Randi Rhodes:Mitch Blinks & Rupert Caves

Mitch McConnell has a plan to deal with the debt ceiling crisis (video below). Of course, the first problem with any plan from Mitch McConnell is that it’s a plan from Mitch McConnell. McConnell’s plan effectively lets Congress empower President Obama to raise the government’s borrowing limit on his own without prior Congressional approval. Yes, no Congressional approval is needed. Mitch just wants more chances to express Congressional disapproval. Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit. They don’t have any problem allowing somebody else to raise the debt limit, however—as long as they can continuously blame them. It’s not exactly kicking the can down the road. It’s more like kicking the can to somebody else and then to start yelling “Hey that guy’s kicking a filthy can around!”

McConnell’s plan would allow the president to demand up to $2.4 trillion in new borrowing authority over the next year in three separate submissions. Well, not so much “borrowing authority” as “borrowing liability.” That’s three times in an election year that Republicans could say “Look what Obama is doing with spending!” ... after they authorized him to do it. In a sense, in this standoff, Mitch McConnell blinked, which is odd, if only because Mitch McConnell never seems to blink in real life. He looks like a parrot that needs a Heimlich maneuver.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation today announced they were dropping their bid for complete control of Britain’s main satellite television broadcaster. Maybe Rupert has decided it’s easier and cheaper to hack his way in. In Britain, Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid has hacked thousands of people, from politicians and celebrities, to murdered children. In fact, if our NSA really wanted to illegally spy on the most people possible, they could hardly do better than to find a way to crack into Rupert Murdoch’s cavern of secrets. Murdoch’s minions hacked into the cell phone of a 13-year old girl who had been murdered in Britain, looking for exclusives. Murdoch may have even hacked into the cell phones of 9/11 victims as well, which is the technological equivalent of going around the bodies and rifling through their pockets. And all this time you thought that the worst thing Rupert Murdoch was responsible for was Glenn Beck.

HOUR TWO GUEST: Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio will join Randi to discuss MurdochGate.

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