Fox News Lies: Obama’s Christmas Tree Tax

It’s Wednesday morning, the day after Election Day. A number of significant issues were decided yesterday including the repeal of an anti-union law in Ohio, the defeat of an anti-choice “personhood” initiative in Mississippi, and the recall of State Senator Russell Pearce (the author of the anti-immigrant bill) in Arizona. But what made it to the top of the Fox Nation web site?

Fox Nation

That’s right. The Fox Nationalists virtually ignored the electoral results. In fact, the only item they ran was one about the Ohio contest, but you had to count down 18 stories before you found it. FoxNews.com also featured the Xmas tax story just below their headline about disgraced coach Joe Paterno.

The story that trumped the election (and all other breaking news, including Herman Cain’s press conference) concerned a fifteen cent tax on Christmas trees that Fox’s headline labeled “Obama’s” tax. As usual, Fox’s reporting was somewhat less than credible.

The tax was actually a fee requested by the National Christmas Tree Association during the Bush administration. It was passed by a Republican controlled Senate and House, and was co-sponsored by John Boehner. It’s purpose was to fund research into, and promotion of, the Christmas tree industry which had been struggling to compete with artificial trees imported from China.

It was this pro-business, American job supporting, Republican legislation, that Fox chose to turn into a political cudgel with which to bash the President. It is this fee, that was proposed and supported by growers to enhance the image and sales of live Christmas trees, that Fox is implying is anti-Christian. And at the same time Fox has deployed this phony story to divert attention away from the news that conservatives had been slaughtered at the polls.

Fox has completely given up even pretending that they are engaging in honest journalism. How can any thinking person continue to regard Fox as a legitimate news enterprise?

[Update] Fox Nation updated their web site with late breaking news that pushed the Christmas Tree Tax story out of their headline position. Did they replace it with election results or Italy’s debt/political crisis? Nope. The new headline story is “Jon Stewart Makes Mincemeat Out of Jon Corzine.”

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9 thoughts on “Fox News Lies: Obama’s Christmas Tree Tax

    • Why do you hate America, with your Chinese-made tree? I support America by going a half mile from my house and purchasing a fresh tree from a small tree farm, owned by an American, who replenishes his cut trees with newly grown ones.

      • Because I like a pre-lit Christmas tree – don’t come to my house if you’re offended. it’s possible it wasn’t made in China – I purchased it many years ago at an after Christmas sale – it’s awesome.

  1. Honest journalism? Why not check your own facts. Bush was not in office in 2009, which is when the industry requested this program. See the NCTA website. (“This program was requested by the industry in 2009 and has gone through two industry-wide comment periods during which 565 comments were submitted from interested parties.”)

  2. It is a full time job tracking all the lies Fox puts out. Wait for this to show up on Bill O’Reilly’s annual “war on Christmas” hoax.

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