Democrats -The Dismal Comfort of Senatorial Scorched Earth

Trump Cabinet:

They're Not Necessarily Bad People

  Just Because They Happen To Be

  Swamp Dwelling Parasites

Many of the bites are not that infectious

 -- at least when they're inflicted one at a time.

Gnathostoma: The Worm Who Infects

Swamp Eels… And Humans 

[image]

It's a waste of time explaining MeanMesa's utter disgust with the "news" of even one Democratic Senator's vote to approve a Trump cabinet nominee. This is not a process designed with the goal of political maneuvering or making down payments on Senatorial "favors" to be "repaid" later.

That's not how it works.

One week into the Trump "Presidency" we are already hearing about GOP plans to pocket the Social Security Trust fund, permanently cripple Medicare to "free up" tax cut money for the billionaire owners of the GOP, obliterate the EPA while prohibiting public access to any current climate research and lethally "stain" what's left of the country's reputation by selling the State Department to EXXON. With these details enumerated, we can turn to some of the "flashier" Trump gambits such as handing the citizen benefactors of the ACA back to the industrial health insurance corporations so the process of premium cash extraction can return to its previous extortionist levels.

Think of it as "re-exisiting" all those recently covered "pre-existing" conditions.

Well, most of these insults must be actually implemented by the rather odorous tribe of unpleasant looters being elevated to Cabinet positions. While there are a few liberal pundits lamenting the fact that these nominees haven't been vetted prior to their "downhill toboggan slide" [most of them were approved in minutes on a "no questions asked" basis] approval by the sold out Senate, MeanMesa actually doubts this. MeanMesa is pretty sure that these despicable swamp dwellers HAVE, in fact, been vetted. Does anyone think that Donald Trump selected them by mistake?

There will be no "surprises" to Trump as this gang begins their economic "liquefying" process to complete the extraction of everything left after the Republicans "liquefied" national middle class wealth in the 2008 extraction. [An interesting group of interactive charting by the New York Times: How the 2008 Recession Reshaped the Economy/NYTIMES] Economists predict that it will require two decades of steady economic growth to recover the wealth lost [that is, largely redistributed to the 1%] during the 2008 debacle. With this crowd in charge of the various agencies of the government, we can comfortably extend that recovery period by a few more decades.

Yet, a few Democratic Senators voted to approve them -- Democratic Senators who, MeanMesa hopes fervently,  just signed their own political "pink slips." 

Dr. Rachel Maddow - Senate Filibusters

By Steve Benen

10/31/13

The chart is based on an updated table the Senate keeps, chronicling cloture votes over the last nine decades, using three metrics: (1) cloture motions filed (when the majority begins to end a filibuster); (2) votes on cloture (when the majority tries to end a filibuster); and (3) the number of times cloture was invoked (when the majority succeeds in ending a filibuster). By all three measures, obstructionism soared over the last six years as Republicans abused the rules like no other party or caucus in American history.

You’ll notice a sharp drop in the number of filibusters in the most recent Congress. While that might suggest signs of progress to some, it’s not – the drop only came as a result of the GOP-led House passing far-right bills the Senate didn’t care to pass. And even despite this fact, the 112th Congress saw the third most filibusters of any Congress in the 223 years the Senate has existed.

In case this isn’t obvious, the Senate wasn’t designed to work this way; it didn’t use to work this way; and by any credible measure, it can’t work this way – which is why there’s so much talk of reforms next year.

Senate Filibuster/MSNBC Maddow

Total Obstruction of Judicial Nominees

"It's a Law We Can Live With."

Not really. It's a law Republicans have jammed down our throats.

Understand. Control of the judicial system is an absolute necessity if you are an oligarch with the ambition of completely controlling the United States economy -- and wealth. 

Scorched Earth. [image]

No one has ever actually seen an example of exactly what happens when the contest is between billionaires and the court system. This is because such conflicts have been "buffered" in past cases. Yes, the courts have fallen far short in fulfilling their responsibility to interpret and uphold the "raw law" as it is written in legislation, but, No, the courts have never -- yet -- brazenly made decision after decision completely to the benefit of their oligarchic sponsors.

"Things" [judicial decisions] have always been "patchy" enough to sustain a general sentiment among the governed that the judicial system remains theoretically fair. Nonetheless, as the billionaire class has steadily implanted more and more ideologically slanted individuals into the role of judges -- at all levels in the system -- the decisions are veering toward a far less believable "judicially objective" trend.

While the Democrats have been guilty of this in the past, more modern times see the Republicans obsessed with the same practice -- an obsession now amplified to a shocking degree.

Billionaires' suffocating control of judgeships [image]

The most egregious case of Republican judicial obstruction is not included in the chart [left].

That would be the treasonous scheme fomented and executed largely by the disgraceful GOP head of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, when he denied even a hearing on the final Supreme Court appointment of President Obama.

[This was a Presidential appointment Constitutionally required following the death of Scalia -- hence, treason.]

Judges at the Federal level and, certainly, judges at the Supreme Court level are appointed for life. Although a now, clear majority of Americans are anticipating the removal of Trump from the Presidency far sooner than the 2020 election, the judges currently being shoe horned into the country's judicial system will continue to deliver "decisions" far into the future.

How far into the future? Old age is rapidly closing on the progressive voices among the current Supreme Court. With a "permanent" insertion of a new appointment sympathetic to the oligarch class, the Supreme Court will ruthlessly deliver one decision after another in favor of the billionaires and corporations until your grandchildren are bringing home their own babies.

Worse, the current plan for a deep saturation of appointments to the lower level Federal courts will continue to generate an endless stream of one sided verdicts just as long, too.

Democrats: DANGER - Do Not Reach Across That Aisle!

You've already managed to hand the Republicans almost everything.

Don't hand them any more.

There is already more than a little "mind numbing" chatter about "making the Trump Presidency" normalized -- or, perhaps, even just appearing normalized. Unhappily, this wishful thinking is roughly as possible as "making a silk purse from a sow's ear." Everything about what has landed upon us is abnormal. It will proceed to become increasingly abnormal for so long as it metastasizes through each additional chunk of the remnants of our democracy.

There's not enough "normalizing
lipstick" to make this look  pleasant. [image]

The Republicans -- absolutely all of them -- are entirely committed and complicit in this coup d-etat. None of them has been "mysteriously transformed" into a democracy loving citizen with the best interests of the country at heart. They are nothing more than a coat and tie gang of raucous looters, scavenging through whatever's left to be found of middle class wealth. They've done it before and fairly recently.

Another important side of this concerns what they haven't done before. The Republicans haven't proposed or enacted anything which might benefit anybody living beyond the security gated circles of the Party's country club owners.

The Trump Inauguration saw plenty of seated US Judges -- at all levels of the judicial system -- who remained faithful to their oath in support of the US Constitution. The reactionaries on the Republican side prevented the addition of many nominees with similar sentiments through the Obama Presidency. Now, the same anti-democracy interests are on a mad rage to purge the entire system to a dismal, yet depressingly durable state of "oligarchic judicial purity."

Even the new President has taken to referring to such Judges in quotation marks in his vile, petty tweets.

Not entirely sure you know exactly what MeanMesa means by oligarchic judicial purity? Just spend a few minutes with it. Review the legal decisions for the last four decades. Along side a few highly publicized "judicial treats" such as Roe, same sex marriages and subsidized health insurance, we have seen an on going flood of decisions such as Citizens United nested in with an absolute void of more subtle insults such as the rejection of public opinion about back ground checks.

However, these decisions deal largely with the social culture. When the rags are ripped away revealing the "money game," the courts -- especially the Supreme Court -- have been in a decades long "trance of service" to the billionaires -- preparing the field for exactly the take over which has now occurred.

"Scorched Earth" means that no Democrat will vote, not even a single time, for any of this traitorous nonsense. Not for legislation. Not for any candidate for a cabinet office. Not for any Republican toady propped up as a "normal" Supreme Court Justice.

We have already seen Democratic Senators attempting a suicidal "play nice" with some of the cabinet candidates. 

We have your names.

Additional Reading

Supreme Court "Death By Legacy"/MeanMesa

Trump's 100 Judges - Democracy's Death Knell/MeanMesa

Desperate MSNBC Frantically Grabs Corporate "Keep Away" Policy

MSNBC Suicide Attempt:

Maddow Survives, Unhurt

We all understand how desolately "embarrassing" things have become for the MSNBC network. However, these are the easily predictable developments when disparate "clutches" of widely varied television characters and their correspondingly widely varied network shows are shoe horned together, utterly willy nilly, into a "thing" which is then marketed as a fledgling network of some sort.

It became fairly clear -- in hindsight -- that the the MSNBC "line up" had become primarily just the coincidental" conglomeration of incoherent broadcast "assets" -- mainly what we might call "bargains" -- which could be purchased while staying within some sort of poorly planned, inadequate fragment of a corporate budget. Now that the poor creature has undertaken what Michael Valentine Smith famously referred to as "voluntary self-dissolution," there remain an unsurprisingly large number of open seats available on the mourning pew at the corporate wake.

NBC Headquarters [image]

The revelation of the "public secret" that 80% of the network's viewers cordially hated "wing-nut lite," Joe Scarborough, was only the beginning. Moments later even the most mentally superficial pundits had locked onto the network's strangely mature "identity crisis." Not even geriatric MeanMesa can remember a violent "market correction" this brutally rapid in recent history.

The ironic side of this was that apparently almost everyone except the MSNBC executives had already made this "market correction" before the top floor guys even had a clue.

Perhaps the MSNBC executives never ventured forth beyond the confines of their management suite "echo chambers" to actually ask anyone what network shows they were watching -- or not watching. Now that these three piece suit types are sweeping the bolts and fenders of the thing into dust pans, what began as an impressively reserved, Stoic corporate grief rapidly has become a particularly pathetic corporate panic.

They stopped briefly at the "scheduling desk" on their way to their 10th floor window ledges to attempt to juggle what was left into some sort of TV Guide presence, but by this time the morbidly pungent aroma -- an odor reminiscent of a rotting Air America -- was wafting through the hall ways at 30 Rockefeller Center, NBC UNIVERSAL head quarters.

The "Jewels" -- and the Lessons

Hidden in the Corporate Wreckage

Another "thing" they didn't notice?

A month ago MSNBC was broadcasting a awkward collection of absolute detritus interspersed with a "sprinkling" of fairly watchable offerings. Once the "wood chips" of the network's day time line up had completed their tedious daily journey to the television ash can, prime time viewers could tune into a week day sequence of much more palatable content: Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell.

However, not all of these prime time "anchors" were "created equal." While they may all be interesting and informative, MSNBC has been curiously reluctant to acknowledge the potential ratings' "power driver" embedded in this prime time crowd.

Maddow.

Dr. Rachel Maddow, PhD, [image -POLITICUSUSA]

It doesn't take long to "notice" an unavoidably obvious "quality" difference between Maddow and the high schoolers in the FOX gang or, in fact, between Maddow and the corporate, alphabet networks' thousand dollar suit "talking heads" gang, either. 

MeanMesa is a BIG Rachel Maddow Show fan and used to be a daily viewer. That "used to be" part presents the topic which is the point of this posting. We'll deal with that part of the story shortly.

Maddow has credentials -- the caliber of credentials one might consider extremely well suited for someone intending to seriously host a talk show dealing with politics and policies.

Stanford University, Public Policy, 1994

John Gardner Fellowship

Rhodes Scholarship

Lincoln College, Oxford, PhD, Politics, 2001

The "Used To Be A Daily Viewer" Part

As promised...

What strange corporate behavior has precipitated such an abnormal "series of events" which have  served to "inspire" a tiny, high desert blog to "pick up this story?"

Let's begin this sordid tale a year ago, but, relax, the account of that first year will be rather "brief."

A year ago MeanMesa was a DISH subscriber and had contracted to use DISH cable services primarily because the DISH offering included MSNBC, and consequently, The Rachel Maddow Show. Every week day at 7:00 P.M. the fourteen year old Toshiba television in the living room at Short Current Essays Galactic Headquarters was tuned to MSNBC and Rachel.

Crystal Skull Protection Kit [image]

However, through the time that MeanMesa had relied on DISH cable for this service, the monthly bill had "crept up" to more than double what it was when the contract was signed, over $80 per month. Of course the DISH contract provided all sorts of other "television possibilities," in fact, a veritable "home entertainment extravaganza" of hundreds of channels.

Among this vast offering of "valuable DISH channels" was the typical collection of 30 or so channels of endlessly repeating FOX fear and terror "expose' shows," 50 or more "dirty shirt preachers" asking for donations, dozens of vacuum cleaner salesman, a handful of essentially useless, traditional alphabet networks and, of course, the Brazilian Power Crystal channel.

Needless to say, MeanMesa's very definitely "limited income" was having more and more of a problem with the continually increasing $80 per month DISH bill. The painful decision was taken that DISH -- and daily access to The Rachel Maddow Show -- had to go.

Oh sure, there was a little "getting used to it" involved, but one of MeanMesa's students found a one-day-delay podcast site which would very dependably provide yesterday's Maddow show on the old LINUX in the upstairs Galactic Headquarters office. [This site, CASTROLLER, still provides the first part of the show daily -- usually 15 minutes or so -- on a one day delay, of course.]

MSNBC's "Trip to the

High Altitude NBC Woodshed"

Try to just gaze down at the clouds and remain calm...

Unhappily, still quite shaken by the "network's suicide attempt," the MSNBC executives were hauled in to see the NBC "big boys" in their palatial offices on the fiftieth floor. It would be quite unrealistic to presume that the content of this atmospheric meeting was intended to reassure and comfort the MSNBC crew in their hour of need.

No, instead it seems that the NBC heavies had just then, finally, noticed that the corporation's little, experimental spawn from downstairs had not only not been producing ratings, but -- horreur soudaine -- had also not been producing profits!

Something HAD to be done!

Predictably, that "something" began with expelling all the MSNBC line up that wasn't "pulling its ratings weight." Happily, this part of the NBC tantrum began with Joe Scarborough. But it continued, and when most of the blood had dripped off the lavish NBC executive conference room table, and the smoke and feathers had been unceremoniously sucked down the sky scraper's powerful exhaust ventilation duct, only MSNBC's vulnerable, "picked clean" skeleton of prime time shows remained as viable ratings assets on the corporate chopping block.

Those prime time "survivors" -- Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell -- had to begin doing the "yoeman's work" of turning a profit for the whole company amid the wreckage. The remainder of MSNBC's motley staff of confused and frightened employees were left staggering around in the production studios with a suddenly shocking, corporately "expendable" feeling.

Exactly Who Owns Tomorrow's News?

How About Yesterday's Analysis?

NBC monetizes the "one day delay."

They may decide to monetize more days than that.

On the very day that all this occurred millions of Americans with the same sorts of "fixed incomes" that MeanMesa enjoys were watching yesterday's episode of The Rachel Maddow Show on after market podcast sites such as CASTROLLER. Further, literally millions of these "fixed income" Maddow fans had made a decision similar to the one made by MeanMesa and cancelled their cable contracts.

With the month in and month out expenditure for cable services eliminated from these "fixed income" budgets, the corresponding "dinner menus" in all these "fixed income" homes had gradually moved beyond tuna casseroles depressing "disguised weenie recipes" into delicious dishes containing "meat with a name." The only price demanded for this remarkable improvement in the standard of living amounted to simply being satisfied with watching Rachel on the day after all the high rollers who could afford cable had seen her.

Once one became accustomed to the delay, the whole matter had begun to exude a quite congenial aura of "class separation."

After all, once MSNBC had broadcast Rachel through the cable channels, there was the idea that the episode had, in some sense, become the "public domain." The podcast sites didn't even leave the prime time show's commercials in their "one day delay" content. Although MeanMesa had not been particularly bothered by these commercials during the time Rachel was being delivered by the cable provider ["The rocks come with the farm..."], their absence in the "one day delay" pod casts amounted to an "added bonus."

The "fixed income" crowd couldn't afford to buy most of the products being advertised, anyway.

Well, the frenzied NBC "profit hounds" picked up the scent of a "not particularly plump" chicken right away. The "profit recovery" scheme they hatched is, well, stunning.

The "one day delay" pod casts were to be crushed.

Forget the "once broadcast becoming public domain" idea immediately. Anyone without a cable contract was to be excluded from Rachel's viewing audience, and this was to not only include watching Rachel's show when it was being broadcast, it would also include watching what had been broadcast even a day or a week earlier.

Instead, there would be "cherry picked" teasers, incoherently selected show segments, presented on an inoperative MSNBC corporate web site. It became clear immediately that these "segments" were being "selected" by the profit searching NBC heavies from "upstairs." MeanMesa has no way of knowing if the exceptionally shoddy corporate web site is the progeny of mere technical incompetence or intentionally prepared to further dissuade "non-cable contract" viewers from ever catching so much as a passing glance of Rachel. [You can visit this site for yourself: MSNBC/The Rachel Maddow Show]

One suspects the latter.

Unfortunately, unless you have cable,
the key is useless.

Now, you may notice a spot on this screen labeled as "watch entire episode." This sounds like a good idea, right? It will sound especially good if you have already tried to load, manage and navigate the "teaser segments" shown on the "menu." Let's just say that the thing was "not built for speed" -- or  any sort of convenience.

If, however, you decide to foolishly select "watch entire episode," you will soon be staring at these screens. The "key" thing is telling you that you will have to "unlock" access to yesterday's -- or last week's -- show by providing MSNBC with the name of your cable provider. Class warfare-wise, this process will begin with you proving to MSNBC  that you have a cable provider -- the site will then "check" to make certain that you are not illegally trying to access a "very valuable something" that MSNBC  broadcast yesterday.

Those atmospheric NBC types know that "you just can't be too careful with those unwashed masses of little people."

Trying to "Harvest the Free Loaders"

What is the MSNBC Strategy?
How did they decide to do the opposite?

It turns out that it becomes rather awkward to play "keep away" with a cable television show after it has been repeatedly broadcast on a national cable network. Yes, the arrangements made to electronically accommodate the content feed to the "one day delay" pod casters' sites can be curtailed, but this country -- and this television audience -- is brim full of remarkably clever hackers.

If all else fails, how about a video camera on a tripod standing in front of your high resolution flat screen?

The shows ratings are an "embarrassment of riches." The Rachel Maddow Show now trumps every competitor except Hannity, and one part of the reason explaining this is that the Maddow show is "accessible" to curious samplers with the prospect of becoming regular viewers.

WIKI summarizes the show's success at drawing audience. [Excerpted. Read the entire article  here - WIKI]

The Rachel Maddow Show debuted on September 8, 2008, with 1,543,000 viewers (483,000 of whom were in the 25–54 demographic). Early reviews for her show were mostly positive. Los Angeles Times writer, Matea Gold stated that Maddow, "finds the right formula on MSNBC", while The Guardian writes Maddow has become the "star of America's cable news". Associated Press columnist, David Bauder called her Keith Olbermann's "political soul mate" and referred to the Olbermann/Maddow shows as a two-hour "liberal ... block." The New York Times writer Alessandra Stanley opined: "Her program adds a good-humored female face to a cable news channel whose prime time is dominated by unruly, often squabbling schoolboys; Ms. Maddow's deep, modulated voice is reassuringly calm after so much shrill emotionalism and catfights among the channel's aging, white male divas".

On September 16, 2008, the show drew 1,801,000 viewers (with 534,000 in the 25–54 demographic), beating Larry King Live and becoming the highest-rated MSNBC show of the night. Maddow's ratings success on September 16, 2008 prompted many of her MSNBC colleagues on Morning Joe to congratulate her on the air, including Joe Scarborough, who said it was "just one of those times where good people do well." In the month of March 2009 the average number of viewers dropped to 1.1 million, part of a general trend in the ratings decline for cable news programs. During the third quarter of 2009, the show was ranked in third place behind Fox News's Hannity and CNN's Larry King Live. The average total number of viewers for the show's airtimes during this period was 992,000.

During the first quarter of 2010, Maddow's show pulled well ahead of Larry King Live, regularly beating the show in overall and prime time ratings, becoming the second highest-rated program in its time slot, behind only Fox News's Hannity. The show continued its lead during the second quarter of 2010, staying well ahead of CNN's Larry King Live for the third consecutive quarter, and topping the show in both prime time and overall ratings.

...

In November 2013, during the off-year election coverage, Maddow was "up significantly, averaging second place in both measures with 1.267 million viewers and 313,000 adults 25-54." This placed the Maddow Show second, running behind Fox News' Megyn Kelly, but ahead of CNN's Piers Morgan Live.

MSNBC is almost certainly drawing revenue from all of the cable providers "popping up" on the network's web site menu, but those revenues are from charges for the network providing "same day" content. Finding a means to include the "one day delay" crowds in those audience ratings would boost Maddow well above most of the FOX reactionaries now offering competition for audience standing.

Ratings-wise, the "one day delay" crowd represents a significant potential resource for MSNBC if it were managed properly. The NBC stockholders are being quite reasonable when they expect this quality of management. Further, MSNBC's management "mechanism" for accomplishing this is hardly rocket science!

Shutting them out with these corporate road blocks doesn't seem to be the "best use" of this available resource. Apparently, lurking just beyond the mental "business frontiers" of the NBC corporate puppet masters is the unavoidable conclusion that the "one day delay" crowd wouldn't bat an eye at the prospect of watching a few commercials.

Public opinion has demonstrated a resurgence in its "motility." One need look no further than what has transpired with opinion about same sex marriage to see an example of the moribund "inertial myopia" of those whose business relies on staying aligned with public sentiments about all sorts of things.

At the moment the corporate media's directors are clearly still suffering under the false flag which emerged with the success of throw backs such as Limbaugh. After the oligarchs had bought control of thousands of broadcasters across the country, installing an essentially unmarketable monstrosity such as Limbaugh, they proceeded to make the claim that the show's popularity -- and the reactionary message of the man's narrative -- were firmly established merely by the fact that it was appearing on so many stations.

Limbaugh's "shine" is now headed for the public ratings ditch. The message is clear. Progressives constitute the audience of tomorrow.

Get with the program, MSNBC.

Finally! An End To All "Bad" News! Wahoo!!!

Here at MeanMesa we have some very old ideas about good news and bad news.  What, oh what, could that mean?  Well, the answer to that lingering lament is not too difficult to explain, not too difficult at all, in fact.

When the "news" is bad, our old idea suggests that something rather negative is happening in our world.  When the "news" isn't bad, it means that things are actually "rolling along" fairly smoothly.  See?  Rocket science.

Now, by the end of this week we will be seeing much less from the "bad news" category.  At first blush, we might assume that such a welcome change is the result of, well, as mentioned before, things "rolling along" fairly smoothly.  Who could possibly ask for anything better than that?

Uh-oh.  We have to wait a minute before launching our champagne crazed "good news" -- or, at least, "less bad news" -- celebration.  How could that happen?  Have the "bad guys" finally figured out how to change "bad news" into either "less bad news" or, heaven forbid, even "good news?" 

Let's try to take a look through the Fox farts, the carefully packed hearings on the FCC's hearings on the ComCast/NBC "merger," the utter inaction of the Justice Department which is simply "too busy" to "unleash" the old, cold fired anti-trust division and the eerie silence of the legions of mumbling "gag orders" staggering around the old, atmospheric NBC corporate headquarters.  Of course, that hopeful, ambitious "look" mentioned above will probably turn out to not be much of a look at all.  

A "marriage made in free market heaven" or, at least, at a high altitude (image Politico)

In fact, soon enough we will find ourselves once again "flying blind."  No one here on the "outside" will have any idea of what has gone on, what is happening now or what the likely outcome is going to be.  

Good job, all you reactionaries.  Things should get a great deal simpler for your "fact bending" operation once we're saturated with all this "good news" which can finally fill up the air waves whether or not there is actually anything good happening in the real world.  Hey, not only do hill billies and bigots prefer "good news" to anything which might reflect negatively on their highly manicured self images, that same "good news" can buffer all the bitching and belching at the nearest American Legion bar just as effectively!

Golly!  It's gonna' be the best day ever!

Now, MeanMesa, desperately trapped in all the normal geriatric confusion concerning such technical matters, must quietly assign all the "geeky" part of this story of "wide bands," "net neutrality," "content sources" and the like to those more capable of discussing such intricate details.  

Happily, those competent voices have not forsaken us -- every tiny nuance of the matter has been exhaustively and repeatedly posted by this time.  And,  by not so much as even "dirtying our hands" with such pedestrian clap-trap, this leaves the noble, freely roaming MeanMesa completely free to plunge headlong into its speciality, that is,  into absolutely expressed, subjectively derived, outrageously arbitrary opinion.  Again.

What follows is, of course, our "big"control issues." picture" view of just what's gone on.

We can begin with "control issues."  In fact, we can found the entire matter on the pressing and relentless appetite of our domestic billionaires to control what we "lesser folk" think.  Naturally, that ambition of theirs quickly spreads to controlling what we know, and, right behind that effort, what "news" we shall be allowed to consume.

Some time ago, temporarily confounded by the new technology of the internet, these very same American billionaires foolishly concluded that it would be quite safe for them to allow the system to be a free one.  Either from an instantaneous moment of weakness or simple oversight, these plutocrats decided that "nothing too unfortunate" could ever possibly emerge from what could never amount to any more than an electronic gizmo.

Not too long after that initial mistake, in fact, at just about the same time that progressives were discovering that they could easily communicate all sorts of insurgent ideas on the "gizmo," the same billionaires, tempted by a tiny market  share not currently being reached with their advertising campaigns of the day, decided that it would, again, be "quite safe" to allow one or two "insurgent voices" to be revealed on a tiny little side network which not many people would ever listen to anyway.

At the final, gasping end of perhaps the longest sentence in Western history, MSNBC was born.  Unhappily for the billionaires with such a checkered sense of self-protection, the network was actually designed from the outset to be "out of control."

Very clearly, the material threat of both of the billionaires' decisions quickly grew far too great to be conveniently managed in the same manner as the remainder of the "news" networks were managed.  The billionaire version of a "social contract" dealt specifically with such possibilities.  For example, embracing a "liberal agenda" amounted to "bad behavior," and being totally stupefied by the likes of FOX amounted to "slightly better behavior."

In the eyes of our American billionaires both experiments had come to a miserable end, indeed.  The "discipline of the lower classes" had suffered to the drastic state where some of them had begun to get "uppity," that is, the troublesome progressives among the "great, unwashed masses" "bad, liberal behavior" was creeping "out of control."

And, while the zipping and zinging electrons of the Internet were happily invisible, the quite material NBC Universal Network was not.

NBC Universal's Galactic Headquarters (courtesy staho.com)

And, not only was the troublesome, "out of control" insurgency of the ever-so-slightly progressive MSNBC resident in a highly visible, material sky scraper, its "soft underbelly" remained pornographically exposed on the "sacred stock exchange."  You know, the "stock exchange" where such "out of control" results of too much reactionary laxity could be "reined in" and terminated.

It was Absolutely Nothing Less than a "free market media correction!"

Further, when one begins with the highly successful model of the Chinese Internet Firewall, the painless migration to this soothing new definition becomes quite manageable. Even "manageable" for our adorable clutches of billionaires who are, quite reasonably, quite "gun shy" of too much "out of control" new thinking running loose on the horizon.  After all, their servants had relayed the "news" of what was happening in Tunis.

None of this was particularly revelatory to the old master of MSNBC, GE.  Because the majority of its manufacturing and marketing were now resident in the Peoples Republic, a $30 Bn check from ComCast and an opportunity to "wash its hands" of this entire unpleasantry was just too tempting to corporately pass.

So there you have it.  "Goodbye Keith Obermann.  Save a chair for the rest of the refugees from the failed MSNBC/free Internet experiment -- Rachel and Ed."  All the trouble that bunch has been making will be over in no time.  Maybe your move will be so effective that even the small but irritating voice of little old MeanMesa will be silenced. 

All that's left after this stroke of genius will be another quick reminder that, if the population of the country didn't prefer Glenn Beck, Rush, Sean and the others, they wouldn't be on such a vast majority of "market driven" radio and television stations.  Yeah.  That "news" will be "good news, indeed."  Finally, all the voices of the country will once again agree that the entire US population is extremely right wing!