How Did We Get To This Place

I rarely watch the news anymore but I happened to catch the ABC news the other night when they were reporting on the minimum wage bill coming up for a vote. Diane Sawyer was anchoring and asked the reporter (I don't recall which feminine specimen it was) what she thought the chances of it passing were or something to that effect. She stated it wasn't likely because another controversial bill had been tagged on to it. Another controversial bill, no mention what that might be, certainly not the fact that it included the Repugnicans neverending ploy to get rid of the estate tax.

Unfortunately, that's nothing compared to some of the print coverage. How about this article with the headline:

Democrats block Republican bid to raise minimum wage

Yeah, that's exactly what the issue was about, those benevolent Republicans just wanted to give the poor working stiffs a raise but the Democrats wouldn't let them.

And exactly when did it happen that an action considered vile, deplorable, depraved, egregious or any other comparable adjective could be viewed as clever:

For years, organized labor has worked hard to raise the minimum wage, while business groups have campaigned to block such a change. This week in the Senate, however, the AFL-CIO is pushing to kill the wage increase while practically the entire business lobby is demanding that it pass.

The reversal is the product of election-year politics and clever -- critics say devious -- legislative packaging that has been dubbed the "trifecta." In the same bill, senators are being asked to raise the minimum wage (the liberals' goal), cut the estate tax (the conservatives' objective) and approve a laundry list of popular, though *narrowly targeted, tax breaks.[my emphasis]

Boy, that was some memo I must have missed. *Translated that means target to the wealthiest Americans - that is a narrow grouping I suppose. Critics say devious? How the hell did we get here?