Fox News CRUSHED that the Media is ‘Moving On From Afghanistan’ to Cover Actual News

The past week has been one of profoundly significant world events. The United States finally ended a twenty year long war in Afghanistan. The COVID pandemic surged to record levels due to the Delta variant. The Supreme Court declined to block a draconian abortion rights law in the state of Texas. And a hurricane ravaged many parts of country from the Gulf Coast to New England.

Fox News Sad

Each of those stories are important to the American people and deserve coverage by the media. Unless you’re Fox News where the only stories that warrant being told are those that reflect poorly on President Biden or Democrats in general.

Which explains why Fox News posted a story on their website giddily proclaiming that “Liberal media blasted for moving on from Afghanistan crisis.” Yes, Fox News couldn’t have been happier about this criticism of what they regard as the “mainstream media.” The article griped that…

“The liberal media seems to be moving on from President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, skipping key details and largely ignoring a bombshell report of a leaked July phone call between President Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. […] Hurricane Ida, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the Texas abortion law have seemingly pushed Afghanistan aside.”

That’s right. Fox News is appalled and saddened that the media is covering actual news. To Fox News Afghanistan should be still be the dominant story, despite the fact that there hasn’t been any breaking news from there in a week. The press was all over Afghanistan a week ago when thirteen service members, and an estimated 150 Afghans, were tragically killed in a terrorist bombing. And the press was there when the last of the American troops were evacuated from the country, along with 120,000 Afghan allies, in an unprecedented and successful airlift.

However, in the past week there have been other events that warranted coverage. The COVID pandemic was taking the lives of more than 1,000 Americans every day. The Supreme Court handed down a ruling that effectively overturned the fifty year old Roe v Wade precedent on reproductive rights. And Hurricane Ida tore a path across the Eastern United States that resulted in more than 60 American deaths (nearly five times those in Afghanistan) reported so far. But to Fox News, those are mere distractions from Afghanistan.

The reason that Fox is so obsessed with Afghanistan is that it is a “crisis” that they think they can blame on Biden. Surely Biden isn’t responsible for a hurricane, the surging pandemic that is largely due to unvaccinated Fox News viewers, or the laws coming out of Texas. Consequently, those other stories need to be set aside in favor of finding more ways to attack the President.

With that in mind, Fox set about to contrive tales to tell that would cast mud on Biden. But the only ones that they could find were stories about the few Americans still in Afghanistan, and an utterly unnoteworthy phone call between Biden and Afghan President Ghani.

Undeterred, Fox news devoted most of the article to the “blasting” they claimed that the “liberal” media was taking. However, the article quoted only five alleged blasters, all of whom were staunchly right-wing propagandists. For instance…

  • Fox News contributor Joe Concha who wrote about the media “serving at the pleasure of the White House communications team.”
  • Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor whining that “Their bias is disgusting.”
  • Former Daily Caller columnist, Jackson Richman who prefaced his comments with “The Biden-friendly mainstream media…”
  • Federalist columnist Eddie Scarry lamenting because “The media will wound [Biden] but they will not kill him.”
  • White House press secretary-turned Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany bragging that “You can guarantee at Fox News we’ll cover when an American president tells a foreign leader to change the perception.”

Poor Fox News is very upset that the story they want to hype because they can use it to bash Biden has been overshadowed by other more urgent and current stories. They think that a week old story – while still important and still being covered – should take precedence over a national weather emergency that killed dozens of people and is still posing extreme hardships for millions of Americans who are displaced from their homes and without power, water, or food.

What’s more, Fox News was so disinterested in the Texas abortion law story that they hardly covered it all in the first few hours. And consistent with their reporting for the past year and a half, the coronavirus barely merited a mention, unless it was to applaud Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for making his state the national Hot Zone for the pandemic.

We can expect this sort of biased coverage to continue at Fox News. They have never been interested in journalism. Their foundational mission was to manufacture “news” to boost their right-wing agenda. And nothing illustrates that better than how they are covering current events this week.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox ‘News’ Fluffs Trump in the ‘Bone Spurs’ Debate with Ultra-Biased Headline and Story

From the earliest days of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions he has transparently tried to exploit the men and women of the military for his electoral advantage. Never mind that his actual actions were disrespectful, and even illegal (his charities withheld promised funds) as he insulted veterans like John McCain, Gold Star families, and the fallen who he refused to pay tribute to. And until today, Trump had never even visited the troops in a war zone, and only conceded to take the trip after being shamed into it for months.

Donald Trump, Saving Cadet Bone Spurs

Trump’s visit to Iraq today was a blatantly self-serving affair that appears to have been done for the sole purpose of producing a propaganda video of him cavorting with real life soldiers. The video was just a montage of Trump smiling and shaking hands set to a soundtrack of the right’s favorite syrupy paean to patriotism, “God Bless the U.S.A.”

But perhaps the most notable hypocrisy of the Trump era has been his own evasion of military service via a series of academic deferrals and a highly suspicious medical exemption for “bone spurs” in his heel that never prevented him from playing baseball or golf. On Wednesday the New York Times published a story that examined the bone spurs controversy. They interviewed the daughters of the doctor who is reported to have given Trump his medical excuse to deploy to Manhattan’s Studio 54 instead of Vietnam. The story said in part that the daughters of the doctor…

“…say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“‘I know it was a favor,’ said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.”

The Times found that Dr. Braunstein rented an office in the Edgerton Apartments in Jamaica, Queens, which was owned by Trump’s father Fred in the 1960s. The daughter’s claimed that their father received special treatment from the Trumps following his “favor” for young Donald.

So naturally, Fox News rushed in to shield Trump from any of the criticism resulting from the article in the Times. On the Fox News website they published a story with an unfair and unbalanced headline stating that: “New York Times tracks down anti-Trump children of deceased doctor to run uncorroborated Vietnam allegations.”

Wow. That really packs in the pro-Trump bias by the shovel full. First, the story attempts to dismiss what the women said by casting them as anti-Trump, implying they did this to deliberately harm the President. However, they have said nothing about this for decades and only spoke after the Times found them and asked for their account of what happened.

Secondly, the story is not uncorroborated. It originated from an anonymous tip that didn’t include any details or names. The Times then did the legwork to fill in the blanks. So what the daughters told them was, in fact, the corroboration of the original tip.

The Fox News article noted that Trump himself has never provided any details of his alleged infirmity because he said that he didn’t recall them. This from the man who says he has the world’s greatest memory (which he later didn’t remember saying). And Fox wasn’t at all curious as to why there was no evidence that the doctor had ever examined Trump before disqualifying him from military service.

Finally, the Fox News article only solicited two other persons for comments on the story. One was Dan Gainor, of the uber-rightist Media Research Center, who said “I’m surprised the paper didn’t arrange a séance and quiz the late doctor, too.” The other was conservative strategist Chris Barron, whose comment attacked the Times saying that “The New York Times is essentially indistinguishable from a gossip rag you’d find in the super market checkout line.” That’s it. No other quotes were provided from any left of center or neutral sources.

Trump’s recent treatment of Secretary of Defense James Mattis is proof of his disrespect for the military. And an interview he did last month on Fox News (wherein he bashed Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy Seal who helped dispose of both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden) shows that he only supports the military when they bow down to him. But on Fox News Trump is still a hero whose evasion of the draft was a trivial matter that shouldn’t be explored by the real news media. And any attempts to do so will be met with biased retorts that offer zero substance to support their claims, but fit nicely in the Trumpian era theme of fake news.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Wants You to Believe That Trump-Bashing Killed the Emmys – It Didn’t

The preliminary Nielsen ratings for the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast are in and they aren’t particularly good. The program drew about 11.2 million viewers, which is down slightly from last year’s show. But leave it to Fox News to turn this minor slippage into a political catastrophe caused by the relentless liberalism of Hollywood elites.

Emmys Stephen Colbert

An op-ed on the Fox News website trumpeted the ratings results with a speculative headline asking “Emmys ratings crater; Trump-bashing to blame?” The argument presented by Fox’s Brian Flood was that criticism of Donald Trump sunk the broadcast to new lows. He writes that:

“It looks like the 69th annual Emmy Awards are heading into sub-basement territory in terms of ratings after host Stephen Colbert spent much of Sunday’s event attacking President Trump. It turns out American viewers may not have been as into Trump bashing as Hollywood would like them to be.”

For the record, host Stephen Colbert didn’t spend much of the night attacking Trump. In all he spent less than three minutes out of a three hour program. But the real absurdity of this analysis is that it proposes something that’s impossible. Fox News thinks that viewers chose not to watch the program based on their clairvoyant observation of the Trump-bashing before it even began. Obviously, without such ESP skills they would not have known not to tune in.

In fact, the Emmy broadcast has been scoring lower numbers for several years. Trump wasn’t president when the ratings began a falling trend. The reasons knowledgeable people attribute to the decline are that television doesn’t have the popular appeal of the Oscars and the Grammys. What’s more, many of the winning programs are now airing on services like Netflix and Hulu that have fewer viewers than broadcast TV. Consequently, the stars are not as familiar or compelling. And airing against Sunday Night Football didn’t help either.

That didn’t stop Fox News from setting up their biased perspective and interviewing political partisans to support it. Flood first sought the opinion of Dan Gainor of the ultra-conservative Media Research Center. Predictably, Gainor slammed the event as “a Hollywood bubble show.” He further castigated television’s creative community as out-of-touch with America and unqualified to express an opinion. That’s a point of view that disappears from right-wingers when the TV personality is one of theirs. Case in point: Donald Trump (or Ronald Reagan, Ted Nugent, Clint Eastwood, Scott Baio, etc.).

The argument that Americans might have tuned out the Emmys because they objected to jokes about Trump also fails logically. Trump is currently sitting on record low ratings himself. And that’s from the American people, not a select groups of show business professionals. With his approval numbers wallowing in the mid-thirties, it’s unlikely that the program lost many viewers who were loyal to Trump. If anything, the fact that most Americans are repulsed and embarrassed by him might have drawn in a bigger audience. There is substantial appetite in the country for the Trump-bashing that Fox News is lamenting. An example of that is the fact that Colbert has become the top rated late night talk show host largely due to his nightly mockery of the President.

The program did feature some sharp jabs at Trump’s expense. Veep’s Julia Louis Dreyfus noted that her show had considered an impeachment plot line, but abandoned it because they were worried that “someone else” might beat them to it. Alec Baldwin, who’s portrayal of Trump on Saturday Night Live won him an Emmy, consoled Trump by giving him partial credit for an award he never won himself. But the most cutting comedy came from the reunited stars of 9-to-5 who said:

Jane Fonda: Back in 1980 in that movie, we refused to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.
Lily Tomlin: And in 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.

Those are the sort of comments that Fox News and their conservative disciples regard as intolerable attacks against their White House Messiah. And for some reason they get away with calling liberals “snowflakes” for being too sensitive. Yet it doesn’t bother them when Trump himself posts tweets that show him assaulting Hillary Clinton. Apparently joking about physically attacking women is perfectly acceptable to these Deplorables. But Fox News finds it necessary to write op-eds that lie about the Emmys just because they can’t handle a few harmless jokes.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Happy Birthday News Corpse – And America. Plus: See How Fox News Dishonors This Holiday

Today is the ninth anniversary of the launch of News Corpse. It has brought great satisfaction exposing the deceit and inbred hatred of the right-wing media for these past nine years. On the other hand, it has brought great frustration that such unethical miscreants continue to distort the truth in pursuit of their extremist, uber-conservative agenda. On the other hand (that’s three hands so far if you’re counting), the wingnut press is a bottomless pit of material for satire and mockery.

News Corpse Birthday

For any of you who wish to give News Corpse a birthday present, you can buy our book, Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault On Truth, on Amazon. Or you could dump your Tea Party, KeystoneXL, GOP funding, mobile phone providers (i.e. AT&T and Verizon) and switch to the progressive cell phone service, CREDOMobile Be sure to use the special offer code “newscorpse”, for which we will receive a modest commission. Both presents will be a gift for you as well.


In other news…

Fox News is engaging in a peculiar manner of celebration this Independence Day. Their Fox Nation website decided to display their patriotism by posting an editorial by impeachment advocate, and Fox senior legal analyst, Andrew Napolitano, that declared that America has “Gone From An Inherited Tyrant To An Elected One.” Hooray for the USA!


Over on the Fox News website they featured an article by Dan Gainor, the VP of the ultra-rightist propaganda factory, the Media Research Center. Gainor’s column was headlined “July Fourth: Be especially proud to be an American in 2014.” It was long discourse that covered many subjects, but left out just one: Any reason to be especially proud. Gainor just ranted about the evils of liberals and President Obama. For example, note these excerpts:

  • [Liberals are] largely in charge of educating our children, running our government and manipulating the media we consume.
  • Government is both pro-left and pro-union.
  • No wonder America is in trouble. The Us in USA have a $17.5 trillion national debt, an unchecked parade of illegal immigration and off-the-charts moral decay (including epic out-of-wedlock births).
  • Look who they learn love of country from – the president.
  • Patriotism and love of country are under attack, just like faith.
  • The flag and those who care for it are under attack across the nation.
  • Don’t let liberals talk down the Founders unopposed. Don’t let local tyrants force you to take down the American flag.
  • The next time someone asks you if you are proud to be an American, you can answer: “Damn right I am.”

Yippie-Ki-Yay, America.


Richard Mellon Scaife died. Scaife was the media baron who spent a lifetime attacking Democrats, and particularly the Clinton family who he accused of everything from drug-running to murder. He was an early and aggressive advocate of Clinton’s impeachment. He was 82.


Disgusting, hate-filled, Tea Party, racist, protesters continue to camp out at the site of a Murrieta, California, facility where immigration officials are hoping to temporarily house women and children while being processed. These pseudo-patriots are actually impeding the authorities from completing deportation proceedings, and at the same time they are subjecting the children to terrifying experiences and forcing them into unsafe, overcrowded facilities. What a wonderful way to spend the Fourth of July and honor these words:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”


Finally, let’s all wish this beautiful young woman the very happiest Sweet Sixteen ever. That’s right, Malia Obama is a real Yankee Doodle Dandy who was born on the Fourth of July.

Malia Obama

So F**king What? Fox News Thinks TV Promos Are Sermons

Almost since its inception Fox News has confused the role of television journalist with that of televangelist. Their anchors and guests routinely veer away from reporting to the advocacy of what they regard as Christian values and dogma. If they aren’t waging battle in the War on Christmas, they are admonishing President Obama and others for not being sufficiently pious. Any perceived slight of religion by not saying “God” enough times in a speech or committing the sin of showing respect for the diversity of faith in America, is evidence of covert Satanism.

Today Fox News published an op-ed by Dan Gainor, the Vice President for Business and Culture of the ultra-rightist Media Research Center, with the title, “Reverend Al Sharpton expels God in MSNBC promo sermon.”

Fox News

Umm…What is a “promo sermon?” The video clip to which Gainor is referring is actually an advertisement for Al Sharpton’s program on MSNBC. It is no more a sermon than the familiar program interruptions that compel you purchase hamburgers or Viagra (although some of them can seem kinda preachy). Gainor’s characterization of the ad as a sermon exposes his own twisted analysis of media.

The specific complaint Gainor has is that Sharpton left out the words “under God” in a part of the promo that quoted from the Pledge of Allegiance. Sharpton said…

“We must have a renewed fight for many of the things we fought for. Because voting rights, and women’s rights, and the rights of people against discrimination, whether they’re African-American, Latino, lesbian and gay, must be protected, until we have a nation that is really living up to the creed of one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Not all of one kind. But all.”

So F**king What?

Gainor objected feverishly that Sharpton had not accurately quoted the Pledge. However, Sharpton left out almost all of the Pledge, including the part that said “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands…” Gainor didn’t seem to be the least bit upset about those omissions.

In fact, Sharpton only included the parts of the Pledge that directly related to the point he was making about the diversity of the American people and how they all need to be treated equally under the law. And no matter how obsessed Gainor is with proselytizing his faith, this was still just a TV commercial and not a sermon. It is typical for the far-right martinets of virtue to impose their perception of God on the rest of the country, but to turn a marketing promotion into a religious screed borders on the surreal. In America we do not worship via the solicitations that come in between programs on television. Unless, of course it’s for Goldline or Exxon or some false prophet being promoted by Fox News.

Fox News Makes Shameful Attack On MSNBC’s Touré

In a Fox News op-ed, Dan Gainor, of the uber-conservative Media Research Center, hurled some disparaging and nearly incoherent insults at Touré, one of the hosts of MSNBC’s The Cycle.

Gainor took issue with a commentary Touré delivered (video below) about the GOP’s unfounded and politically-motivated attack on UN ambassador Susan Rice. Touré made some rather cogent points about the spectacle Rice’s critics, particularly Sen. John McCain, were making over a manufactured controversy. McCain and others seem feverishly obsessed with Amb. Rice’s comments on a number of Sunday news programs regarding Benghazi. Any fair observer would have to recognize that what Rice said was provided to her by intelligence authorities and was the best information available (or permitted to be disclosed) at the time. But fair observation is not the business that Gainor and the MRC are in.

Gainor’s tirade was topped with a headline that read “MSNBC Anchor Touré makes shameful attack on McCain.” What constitutes shamefulness to Gainor is hard to figure. His specific complaints were that Touré was playing the “race card” in his remarks. But Gainor’s examples were not the least bit focused on race. For instance, Gainor cited Touré saying that McCain…

“…gave us the horrible optics of he and Lindsey Graham as old, white, establishment folks wrongly and repeatedly attacking a much younger black woman moments after an election in which blacks and women went strongly blue.”

Gainor’s shallow grasp of the English language resulted in his interpreting that as a racial criticism of McCain. However, the rest of the English speaking world would notice that Touré was speaking about the “optics” of the criticism, not whether there was any actual racism involved. Touré was plainly addressing the potential harm for the Republican Party in being perceived as insensitive to racial and gender issues by repeatedly attacking minorities and women. That’s not an accusation of racism or sexism, it is an acknowledgement that the subjects of such attacks might be less likely to support those who make the attacks. That’s not only common sense, it is precisely what occurred on election day a couple of weeks ago. And to affirm how cognitively-challenged Gainor is, he added this as further evidence of Touré’s alleged race-baiting:

“Never one to ignore a chance to paint all Republicans as racist, he added one more dig: ‘Looks like the GOP is already laying the foundation for losing in 2016.'”

How is that one more “dig” that paints anyone as racist? If anything, it is one more affirmation that Touré was speaking only about political matters. Nevertheless, Gainor is determined to turn this into a “shameful” racial affair. With that purpose in mind Gainor reached back to a September column wherein Touré wrote “Part of my job when I speak about politics is to speak up for black people and say things black people need said.” If Gainor thinks that that is shameful, he needs an EKG EEG stat, because there is good reason to suspect that there is no brain activity going on his head. The reason that it is important to have diversity in the media is precisely because it provides perspectives that otherwise would not be represented. Our media is enhanced by the inclusion of minorities and women who say the things that these previously excluded members of society need said.

Notwithstanding the fact that Gainor’s tantrum over Touré’s commentary was ridiculous and he failed to identify anything remotely racial about it, Fox News is demonstrably racist and the evidence of that is in its coverage. While it may be too broad to say that Fox’s attacks on Amb. Rice alone constitute racism, take a look at some of the most prominent targets of Fox’s smear machine and ask yourself what they have in common:

Fox News Racism

That pretty much says it all. If Touré had wanted to make an issue of racism, he would have plenty of evidence.

A Pictorial Presentation Of The Polling Schizophrenia At Fox News

It may seriously be time to have the folks at Fox committed to an institution for evaluation. They have become utterly unhinged, particularly with regard to election polling which is notoriously volatile. So without further ado, here’s a graphic illustration of the depths of their dementia.

First, Fox News loves polls and posts them abundantly when Romney is ahead:

Fox Nation Polls - Romney Ahead

Then Fox News hates polls and banishes them when Obama surges into the lead:

Fox News Polls - Obama Ahead

Then Fox News loves polls again when Romney gets a post-debate bump:

Fox Nation Polls - Romney Bump

They are leading their audience on a roller coaster ride of propaganda and censorship as they shift from celebrating positive electoral news to suppressing the negative. Fox is so determined to shut out anything that might challenge their delusions that they even fail to report their own Fox News polls if Obama is ahead.

Fox Nation Polls - Except Fox

That’s how important it is to them to make sure their audience remains ignorant. And all the while they seem to think that it’s liberals who are fooling themselves.

Fox News Polls Liberals

The article above was written by Dan Gainor of the uber-conservative Media Research Center. The MRC recently launched a campaign to get people to stop watching what they call the “mainstream” media which, of course, doesn’t include Fox News, the highest rated cable news network. That’s really just a campaign to put blinders on the eyes of their right-wing disciples to keep them from being tainted by honest journalism and diverse opinions.

It’s ironic that Gainor is criticizing liberals for disparaging a poll when conservatives are the ones that are totally blocking out any polls they don’t happen to like. They spent hours on the air alleging that the media is deliberately skewing the polls. But what’s worse is that Gainor is making up his allegation that liberals attacked the Pew poll. There is nothing in his article that supports that charge. In fact, quite the contrary. While Gainor cited the Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan and the New York Times’ Nate Silver, neither of them criticized Pew’s survey. And Gainor thoroughly misrepresented the column by Joshua Holland of Alternet saying that Holland’s column “could be summed up in one word: disbelieve!” For the record, here is what Holland had to say about whether the Pew poll should be dismissed:

“No. That’s making the same fundamental error as the “poll truthers” on the right. […] Good polls using industry standard methodology can and do find wide variation in party ID – leave the trutherism to the nutjobs at Fox News.”

At no point did Holland say to “disbelieve” Pew or any other poll. In fact, his column is a great resource for understanding and evaluating polling in their proper context and is highly recommended reading. It offers a calm and sane approach to analyzing news, as opposed to the feverish ravings of the FoxPods who accuse all of the media of skewing all of the polls – that is, until the polls favor their candidate.

The only thing Gainor’s article does is affirm the dishonesty of the right and their obsessive determination with controlling the thinking of their cultish followers. His fabrications are surely part of the reason that readers and viewers of Fox News are so lost in a muddle of conflicting fantasies. Generally when someone is this detached from reality they are taken somewhere where they cannot present a risk to themselves or others. Unfortunately, these deluded souls are still allowed to drive automobiles and, worse, to vote.

Showing Their True Colors: Fox News Embraces Incivility

Pray for Fox NewsLast week the results of a study were released that measured the public’s perception of incivility in the media. Not surprisingly, Fox News had the honor of being viewed as the most uncivil news network.

This in itself is hardly news. What is immensely more interesting is that Fox News is actually proud of their exceptional rudeness. Today Fox News published an editorial by the uber-rightist Media Research Center’s VP of Business and Culture, Dan Gainor. The article took exception to remarks by President Obama’s political adviser, David Axelrod, who came out in opposition to hecklers and other rude behavior intended to disrupt campaign speeches. Axelrod said…

“I strongly condemn heckling along Mitt’s route. Shouting folks down is their tactic, not ours. Let voters hear both candidates and decide.”

Axelrod was speaking to fellow Democrats and admonishing them to refrain from the sort of vulgarities that too often mar appearances by candidates from either side. He even went so far as to say that, even if Republicans employ these tactics, polite Democrats ought not to. So how was this plea for civility received by Gainor?

He immediately mocked the left as “the party of Occupy Wall Street fanatics [and] gay glitter bombers,” and assailed them for their “Alinsky-esque tactics.” He embarked on a rant blaming Democrats for every instance of poor behavior, while dismissing any rudeness by Republicans, including the recent episode where a Daily Caller “reporter” interrupted a presidential address.

Then, inexplicably, Gainor went off on a tangent where he seemed to cease to understand what heckling is. Amongst those he accused of being hecklers were Occupy protesters who objected to police abuse, journalists who complained when they were prohibited from covering a public event, and audience members who expressed disapproval of a speaker’s comments.

In conclusion, Gainor asserted that “Axelrod and the left are scared. They saw that Romney fought hard against opponents in the primary,” and he promised that Republicans would fight back. He growled that “if Obama can’t cage his lefty animals, the GOP will respond in kind. You’d think Axelrod would like it.”

That’s the right’s response to a top Obama adviser declaring that all of the childish heckling and rudeness, no matter what side, is inappropriate and should stop. Axelrod even used the word “condemn” to describe his feeling on the matter. Yet Gainor comes away from that statement with the impression that Axelrod “likes” public vulgarity.

It is that sort of incoherent reasoning that makes it nearly impossible to deal with narrow-minded ideologues like Gainor. And it explains why most people surveyed view Fox News as the most uncivil network in the news business. What was unexpected was that Fox would publish an editorial essentially bragging about being more repulsive than any other kid on the block. OK, Fox…you win. Congratulations.

Soros Envy: Why Does Fox News Hate Rich People?

Ordinarily Fox News is the strongest advocate on behalf of the Greedy One Percent (GOP). They fiercely defend the the privileged class that they have endearingly tagged “job creators” (although that is far from true). They relentlessly oppose efforts to reform the tax code into something more equitable. And even though billionaires like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates agree that people like themselves are not paying a fair share, Fox News shouts nonsense about a class war that they invented.

But nothing comes as close to psychotic derangement as the right’s obsessive hatred of George Soros (except maybe Saul Alinsky and President Obama). In today’s FoxNews.com opinion section is an editorial titled: George Soros — the rich man who is hated around the world. What’s really interesting about this column is that the author, Dan Gainor of the uber-conservative Media Research Center, is actually correct.

Gainor has done his research and discovered that there are many nations in the world where Soros has cultivated a profound dislike. Gainor even provides a list of some of them. They include: Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union. The thing that most of these places have in common is that they all suffered under oppressive regimes prior to Soros coming to the aid of the people.

So what we have here is Fox News complaining bitterly that the dictators and communists who were deposed by the freedom-loving citizens of their countries, with help from Soros, do not now regard Soros affectionately. Fox is literally taking the side of the former tyrants who, not surprisingly, are somewhat upset with Soros. By extension we must assume that Gainor would prefer that Soros had minded his own business and let the tyrants continue their rule and their reign of terror.

This is the same sort of deranged thinking that resulted in Fox finding fault with the Seal Team assault on Osama Bin Laden. If Obama had anything to do with it, it must be bad – no matter how good it is. And the same goes for George Soros. So even though Soros helped to defeat the bad guys, the only thing Fox notices is that now all the bad guys hate him, and somehow that make Soros a bad guy.

This twisted criticism, however, is not the only point that Gainor sought to make with his article. He is also emphatically opposed to Soros’ philanthropic activities. Gainor complains that Soros has committed $8 billion to his Open Society Foundation that aids a diverse variety of international charitable organizations. But Gainor sees no irony in the fact that he is the Boone Pickens Fellow at the Media Research Center. That means that his position was endowed by another billionaire who bankrolls international charitable causes. What’s more, the Media Research Center is the beneficiary of millions of dollars from the John Birch Society, the Koch brothers, and the Scaife family foundations – all wealthy philanthropists with designs on influencing the direction of certain nations, particularly the United States. And we can add Rupert Murdoch to that group as his news enterprises are among the biggest customers of the Media Research Center.

Dan Gainor is a profoundly inept critic. He once condemned an imagined conspiracy by Soros and, in the process, implicated himself. He further embarrassed himself recently by declaring that Arianna Huffington is “the most powerful propagandist since a guy named Goebbels.” Then he penned a column upbraiding Rachel Maddow for a mistake made during her program, apparently unfamiliar with the cornucopia of on-air gaffes that Fox News seems to add to daily.

Fox News has made preaching the divinity of capitalism a staple of its programming. And they love nothing more than a wealthy individual who they can promote as proof of their Randian orthodoxy. But whatever you do, do not become a liberal billionaire. Fox has an entirely different standard for those practitioners Satanism. In fact, Fox hates them. What is it that Fox hates about rich people that actually care about people who are not rich?

Seriously, Fox News? You’re Criticizing Mistakes On MSNBC?

In a stroke of utter dementia, Fox News has published an editorial taking Rachel Maddow of MSNBC to task for a gaffe during a live broadcast. The author of the column is Dan Gainor of the uber-rightist Media Research Center.

Gainor distinguished himself recently by declaring that Arianna Huffington is “the most powerful propagandist since a guy named Goebbels.” He once condemned an imagined conspiracy by George Soros and, in the process, implicated himself. Gainor may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is a tool.

Fox News Faux PasThe problem Gainor has with Maddow concerns a segment on the night of the Iowa caucuses where she read a news item saying that Gov. Gary Johnson, a former GOP candidate for president who has since changed gears to seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination, had abandoned his campaign and decided to throw his support to Ron Paul. As it turns out, that item was a hoax and Maddow quickly corrected the record.

However, this incident has Gainor in such a fever that he composed an editorial castigating Maddow and MSNBC as derelict journalists and he yelps that they “are not newsmen and women. These are Democratic political operatives disguised as TV hosts.” Well, he ought to know. His experience with Fox News is good preparation for recognizing phony journalists. But he never bothers to explain how a botched report about Johnson and Paul is advantageous to Democrats.

Gainor’s umbrage over Maddow’s mistake takes on a surreal hue when compared to the record of incompetence and/or deliberate falsification of the news that is the hallmark of Fox News. Here is just a brief compilation of some their most entertaining blunders:

Inserts picture of Obama instead of Romney.

Poll adds up to 120%.

Posts picture of events in London but says they are in Russia.

Reports that Scooter Libby was NOT guilty.

Reverses the numbers for “favor” and “oppose.”

This is a mere sampling of Fox’s ineptitude. It doesn’t include the many times they have mislabeled Republicans as Democrats, and vice-versa (usually to the detriment of the Democrats). It doesn’t include the affair when Fox was caught reporting a GOP press release as if it were their own news item – complete with the typo that was in the original GOP document. And these examples did not occur in the rush of a live broadcast. They were prepared in advance with plenty of time to review. It got so bad at one point that Fox had to issue a threatening memo to their employees warning them to take greater care or suffer the consequences:

“[E]ffective immediately, Newsroom is going to ‘zero base’ our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements.”
[…]
“Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the ‘mistake chain,’ and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination.”

Needless to say, there haven’t been any consequences. The same bumblers continue to foul up at Fox with impunity. The reason for that it is that it’s difficult to enforce a “zero tolerance” policy if the enforcers can’t count up to zero. Also because many of the alleged mistakes were intentional. Fox deliberately falsifies their broadcasts to advance their political agenda. For more evidence, here’s a collection from Fox Nation that are indisputably lies.

For Gainor to write this article, and for Fox to publish it, just shows how far they will go to deceive their audience. There has never been a “news” enterprise that has so brazenly distorted facts for ideological purposes. And if the best they can do to tarnish the reputation of their competitors is a harmless gaffe that occurred on a live broadcast, it only confirms how pitifully unfit they are to be called a news network.