Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Painfully Desperate And Stupid Attack On Elizabeth Warren

Posted by Mark NC on May 11, 2014 at 12:05 pm. 8 Comments :

By now everyone with a pulse knows that Fox News is an unabashed mouthpiece for the Republican Party and their Tea-sotted radicalism. So it is not much of a surprise when they brazenly twist, mutilate, and ignore facts to advance their conservative agenda. However, every now and then the unparalleled idiocy of the Fox Nation editors still manages to boggle the mind.

When GOP Speaker John Boehner announced the formation of the House Select Committee to Shamelessly Politicize Benghazi, his GOP comrades immediately set out to profit from the affair by cravenly soliciting donations based on their starkly partisan scandal mongering. It was a nauseating display of disrespect for the seriousness of the subject and the tragic loss of American lives. Numerous media reports properly criticized Republicans for this act of political opportunism and greed. So what does Fox News do about it?

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That’s right. Fox attempts to turn the tables on their critics and accuse Democrats of similarly callous fundraising. But instead, this wild swing at Sen. Elizabeth Warren demonstrates the desperation and stupidity of the right, more than any malfeasance by Warren.

The example of alleged fundraising by Warren offered by Fox News, on their hopelessly lie-riddled Fox Nation website, consisted solely of an image taken from Warren’s website where she wrote a blog post about the new GOP Benghazi committee. Fox’s article was sourced to the ultra-rightist Washington Free Beacon, a Republican run and Koch brothers affiliated organization. On her blog Warren noted that she had previous experience with committee chair Trey Gowdy’s aggressive ignorance when he was a member of the committee that interviewed her with regard to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. On the formation of the Benghazi panel she said…

“The House GOP is on a waste-of-time-and-resources witch hunt and fundraising sideshow, shamefully grasping for any straw to make President Obama, former Secretary Clinton, or Secretary Kerry look bad.”

The supposed proof that Warren was using Benghazi to raise money was the presence of links on her website to a donations page. However, those links had nothing to do with the article she wrote on Benghazi. They are a part of her website’s standard template and appear on every page on the site. Any sixth-grader knows this about the Internet, but that’s apparently too high a bar for Fox News.

Now compare that to the manner in which Republicans explicitly tied their fundraising to Benghazi. The images below were taken from the official pages of the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And they were not some standard template page, but the actual donations page for each site.

Note that these pages directly refer to Benghazi in making their plea for cash. For instance, the RNC page says “Thanks for standing with us and demanding the truth about Benghazi.” The NRCC page says of their donors that “You’re now a Benghazi Watchdog” (whatever that is). And the NRSC says to “donate today” because “You’re being lied to about Benghazi.” In each case the connection between Benghazi and the donation was flagrantly obvious. As opposed to the references on Warren’s site which were incidental and unrelated to her commentary.

Trying to assert that there is something in common with Warren’s page and those of the GOP says more about the desperation of the Republican Party to counter the criticisms that they so richly deserve. It also affirms the low esteem with which they regard their followers if they believe that such an ignorant argument can be persuasive. And if the leading Republican institutions think that their party members are this stupid, then what should the rest of us think?

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Benghazi-Palooza: The New York Times Nails The Republican Circus

Posted by Mark NC on May 10, 2014 at 11:50 am. 9 Comments :

Something has gotten into the water at the New York Times. This week they published an editorial that is not only rich in facts and substance, it is entertaining and persuasive. The headline announced an excursion into the “Center Ring at the Republican Circus.” And the opening paragraph may be the best introduction to a Times editorial ever:

“The hottest competition in Washington this week is among House Republicans vying for a seat on the Benghazi kangaroo court, also known as the Select House Committee to Inflate a Tragedy Into a Scandal. Half the House has asked to ‘serve’ on the committee, which is understandable since it’s the perfect opportunity to avoid any real work while waving frantically to right-wing voters stomping their feet in the grandstand.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The Times’ editorial board appears to have hired some writers with both insight and humor. They correctly note that the committee is an unambiguous fraud whose members are only concerned with promoting a manufactured scandal and, of course, themselves. The article goes on to say that the GOP Congress…

“…won’t pass a serious jobs bill, or raise the minimum wage, or reform immigration, but House Republicans think they can earn their pay for the rest of the year by exposing nonexistent malfeasance on the part of the Obama administration.”

The newly appointed chair of the committee, Trey Gowdy, recently proved that he is unfit to lead a fair hearing when he admitted that his party runs the House in a brazenly biased manner. Discussing whether another committee should call expert witnesses to determine whether Lois Lerner waived her 5th Amendment rights, Gowdy said “Let me take out all of the drama. We would pick three that said she waived, and they would pick one that said she didn’t. I hate to do a spoiler, but that’s the way that hearing would go.”

Shameless self-promotion…
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In other words, he is admitting that the GOP-run House would stack the deck in their own favor. So why bother discussing it with experts. That’s a preview of how he can be expected to run the Benghazi committee. And with regard to that IRS pseudo-scandal, the Times continued to needle the scandal mongering of the GOP, saying that Lerner is the person that…

“…they would love to blame for the administration’s crackdown on conservative groups, if only they could prove there was a crackdown, which they can’t, because there wasn’t.”

In addition, the Times couldn’t let the right-wing’s previous obsession with ObamaCare go unmentioned just because it didn’t happen to mark the commencement of Armageddon like they predicted/hoped. So the article noted the GOP’s…

“…need to rouse the most fervent anti-Obama wing of the party and keep it angry enough to deliver its donations and votes to Republicans in the November elections. For a while it seemed as if the Affordable Care Act would perform that role, but Republicans ran into a problem when the country began to realize that it was not destroying American civilization but in fact helping millions of people.”

Finally, the editorial concluded with the correct advice for wavering Democrats:

“Democrats who are now debating whether to participate in the committee shouldn’t hesitate to skip it. Their presence would only lend legitimacy to a farce.”

I can’t remember the last time I read an editorial in the Times that was so spot on in its analysis and delivered with such punch. I hope this wasn’t an aberration or the work of a ghost editor who has since faded back into the ether. We need more of this kind of commentary. And we need it from more than just the New York Times.

Tea Party Congressman Thinks There’s A Conspiracy To Silence Glenn Beck

Posted by Mark NC on May 9, 2014 at 1:09 pm. 4 Comments :

Texas representative Louie Gohmert has made a spectacle of himself on too many occasions to count. Some of his Hall of Shame achievements include demanding that Secretary of State John Kerry resign before he brings God’s judgment down on America; warning that marriage equality will take the country down the road to the dustbin of history; calling for the arrest of Attorney General Eric Holder; asserting that ObamaCare will lower life expectancy in the US; and advocated raising taxes on the poor. And that’s only a sampling.

Yesterday Gohmert participated in a hearing on the Comcast/Time Warner cable merger. There are many reasons why that deal should not be allowed to proceed. It would create an anti-competitive monolith with unparalleled power over cable television and the Internet. It would also impair customer service and lead to higher prices. But Gohmert found an angle to question the merger that only he could have dreamed up. He believes that Comcast is engaged in a conspiracy to silence Glenn Beck.

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Gohmert: “Al Gore was pushing the sale of Current TV, and Glenn Beck, the Blaze were trying to buy it. And it was reported that Al Jazeera wanted to get their Sharia law push into the United States, and they were willing to pay big bucks, regardless of whether they had oil and carbon all over the money. They were willing to pay big dollars but they wouldn’t do the deal unless Comcast was willing to keep them in its list of networks provided. So it was reported Comcast agreed, so Al Gore got all that oil and carbon based money. And then, that kept Glenn Beck off the air of Comcast.”

The allegation that it was “reported” that Al Jazeera wanted to push Sharia law in the U.S. was supported nowhere in Gohmert’s remarks – or reality. Furthermore, Comcast had nothing to do with who Gore sold his network to. Hypocrites like Gohmert develop sudden aversions to their vaunted free market if it interferes with their liberal bashing. And while Gohmert is aghast that Gore did business with a network based in Qatar, an American ally, he has no problem with a network owned by a disgraced Australian and a Saudi prince (yeah, that’s Fox News).

But the loopiest part of Gohmert’s tirade was his condemnation of Gore’s oil and carbon soaked money. That’s coming from a Texas congressman who himself is drenched in fossil fuels. What must his constituents think of that characterization? And never mind that Al Jazeera is an award-winning international news network that has more coverage of climate change than any American news network. And there’s still more…

Gohmert: “I’m wondering how strong the feeling within Comcast of their fiduciary duty to stockholders is for monetary gain as opposed to political achievement of keeping conservatives off the air. We’ve heard the discussion of rurals not being part of the push by Comcast. And I get that. Why would Comcast want people who cling to God and their guns.”

First of all, it may be a symptom of acute dementia to accuse Comcast of keeping conservatives off the air. It is, after all, a cable operator that currently offers programs starring Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, and the Duck Dynasty dimwits. And let’s not forget Fox News and Fox Business. Gohmert insists that Comcast is opposed to gun-toting evangelicals, and that is what is behind their snubbing of Glenn Beck. However, they have a much better reason. They know that Beck was fired by Fox News because his juvenile, racist, and hostile brand of conspiracy theorizing drove away all of his advertisers. Comcast is a for-profit corporation and they are not about to carry a nutcase whose channel will lose money and possibly hurt the advertising revenue of other Comcast channels.

Shameless self-promotion…
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There’s another unseemly factor in Gohmert pitching for Beck’s lame video blog to become a real cable channel. A few weeks ago Beck was pushing Gohmert’s political career and trying to draft him to run for the senate. Beck frequently features Gohmert on his radio program and regularly praises him on the air. Yesterday Gohmert was paying him back.

What’s The Difference Between Wealthy (Koch) Republicans And (Soros) Democrats?

Posted by Mark NC on May 8, 2014 at 5:36 pm. 9 Comments :

The billionaire Koch brothers have been corrupting democracy for decades. Their labyrinthine web of front groups toil 24/7 to distort the facts on issues like climate change, voter suppression, gun control, and taxes. And if that collection of topics sounds familiar, it’s because the Kochs almost single-handedly created the Tea Party (with PR help from Fox News) to push their views on those subjects unto a gullible sector of the American populace.

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One of the right’s favorite knee-jerk responses to criticisms of the Kochs is to point to wealthy Democrats who contribute to candidates and causes that lean more to the liberal side of the political spectrum and claim that the Koch’s critics are hypocrites. However, there have always been some obvious distinctions between the right and left wing upper-crusters. The false argument of equivalency falls flat when given scrutiny.

For one thing, the Republican rich can usually be found bankrolling people and projects that benefit them personally or professionally. Thus the Kochs’ fixation on opposing unions and denying climate change is closely aligned with their exploitative and polluting business interests. Well-off Dems, on the other hand, commonly finance more philanthropic endeavors (civil rights, environment, aid to the poor) that aim to improve the quality of life without necessarily enriching themselves.

It is also notable that conservatives advocate for less regulation of money in politics, creating an environment where the rich get ever more power to bend society to their will. Liberals, conversely, spend more of their cash on trying to remove money from politics. As an example, it was conservatives, including the Kochs, who pushed for Citizens United so that they could fund their self-serving projects without restrictions or even identification. But Jonathan Soros, the son of the right’s favorite wealthy liberal George Soros, created the Friends of Democracy PAC, a SuperPAC aimed at ending the influence of SuperPACs.

A new survey was just published that affirms these distinctions between the rightist rich and the lefty leisure class. Conducted by the Spectrem Group for CNBC (Wall Street’s cable news network) the Millionaire Survey “polled 514 people with investable assets of $1 million or more, which represents the top 8 percent of American households.” Among the sometimes surprising findings was that more than half of the respondents agreed that “inequality of wealth in our nation is a major problem.” Also, 64% favored higher taxes on the rich. A similar number (63%) support an increase in the minimum wage. And only 13% said that unemployment benefits should be reduced. Remember, these are all millionaires in this survey.

Digging a little deeper into these numbers, another interesting trend takes shape. It turns out that there is a marked difference in the views expressed by the millionaire class depending on their political affiliation.

“Democratic millionaires are far more supportive of taxing the rich and raising the minimum wage. Among Democratic millionaires, 78 percent support higher taxes on the wealthy, and 77 percent back a higher minimum wage. That compares with 31 percent and 38 percent, respectively, for Republicans.”

So the breakdown reveals that it is the Democratic wealthy who are the most conscientious and concerned about their country and their fellow citizens. While the Republican rich are selfishly and characteristically concerned mainly with themselves. It’s the difference between Patriotic Millionaires and Ayn Rand sociopaths. That’s not a particularly surprising revelation, but it is nevertheless useful to see it validated by hard data.

Fox News: Fair And Balanced? A Great Point If It Were True

Posted by Mark NC on May 8, 2014 at 10:12 am. 7 Comments :

Every now and then Fox News blurts out tiny, but perceptible, snippets of truth, often when they don’t even realize it. Such a moment occurred yesterday on The Five as Eric Bolling (of the Bloody Hand) launched into an error-riddled tirade against the Obama administration’s remarks following the terrorist attack in Benghazi.

Fox News Great Point

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In the course of Bolling’s frothy outrage, he sought to illustrate his point that Obama, whose administration is responsible for capturing or killing more terrorists than Bush ever imagined, is weak on terror with a reference to the deadly raid on Osama Bin Laden. Here is the delightfully loopy exchange between Bolling and his co-host Dana Perino:

Bolling: There’s one more piece of this. Don’t forget this was prior, PRIOR, to Osama Bin Laden being taken down. And the thought was, is President Obama going into the election soft of terror or not? And a lot of people are saying [to Perino] It was after?
Perino: Much after. Yeah, a year.
Bolling: OK, I take it back.
Perino: A great point if it were true.

Indeed. What a great point that would have been if hadn’t been made up by an imbecile who doesn’t even bother to check the most basic facts. This was not a careless mistake in the course of an unrehearsed discussion. Bolling was reading from a prepared text. And the casual dismissal of his flagrant blunder, that he would simply “take it back,” demonstrates the lack of seriousness he has for factual reporting. It’s that cavalier attitude that Stephen Colbert highlighted last night (video below) when addressing the same segment and Perino’s odd compliment that the point would be great, but for the triviality that it was false:

Colbert: That’s undeniable. A great point and a fantastic new motto: Fox News. Fair and balanced. A Great point if it were true. Still I’ve gotta give a wag of my finger to Dana Perino. Why did you correct him? Bolling was pulling a passionate heartfelt conspiracy theory straight out of his ass. You don’t interrupt a man in mid yank. That’s rude.

Ordinarily, no one on Fox News is corrected that quickly (or at all) when they make ridiculous mistakes or tell obvious lies. That’s because their mission is to spread disinformation, not to inform. Bolling’s commentary was a part of Fox’s standard operating procedure and, if anything, Perino was off script and likely rebuked for her correction after the show. But Fox has recovered their composure and restored their focus on defaming Obama and the Democrats. As evidence of this, note the segment that aired this morning that brought all of the current Fox-hyped pseudo-scandals together in one package:

Fox News GOP Links Dems

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is the segment from the Colbert Report:

You’ll Never See This IRS/Tea Party Story On Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on May 6, 2014 at 4:46 pm. 3 Comments :

Ever since recidivist criminal Darrell Issa (R-Mouthbreather) began his inquisition against President Obama, he has repeatedly tried to poison public opinion by selectively releasing information intended to cast a negative pall on the President and his administration. As chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Issa led partisan witch hunts into an array of phony scandals including Fast and Furious, Benghazi, ObamaCare, and the alleged targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS.

With regard to the IRS matter, a report published this morning by USA Today revealed yet another case that demonstrates just how deceitful the Issa panel has been. The article states that “39 IRS and Treasury officials deny White House targeting.”

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To be clear, this story is disclosing the testimony of 39 witnesses who were interviewed in closed sessions, all of whom told the committee that there was never any effort by the White House, or anyone else, to influence them in the conduct of their official duties to insure that organizations seeking tax-exempt status were entitled to the designation. Every single one of the witnesses called before the committee said the same thing. Yet Issa withheld the testimony of these witnesses from the public until Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, made them available today.

This is typical of the way Issa manages his charge as a committee chair. When he isn’t tyrannically censoring his congressional colleagues, he is releasing snippets of data that make the President or Democrats look bad. Then when the full transcript is released it becomes apparent that Issa lied. In the meantime Fox News has already plastered their air with the falsely abridged reports, which they never bother to correct when the truth eventually comes out. This makes the response by Issa’s deputy staff director for the Oversight panel all the more ludicrous as he accuses Rep. Cummings of “cherry-picking” the evidence.

All of this is happening as the GOP led House is getting ready to vote on holding IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before Issa’s dishonest and disreputable committee. Even as the pseudo-patriots on Fox pretend to be devoted to the Constitution, they lambaste Lerner for exercising her rights and suggest that it implies guilt on her part. But those more familiar with the Constitution than the rightist hypocrites at Fox recognize that Issa’s committee is what is known as a “perjury trap,” wherein the innocent are tricked into saying things for which they are later threatened with indictment. If Lerner’s attorney permitted her to testify before a committee as corrupt as Issa’s, he should be disbarred.

Now that the testimony of these witnesses, that was taken in secret, has finally been released, you might expect that the network that has been most obsessed with the IRS/Tea Party affair would report on these statements that are so critical to the investigation. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Fox News to air anything about this. Since it essentially proves that the whole scandal mongering on the part of the Republicans and Fox News was a sham, they certainly aren’t going to blow the whistle on themselves. That would require having journalistic principles and personal integrity, commodities that are in short supply in either the GOP or Fox News.

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[Update 1] On Wednesday, May 7, the House of Representatives voted 231 to 187 to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress. And that’s about as far as this charade will go because the Department of Justice is unlikely to proceed with a prosecution.

[Update 2] As of Thursday, May 8, Fox News, as predicted, has not reported the fact that all 39 witnesses who testified before Issa’s Committee affirmed that the White House put no pressure on them and that their activities were not political.

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FLASHBACK: Fox News Admits The Benghazi Myth Was ‘Pushed’ By CEO Roger Ailes

Posted by Mark NC on May 6, 2014 at 12:32 pm. 9 Comments :

Somewhere in the bowels of the Republican led Congress, Speaker John Boehner and his lieutenants are plotting the formation of a strictly partisan committee to dredge up more slanderous falsehoods about the tragedy in Benghazi nearly two years ago. It’s the continuation of an effort that has produced zero evidence of any wrongdoing by the administration after months-long hearings by four other committees, as well as several investigations by independent agencies.

The Select Committee on Benghazi, to be chaired by a raving wingnut, is a gift to Fox News who has been lobbying for such a panel for more than a year. Leading that campaign is Fox’s own chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes. And if there were any doubt that this agenda was set by his directive, this video from May of 2013 should put that to rest:

Notable from this year-old broadcast is Fox anchor Steve Doocy’s remarks that proudly brag about the role that Fox and Ailes played in “pushing” the phony story.

“Fox News has been doing this story from the get-go. And the mainstream media, the Daily Show, has mocked us for covering Benghazi. And now everybody else is catching up. It’s been a story they’re realizing. One of the reasons we’ve followed it is Roger Ailes, our chairman and CEO. […] Had Roger and Fox News not pushed this story the White House would have just left it in the dust.”

However, Doocy’s victory dance to celebrate Fox’s success in exposing malfeasance in the White House may have been somewhat premature. A year later there is still no evidence of anything untoward by President Obama or his team. And now that the economy has seen significant growth, unemployment has dropped to 6.3%, and ObamaCare has enrolled over eight million Americans, it must be time to opportunistically reprise the Benghazi affair. [And, by the way, the Daily Show is still mocking you]

Roger Ailes spent decades as a professional Republican consultant before being tapped by Rupert Murdoch to run Fox News. Ordinarily media executives do not interfere with the operations of their editorial departments, but such journalistic ethics have never been a part of the Fox News mission. Thus we see their CEO openly shaping news coverage, even influencing policy, and getting praised for it on the air by his employees.

This makes it all the more curious that Fox News is now feverishly chattering about a another White House email that allegedly discusses how the administration will respond to attacks by Fox News. Fox’s Catherine Herridge is aghast that such an email exists and that she can’t get her hands on it.

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Setting aside the fact that every administration engages in media strategy, and that those discussions are legitimately confidential, Fox should be the network that is least surprised by this activity considering their aggressive attack posture with regard to this president.

When you have the CEO of a “news” network openly orchestrating negative coverage for a media enterprise that revels in anti-Obama hysteria, you cannot pretend to be surprised if the victims of those assaults choose to fight back from time to time.

Benghazi Committee Commences As Phony Fox News Scandal Falls Apart

Posted by Mark NC on May 5, 2014 at 3:59 pm. 11 Comments :

The Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, announced today that he has chosen the rabidly partisan South Carolina Tea Party congressman, Trey Gowdy, to chair a special committee to waste more time and money investigating their trumped up Benghazi scandal. In naming Gowdy, Boehner praised his determination and desire for truth saying that…

“Trey Gowdy is as dogged, focused, and serious-minded as they come. I know he shares my commitment to get to the bottom of this tragedy.”

Of course the truth is that neither Boehner nor Gowdy have any interest in getting to the bottom of anything. Their statements and actions for the past year and a half show that they are only interested in politicizing a tragic loss of American lives. Having failed to uncover even a sliver of evidence of any wrongdoing, Boehner is, in effect, insulting his own colleagues in Congress (i.e. Darrell Issa) who have been conducting pseudo-investigations without producing the hoped for “smoking guns” with which they could continue their campaign of political slander.

With the appointment of Gowdy, Republicans will have an attack dog in charge of the panel who has demonstrated his bitterly prejudiced views on this subject. Here are just a few of his past comments regarding the issue he is now pretending to seek the truth about:

4/28/2013: There are more Benghazi hearings coming; I think they’re going to be explosive. [That never came to pass]
5/7/2013: I think I can prove tomorrow that it was an intentional misrepresentation by Susan Rice and others. [That was a year ago, and still no proof]
8/2/2013: What creates the appearance and perhaps the reality of a cover-up? Not letting us talk with people who have the most amount of information, dispersing them around the country and changing their names. [Here he is descending into a delusional conspiracy theory for which he provided no evidence]
12/31/2013: What in the world explains the violence in Benghazi prior to the video being translated and released? Our consulate was attacked way before the video was released. [And this is just patently false]

This background on the man who will be chairing the committee shows that Boehner and his party are not really taking this matter seriously. It is a desperate attempt to dig up some political mud to throw, to tarnish the prospective presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton in 2016, and to salvage Boehner’s sinking reputation with the far-right fringe of his party whom he needs if he wants to be Speaker in the next session of congress.

Adding to the absurdity of convening a special committee on Benghazi is that the foundation of the GOP’s case keeps collapsing. Just as Gowdy’s predictions from a year ago never materialized, the most recent allegations are likewise illusory. The email that has become the object of their obsession reveals nothing new and doesn’t even refer to Benghazi in the portion they have latched onto. So now some Republicans are swerving to claim that the real outrage is the whereabouts of President Obama when the attack in Libya was taking place, and whether or not he was in the Situation Room at the White House. The only problem with that line of attack is that it is utterly irrelevant to anything. Even when Gretchen Carlson of Fox News tried to light that sparkler, she was doused by Andy Card, George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff:

Carlson: Did you find it unusual that the National Security Adviser, the former one, a few days ago with Bret Baier said that President Obama was not in the Situation Room on the night of the Benghazi attacks? Is that odd or is that normal?

Card: I don’t think that says a lot. The President does not have to be in the Situation Room at every time with every crisis. […] I don’t think that it’s credible that we would expect, as the the pubic, that the President would be sitting in the Situation Room all the time.

This is the environment in which the Republican’s new committee will meet. They have nothing of substance to contribute. Democrats are considering boycotting the committee. That would be a wise move that would leave the GOP to stink in their juices.

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The result will be that the GOP will be seen by the American people to have no case, no integrity, and no interest in solving the problems that the people really care about. And if Benghazi is the issue they hope to run with in 2014 – or 2016 – they are going to be sorely disappointed when the returns come in. And they will be able to thank Fox News for their losses. After all, it was Fox, and their CEO Roger Ailes, who masterminded the Benghazi myth and worked tirelessly to prop it up.

Fox News Celebrates Supreme Court Decision Upholding Christian Theocracy

Posted by Mark NC on May 5, 2014 at 12:37 pm. 3 Comments :

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America includes a stipulation that the government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The legal interpretation of that clause, with more than 200 years of precedence, holds that proceedings of official bodies of government may not engage in sectarian religious activity as it puts the imprimatur of the state on the particular spiritual practice.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the town council of Greece, N.Y, to offer prayers in the opening of their council meetings. The Court explicitly stated that they regarded these prayers as permissible even though they were predominantly Christian. The justification for the ruling was based on the absurd notion that the prayers were merely ceremonial and not religious.

“As a practice that has long endured, legislative prayer has become part of our heritage and tradition, part of our expressive idiom, similar to the Pledge of Allegiance.”

And joining the celebration of what is ostensibly ceremonial is Fox News, who cheered the decision with a joyful declaration that it was “A Win For Religion.”

Be Sure To “LIKE” News Corpse On Facebook

The language that Fox News used to report this decision demonstrates that it was indeed a matter of faith. After all, they didn’t declare it to be a “A Win For Ceremony.” The ceremonial argument is a thinly veiled excuse to permit proselytizing for Christianity. What’s more, the argument that reciting exclusively Christian prayers does not violate the establishment clause of the Constitution is a gross misunderstanding of the law. Such activity blatantly favors a specific belief and excludes all others with differing beliefs. To illustrate the point, just imagine the reaction if the town council decided to offer a Muslim prayer at the opening of the session. It would create a deafening outcry from Christians insisting they were offended by the invocation.

For evidence of that, take the example of a recent event in Colorado. The students at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins were led by another student in the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God” replaced by the words “under Allah.” This was met with harsh criticism by Christianists in the community and the media, including Fox’s own resident religious bigot, Todd Starnes.

First of all it should be noted that Allah is the Arabic (not Islamic) word for God, and both Muslims and Arab Christians use it. Secondly, why would it be offensive for Muslim-Americans to pledge their allegiance to the American flag? Isn’t that something we should encourage, or are we only open to recognizing Muslims who hate us? More to the point, the criticism reveals the true intent of the religious extremists who aspire to force their religion onto everyone else through the use of official forums in government and schools. That is precisely the behavior that the conservatives on the Supreme Court sanctioned today.

For Fox News to report this decision with a headline that describes it as “A Win For Religion” is further evidence that they regard the issue as one of faith, despite their denials and those of the Court. Their own words betray their not-very-hidden motives.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Was Benghazi A Koch Brothers Plot?

Posted by Mark NC on May 4, 2014 at 3:42 pm. 2 Comments :

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has taken a courageous stand of late against the democracy-defiling Koch brothers. He has correctly assailed them for bankrolling dishonest campaigns and offensive Tea Party front groups. However, he has never said what Fox Nation is now reporting that he said:

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No, Harry Reid didn’t say that “Benghazi Is A Koch Brothers Plot.” He didn’t imply it or suggest it or even vaguely allude to it. The quote that Fox Nation cited from an article in the Washington Examiner addressed the announcement by GOP House Speaker John Boehner that he intends to form a special committee to conduct even more fruitless investigations of the trumped up Benghazi scandal. Apparently the four committees that have been beating this dead horse for nearly two years were not sufficient (or competent) to complete the job. However, Reid’s response to this waste of time and taxpayer money was crystal clear and unambiguous. He said that…

“Republicans are showing yet again that they have nothing to offer the middle class. Republicans care more about defending billionaires like the Koch brothers and trying to rekindle debunked right-wing conspiracy theories than raising the minimum wage or ensuring women receive equal pay for equal work.”

Anyone with elementary level comprehension skills understands that Reid was listing – not connecting – the Koch brothers and debunked right-wing conspiracy theories. That’s why he used the word “and” to differentiate between the two. If he were connecting them he would have said “like the Koch brothers who are trying to rekindle…”

It’s clear that Jesse Watters, the editor of the Fox Nation website (whom Stephen Colbert just royally skewered), has way too much time on his hands. If he is reduced to deliberately mischaracterizing simple English in order to smear his enemies, he obviously doesn’t have anything of importance to work on. That’s the tale of all of the Fox News-invented scandals. Since they haven’t got anything of substance with which to tar the President, they just make stuff up and hope their dimwitted audience swallows it. And that’s something they can rest assured will occur.

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