Monday, April 23, 2012

WTHR Channel 13 and the Problem of Context

Funny that WTHR Channel 13 is running ads for the latest bit of “investigative journalism” by Bob Segall, concerning the possibility that “illegal” immigrants are getting huge tax refunds. I thought the right-wing argument was that undocumented people weren’t paying taxes in the first place—that they were just leaching resources away from the people who are here legally, without giving anything back to the system? Hell, what about the argument that they’re even undocumented to begin with? You have to have at least some documents in order to file a tax return, and you also have to have paid money into the system, in the form of payroll taxes, to get something back in the form of a refund.

Oh, wait. Hang on. You mean there’s some kind of loophole in the tax code? Like the kind of loophole that lets someone like Mitt Romney pay an effective tax rate of 15.4%? That kind of loophole? That’s okay? Loopholes that work in favor of right-wing people (or whatever the fuck kind of spineless yes massa Mitt Romney is) are okay, but the ones that work for other people aren’t?

And who helped the illegal immigrants figure out the loopholes so they could file their returns and get all of this unearned money back? You don’t really expect me to believe that these people are going home at night and poring over the tax code, figuring out ways to cheat us gringos out of our money, do you? Then again, maybe you do expect me to believe that. The whole fucking tribe of you are brain-dead rednecks. You probably think that everyone also believes that the babies women have after they get impregnated by their rapists are “gifts from God.”

But back to this stupid tax loophole shit. Who helped the “illegal” immigrants get their documents together and file the tax returns so they could get back all this money that they don’t have any right to? As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m pretty liberal—but am I really supposed to believe that this whole thing is being pulled off by people who are in this country illegally? That a group composed solely of “illegal” immigrants is defrauding the Internal Revenue Service, to the tune of billions of dollars?

Male bovine fecal matter. And if it’s not true that it’s solely “illegal” immigrants pulling this off, then why put the onus solely on them? (Probably because this is Indiana, and most of the people in this backward state believe anything they’re told, even when it’s patently false. How many of you monkeys still think President Obama isn’t an American?) But I am actually sort of curious to see how much context they will put into the story when it airs, this Thursday, April 26, 2012. I won’t be holding my breath. Just about all the right-wing arguments that demonize undocumented people are rooted in fear and racism and have absolutely no merit whatsoever (which is pretty much the stock in trade of all right-wing policy and thought). The other thing about this that pisses me off is the timing of it. If this is such a massive problem, and is costing taxpayers so much money, why is it just now coming to light? Or, more to the point, why is it coming to light specifically on Thursday, April 26, 2012?

Because that’s the start of the May television ratings sweeps. I strongly doubt whether the story has any real merit to it, but I have absolutely no doubt that it’s being shit out of WTHR’s asshole at the exact time it is so that they can boost their ratings, and thereby squeeze more money out of their advertisers. In fact, that’s the only time I ever hear Bob Segall’s name—his “investigative” reports always hit the air around ratings time. Every. Single. Time. That should raise some concern about his credibility, but I’m sure nobody else cares. This is Indiana.

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