… What was the question? Well, a bit of background is in order first. Did you know that 47% of American households pay no income taxes? Let me tell you, every listener to right wing talk radio has heard that tired old talking point hundreds of times. It’s the ear bug of right wing talk that establishes the foundation of their resentment politics. After all, somebody has to be paying for all those welfare checks, right?
I probably don’t have to mention it to this crowd, but it is true, of course, that Limbaugh and his lieutenants (and the cultists that tune in faithfully every day) ignore the fact that everyone that works pays payroll taxes to the feds (about 12% of every dollar they earn)… They don’t mention the federal tax on gasoline… Or state, local and sales taxes. The truth is that nobody escapes the tax man, and that many of the folks that pay no federal income taxes nevertheless lose a higher percentage of their earnings to taxes than the super-rich do.
So yeah, virtually every day, Limbaugh tells his listeners that they are paying income taxes so that leech scum underclass of America can be coddled by the nanny state. So Carl called and politely as can be, asked:
Carl: “…several multi-billion dollar corporations paid their CEOs more than they pay the government in taxes. Now I know how you feel about folks, I mean individuals who don’t pay their taxes, but I want to know how you feel about corporations that don’t pay taxes. Do you have the same antagonism for them?”
Rush: “How do I feel about how he felt about corporations that don’t pay income taxes?”
Carl: “No, corporations.”
Rush: “No, you said you know how I feel about individuals that don’t pay taxes… How do I feel about that?”
Carl: “Well, I’ve heard you refer to the 47% of Americans that don’t pay taxes.”
Rush: “Well, that’s… uh… they’re not illegally avoiding taxes, they don’t have to pay taxes because they’ve been exempted. Their votes are being purchased.”
Carl: “Well, they have to pay a third of their income in sales and property and payroll and excise taxes too… but..”
Rush: “Look, the only major corporation I know not paying US taxes is General Electric.”
Carl: “GE, EBAY, Verizon, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Bank of America, Citibank, I mean I can go on…”
Rush: “Are you trying to tell me that every one of those corporations pay zero US taxes?”
Carl: “Zero US taxes Rush. Sometimes they get money back from the federal government.”
And on, and on, and on and on… Listen for yourself:
Yesterday, the day of the east coast earthquake, I spoke with Hannity about the earthquake and his good friend Mark Levin.
Hannity demonstrated that he has a sense of humor when he chuckled at the Chris Christie joke I led with. I mentioned that over at the Competitive Enterprise Institute's blog, Myron Ebell, a leading climate science denialist, was disputing whether we had really experienced an earthquake. Saying the science was bad and widely disputed, Ebell was claiming that the vibrating earth could be better explained by what he witnessed while looking out his window: he spotted Chris Christie chasing a Twinkie truck.
We continued our conversation, and Hannity, who in a pretty remarkable coincidence had been talking with Mark Levin in the previous segment, compared me to his friend. I mentioned that Levin had called me an a-hole several times the previous day, and we were off to the races. Our conversation turned to the power of conservative media. I had never realized what a sore nerve that is for conservatives. Hannity did everything he could to dispute the premise. Apparently, the "liberal media" fiction is sacred to the Conservative movement, and will be fiercely protected. Could it be that the conservative establishment fears the echo-chamber they created is vulnerable to becoming a victim of its own success?
Mark Levin is one of the more abrasive right wing talk show hosts on the radio, especially with regards to his treatment of liberals. Even so, Levin's response to the call I made a couple of hours ago is just stunning for its cowardice, dishonesty and gratuitous use of a particular anatomical-based insult.
My night began when I tuned into Levin on my local DC AM talk radio station. He was spouting a bunch of typical conservative bile, when he suddenly detoured to plug a right wing blog network that he said was doing excellent work documenting the hiring decisions at Eric Holder's Department Of Justice. According to Levin, Obama's Attorney General is illegally filling career posts at the DOJ with left-wing zealots, while (one assumes) refusing to hire conservative lawyers to fill career posts. Levin went on to bemoan the unfairness of it all. Of course, according to Levin, if a DOJ led by a conservative had tried such a thing, we'd never hear the end of it. Instead, Obama gets away with all sorts of lawlessness, and the media ignores it.
My phone fingers started itching. I knew that Levin worked in the Reagan DOJ as Chief of Staff to AG Edwin Meese. It's inconceivable that he wasn't acutely aware of the Alberto Gonzalez/Monica Goodling scandal in which Goodling admitted to breaking the exact laws Levin was accusing Holder of violating. Levin could hardly be more shameless!
Here's what I heard just before I called:
I got through and told the screener that I wanted to ask Levin why he wasn't so concerned when Googling admitted to breaking the law. I was put on hold, and listened to the program through my speakerphone for the next 70 minutes or so.
In that time, a caller asked Levin how they could do a better job of getting the message out. As a liberal, I'm always bemused (and a little frustrated) that conservatives get away with clling the media liberal. It's an enormously useful construct for them, but it's an Orwellian BIG LIE. Here's is that caller and Levin's response to her:
About 40 or 50 minutes later, Levin finally took my call. I had been dwelling on the inanity of conservatives complaining about their inability to "get their message out" so I decided to bring it up with Levin and tie it into a discussion of the Holder/Goodling controversy. My goal was to enlighten Levin's audience by informing them of the power of the conservative propaganda catapult at the same time I provided them with an example of conservative dishonesty.
Alas, I never got the chance. Levin muted my line, called me an "A-hole" three times, and then gave me about 2 seconds to begin a response so he could hang up on me with his signature going-away insult.
What is notable about his response, aside from its rank obnoxiousness, is that Levin was almost waiting for a call from me; he was expecting it. For some reason, the fact that I've called Hannity and Limbaugh threatens Levin and he was watching out for me. Sure, I've had some interesting discussions with Limbaugh and Hannity and other talk radio hosts (I'm looking at you Bill O'Reilly), but my conversations have always been honest and respectful. It's revealing that I was so easily able to expose Mark Levin's paranoia, and just by phoning his show, expose his cowardly and bullying nature.
The caller told Limbaugh that he thinks it is kind of nuts - even stalker-ish - for any of his listeners to dwell on the federal government.
The previous day, Limbaugh said the fight he was leading was to get the government out of people's lives - to make it so it wasn't the central concern of honest, hard-working Americans.
The caller suggested that he almost never thinks about the government, and with the exception of soldiers, doesn't think Limbaugh's average listener does either. Instead, he thinks about his wife, his family, his job... And just doesn't see how the government gets in his way.
Limbaugh paused, as if to look for examples. The caller said... well... if you are the owner of a coal mine that resents federal rules that keep your employees safe... or if you are a logger that wants to cut down old-growth forests, then perhaps the government is a bit of a headache for you.
Limbaugh cut the caller off, called him purposefully ignorant and went on to cite a bunch of canards... You know, like Michelle Obama is making us all eat brussel sprouts, and you can't purchase salt in NYC, and if you live in NYC, the government takes 65% of your paycheck.
When Rush is called to account, he hangs up the phone and lies. It's too bad so many people believe him.
Two interesting clips from Lars Larson's chat with Rep Louie Gohmert (R, TX-1).
In the first clip, Gohmert yuks it up with Larson as they discuss hitting golf balls with a picture of Nancy Pelosi painted on them. Those gosh darn Republicans are such kidders! And classy too! I mean, who doesn't fantasize about hitting a 70 year old woman with a golf club?
The next bit is interesting too. According to Gohmert, he and his buddies, Dana Rohrabacher (R, CA-46) and Steve King (R, IA-5) made a trip over to Afghanistan to speak with a number of warlords about US policy in the country. This is notable for two reasons. The first is that Gohmert's description of the talks pretty clearly describes a violation of the Logan Act which prohibits American citizens from conducting foreign policy. Gohmert says they were speaking with warlords the Obama administration has refused to negotiate with, and engaged in discussions that undermine the President's ability to conduct foreign policy.
Rush took a call from Carl in Kentucky. Really, he was discombobulated, self-contradictory and struggled all the way through the call. First, he noted that Carl, who had identified himself as a member of the "Millenial" generation, was of the Millenium generation. Then he went on to explain that Carl may be paying taxes at 30% on everything he earns. Soon after though, when Carl brought up the fact that America did pretty well when we had a 90% tax rate under Eisenhower, Rush was quick to incompetently allude to the marginal nature of the tax code.
Rush also seems to think that the government has nothing to do with our ability to earn a living. The fact that someone has to pay for the roads we drive on, the air traffic controllers that guide our airplanes, the firefighters that contain and extinguish fires, and the cops that keep us from being robbed of our paychecks.... none of that figures into Limbaugh's government-free utopia. The idea that very few of us would be much more than sustenance farmers if it weren't for government-provided infrastructure never crosses his mind.
This is very unusual for Rush. Generally speaking, he welcomes the chance to "prove his superiority" when it comes to besting liberal callers. Of course, controlling the topic, callers volume, and length of time the caller is allowed to make his case gives the host every advazntage, but who's counting, right?
Anyway, this caller asked a pretty simple question: why are conservatives callling for cuts to programs that help those in need at the same time they protect wasteful oil subsidies and the bankers that got us into this economic mess.
Instead of engaging the caller, Rush said he spoke to fast and "trying to get some trick on me" but he didn't care because the caller was "an idiot".
That's not typical of Limbaugh. I wonder what's going on with him.
