While you were watching the royal wedding this morning...

I'm only kidding. But it's a good thing I'm only kidding. Television news this morning – I toggled between NBC and CNN while I got dressed – was a "vast wasteland" as the late Newton Minnow once put it, of frippery, tomfoolery, and royalty worship.

Hey news viewers, while you were looking at the dowdy hats of the invitees and so-called "news people" (even Meredith Viera was wearing a dumb hat) there was a major shift in diplomatic alliances in Egypt. There were people made homeless by a storm in Alabama. The economy was continuing to "recover" while real people failed to benefit from it, continuing to lose their homes and find themselves unable to get real jobs, or in some cases even "McJobs."

Did I mention that American civilization as we used to know it is slowly slipping down the drain?

But oh, we got to see replays of the first royal kiss. I mean, is that what matters or what?

Send your favorite member of the broadcast media a lump of coal.

How William and Kate’s wedding could help Tea Party Republicans destroy Social Security

It’s no secret there’s a Republican plot afoot to “recklessly slash funding to the Social Security Administration” in an attempt to jeopardize its ability “to get vital benefits into the hands of seniors and people with disabilities and provide assistance to the public.”

But how can they get away with it when so many disabled and older Americans rely on Social Security for their very survival?

In the past, Republicans created distractions. Gay marriage. Gays in the military. Abortion. Any emotional wedge issue that could get some Americans so fired up that some of us would forget about our bread and butter issues.

Now the Republican Tea-Party fringe is having an opportunity handed to it on a sterling silver platter. On April 29^th, Prince William and Kate Middleton will be getting married, and our fickle press will turn its full attention, or nearly full attention, to England.

According a piece by Nat Ives in Advertising Age, which follows the networks and the broadcast advertising dollars,

• “CBS's expansive plans include Katie Couric anchoring the evening news from London for three nights starting April 27”
• “NBC News has also introduced a free 'Royal Wedding' iPad app with hundreds of photos, more than 40 new and archival news reports, an interactive royal-family tree and a countdown to the wedding.”
• "Extensive coverage by CNN, which was less than a year old at the time of Prince Charles and Diana's wedding,” has already begun
• "'…and there's going to be so much hype, it's going to be wall-to-wall Will and Kate,’ said Brad Adgate, senior VP-research at Horizon Media. 'I could see people buying DVRs just for this or HD TV sets for the occasion.'”

And on and on. It’s a perfect opportunity for mischievous Republican bullies to put millions of Americans on a cat food diet by cutting their Social Security while the rest of us are focused on Kate's gown, which fewer and fewer of us could afford, since the middle class and working poor only get get tax increases while the rich get tax cuts.

The Republicans do their thuggish work best when the nation is distracted. This time, it’s the royals who could be doing the distracting.