Here are some essential reads for you if you are interested in seeing the seedy underbelly of two very different institutions, New Jersey and PBS.
New Jersey and PBS you say? Yes and here’s why. Well, for starters, they are both coming under increased criticism lately so the exposes are current. The other reason is that I wanted to include the polar opposites. One is so corrupt it made the setting for HBO gangster drama The Sopranos so unbelievably believable, the other is a channel we trust our children to watch to learn their ABCs.
You woke up this morning, The world turned upside down, Thing’s ain’t been the same, Since the Blues walked into town.
Something’s Rotten in the Garden State
The New Republic examines Christie’s case, he made a name as a reformer of the institutionalized corruption that New Jersey has grappled with since the days of machine politics. Yet all he ended up doing was targeting certain gears of some machines that made others even more powerful than before. He was born into it, he learned it, he used it and reveled in it. Christie is the kind of guy who, early in his career, ran a dirty ad the week before the election that was pure fabricated BS. After losing elections, he made his political name the old fashioned way, that is ironically back in vogue like it’s 1899, he was a Bush fundraiser who did so well he was simply appointed to power. This no-name lawyer with no medals on his chest became the powerful US Attorney in New Jersey. At this job he would exploit his position to target, mostly Democrats, Republicans too, however the real goal was to knock out opponents of his own agenda. This included helping certain political bosses in and around the state. As the NewRepublic puts it bosses that were “perhaps not as colorful as the old ones, but about as powerful” as the legendary Frank Hague and even Enuck “Nucky” Johnson, the basis for Boardwalk Empire.
Here is just a taste of what you are in for:
Soon after Christie took office, Essex County’s Republican executive, Jim Treffinger, was out walking his dog when seven police cruisers surrounded him. Treffinger knew he was under investigation for awarding no-show jobs to friends and extorting campaign donations in exchange for contracts. He had repeatedly offered to surrender to authorities when the time came. Instead, his wife and daughter watched from the house as he was thrown up against a car and frisked, an image that appeared in the next day’s Star-Ledger, which had been tipped off to the arrest.
If you are ready to dive into the NewRepublic expose of seedy corruption, New Jersey style, then here it is. It’s like reading the script for an episode of The Sopranos, minus the sex and violence of course. If you think I’m exaggerating, you had probably find out for yourself. They also have a cool interactive map that shows you the Good Guy / Tough Guy power plays he’s made through out the state. It is a whole hell of a lot worse than you could even imagine. The GW Bridge is just the 5 Cubans being arrested for burglary.
Hey kids! Today we are going to learn about the evils of union pensions and why good honest billionaires deserve to pay lazy union thugs like these guys in quality PBS tote bags!
Big Bird the Union Buster
Say it ain’t so Big Bird! Well actually, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Thanks to PandoDaily, you can get the gist of what’s been going over there. In fact it’s so convoluted I’m almost positive that this a conservative plot to taint PBS, and there is a whole pile of evidence to support that theory.
FAIR reports that PBS is “shifting to the right” but it gets worse. Apparently an anti-union program aired that turned out to be heavily sponsored by anti-pension billionaire John Arnold. The details have been exposed and it has both Arnold and PBS station WNET scrambling!
Revelations of a billionaire anti-pension activist being permitted to stealthily finance anti-pension content on the public airwaves evokes memories from a decade ago. That’s when the modern campaign to privatize – and plutocratize – public broadcasting first began.
Remember that whole “PBS and it’s liberal bias” talk? Well, 10 years ago, George W. Bush appointed a bunch of staunch conservatives who hate public television to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS’s chief financial arm. They began slipping in documentaries about how Rumsfeld was transforming the military in a positive light and a great case FOR the Iraq War. Pretty soon the place has been crawling with right-wingers. The likes of John McLaughlin, Peggy Noonan, Ben Wattenberg, Laura Ingraham and Larry Elder, even Tony Brown, William Bennett, Milton Friedman, Fred Barnes and Tony Snow.
So, get ready for your PBS station to bring you programs paid for by billionaire Wall Street groups and even, dare I say it, the Tea Party puppeteers themselves, the Koch Brothers. Seems like a reach? Not if you watch Nova, heavily sponsored by the David H. Koch Foundation.
It’s bad enough that the rest of television and especially broadcast journalism has become mired in for-profit stories and a rampant over use of mind-numbing materialism, these rich bastards have to have it all and ruin public television. They already control the Government, they own everything, they have everyone by the balls, it’s just not enough. It’s never enough! It is my sincere hope that this means these bastards are deeply, and I mean DEEPLY unhappy with life. Nobody deserves it more.
Thankfully, we can be comforted by the fact that PBS in prime time is dominated by shows that have been staples for 20-30 years. Shows like Masterpiece and Frontline are not in this debacle.
You can read the Pando Daily exclusive here.