John Birch Society

The Takeover Of Major News Media By The Koch Brothers A Menace To Journalism!

Ronald 23 Comments

Charles and David Koch, the infamous Koch Brothers, who promote libertarianism to the extreme, wanting no government regulation of business, and sponsors of the Tea Party Movement, as their dad was the promoter of the John Birch Society in the 1960s, are now attempting to buy up a whole group of newspapers that are in financial trouble, and need buyers to survive.

These newspapers include:

The Los Angeles Times
The Chicago Tribune
The Baltimore Sun
The Orlando Sentinel
The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
The Hartford Courant

These six papers and three smaller ones are all under Tribune ownership, which is in receivership, and it seems likely that these right wing extremists will come to control the fourth and ninth largest newspapers in the nation (Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune), as well as the others, and in so doing, will destroy American journalism as we know it!

Added on to the control of Fox News Channel and Rupert Murdoch over the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, it means we will see a growing extreme rightward tilt in news coverage, and the end of independent,, muckraking journalism over time!

This Koch Brothers takeover will deal a death blow to the distinguished field of news coverage, and all of us will be the losers, if that event, which seems likely, occurs!

Speaker Of The House John Boehner Removes Hard Line Conservatives From House Budget Committee And House Financial Services Committee

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Speaker of the House John Boehner, faced with a Tea Party caucus that has made life miserable for him, and held the country hostage on the issue of tax increases, has summarily removed four “troublemakers” from their positions of power on the House Budget Committee and the House Financial Services Committee.

This was a courageous act on his part, but it could portend a revolt, whereby the Tea Party Caucus could refuse to vote for Boehner next month to be Speaker, as the new Congress convenes on Thursday, January 3.

The House leadership under Boehner, including Majority Leader Eric Cantor, is backing Boehner in his actions, but one has to wonder what this means in reality when that vote for Speaker arrives in a month.

It is, however, a good sign that Boehner understands that some kind of deal with the Obama Administration is necessary to avoid going off the fiscal cliff before the end of the month.

But ti also portends a difficult time for Boehner, having to deal in the future with the far right wingnuts in his party, who, as has been described by others as the inheritors of the John Birch Society of the 1960s and after, were repudiated by conservative columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., publisher of the National Review, then and still the leading conservative journal of opinion.

Where is a man of courage and principles in the conservative movement today, to repudiate today’s wingnuts, in the mode of Buckley?

Revival Of The John Birch Society At The Upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference

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The upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference in February will be co-sponsored by an organization thought to be dormant, if not extinct–the infamous John Birch Society formed in 1958 to fight the “ongoing Communist conspiracy”.

This despicable organization opposed flouridation of the water supply and the desegregation of public schools as “Communist conspiracies”. They accused all government agencies of being filled with Communists.

Also, the John Birch Society called for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, and called President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey part of the “great Communist conspiracy”!

Can one possibly imagine that such an organization with Joseph McCarthy type rhetoric and tactics AFTER the fall of McCarthy would be permitted to co-sponsor CPAC, where most Republican politicians planning to run for President regularly appear and speak?

How will such Republican luminaries as Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and others explain their appearances before a conference backed and supported by such a disreputable organization?

It will certainly be an interesting time to see who agrees to appear and whether they will go along with the propaganda that this disgraceful organization has been promoting for the past fifty years.

Is a new Joseph McCarthy in the offing, as a result of this upcoming CPAC? We shall see! 🙁