Just reading a great Paul Krugman column where he notes that when traditional economics theory is ignored, disaster will follow. And as an addendum he notes that once the disaster happened, continuing to ignore traditional economic theory has led to a really lousy recovery. Where traditional theory would call for stimulus and government jobs, the shiny new theories call for austerity. This is the economic theory that George H. W. Bush called “voodoo” economics. I would prefer to call it “comic economics” because it is such a joke.

These comic economics have led Europe into a double-dip recession with little thought of changing direction. So the Europeans dig themselves deeper and deeper into a bad hole led by the likes of David Cameron and Angela Merkl. Yet on the other side of the globe Japan seems to be creating an economic miracle using old fashioned methods.

Another small economic miracle is beginning in California where huge Democratic majorities have thrown off the shackles of tax restraints and the government is out of the hole and the the economy is growing. Yet the national government is still divided and we are now beginning to impose the hard parts of austerity (called Sequester) here. The poor in the US are really getting hit hard and are hurting. Democrats know this is certainly the wrong way to go, but nothing will change until Republicans are voted out. Republicans have made it quite clear that is the only thing that could cause change.

I bring all this up because the economy and jobs are the very basic things that our country is built around. In the case of the US, Republican obstruction should be the major part of the story. But it is barely covered. The reason is simple – Republicans own most of the media and essentially dictate what media will cover. So at a time when when a good, free media should be giving tons of ink to the economy we are getting fabricated stories of Presidential incompetence, thus diverting coverage of the real story.

This week we have had story after story of what might have happened in Benghazi, even though we have heard from most parties and the story is what the Administration said. The story has been corroborated, and then reverified by raw emails. Nearly he same is true in the so called IRS scandal and in the so-called AP scandal. The story in those cases is that of some over zealous lower level bureaucrat forced to lead an organization because Republicans refuse to let Obama’s nominees go forward.

Thus the two real scandals are first that Republicans have decimated the executive branch of the government by refusing to accept Obama’s nominees thus making it extremely tough to run a government. They have also done the same with the judicial branch.

And there lies the second real scandal. Republicans have decimated the government, they have obstructed every administration move to create jobs, they have cut funding for the poorest among us and will do so next year when Obamacare kicks in, and have generally done all they can to subvert the duly elected government of the United States. Sounds like treason doesn’t it?

This was the reason that the press was given total freedom in the bill of rights. The press was supposed to be the fourth estate of government – a nettlesome group ready to point out government failure. Yet today our press stands as little more than a highly paid secretarial pool running away from the real stories and acting as unquestioning stenographers for their bosses. They have abdicated the most precious status in the world of the press. They and their corporate owners have done a great deal of harm to America.

So while the very fabric of the country is being torn apart, our media chases silly rumors of falsified emails trying to create a scandal. They shine their lights in directions away from the real stories that need to be told.