“We have an extraordinary political opportunity here,” said the always-puffed-up MSNBC host Ed Schultz to his guest, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, the most progressive guy in the Senate by a wide margin.
Schultz was pushing, as Sanders is, a single-payer national health plan, which would do away with the parasitic insurance companies. Big Ed says the public is overwhelmingly in favor of single payer, though I’m not so sure. (I do hope so. I lived in Canada, and it’s the ONLY way to go).
“You’re forgetting one thing, Ed,” cautioned Sanders. Schultz guessed wrong. Sanders: “It’s the enormous power of the insurance companies to pour money into Congresional coffers.”
True. But let’s take it one step further, Senator — to the biggest problem of all here: The broadcasters.
This is where this lobbyist money — about 90 % of it — will ultimately end up. To buy political TV ads to get re-elected.
And this is certainly not a story you’ll hear on any broadcast or major cable network, for obvious reasons.
First-rate radio talk host Thom Hartmann puts it best:
“Imagine you’re a member of Congress,” the radio talker said. “Every morning you wake up, you have to raise $20,000.”
So, if we have a Parliament of Whores, and we assuredly do, blame the broadcasters for all that political air time they’re allowed to sell — instead of being required as a condition of license to give it away.
These are the same people who don’t have to pay a dime for broadcast licenses.
Hell, you and I have to pay at least 30 bucks for a driver’s license.
Don’t get me started on the broadcast license-holding weasels…