Tax Dodger Network Blasts Taxpayer

On MSNBC last night, Rachel Maddow reported on President Trump's 2005 tax return which she had in hand.  It turns out that Trump paid taxes!  Yes, he paid $38 million on $150 million of income, which is about 25%.  That is a higher percentage than MSNBC Corporate owner, Comcast (24%), President Obama (19%), or Bernie Sanders (13%).  Why was this newsworthy?

 

And then I came across this article and thought about only those without sin may cast stones.  It turns out that quite a few people at MSNBC have had tax problems.  Reverend Al Sharpton leads the pack with $1.5 million in back taxes to both New York and the federal government.  Former host Toure had a long run of tax troubles from 2008 to 2012 for a quarter of a million dollars.  Former host Melissa Harris-Perry was into the feds for $70K in 2015.  Chris Matthews had a $4,000 lien placed on him by the state of Maryland last year.  The guy earns $5 million a year.  Supposing that he works 50 hour weeks and only takes a couple weeks of vacation a year, that works out to $2,000 an hour.  How do you let a 2 hour tax problem spiral to the point that the state of Maryland imposes a lien?  There is a story I would like to see reported, especially since this is a guy who demands the rich pay more since they don't need it.

 

The point of this story was to get ratings for Maddow.  She is currently skyrocketing and this will likely have been a ratings homerun.  Such is short term thinking.  How many anti-Trumpers watched with anticipation of a Trump-crushing scandal to be revealed only to find out that he made a lot of money and paid a lot of taxes on it?  The tax return in no way supported the conspiracy theory she outlined before the big reveal.

A Tale of Two Mothers

On April 4, 2004, Specialist Casey Sheehan of the US Army volunteered for a quick reaction force to rescue American Troops in Iraq.  He was killed during this action.  His mother, Cindy Sheehan, blamed President George W. Bush for his death.  Through the rest of his presidency, the activities of Cindy Sheehan were reported regularly: she spent a month camping outside Bush's Crawford ranch, she visited Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, she appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews, she protested at the State of the Union.  The death of her son conferred 'absolute moral authority' to Cindy Sheehan, so said Maureen Dowd.

On September 11, 2012, US Foreign Service IM Officer Sean Smith was killed in Benghazi, Libya.  The attack was initially described as a riot gone out of control in reaction to an internet video.  Latter information, including emails from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, demonstrated that the video had never been the cause.  Pat Smith, Sean's mother, blames Hillary for her son's death.  However, whereas Cindy Sheehan was celebrated by the media, Pat Smith has been fact checked and even had Nathaniel Friedman of GQ claim he "would like to beat her to death."

 

What should be obvious is that the totally unbiased media promoted a grieving mother who set out to attack a Republican but attacked a grieving mother who set out to attack a Democrat.  No bias at all.