Curious goings-on at MSNBC which IMO demand answers. It is entirely possible that a story bigger than Chris Christie and Scott Walker added together either just slipped away, or was made to "go away". And given the stakes, an answer should be demanded.
Last week Ed Schultz led his Friday show with a cartoon graphic of Sen. Bob Corker (R) TN and none other the Grover Norquist in the front seat holding up a placard containing anti-union rhetoric--representing the sudden appearance of big money and heavy hitters like Norquist to dissuade Tennessee auto workers who were meeting that night to vote on the question of unionizing or not at the first German automobile manufacturer (Volkswagen) to set up shop in America . Though Volkswagen actually preferred replication of their own worker/management model which favored unionization and a worker's council, American republican anti-union interference was palpable as billboards and radio spots were bought to push anti-union messages, imply that the UAW destroyed Detroit, and acts of vandalism were made to somehow associate unionization with President Obama (as if that itself were a damning thing). Though Ed interviewed a contingent of workers that Friday who seemed confident that the plant would go union in the vote over the week end, by Monday is was clear it was not to be. But here is where it gets quirky.
That following Monday where Ed breathed expected fire and brimstone over the defeat of unionization, the same graphic was used--the cartoon automobile with a sign sticking out of it carrying anti-union rhetoric--but completely missing was the face of chief interloper Grover Norquist. Repeatedly Ed made passionate statements of incredulity as to why a national Senator like Bob Corker or Tennessee's Governor or local republican politicians would be so roused to action to color public perception negatively about this issue in which the manufacturer was all but giving benefits and access to management Americans in other industries would love to have and some are fighting for. Ed kept coming back to the theme of "who would have the power, influence and motivation" to get these players like Corker involved when it is "unprecedented" as both Ed and his guest reasserted several times for Senators and Governors when there is no conflict whatsoever at issue between workers and management or workers and each other to raid the debate and not only spread false anti-union propaganda but "promise political retribution" against those who went along. Yes Ed. Where did all that money come from? Who would have such power to snap fingers and get the high and might to jump? And why the pace and name of Grover Norquist so utterly sanitized from the story--image deliberately redrawn out of the graphic and his name not mentioned--just Corkers and other politicos?
Considering that there is a hub of other foreign automobile manufactures which have chosen to locate in several US nearby southeastern US states but which have not chosen to offer unionization i.e. formal and cyclical dialogue with management, opportunities to get paid better, work in safer environments et al, the possibility of this Tennessee plant going Union must have set off some big "old red" alarms to the newer "red" faction in America who likes things just fine in increments of 1% versus 99. With the possible exception of the Brothers Koch, there is one figure in America who has likely worked longer and harder to usurp US power and assert such influence that it would put a king-size hair across his ass to have more unions and thus more natural support of Democrats than that of Grover Norquist.
I was struck that it was extremely unusual to see Norquist so visible in this anti-union activism while a friendly administration like Bush-Cheney is not in the White House. Could this have been his own kind of Chris Christie moment--letting his emotions get the best of him so that he varied dangerously from his long-term power script and tipped his hand with and act that hints of a crook or a criminally insane?
Norquist is vulnerable for the massive but clever scheme which has allowed him to all but replace the republican party in Congress with buffoons and reckless ideologues by virtue of his "anti-tax pledge" scheme that has brought about the "republican on republican" extortion using right wing partisan media as "lean-on" weapon of choice. It has has grown up these last 17 years--hand-in-brass-knuckles to Norquist for culling republicans of independent mind to fill republican Congress with Loius Gohmert-like dullards and "let's see-what-happens-when we-default gamblers who jump when he [Norquist] snaps his fingers. All but a few still around from the stone age signed away there souls a long time earlier to Norquist for a chance tor run for republican office and it didn't seem to need more than half a snap of one of Norquist's fingers to get Bob Corker doing the Tennessee two-step in acting out of character in areas not usually. his bailiwick.
But what was with MSNBC--and Ed Schultz of all people--doing letting Norquist off the hook--Norquist's image just didn't fall out of the cartoon graphic. It was artfully removed. And where on Friday, Ed all but called Norquist out for his all-hands-on-deck turn out in Tennessee to crack the whip--and make no mistake the whip was cracked, the Monday following the weekend vote where we'd learn the tally, it was as it Norquist had never been mentioned. Ed asked time and time again how could this happen? and who has the power to intimidate US Senators? Yet the answer he had sitting right there in the cartoon had been airbrushed away. Coincidence? Ed Schultz?
While the press--right, center and left--all have taken the bait in some measure or another that the 100% republican contrarianism is all about hating on Obama because of his ethnicity or color or exotic name or w/e, no one gets that kind of unity in opposition but someone with whose cooperation, equals disloyalty to a criminal gang who answering to is worse than torture. It usually starts with being thrown to Limbaugh, chewed up and spit out for the rest of the right wing buzzards on the couch to peck away at one's purity of loyalty to the cause. If that happens to look like hating Obama and also hating the Democratic agenda are one in the same, it serves this Norquist--anti-tax-scheme Republican party take-over, where it has been admitted that starving the government of taxes will weaken it until it can be drowned in a bath tub, that it look better just being Obama hate. Less people will realize it is crime and not just hate and that it can be defeated if it crime and not just racism.
But what on Earth happened with MSNBC, and especially the Ed Show. Could Norquist be-airbrushed out and the rhetoric completely changed on the show as if he was never there? I find it hard to believe. I know if the choice comes down to principles of pay check, Ed will take the pay check. Going fishing is more important to him than being POTUS. He's said so several times. But that's his reality and one can't begrudge him for that. Ed made a good case why the Labor Relations Board should look into the apparent intimidation and re-rerun the vote. But very conspicuously missing was any mention or depiction of Grover Norquist--although there were many wonderings allowed what would have prompted Sen Corker to insert himself into this issue so uncharacteristically. And why would the governor throw himself into the fray as well?
No one had an answer. No guest speaker, No one. One would think that at least with the rare appearance of the man Grover Norquist, as well as the sudden appearance of money to put up billboards and run radio adds (and god knows what all else into the private phones of towns people), that no mention of Norquist or these resources ever being there was ever made.
Norquist so worried that he has no sway with democrats personally went to Tennessee to make sure everything that could be done to crush this unionization was done and that the fear it might spread to the neighboring automobile plants indeed get the proper push away from any sway toward union and the people with the most incentive to bring Norquist under the scrutiny of American justice. Ed Schultz asked about possible legal recourse against Senate intrusion to into such a matter of clear freedom to choose unionization extended by a private employer. But why not the simple question of legal recourse against interfering opportunists who hold no elected office--especially one who has been so successful at fooling Americans that his "anti-tax pledge is about taxes that they fail to make the connection to the fact that it also starve the federal government until it is weak enough to "drown in a bath tub"--making democracy a facade whilst the winner throws all progressive achievements into the same bonfire.
If Rachel Maddow, Steve Kornacki. Chris Hayes Lawrence O'Donnell can peck away at that the giant behemoth terrorizing New Jersey to the point that he's lost the thunder and smoke so many fell for, I beg, I beseech, I ask on bended knee with head held low, please don't let this smarter monster, Grover Norquist, evade this mistake of showing his power and what he uses it for. Norquist is the one who has re-written the lines between politics and crime all on his own--cornering our POTUS into one man-made pseudo-crises after another. No one has usurped more power. And the thought of unions one again voting for democrats was enough to smoke him out of his hole. Make him pay. Christie is already over. Let the law do what it will with him. Public enemy number one's own temper has made him visible--and is there an attempt to make that seem like it never happened. I would think Schultz to be in on it, but he has to take orders sometimes to get a pay check. It is showing?