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May 21 2013 11 cmnts

So F**king What? Fox News Suffering From Judge Dread

Posted by: Mark @ 1:46 pm

Fox News is putting all judges on notice that if they are ever criticized by Fox News, they can no longer be regarded as impartial.

This is a rather monumental upheaval for the judiciary, because Fox has criticized hundreds of judges. In fact, they have made it a cornerstone of their editorial philosophy that the judiciary (along with the media, academia, and most other social institutions) is hopelessly liberal. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly frequently sends his ambush unit (producer Jesse Watters) out to harass judges when a legal outcome does not meet with his approval, whether or not the judge had anything to do with it. And now Fox is providing cover for their own reporter by alleging some vague conspiracy between a judge and the Department of Justice.

So F**king What?

The first thing that makes this item so supremely asinine is the fact that the judge upon whom Fox is casting aspersions was appointed to the Federal District Court by Ronald Reagan and confirmed by a senate run by a Republican majority.

The source for Fox’s piece also has a less than credible reputation. The story was posted on the web site of the notorious political clown, Herman Cain. It addressed a ruling by Judge Alan Kay that permitted detainees at Guantanamo Bay to meet with their lawyers, something the Bush administration was improperly prohibiting. Author Dan Calabrese wrote that…

“Fox News quoted extensively on the air from Kay’s ruling in the case of Salim Muhood Adem v. George W. Bush. I have not seen the segment, but knowing Fox News – particularly on issues like Gitmo in the post-9/11 years – I think it’s a pretty safe guess that they weren’t quoting Kay’s ruling as a means of praising his decision.”

Seriously? Calabrese is admitting that he has no idea whether or not Fox actually criticized Kay because he hasn’t seen any criticism himself. He is simply assuming that Fox was critical because it would be consistent with their well-known political leanings. Acknowledging Fox’s biases may be the only honest part of Calabrese’s article. However, it does not satisfy any standard of proof that Fox slighted Kay, sparking a grudge that he has allegedly held for seven years so far.

To suggest that an independent jurist who was put on the bench by Reagan has joined a conspiracy with President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to criminally prosecute a Fox News hack is further evidence that Fox’s paranoia gauge has flipped completely off the scale. Their best efforts to topple Obama have collapsed into a pile of rotting rubble, while Obama’s approval ratings have risen in the midst of supposed scandals. That paradox is driving the right wild and causing them to concoct ever more fantastical fables.

So soon after an election that was an epic embarrassment to Republicans, they seem to have learned nothing and are continuing to live in a world of rightist delusion. No one but reality-challenged disciples of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones will believe the outrageously nonsensical tripe that Fox is spewing. And even while some of the more moderate wingers are cautioning their comrades to lay off the crazy juice, Fox continues to pour it on by the gallon. If this is their strategy for political success in 2014 or 2016, all I can say is “Bring it on.”

May 20 2013 5 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Who’s The IRS Targeting Now?

Posted by: Mark @ 6:44 pm

When a dishonest “news” enterprise is so determined to disseminate misleading information to disparage their enemies, they often get careless and wind up hitting themselves with a sort of journalistic friendly fire. That’s what happened as the editors of Fox Nation rushed to republish a petulant little hit piece from Breitbart News.

The article by Matthew Boyle (known for his discredited smears that falsely alleged improprieties by Sen. Bob Menendez), took aim at an attorney who represented the United Church of Christ (UCC) when it was being investigated by the IRS for potential violations of its tax-exempt status. The inquiry was prompted by a speech made by then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008.

The Fox Nationalists plastered a lurid headline atop their posting that said “Chief IRS Counsel Bailed Jeremiah Wright’s Church Out of IRS Probe in 2008.” The only thing wrong with that headline is…well, everything. First of all, the attorney, William Wilkins, did not work for the IRS in any capacity at the time. He was in private practice with a firm that specialized in tax matters. Secondly, his client was the UCC, not Rev. Wright’s Trinity United, which was just an affiliate of the denomination. Thirdly, he had no power to bail anyone out. What he did was represent them in the investigation, which he did in a manner that produced a favorable outcome.

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This was a thoroughly hollow assault that was contrived by unethical partisans to hurt the President. But how can you blame them? This barrel of lies touched on so many of the phony components of their smear machine, it was just too good to pass up. After all, it had Obama, the IRS, and an old fave, Rev. Wright.

What both the BreitBrats and the Fox Nationalists missed in their haste to bash Obama was the fact that this investigation was another example of the Bush administration deploying the IRS to harass organizations they perceived as unfriendly (i.e. Greenpeace, NAACP, et al). In this case it was a liberal church that invited a Democratic presidential candidate to deliver a speech on faith.

So not only has the right-wing media cabal missed their target by a mile, they inadvertently weakened their case that the IRS is a rogue outfit that exclusively harasses conservatives. Nice work, kiddies.

May 18 2013 13 cmnts

General

Fox News Troglodytes Cheer Beefcake Conservatism

Posted by: Mark @ 10:26 am

A visit to the Fox News community web site, Fox Nation, is always an adventure that yields surprises and curiosities. But even amongst the brazen lies and flagrant distortions, there are some gems of idiocy that stand out. For instance…

In an item about a study on “the Ancestral Logic of Politics,” the Fox Nationalists slapped on a this headline: “Strong Men Lean Conservative,” In doing so they have made their best case yet for the right-wing sloganeering to “Take our country back – to the Stone Age.”

The study referenced in the article examined and compared data on bicep size, socioeconomic status, and support for economic redistribution. What the researchers concluded was that upper-body strength “may reflect psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments.”

In other words, physically domineering specimens were more inclined to take what they want and refuse to share. Sounds pretty much like every Randian Teabagger in the GOP (Greedy One Percent). It is a perfect description of the rightist ideology of self-interest above all. It’s what shapes the Republican agenda of opposing regulations that protect people, as well as taxes used to provide food, housing, and other social services to the sick, the elderly, and the poor (known to right-wingers as “the weak”).

The Fox interpretation of this study is typically shallow in that they regard physical strength in the same way that our Neanderthal ancestors did – as a class-based asset. The more powerful members of the community were once elevated to leadership posts by virtue of their ability to bully everybody else. And that’s pretty much the way Tea-publicans want it to be today, although they have modified the definition of strength to include financial muscle. Hence their reverence for (and subservience to) wealthy upper-crusters like the Koch brothers.

It’s rather amusing that Fox chose to illustrate their posting with body-builder-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – a pot-smoking, pro-choice, steroidal, Hollywood mogul, environmentalist, who married a Kennedy and then cheated on her (fathering a child with his Guatemalan maid). What better role model for the egocentric selfishness of modern conservatism that is so smitten with swaggering blowhards and chicken-hawks?

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May 15 2013 5 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: ‘Strong Sense’ Fox Authorized Birther Lies About IRS

Posted by: Mark @ 12:12 pm

With the right-wing media merry-go-round spinning furiously out of control over the IRS affair, it is not surprising to find Fox Nation cranking up the speed and ferocity of the misinformation. This morning’s posting of an article on lie-infested Fox Nation was adorned with this “bombshell” headline: ABC News: ‘Strong Sense’ Someone in WH Authorized IRS Targeting Conservatives.

If journalists at ABC News had actually conducted credible research (unlike their Benghazi embarrassment) and concluded that the White House had authorized the IRS to target conservative groups, that would indeed be startling and intolerable. Of course, this being Fox Nation, you might already have guessed that none of that is true.

First of all, the statement to which Fox is referring was made by Trey Hardin, a long-time Republican operative who does not work for ABC News. Secondly, Hardin made the statement on the uber-rightist radio program of Doug McIntyre, not on any broadcast affiliated with ABC’s news division. Thirdly, it was a statement that represented only Hardin’s personal opinion which he backed up with zero evidence.

Hardin: I will tell you this on the IRS front: I have worked in this town for over 20 years. I have worked in the White House; I’ve worked on Capitol Hill. I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS was doing, but authorized it.”

Well then, since Hardin has a “very strong sense of certainty,” that’s good enough for me. After all, who needs facts or evidence or documentation when you have senses. Perhaps he smelled the unmistakable odor of authorization.

Clearly this is an attempt by the Fox Nationalists to slap a veneer of credibility on this Tea-publican’s extremist and unsupported fantasy by dishonestly portraying it as the product of an ABC News report. And to make matters worse, Fox posted the item with a YouTube clip from McIntyre’s radio broadcast that was created by a group called “Birther Report,” whose web site is “ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com.”

Fox is really reaching for the highest standards of credibility – at least for Fox. Their usual sources for fabricated smear campaigns are even less credible: Breitbart, Daily Caller, Washington Times, Limbaugh, etc. Apparently Fox has a very strong sense that Birthers are reliable news sources, but a very low sense of shame.

May 12 2013 6 cmnts

General

Hack Producer Of Anti-Obama Crockumentary To Motion Picture Academy Board: Dump Michael Moore

Posted by: Mark @ 4:41 pm

In the annals of Hollywood crybaby sagas, none climb to heights as high as those by the right-wing hissy-fitters responsible for 2016: Obama’s America. This alleged documentary starred, and was based on the book by, conservative shill Dinesh D’Zouza. It had some success at the box office due to the gullibility of Teabagging moviegoers, but was universally panned by objective critics, and its standards for accuracy and honesty were of the toilet bowl variety.

Nevertheless, the producers were so convinced of their own brilliance that they fumed when they did not get recognition from the documentary branch members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences – who obviously know better. And now producer Gerald Molen has formalized his objections in a letter to the Academy that asks them to remove Governing Board member, and respected documentarian, Michael Moore from his post.

Unfortunately, this vacant bleating is nothing more than a lame cry for attention that fails to take into consideration that Moore has only one vote out of 172 members of the Academy’s documentary branch. He has no other role in choosing the winners or even selecting the nominees.

Molen’s letter made some rather egregious errors in enumerating the reasons for his pique. In addition to his ridiculous charge that Moore was among “the gatekeepers in charge of which films get nominated,” he repeatedly notes that the box office returns for his film count in some way toward whether it should be nominated for an Oscar. However, there is no correlation between financial success and creative merit. In fact, last year the next two highest grossing documentaries were “Chimpanzee” and “Katy Perry: Part of Me,” but neither of them received Oscar nominations either. Even Moore’s last film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” was not in Oscar contention despite being one of the biggest moneymakers of all time. Yet you didn’t hear any of these filmmakers whining about bias.

Molen complained in his letter that he was the victim of political bias saying, “Like many who enjoyed and commented on the film, I find myself wondering if it was excluded for ‘other’ reasons.” Indeed, it was. However the ‘other’ reasons had to do with how badly it sucked, as well as how poorly it adhered to the standards of truth-telling that determines the quality of a documentary feature. These reasons were articulated more diplomatically by the Academy in their response to Molen:

“We’ve discussed your letter and the concerns you raise. First of all, I want to assure you that 2016: Obama’s America was treated the same as all the other 125 films that were submitted in the Feature Documentary category for the most recent Academy Awards. Your film definitely received consideration and it was not ignored. It merely didn’t get the votes it needed to move onto the short list.”

Molen’s bitchfest was predictably taken up by Fox News on their lie-riddled Fox Nation web site. In an article sourced to the ultra-rightist NewsBusters, they regurgitated Molen’s complaints and expressed their disapproval that the documentary that won last year’s Oscar, “Searching for Sugar Man” was an undeserving winner because “’2016′ sold ten times as many tickets.” Once again, they are mistaking money for merit, a common logical flaw suffered by conservatives.

This sort of unseemly sniveling by right-wing losers is nothing new. Specifically with regard to ’2016,’ the principle character, Dinesh D’Souza threw a similarly distasteful tantrum just prior to the Oscar program last February. Instead of demonstrating some class and an appreciation for his fellow filmmakers, D’Souza rudely insulted them saying…

“I join most Americans in leaving them in deserved obscurity. I haven’t heard of any of them, and like most people, I haven’t seen them.”

How he determined that the nominees deserved obscurity without having even seen them is a mystery and says more about him than it does about the films. But the juvenile consistency shown by Molen and D’Souza is evidence of just how low these cretins will sink to unfairly disparage other artists in pursuit of their own ego-soaked self-interest.

May 11 2013 1 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: There Are Hungry Folks In Puerto Rico – And Mississippi Too

Posted by: Mark @ 1:11 pm

One of the obvious and unsettling consequences of the economic collapse engineered by George W. Bush and his Wall Street cronies is the escalation of the number of poor and hungry Americans who rely on Food Stamps to feed their families. But leave it to the Fox Nationalists to ferret out an angle on this that disparages an ethnic minority and exacerbates the racial divisiveness that is already all too prevalent on Fox Nation.

Fox Nation vs. Reality:

While Fox scrounged up this item from CNSNews, a division of the ultra-rightist Media Research Center, they never bothered to put the information into context. Had they done so, their audience would know that may other places in the United States (which, of course, includes Puerto Rico) have far higher percentages of Food Stamp participation than the island territory. For instance, the state of Mississippi has 12 counties that surpass Puerto Rico. In Humphreys County the percentage of Food Stamp recipients is nearly half (48%). And that is not an anomaly. Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and other mostly southern states also have counties that rank higher in Food Stamp usage.

Given these facts, why would Fox single out Puerto Rico? Could it be because the population is largely Latino? Many conservatives regard the territory as “foreign” and don’t consider it a part of the American family. That view is endorsed by the comments posted on Fox Nation’s web site, where the prevailing opinion is that Puerto Rico should be cut loose. If so, then I suppose the same people expressing that view would be amenable to throwing Mississippi out of the union as well. And on that, we may have found some common ground.

May 09 2013 6 cmnts

General

WTF? Fox Nation Ties Cleveland Kidnapper To Anti-Islam Video Maker, Benghazi, And Obama

Posted by: Mark @ 4:17 pm

These freakin’ slimeballs at Fox Nation continue to demonstrate that they have no morals whatsoever. Not to mention no integrity, honesty, or decency. They will take any grotesque episode, no matter how far removed from President Obama, and attach it to him by some depraved, alien logic. Take this for instance:

The original article referenced by Fox Nation was from their own Fox News via the Associated Press. It reported on the arrest of Areil Castro, the charges against him, his bail, and went into some detail about the alleged crimes.

For some reason, Fox Nation focused on the one sentence in the 700+ word article that mentioned Castro’s bail. But even more baffling was their insertion of this paragraph:

“The creator of the controversial anti-Islam You Tube video, that the Obama administration used in its talking points as the motivation behind the September 11th attacks in Benghazi, was held without bail. It was later revealed that the attack in Benghazi was not a reaction to the video.”

That text was not anywhere in the original article. It was composed entirely by the Fox Nationalists and inserted into the story without any disclosure that they had fabricated it themselves. It obviously has nothing to do with the story and sticks out for its surreal irrelevance.

For the record, the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was arrested for allegedly violating terms of his probation. The judge, citing probation violations including lying to probation officials, ordered him held without bail, a common occurrence under these circumstances. He pleaded guilty to four of the charges against him and was sentenced to one year in prison and four years of supervised release.

[Update: Fox News is now actively defending this filmmaker who they portray as a "patsy" of the Obama administration]

…..

So what was the point that Fox Nation was making by embedding this extraneous content into the article? Clearly they were drawing some sort of deranged parallel between Obama, Nakoula, and Castro. Perhaps their purpose was to imply that Obama personally interceded to insure that Nakoula was held incommunicado to keep him from exposing Obama’s covert plot to promote the video and inspire a global Islamic uprising. Or maybe Fox was attempting to suggest that Obama had some sympathy for Castro and secretly engineered his bail (at only $8 million). Or maybe Fox just hadn’t written the word “Benghazi” in the past five seconds and thought this would be a good time to slip it in again.

What on earth are these imbeciles thinking? They just lost a historic election that they were convinced would be a cake-walk for the GOP. They underwent what they themselves called a “postmortem” analysis of their epic failures. They were named the “stupid party” by one of their most prominent governors. And yet they are still resorting to the sort of idiocy and extremism that has earned them the lowest favorable ratings in history.

And this wasn’t even the only incident of Castro-izing Democrats today. On Fox’s America Live with Megyn Kelly, their conservative contributor Chris Plante inexplicably said that “Ariel Castro might get the ‘hospitality of the year award’ from the Democrats in Congress.” What unholy orifice did he pull that from?

This is evidence that Fox News and their GOP pals have learned nothing from the 2012 elections. It also proves that they are a gaggle of repulsive and childish mental deficients with no discernible honor or even the common civility that would permit them to go out in public among decent people. Where the fuck does it stop with these cretins?

And not to be left out. the “Moonie” Washington Times joined in with this asinine crap:

Apr 23 2013 0 cmnts

Election, General, Racism

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Fox Gives ‘Illegal Immigrants’ Full Voting Rights

Posted by: Mark @ 3:46 pm

Continuing to cling obsessively to their anti-Latino bigotry, Fox News latched unto a story in Politico that speculated about an electoral windfall for Democrats if the immigration bill winding through congress becomes law. The Politico story was not particularly well-reasoned (and an article in The Guardian masterfully rebuts it), but, true to form, the lie-factory at Fox Nation took a weak argument and made it even less palatable with their trademark brand of hyperbole and inbred prejudice.

The title, “Immigration Bill Gives Illegal Immigrants Full Voting Rights,” is patently false. No one other than an actual citizen is permitted to vote in this country and the pending immigration bill doesn’t change that. In fact, it contains a provision that explicitly punishes anyone who is not a citizen, if they unlawfully cast a ballot, by precluding them from obtaining citizenship.

So Fox’s assertion that “illegal Immigrants” will get full voting rights is dead wrong. And so is their unrelenting use of the derogatory phrase “illegal Immigrants.” Many news outlets have ceased to use the term that is considered offensive by those to whom it refers. Even the Fox News Latino web site has formally abandoned it.

The gist of the Politico article is that Democrats stand to gain electorally if the estimated 11 million undocumented residents were to become citizens. However, the legislation currently being debated contains a pathway to citizenship that would take thirteen years to complete. A lot can happen in politics in thirteen years. What’s more, there is no indication that all of the 11 million would ever become full citizens (either by choice or due to the stringent requirements in the law), or that those who did would ever register and turn out to vote.

So even if the Fox Nationalists had not overplayed their rhetorical bias in the headline, the facts would still not support their panicky fear of a browner, more Democratic electorate. That prospect is already manifest and is due primarily to the fact that Democrats welcome a more diverse society, while Republicans insult and demean minorities and aspiring citizens.

If the folks at Fox, and their allies in the GOP, are worried about losing future elections due to an expanding voter pool (and they should be), they might try not deliberately alienating the fastest growing demographic group in the nation, rather than trying to obstruct legal citizens from voting with measures that disenfranchise minorities, seniors, students, and the poor. But that would put them at odds with their Tea Party contingent and the confederate dead-enders that are the core of their southern strategy. It’s kind of a rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma for the them. Except the rock is equality and the hard place is their compulsive hatred for anyone not like them.

Apr 15 2013 5 cmnts

General, Wankery

Birther, Marxist, Treason Conspiracies Still Hound Obama At Fox News

Posted by: Mark @ 12:29 pm

On the Fox News community web site Fox Nation (whose grip on reality is suspect), the top featured story today is an article from the uber-conservative blog Human Events with the provocative headline “Obama’s Plan Hatched at Columbia University.”

The article by diehard birther Wayne Allyn Root begins by asserting that a poor child of a single mother grew up to become the first African-American president of the United States despite being “hostile and resentful towards anyone who has achieved self-made success through American values.” And it gets even crazier from there.

Root’s premise is that while he was a student at Columbia University “Obama and his Marxist cronies hatched a secret plan to destroy our country.” Root apparently has some personal knowledge of this nefarious plot as a result of his being a classmate of Obama. Where he acquired his information is a mystery since he admits that while at Columbia he “never met him, never saw him, never even heard of him.” Having established that as the shaky foundation for his expose, Root speculates that the reason their paths never crossed was because Obama “was busy attending communist party meetings.” Along with everything else in Root’s harangue, that bit of speculative nonsense is unsupported and untrue.

Root then relates a story about how he had learned of the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan while in class, and the response of his classmates. “They cheered. They clapped,” Root says. “They yelled, they high-fived, and whooped in sheer unadulterated joy.” Once again, there is no corroboration of this account, but the next revelation from Root’s imagination is even more surreal and unfounded. He said that “if Obama actually went to Columbia, he’d almost certainly have to have been in that class leading the cheers.”

That sentence is ripe with a dementia fermented in hatred. Root prefaces his remark by questioning whether Obama was in the class at all. In fact, it is one of his primary hypotheses that Obama’s academic history is a complete fabrication. But he doesn’t let his own lunatic theories stop him from placing Obama in the classroom anyway. And after inventing Obama’s presence (and remember, Root claims to never have even seen him), Root assigns to him the mantle of leadership. So Root’s position is that Obama must have been in the classroom leading the cheers despite having never seen him and not believing he was ever a student there at all. Makes perfect sense – if someone laced your Twinkies with LSD. “But wait,” Root exclaims, “The most frightening and eye-opening is still to come.”

The horrific plot Root has uncovered is based on “a detailed plan designed by two former Columbia professors named Cloward & Piven.” Here Root is borrowing from the moth-eaten, psychotic ramblings of Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and other conspiracy theorists who have mangled the teachings of Cloward and Piven for years. They assert that a scheme is underway to overweight the welfare system until it collapses the economy. Root alleges that Obama “is using that plan to destroy America, capitalism, and the U.S. economy right in front of our eyes.”

The objective of destroying America and its economy is never revealed by Root or any of his deranged predecessors. Certainly a bankrupt nation would not be an ideal starting point for a power mad socialist since there would be no funding available for the welfare state he allegedly seeks to form.

More to the point, the only evidence of any policy that has approached an end result of collapsing the economy is the policy of the previous Republican administration and its right-wing overseers. These lackeys of Wall Street, defense contractors, and multinational corporatist interests brought our nation closer to insolvency than anything since the crash of 1928 and the Great Depression.

For Root to stir the historical facts into a soup of cranial mush that contradicts his own wingnut crackpottery is not surprising. He is merely plagiarizing the dimwitted, paranoid fears of the many Psycho-Chicken Littles that have preceded him with panicky tales of Cloward, Piven, Soros, Alinsky, et al. However, it is notable that Fox News has seen fit to headline this tripe as if it were newsworthy – or even sane. And to those pundits who suggest that Fox has moderated its fringy, tea-sotted extremism as a result of the drubbing they took last November, clearly that is not the case.

Apr 12 2013 2 cmnts

General, Humor

Adopt A Wingnut: Buy A Copy Of ‘Fox Nation vs. Reality’ For Your Favorite FoxPod

Posted by: Mark @ 10:39 am

Earlier this week News Corpse reported that the desperate producers of the crocumentary “Hating Breitbart” had embarked on a program to convince their fans to buy multiple copies of the DVD and send them to liberal politicians, journalists, actors, etc. We regarded this idea as a hilarious and transparent ploy to salvage their failed film and we set about to mocking it. As I wrote last Tuesday…

“The producers must be stuck with a warehouse of these paperweights and believe that their fans are dumb enough to bail them out by buying more. [...] Wouldn’t it just be easier to double the price and tell them the proceeds are going to Jesus?”

Well, I may have spoken too soon. After marathon conferences with our marketing executives and promotion consultants, we at News Corpse have determined that this sort of sales methodology has the potential to enhance the commercial prospects of our own already successful ebook “Fox Nation vs. Reality.” So today we are launching a version of the “Adopt A Wingnut” program that enables our enlightened audience to spread some of the truth and insight developed here to the community of deluded Fox Zombies who need it most. It’s a simple 3-step plan that everyone can join in on.

Step One

If you have not already purchased a copy of Fox Nation vs. Reality, do so immediately. It is an amusing and informative expose of the most brazenly dishonest efforts by Fox News to deceive their gullible fans.

Step Two

Buy another copy of Fox Nation vs. Reality for an unfortunate friend or family member whose thinking has been clouded by the disinformation served up by Fox News. You can also buy copies for politicians, journalists, actors, teachers, professional colleagues, climate science deniers, Tea Partiers, bible thumpers, you name it. Be creative. Amazon makes it easy for you to designate the purchase as a gift and send the gift notice to the recipient.

Step Three

Repeat Step Two as many times as necessary to complete your own list of needy neo-cons, theo-cons, and just plain cons (or until there is world peace and an end to hunger, whichever comes first).

Through this generous initiative we can have a real impact on the destructive propaganda that emanates from Fox News. The power of the human attributes of charity combined with effective social media can change the world and you can be a part of it. This is not some pipe dream cooked up by naive optimists. A check on Amazon today shows that Fox Nation vs. Reality is already ranking higher in sales than Breitbart’s autobiography, Righteous Indignation

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,086
Righteous Indignation: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,624
(Note; these numbers seem to change by the minute, but these are the actual figures as of this writing. Also, while 28,086 seems like a high number, it is out of more than 1.3 million books. That puts it in the top three percentile.)

It is time to stand up and be counted. It is time to take positive steps toward a better world. It is time to lend a hand to the less fortunate. Just think about how badly these poor souls need the nourishment of honesty and truth. And try to imagine how much more compassionate and rational our world will be when we have eradicated the ignorance and hostility that is emblematic of the righteous-wing of the American political spectrum.

This is a moral crusade and it needs your participation to succeed. I know I can count on you. And as always, thanks for your dedication and benevolence. Your purchases will help News Corpse to continue to bring you the best in media analysis, conservative smackdowns, and political humor and art.

Apr 08 2013 0 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama Takes A Dive Within The Margin Of Error

Posted by: Mark @ 7:11 pm

Fox News seems not to understand the meaning of common figures of speech. It’s another way that they manifest their departure from the real world that the rest of us inhabit.

For instance, in a posting today on Fox Nation, they reported the results of a poll conducted by CNN with a headline declaring that “Obama Takes a Dive on Guns, Immigration, Deficit.” Ordinarily Fox would not give any credence to a poll by the socialist apparatchiks at CNN, but since they managed to spin this negatively for the President they have a new found regard for the network.

The actual results of the poll are mixed from the President’s perspective. However, the key finding is that Obama’s approval rating went up 4% (to 51%) while his disapproval went down 3% – a seven percent swing in Obama’s favor. If that’s taking a dive, we should all jump in.

To be fair, the Fox headline did specify three issues as having dived, so let’s take a look at those. On immigration it would be fair to say that Obama’s handling of the matter suffered somewhat with approval/disapproval percentages declining to 44/50 from 51/43. However on guns, the numbers hardly budged from 46% approval in January to 45% today. And on the deficit the numbers ticked down slightly from 41% to 38%. On guns and the deficit, the shifts were both within the margin of error which means that there was no shift at all from a statistical perspective.

It is notable that, while Obama’s numbers were lower than they were in the previous poll (taken the week before the inauguration when traditionally polls spike up), they were higher than at any other time for the past year. That suggests an upward trending that was merely interrupted by an abnormally high reading in January.

So the President’s numbers were essentially stagnant on the deficit and guns; they were notably improved overall; and that is what the Fox Nationalists consider a dive. Not reported at all by Fox is that approval for Republicans in Congress is a pitiful 25% with 73% disapproving. The President’s approval is a full 26 points higher. He must be terribly disappointed, poor fella.

Apr 07 2013 6 cmnts

General

Shameless Self-Promotion: Get My Book, Damn It: Fox Nation vs. Reality

Posted by: Mark @ 10:17 am

If you haven’t bought my book yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Fox Nation vs. Reality is jam-packed with more than 50 examples of Fox’s utter disregard for the truth. It’s a great resource for setting your Tea-publican friends and family straight. We all have one one of them crazy uncles, admit it.

Plus, your purchase will help News Corpse continue to shine the light of truth on the right-wing media machine with the logic, insight, and humor regular readers have come to expect. It’s like donating three bucks to a worthy cause and getting an awesome book for free.

Wonkette called Fox Nation vs. Reality, “A valuable contribution to the effort to chip away at Bullshit Mountain.” Who can argue with that? They also touted the book’s “Solid, fact-checky blogging that systematically takes apart the exaggerations, cherry-picking of facts, and outright lies that regularly crop up in Fox Nation articles.” And they cryptically noted that “Fox Nation vs. Reality is definitely not hastily written Furry porn.” High praise indeed.

Fox Nation/Tea Party Poll
As an example from the book of one of the blatant departures from reality employed by Fox, take a look at this article where Fox Nation published an item with the headline “Obama More Unpopular Than Tea Party.” However, the New York Times poll cited in the article actually reported Obama’s favorability at 48% and the Tea Party at 20% – a complete reversal of the declaration in the headline.

So get your copy today at Amazon. You won’t regret it. And if you do…hey, it’s only three measly bucks. What are you, cheap or something? [Seriously, thanks for your support. News Corpse could not be here without the generous support of our readers]

Apr 04 2013 9 cmnts

General

Fox News vs. Reality: Constrained By The Constitution?

Posted by: Mark @ 3:11 pm

One of the favorite methods of misinforming the public employed by Fox Nation is to pinch a snippet of text from an Obama statement and misconstrue it to suggest a meaning it never actually had. One famous of example of this was the phony “You didn’t build that” controversy. Today Fox Nation adds to this legacy with this contrivance: “Obama Complains He’s Constrained By the Copnstitution.”

As you might already suspect, that is not at all what happened. While discussing the concerns of gun worshiping radicals that new legislation was going to result in widespread confiscation of all weapons, Obama noted that their nightmares could not possibly come true because they are constitutionally prohibited. This is what he said:

“You hear some of these quotes: ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government.’ ‘We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away. Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.”

Obama was plainly attempting to ease the irrational fears of a few conspiracy nuts. His remarks were not the least bit controversial and were not anything that hasn’t been expressed before. For instance, this guy:

There is nothing in Obama’s statement that could be plausibly interpreted as a “complaint.” Nevertheless, the Fox Nationalists (with help from Glenn Beck’s site which they used as their source) presented it that way while neglecting to publish the entire quote so their readers would have the full context. The only part they posted was their bastardized headline. But since that fit their mission to misconstrue everything the President says in a derogatory manner, they leaped at the opportunity.

More Fox Nation vs. Reality

If you’ve ever longed for a collection of documented examples of the dishonesty and hostility of Fox News presented with facts, insight, and humor, here it is: Fox Nation vs. Reality

And your purchase will help News Corpse continue to shine the light of truth on the right-wing media machine. It’s like donating three bucks to a worthy cause and getting an awesome book for free.

Mar 27 2013 2 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: A Revealing Look Into The Fox News Community’s Assault On Truth

Posted by: Mark @ 9:04 am

This is an excerpt from the introduction to the book Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault On Truth. The book contains more than fifty examples of Fox’s rank dishonesty with verifiable documentation of the falsehoods.

When Fox News debuted sixteen years ago, it was crafted from scratch to be a partisan outlet for right-wing propaganda and a platform for advancing a conservative agenda. Its founder, Rupert Murdoch, was already an internationally known purveyor of right-slanted newspapers and broadcasters. Murdoch’s first move was to hire Roger Ailes, a Republican media strategist, to build a network that would reflect his conservative views.

Today Fox News is the highest rated cable news network, having surpassed the innovator, and long-time leader, CNN about ten years ago. However, putting that into perspective, Fox News still draws only about half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program (CBS Evening News), and about 25% of the broadcast leader’s audience (NBC Nightly News). Its ratings are lower than Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and Spongebob Squarepants too. Nevertheless, Fox has parlayed its cable success into a juggernaut of hype and hyperbole.

Complimenting Fox’s television presence is its Internet community web site, Fox Nation. The statement of purpose posted on the Fox Nation web site says that it is “committed to the core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse, and fair and balanced coverage of the news.” However, a cursory glance at the site reveals that they have fallen wide of their stated purpose by several light years.

The pretense of fairness and balance is even less true for Fox Nation than it is for their parent, Fox News. At any given time, Fox Nation is layered thickly with far-right extremist diatribes and links to disreputable articles plucked from the Internet’s fringes (i.e. Breitbart and the John Birch Society). They compose headlines that are dripping with hyperbole (i.e. O’Reilly Demolishes Liberal Hypocrisy, and Cheney’s Daughter Annihilates MSNBC Anchor). They display overt disrespect by attaching disparaging and childish nicknames to people they don’t like (i.e. “Pig” Maher for Bill Maher, or Stuart Smalley for Sen. Al Franken).

The notion that civil discourse can take place on Fox Nation is dispelled with the viewing of their user forums. When they aren’t referencing the President as Odumbo or the First Lady as Moo-chelle, they are engaging in the rankest display of racism and hatred this side of the KKK’s home page. The Fox Nationalists use the “N” word as if it were an acceptable descriptive noun. And it doesn’t take much effort to find outright advocacy of violence and even assassination.

These sorts of comments are not anomalies. Fox Nation is deliberately catering to this caliber of audience. The frequency of comments like these makes it impossible to deny that they meet with the approval of the site’s editors. Which raises another pertinent question: Who are the site’s editors?

Most legitimate news enterprises identify their principle staff – publishers, editors, etc. But Fox News treats these people as if they were covert agents of espionage. There is no masthead or bylines or any other indication of who is responsible for the repugnant content posted daily on the web page. Requests for this information from Fox corporate communications officers went unanswered. And given the dishonesty, unprofessionalism, ignorance, and immaturity of the tone and substance on the site, perhaps it is their intention to remain anonymous in order to avoid the shame that would come with an association to such puerile trash.

This first volume of Fox Nation vs. Reality is a collection of some of the blatant falsehoods found on Fox Nation. These are not mere differences of opinion or discussions that might have varying degrees of perspective. They are obvious, provable, out and out lies. They are manifestations of a disconnect with the real world. But they are not the result of psychosis or mistake. They are deliberate and purposeful. They are aimed at an ill-informed audience that is only interested in having their prejudices affirmed. And Fox News is only too happy to accommodate them.

Mar 22 2013 1 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Fox News Exploits Dead Rock Star To Bash Obama

Posted by: Mark @ 2:15 pm

In a particularly repulsive display of insensitivity and brazen dishonesty, the folks at Fox Nation posted a article that falsely declared “Obama Exploits Dead Rock Star For Gun Grab.”

The first and most obvious problem with that article is that it is patently untrue. The allegation is that President Obama was responsible for Tweeting a photograph of John Lennon’s bloodied glasses with a message about the tragic consequences of an armed and violent society. The message in the Tweet is:

“Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the U.S. A. since John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980.”

However, the President was not responsible for that Tweet. The message and the photo was Tweeted by Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. If anyone has a right to express outrage over the proliferation of deadly weapons, it is Yoko.

It is clear that she sent the message and the photo out with the intent that it be disseminated by her followers online. And that is precisely what someone working for the pro-Obama organization (not Obama or his White House), Organizing for America did. Re-Tweeting Yoko was not in any way exploitative. To the contrary, it was respectful because it was exactly what she wanted.

In addition, Fox misrepresented the meaning of the message by twisting it to suggest advocacy of a “gun grab.” However, it should be noted that no one – not Yoko, not Obama, not any proposal before congress – is calling for anything like the sort of confiscatory distortion advanced by Fox.

If anyone is guilty of exploiting Lennon’s murder, it is Fox. They are the ones lying about both the source of the message and the meaning of it as well. It is a disgraceful affront to Lennon’s memory (like Yoko, he was a peace activist) and to those who loved him both in his actual family and the worldwide family of his fans. So screw you, Fox. You have no standing to criticize Yoko or to speak for her late-husband.

Mar 13 2013 1 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: On Obama’s Budget The Balancing Of

Posted by: Mark @ 11:04 am

It’s not bad enough that Fox News operates a community web site that is riddled with lies, but they also frequently demonstrate a level of incompetence that would embarrass a remedial high school newspaper.

Perhaps I’m being too hard them. Maybe their syntax here was meant to compliment Obama by portraying him as having the wisdom of Yoda. Or maybe they hired Sarah Palin to write their headlines. Or, of course, they may just be emulating their racist perception of Ebonics. In any case, the gist of their article is incontestably false.

The Fox Nationalists are characterizing Obama’s remarks as a rejection of the goal of balancing the federal budget. Now, that would be a perfectly reasonable position to take because in a recession many economists argue that economic growth has a higher priority than balanced budgets. However, it is not the position that Obama is taking,. In the interview Obama gave to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos he very clearly articulated his interest in balancing the budget:

“Balancing the budget in part depends on how fast you grow. You remember– you were in the Clinton administration. The reason that you guys balanced it was a combination of some tax hikes, some spending cuts, and the economy grew.

“And, so– you know, my goal is not to chase– a balanced budget just for the sake of balance. My goal is how do we grow the economy, put people back to work, and if we do that we’re gonna be bringing in more revenue. If we’ve controlled spending and we’ve got a smart entitlement package, then potentially what you have is balance. But it’s not balance on the backs of, you know, the poor, the elderly, students who need student loans, families who’ve got disabled kids. That’s not the right way to balance our budget.”

Any fair reading of that statement would recognize that the President is focusing on balancing the budget, but doing it in a way that is compassionate, intelligent, and doesn’t make America’s less fortunate shoulder the burden for the wealthy. It most definitely is not Obama saying that his budget won’t be balanced (or be won’t balanced either). This is just another example of Fox misrepresenting the facts in order to whip their ill-informed audience into a frenzy over a fabricated controversy.

Mar 07 2013 0 cmnts

General

So F**king What? Movie Producer Funds Jon Stewart’s Movie

Posted by: Mark @ 10:18 am

Due to the apparent lack of anything else that’s newsworthy, Fox Nation is reporting this bit of breaking news:

The glorified delinquents that run Fox Nation veritably drool at any opportunity to disparage President Obama and his Hollywood pals. They are also giddy about slamming allegedly liberal comedians whenever possible (note that Jon Stewart is a frequent critic of the President and Democrats, and Fox knows it). But this item sourced to the ultra-conservative Washington Free Beacon is a perfect illustration of just how deranged these hacks are by their Obama hatred. The article begins…

“Gigi Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt fortune, will finance and produce Stewart’s directorial debut, Rosewater. The film is based on the true story of a former Iranian political prisoner arrested after appearing on ‘The Daily Show.”’”

So F**king What?

Sure, Pritzker is financing and producing Stewart’s film. Perhaps it’s because she runs a production company, Odd Lot Entertainment, and was fortunate enough to snag this project that many producers in the business would covet. And as obsessed right-wingers like to remind everyone, there is an abundance of Obama supporters in Hollywood. It might be difficult to find a film producer that had not donated to Obama.

Do the cretins at Fox think that Stewart would have associated himself with Republican producer for his first directorial effort?

Oops. Wait a minute…..It seems that Stewart has, in fact, associated himself with a Republican producer. In 2012 Pritzker, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, contributed the maximum allowed donation – to Mitt Romney! So Fox could just as well have posted the headline “Romney Donor Funds Jon Stewart Movie.” I wonder why they didn’t.

Mar 06 2013 0 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Night Of The Living Tea Party

Posted by: Mark @ 12:23 pm

Get your copy of the ebook
Fox Nation vs. Reality
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These right-wing dead-enders will simply never learn. After having deluded themselves into believing that President Obama’s reelection was dead in the water, that Mitt Romney was a shoe-in to take up residency in the White House, and that all the polls were the work of corrupt partisans bent on deceiving the electorate, you would think that they would have joined the rest of America in the real world. You would be wholly and hysterically wrong.

An article posted on Fox Nation declares wildly, and without rational support, that “The Tea Party Still Lives.” In one respect it is an encouraging development in that they must at least recognize that the far-right fringe of the GOP has been on life support for quite some time. However, this new diagnosis is based on the same sort of pathological denial as the claims that Obama’s presidency was terminal. The poll cited by the Fox Nationalists was commissioned by the Tea Party itself and the depth of the survey’s inquiry was astonishingly shallow.

For instance, the primary claim by the Tea Party pollsters is that “A plurality of Americans support ‘Tea Party principles.’” The principles they are boasting about include “free markets,” and “personal responsibility.” That’s a pretty vague set of principles that are held by most Americans regardless of party. Having established absolutely nothing with that inquiry, they proceed to juxtapose those results with what they consider to be the principles of everyone else: “higher taxes,” and “more spending.” At this point it should be fairly obvious that there is no credibility whatsoever in this poll.

It is interesting to note that, despite the dramatically biased construction of this poll, it could not even deliver a majority in favor of the skewed choices presented to the respondents. Only 48% said they agree with the “Tea Party principles” as described. What’s more, the actual poll results were not published on either Fox Nation or the site of their source, the ultra-conservative Washington Free Beacon. What do you suppose are they afraid of?

When credible pollsters have asked people whether they support the President’s positions on specific issues such as the budget, immigration, climate change, and gun safety, the results invariably favor Obama. And when pollsters inquire as to the level of support for the Tea Party, the results are pitifully low.

Nevertheless, the Tea Party continues to wallow in denial with fabricated polling and delusions of grandeur that defy reason. And even after being made fools of by partisan media that led them into the pits of pipe-dream propaganda, they continue to put their faith in media con artists like Fox News. Which, by the way, is all the better for Democrats and progressives who still live in the real world.

Mar 01 2013 1 cmnts

General, Wankery

Right-Wingers Think Obama Donor Is Buying Up Gun-Related Media To Shut It Down

Posted by: Mark @ 2:22 pm

FERCHRISSAKES!!! I just can’t take it anymore.

There have been a plethora of utterly insane notions floated by cretins on the right that make no rational sense whatsoever. They range from non-existent “death panels,” to FEMA concentration camps, to Kenyan-born presidents, and those are the least deranged among them. Recently the Tea-publicans were aghast at a ridiculous claim that the Department of Homeland Security was stockpiling munitions in preparation to wipe out large swaths of the American population. Seriously, they really believe that.

But now they are venturing further afield into territory that is unexplored by even the most severely hallucinatory meth freaks. An article published on Fox Nation cries “Obama Donor Buying Up and ‘Destroying’ America’s Top Pro-gun Media Outlets.”

The article is a re-posting from the Daily Caller web site which is run by Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson. It was written by Patrick Howley, someone they identify as an “Investigative Reporter,” despite his history as a violent right-wing activist who admitted to infiltrating OccupyDC for the purpose of undermining it. Howley asserts in his opening paragraph that…

“Employees of Obama donor Leo Hindery Jr.’s media conglomerate Intermedia Partners, which now owns most of the top gun-culture media outlets in the country, believe that Hindery plans to gut and destroy all of them.”

What a perfectly devious plot. Hindery is an investor with more than thirty years in the media business. He has been a significant figure in sports programming, cable television, telecommunications, and other properties that have made him one of America’s wealthiest businessmen. Yet the paranoia-racked brains of conservative dimwits think that he is plotting to “consolidate all of the major pro-Second Amendment media titles in this country, strip them down, and destroy them.” For some reason they think that Hindery has suddenly cast off his mantle of capitalist media baron and is willing to lose millions of dollars in a scheme to deprive magazine readers of titles like “Shooting Times” and “Gun Dog.” That’ll show the NRA. And he and Obama will have a good laugh.

The evidence presented by Howley consists mainly of testimony from anonymous employees who are afraid they are about to be laid off. Imagine that – there are magazines and media companies that are struggling in these digital times and may have to downsize or close. Who knew? Howley also cites the reduction in work at a Minnesota studio that he describes as a “beautiful” facility that had “60 employees, a massive studio, at least nine editing bays and fully-wired machine rooms and was conducting about four studio shoots per year.” Pardon me but, it doesn’t seem like four shoots a year is enough to sustain the studio he just described.

The weakness of the arguments in the article are almost irrelevant when considering that the premise is so bonkers to begin with. This is nothing more than an investment company pulling together assets and then seeking ways to mitigate expenses through operational mergers. There may be a case to be made that such consolidation negatively impacts employees and public choice, but that’s not a case that Republicans ever seem to be concerned about. In fact, they generally defend and celebrate such monopolistic corporate behavior as the workings of the glorious free market. There is nothing here, however, that any sane observer could claim is a plot to deliberately destroy these businesses in league with the Obama administration as an assault on the Second Amendment.

It is just astonishing that people will put stories like this out and expect to have any credibility. They are cognitively numb and running on the fumes of conspiracy theories and delusional psychoses. Their audience must be on feeding tubes waiting for someone to declare them legally brain-dead and pull the plug. And when their businesses fail I’m sure they will have an explanation at hand that blames it all on Obama, George Soros, and eco-terrorists.

Feb 27 2013 7 cmnts

General

Conservatives Struck By Epidemic Of Sequester Pychosis Syndrome

Posted by: Mark @ 12:29 pm

As the deadline approaches for congress to take action on the indiscriminate budget cuts they themselves voted for, the wailing on the part of conservative politicians and pundits is reaching ear-shattering decibel levels. While there are credible arguments on both sides of this issue that could be put forward, it seems the right-wing Tea-publican faction has chosen instead to offer only the most deranged excuses for their negligence and absolution.

The conservative blame game is frantically pointing fingers at the Obama administration for the sequestration ordeal. But what they, and their accomplices in the press, are deliberately obscuring is the fact that majorities of Republicans voted for the bill in both chambers of congress. And even more significant is the context under which the plan was agreed to. It was intended to be something so severe that neither side could stomach the notion of its implementation and would be motivated to draft an alternative – any alternative – to avoid it. So the authorship of the original idea is entirely irrelevant because it was not proposed as something that anyone would support. To say that it was the President’s idea as something he advocated is simply a lie. It was gimmick to get a bunch of lazy, gutless politicians to do their damn jobs. And it didn’t even work.

So now Republicans who voted for the gimmick are pitifully trying to run away from the monster they helped to create. In the process they are trampling all over themselves and their own messages.

First of all, the GOP is supposed to be the party of small government and identifies strongly with budget cutting and deficit reduction. So it goes against the grain when they now bitch about the cuts that will be made due to sequestration. Logic tells us that they cannot argue for budget cutting and against sequestration simultaneously, but that is exactly what they are doing. Only in a mind ravaged by disease could that occur.

Secondly, Republicans are scrambling to shift blame from themselves to the President. They want any negative repercussions of the sequester to fall solely on his back. But since they believe that deficit reduction through shrinking federal budgets is a good thing, then shouldn’t the benefits they have been insisting would transpire be credited to Obama?

Republicans have decided that it is no longer necessary for them to make any sense. They say they want profound budget cuts, but at the same time they say it would be disastrous and all the fault of Obama. They say that sequestration is good because it will reduce the deficit, but at the same time they say Obama should be excoriated for daring to propose it.

How they can maintain their balance while their heads are spinning so furiously is a mystery. But the saddest part is that media has been so negligent in reporting the most basic facts about this situation, what led up to it, and where the GOP is trying to take it now that they got what they insist they have wanted for decades. Yet somehow, when Republicans get what they want, and it has a bad outcome, they blame Obama for giving it to them. And they do so in the most repugnant manner.

Fox’s Andrew Napolitano has suggested that Obama could be impeached for implementing the budget cuts mandated by congress. Even worse, in an op-ed in today’s “Moonie” Washington Times (republished by Fox Nation), Charles Hurt makes numerous references to the President as a terrorist. He said that Obama “began shooting hostages,” when the Department of Homeland Security announced some of the measures they would be forced to take if sequestration is implemented. Then, with regard to potentially delayed Social Security payments, he said that last year, in a “drunken stupor” “Mr. Obama threatened to start shooting seniors.”

This is the hostile (and infantile) level to which the right has sunk in their battle to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the bill they overwhelmingly backed. Their obsession with tarring the President by blaming him for their own mistakes has resulted in an acute case of mental decay. And unfortunately, the media could administer a remedy by simply reporting truthfully what is going on, but they appear to be as sickened by Sequester Psychosis as the GOP regulars.