According to a review done by Semafor of ad rates for the second Republican debate, technically the second of the first loser debates, Fox News has massively discounted the price for a 30 second advertisement to run during the broadcast.

[…] Advertisers paid a premium for airtime during the first Republican presidential debate on Fox News, but it looks like they’ll be getting a major discount during round two on Wednesday night.

Semafor reviewed the rates the network shared with one prospective ad buyer for both the first and second GOP primary debates. For the first debate, the cost of a single 30-second spot topped $495,000.

But the same 30-second spot during Wednesday night’s contest would cost just over $200,000.

Another ad buyer did not share the rates for ads running during the first debate, but confirmed that Fox was charging $225,000 for 30-second ads during the broadcast immediately after the event, and $125,000 for 30-second spots during the broadcast before it. (link)

At this point in the contest, the Republican candidates who are not supporting Donald Trump are simply showcasing their own selfish connections to the business end of U.S. politics.  It really is that simple.  These are not patriots who care about our country. These are self-interested representatives of multinational corporations and business interests who are paying for them to oppose Donald Trump.

I saw the following brutal honesty shared via The Twitter which deserves some attention.

“Whenever you hear someone self-describe as a “principled conservative” to differentiate themselves from MAGA, Trump supporters, populists, and common-sense newcomers to the GOP, and urge for a return to the “golden years,” you can confidently laugh it off as blissful ignorance.

For decades, these so-called “principled conservatives” have overseen and actively participated in policymaking that has degraded the family unit, delivered losses on abortion, brought you a 10-yearlong “assault weapons ban,” and ceded greater authority over and involvement of the federal government in education.

Not satisfied with the piecemeal destruction of society that they now bitch about for clicks, these “principled conservatives” carry their feigned outrage and ideological purity to the economic realm, blindly devoting themselves to protecting the interests of global corporate giants while sacrificing American workers at the altar of “free markets.”

When faced with the consequences of their neoliberalism—the displaced workers and their families, once-great American small towns and cities in shambles, the industrial core of the country gutted, and all the social ills that emanate from these realities—the response from these upstanding moralists is to hawkishly scrutinize every dollar that could possibly go toward alleviating some of the pain and suffering they caused.

In other words, “f**k off! you aren’t my concern.”

The false devotion to “fiscal conservatism” wouldn’t be so offensive if it wasn’t so easily discarded when constructing a national security apparatus that violates your constitutional rights, launching failed trillion-dollar regime change wars, providing foreign aid to corrupt oligarchs and regimes in quid pro quo deals, and subsidizing the social welfare expenses of other countries.”  ~ JoMa

That’s a whole bunch of truth.

It’s the exact same thing we have been talking about on these pages since the 2012 fallacy of false choices.

 

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