By now it has become crystal clear that to Republicans, no news is good news. It doesn’t matter whether Osama Bin Laden is killed, the economy is recovering from the worst recession in recent history or diet donuts have been invented that actually reduce your cholesterol and make you lose weight, the GOP is bent (in many ways) on spinning every bit of good news that comes into something terrible.

As the Party of Nope and Deranged, the GOP has come to realize that there is no way enough people will vote for their party based upon their policies that only address the desires and needs of the top 1% and religious fanatics. So, their only path to power is by piling as much manure on top of President Obama and Democrats as possible and counting on people being so offended by the stench that they stumble away and blindly tumble into the sewer known as the modern GOP.

In order for this cynical plan to work, the GOP must respond to any and all positive news like they were cantankerous old people (which many Republicans naturally are anyway) but instead of replying to, “Hey Grandpa, I pitched for my Little League team for the first time!” with “Keep it up and you’ll suffer the rest of your life in excruciating pain from your rotator cuff!”, the GOP comes up with various ways to describe great things as Roves in the punchbowl.

So, since we are always seeking ways to offer olive branches to the other side in hopes of bringing everyone together, we have worked up a list of issues and responses that Republicans can use at a moment’s notice if a particular piece of good news rears its pleasant head in the future.

LIST OF REPUBLICAN RESPONSES TO GOOD NEWS

1. If unemployment continues dropping and GDP and other economic indicators rise:

GOP: “Now the elitists in the Democratic Party including President Obama are trying to use numbers and math to convince Americans that things are getting better in this country. Math may be their God but we believe in the one true God and we object to this continuing attack on religion! We don’t need math or numbers to know what’s happening in our economy! We have our guts to tell us and Rush Limbaugh! The more these numbers rise, the more Big Arithmetic is taking away our freedoms!”

2. If President Obama achieves a foreign policy success in North Korea, Iran, Israel, etc.

GOP: “Reducing political tensions is playing into the hands of Al Qaeda and all of those who want to harm us. The less threats and wars we have, the less we’ll spend on protecting ourselves. Military equipment manufacturers will be paid less and less and eventually  shrivel and die, leaving America helpless and vulnerable thanks to “peace”. Then you know who’ll be free to invade and take over America? Al Qaeda, communists, socialists, Russians, Taliban, Gypsies, Cubans, Slytherins, Morlocks, yodelers, mimes and many others who hate America!”

3. If a cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s or another devastating disease is discovered thanks to federal funding of science and medicine:

GOP: At a time when unemployment is so high in this nation, thanks to our government, the need for doctors and nurses will now drop and hundreds of thousands if not millions of them will lose their jobs. Those having their Alzheimer’s cured are forgetting about the salaries of many job creators and little people in the pharmaceutical and medical industry that their conditions have been paying for! Our President wants us to be selfish and only care about ourselves and our health instead of the health of our economy. Sick is good! Good for business and good for America! Health care is thumbing our nose at God’s great plan for the uninsured. If He wanted everyone in America to be healthy, why are there so many Arby’s around?”

4. If President Obama makes a powerful and inspiring speech about the rights of minorities, women or some other issue addressing fairness in our society:

GOP: “Once again, President Obama is trying to divide Americans and turn us against each other. Under the guise of “fairness” Obama wants to sow dissent in the majority of Americans who happily celebrate millionaires and billionaires getting richer because they know that one day, the 99% will become the 1% . It’s simple math and you can’t argue with math…forget what we said about it before, we changed our minds because now it helps us make our point! Obama insists Latinos should be treated as equals even though they’re happiest when they’re treated as servants…if they weren’t, why do they smile so much when you speak English to them? And there is no War on Women. If there was, they’re so inferior to men, they wouldn’t stand a chance of winning and the war would be over before it started. Women are as loved by Republican men as their family dogs and are given a long leash to explore around within reason. Women see a leash as a bond between them and the men they serve, why Obama would have anything against bondage is beyond us.”

5. If the Affordable Care Act is confirmed to save taxpayers a great deal of money and insure tens of millions of Americans who were uninsured:

GOP: It’s no surprise that Democrats are celebrating Obamacare starving insurance companies from the kind of profits they used to make. Obama hates American business, he hates job creators and those who used hard work and the free enterprise to inherit their fortunes and positions of power. Health insurance is not a right, it’s a hot dog dangling on a string that should be able to be yanked out of reach when people are selfish enough to try and grab it and greedily harm insurance company profits. We believe in the free market and in the free market, nothing is free. Except corporate bailouts. Anyway, if the uninsured wanted to be insured, all they’d have to do is get insured in the past when they were healthy and in their 20′s. If they’re too lazy to go back and do that one simple thing, why should insurance companies be forced to help them? As Ayn Rand once said, “I made how much on royalties? Sweet! Everyone else can kiss my Objectivist ass from now on!” Now that is the character of free enterprise and America that this country was founded on and that we believe in.

There will no doubt be many more alarming incidents of “good news”, thoughtlessly intruding on the Republican campaign this year, we can only hope that our modest offerings herein help the GOP to find political black mold in the pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.

The Obama Tax Returns for 2011 are a prime example of this. After watching coverage of the returns on CNN, MSNBC, CBS and Current, I conclude that only Current was interested in a full coverage of what the tax returns meant. Print media coverage has been almost uniformly poor. On line, coverage has been very misleading on the right, and sparse on the left.

The Basic Info:
$5.6 million income; $1.8 million Federal Taxes.
The Obama’s paid 20.1 Percent IN FEDERAL TAXES;
They gave 22.5 Percent TO CHARITY.
That’s 42.6 Percent of their total earnings….Plus
Continuing payouts to 10 Charities from $1.4 Million Nobel Prize Money.

The Obama’s’ overall rate is .5 Percent lower than the median top one percent income earner and is much higher than that of most middle-income Americans. Households making between $60,000 and $100,000 paid on average 8 Percent of their income in federal incomes taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center. Obama’s average tax rate over the last ten years has been nearly 30 percent. Like many of the wealthy Obama has benefited from the current tax structure, and from deductions, most notably those for donations to charity. Obama has also contributed significantly to his own retirement accounts.

The Obama’s donated $172,130 to charities in 2011, 22.5% of their adjusted gross income. The largest beneficiary was the Fisher House Foundation, which received $117,130 — the after-tax proceeds of the president’s children’s book, “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.” Fisher House Foundation is best known for the network of comfort homes built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers. Fisher homes are donated to the military and Department of Veterans Affairs so that families can stay nearby while a loved one is receiving treatment. Additionally, the Foundation ensures that families of service men and women wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan are not burdened with unnecessary expense during a time of crisis.

In addition, there were the ongoing donations from the $1.4 million in Nobel Prize money not included on the form because President Obama turned it entirely over to charity. Nobel pays out its prize money in annual allotments. The Obama’s donated all of the prize money to 10 charities. Full list at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-donates-nobel-prize-money-charity

The first couple paid $31941 in Illinois income tax. Plus undisclosed Cook County Property Taxes.

WHY WASN’T ALL OF THIS IN THE GENERAL MSM COVERAGE? DOES IT MAKE OBAMA LOOK TOO GOOD? How about a comparison with previous presidents? Or with current GOP leadership?

This is the president putting his money where his mouth is.
It deserved fuller coverage.

BUT….the Media in general, even the so-called Progressive media, want (need) a tight race. Tight races sell newspapers, magazines, books, advertising time. They build readership and viewership. They make money. Lots of money.

SO….for example, Fox emphasizes that Obama paid less than the “average” (more accurately the “median”) top one percenter and ignore how small that “less” is and how much the Obama’s gave to charity. Furthermore, most income earners at the level of the Obama’s in the $5 to $6 million range pay taxes at levels far closer to the 14 Percent paid by Mr. Romney last year. Fox has also used the line that Obama’s rate is lower than his secretary’s- a shot at the Buffet rule icon.

Huffington Post, has had two stories on the Obama taxes. The first headlined “Obama Tax Return Released For 2011″ is very brief, provides no analysis and invites readers to study the linked tax returns for insights. Ridiculous.

The second HP story has this headline: “Obama Tax Return Claims Mortgage Deduction That Most Helps The Rich”, a reference to a $10,000 home mortgage deduction. Misleading.

So, if they won’t tell the truth or spread the word, those who support the progressive agenda better do the job.

As of Friday March 9, at least 61 sponsors had pulled their support from Rush Limbaugh’s daily rant and rave.

On Thursday, Limbaugh’s program was practically devoid of paid advertisements. 86 spots aired. 77 were PSA’s, public service announcements donated by the Ad Council. They do not generate revenue. Seven of the remaining 9 ads were from companies that have notified Clear Channel that they are pulling their spots. THERE WAS DEAD AIR FOUR TIMES!

The overwhelming exodus of advertisers from Rush Limbaugh’s show has big-name companies rethinking their relationship with all of talk radio.

THE CONTAGION HAS SPREAD BEYOND RUSH….WELL BEYOND.

Ninety-eight major advertisers have notified their marketing agencies they no longer wish to advertise on programming that is so likely to offend. The agencies have notified Premiere Networks that controls most of right wing talk radio of their clients’ wishes. They will no longer air spots on Premiere Networks’ ‘offensive’ programs.

Premiere Networks is taking this very seriously. In an e-mail., provided by Radio-Info.com., sent by the media giant on Friday, a list of 98 large corporations was provided specifying that each has requested that their ads appear “only on programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial.”

Premiere provided a list of show examples: Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity. The memo went on to say that the list was not exhaustive and that additional programming will be examined. The memo states that companies like AOL, Geico, Ford, GM, McDonald’s, have indicated they want to avoid “environments likely to stir negative sentiments.”

Insiders say the loss will rock right-wing talk radio.

NO WONDER FOX IS LEAPING TO RUSH’S DEFENSE….TALK RADIO IS PART OF THEIR NETWORK OF MISINFORMATION, DISTORTION AND OUTRIGHT LIES. AND NOW THEIR FLANK IS UNDER ASSAULT. THAT SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP IS CRUCIAL IN SUPPORTING FOX’S PROPAGANDA CULTURE.

Click on the PTODE image to enlarge.

If anyone has any recommendations for changes or additions I’m always open to suggestions.

In light of the prospective deal on the debt ceiling, all of the propaganda machines are churning at full capacity, from Huffington Post to Fox News, Obama haters of all stripes and alleged political positions are joined in a chorus of furious, self-righteous bleating, like a flock of sheep with gas pains.

It’s quite a buffet of attacks to choose from, Obama betrayed Dems, was weak, outmaneuvered, is destroying the middle class, is ignorant, incompetent, a terrible negotiator, etc.

This deal marks the death of Keynesian economics, guarantees the death of the middle class, destroys Social Security and Medicare, assures a double dip recession or another Great Depression, will kill the entire bee population in the US, create an epidemic of impotency and make zombies rise from the dead to eat our brains (clearly not a threat to Republicans).

It’s easy to be a slanted pundit, just follow these easy directions:

1. Only recognize information that supports your pre-determined opinion (facts that don’t cooperate with already held opinions are not really facts, they are “Faecties”, imaginary things that only exist if you choose to believe in them).

2. Use your mind as a magnifying glass. Use it to burn those you see as ants then place it over any information that even tangentially supports your views to distort and exaggerate it and its impact on the future.

3. Never apologize. Sure, yesterday you may have said the world will blow up by the next day but just because it didn’t, that doesn’t prove you’re wrong, you may just be one day off. Instead, insist that despite claims to the contrary, the world is blowing up then quickly turn to another outrage which will surely be an even greater disaster (somehow).

4. Talk over others and ignore what they say or ask. You’ve spent all that time creatively carving up square facts to make them fit the round hole of your opinion (I’ll let you guess where it’s located), it’s just plain rude for others to interfere and insist square pegs should fit in square holes. Drown them out or wait for them to finish talking or asking questions (while ignoring what they say and instead humming the old Supertramp song to yourself, “Bloody Well Right”). When they’re done, just spout out your talking points as if they’re the answer to the question or statement you didn’t even listen to.

5. There is no such thing as “too hysterical”. Your category may be Politics but never forget that this is Show Business, emphasis on the “Show”. You’ve got to show outrage, frustration, smugness, cynicism and indignation. Often you’ll find that the day’s events thoughtlessly deprive you of legitimate reasons for giving your audience the emotional display they rely on.

That is why the InstaHowl 3000 from Outrage Manufacturing may be the most valuable investment in your career. Just input the day’s news into it, press the big red panic button and it will manufacture a variety of outrages that you can spout to whip up your audience (requires high decibels or big red fonts – not included).

Then there is the Mini-Me to this Dr. Evil, the herpes to this Black Plague…Troll Blogging.

Troll Blogging is a public pool where everyone is welcome from every part of the community to jump on in. And peeing in the pool is not only permitted, it’s encouraged.

As to the cast of characters in Troll Blogging, on the right, there are the earnest Dittoheads and Tea Partiers who have had megaphones implanted into their heads so their GOP authority figures can speak through them at will.

Then there are the paid and unpaid Arsonist Trolls who simply try to spark fires at moderate and Progressive sites to keep them busy stomping out tiny embers and disrupt their coming together to build or accomplish something.

Next are the Concern Trolls, Republican bloggers masquerading as Democrats and generously sharing their disappointment and disgust at how Obama has failed and betrayed “them” and all other Dems. They vow to never again vote for or support Obama, just as they vow to never again ride unicorns naked. These are the electronic equivalent of Trojan Horses only once inside the gates of Dem castles, they are evacuated out of the rear end of the horse.

Coming off similarly and resembling these horse’s asses are the so-called Dem Purists. They sing in chorus with Concern Trolls and are nearly indistinguishable except for the knives they leave in the backs of others.

Purists are fighting for your Democratic values…by trying to bring down the Democratic President and prepare the way for a right wing Republican to take over the White House. Only then can we return to the purity of Democratic principles and have all of them reunited in one safe place…a wish list.

After all, if there’s anything worse than not getting all the changes you want now, it’s getting more of them later. Their motto is “All or nothing!” and they’re not too sure about keeping the “All or” in there.

If President Obama killed Bin Laden, he’d be attacked for how he did it. If he passed health care reform that would insure most of the 50 million Americans who aren’t insured and those with pre-existing conditions, he’d be attacked for betraying Democratic values. If Obama saved the nation and the world from tumbling into a Great Depression through stimulus spending and loans to major industries, he’d be attacked for not doing enough. At least, that’s my guess.

For the types of people described above, Obama is playing the Purgatory version of Jeapordy, no matter how many answers you get right, you can never win.