The Pet Goat

Ever wonder why Bush was reading "The Pet Goat?"

Here is a link to the original New Yorker piece exposing the connection between the Bush Family, McGraw-Hill, and "No Child Left Behind."

Here are some leads I'm following:

Another Newsbusters Comment

Now they have the brilliant, talks-out-of-his-ass Neal Boortz explain why liberals can't make it on talk radio.

I can't believe none of the stalwart liberals at the site mentioned Franken's brilliant takedown of Boortz when he made a similar argument on CNN and used a totally false story about Franken as evidence.

Here's the post:

new Howard_Beale Says:
April 12, 2007 - 21:37

This isn't the first time Boortz has explained why liberals can't make it on the radio.

The first time was when he explained on CNN how he invited Al Franken to guest-host his show, and how Franken refused because he wouldn't be able to control the phone lines.

Only thing is, Boortz never made the offer to Franken.

After the network launched, Boortz appeared on Franken's show and
Franken asked him about the comment. Boortz said "if you're reading
from a transcript, that's wrong." When Franken pointed out "in context
it doesn't make sense as anything else," Boortz responded "Hey, Al,
don't get fixated on that, it's an error in the transcript or
something. I've never asked you to host the show."

Franken later dug up the actual clip from the show, so he
invited Boortz back and played that, along with Boortz's previous
comments. The clip showed the transcript was accurate, so Boortz
responded "Why are you so fixated on this, Al?" Al explained that he
takes it seriously when someone lies, especially when they lie about
him, and then lie again to cover it up. "Al, get over it," Boortz
retorted.

My latest Newsbusters comment is on the Alternative Minimum Tax.

My actual opinion as that these guys are being the willing or unwilling cogs in the right-wing media machine. All during the pushing of the initial Bush tax cut plan(s), all discussion of the Alternative Minimum Tax (A complicated tax originally aimed at the very wealthy but now hitting more and more Americans) was squelched by the Bush Administration and their allies, because they were trying to monkey with the numbers so that the cost of the tax cut wouldn't exceed the "projected" surplus. So they lied about it and now want to make an issue out of it now that the Democrats are in power and the budget is hopelessly shot to hell already.

But I've come to the opinion that being concise and a little sneaky is a better approach, so I just quoted and linked to Robert S. McIntyre, the founder of Citizens for Tax Justice, who has been dogging the Bush Administration for years on this.

Of course, the smarter ones will figure out who I'm citing and go ballistic. That might be fun. Then the stupider ones will follow. That could be funner.

Here's the comment:

Howard_Beale Says:
April 11, 2007 - 23:04

Anyone who reads Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice has seen this coming for years.

"Right now, the only people that want to know about AMT are the ones
that are paying it. It's a small segment," said Robert McIntyre,
director of Citizens for Tax Justice. "If they don't do something about
it in the next few years, you'll have a lot of people with loud voices
complaining a lot."

--That was back in July 2001