Cliven Bundy: The Real Welfare Leech

By MARC McDONALD

I don't know much about the cattle business. But I'd suspect that if one owns a cattle ranch, your biggest expense by far is buying food for your cattle.

Wingnut hero Cliven Bundy owns a prosperous cattle business. His cattle get to graze for free on publicly owned land. (That's right: all taxpayers, including you and me, are subsidizing Bundy's business). He refuses to pay the $1 million he owes the government for supplying his cattle with free food over the decades.

In short, Bundy is a government welfare leech. He can't be bothered to pay the same grazing fees that tens of thousands of other ranchers across the West pay every year.

And yet, incredibly, this right-wing asshole has the gall to criticize African-Americans for living off "government subsidies." That, in and of itself, is an outrageous lie. The vast majority of African-Americans in fact never collect any kind of government subsidies (although this is widely believed by the Rush Limbaugh crowd).

Speaking of which, Bundy's comments on African-Americans sent the previously supportive right-wing media scurrying away from Bundy on Thursday.

Which raises a question: why?

After all, the right-wing media and its wingnut followers pretty much all believe what Bundy said about African-Americans. Switch on a wingnut talk radio station on any week day and you'll hear similar views (although perhaps not as crudely or explicitly expressed). I myself have had countless discussions with right-wingers over the years and they all have expressed similar views to Bundy's.

Limbaugh, the de facto spokesman for the GOP has in fact been making racist and offensive remarks about African-Americans and other minorities for many years. So has Fox News.

And yet, Fox News, after strongly supporting Bundy earlier this month, meekly tiptoed from the whole story after Bundy's racist remarks.