News Corpse » Fox Nation:

Tag Archives: Fox Nation

Feb 25 2013 0 cmnts

More Racist Variations Between Fox News Latino And Fox Nation Reporting

Posted by: Mark @ 10:55 am

As has been covered here previously, Fox News is engaging in a disingenuous, insulting, and brazen attempt to deceive Latino news consumers with their Fox News Latino web site. This time they are running starkly different versions of a story involving drivers licenses for undocumented residents:

Notice that Fox Nation continues to use the epithet “Illegals” to describe undocumented residents. Then it characterizes them as complaining. However, over at Fox News Latino the subjects of the article are referred to as “DREAMers,” a reference to the DREAM Act that provides conditional residency to certain immigrants who came to the United States as minors. Furthermore, they note the program’s controversy, but do not portray the subjects as complaining.

This is the sort of bias that is typical of Fox News. The recipients of these licenses are not lawbreakers. They were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were to young to make such a decision for themselves. Now they just want to be able to drive, attend school, and work, in the only country they have ever known. But bigots in states like North Carolina, and in media enterprises like Fox, just want to throw obstacles in their path and tag them with second-class status.

Feb 21 2013 17 cmnts

General

MSNBC Hires David Axelrod – Fox Nation Comes Unglued

Posted by: Mark @ 11:52 am

It simply never ceases to amaze how Fox News can clutch to such fantastical versions of reality and attempt to pass them off as reasonable analyses of current events. Witness this item wherein they grouse about MSNBC’s hiring of a former Obama campaign aide:

First of all, do they really think that the addition of David Axelrod to the MSNBC roster of contributors is going to substantively alter the network’s programming? Considering the fact that they already regarded MSNBC as “in the tank” for Obama, how would Axelrod change that?

Secondly, The Fox Nationalists conveniently forget that MSNBC also has on its payroll the former head of John McCain’s campaign (Steve Schmidt) and the former chairman of the Republican Party (Michael Steele). Does that mean the the GOP is controlling the message at NBC News?

Finally, Fox News has been notorious for employing Republican operatives and candidates. These are people far more instrumental to the messaging of the Republican Party than Axelrod ever was for the Democrats. They include much of George W. Bush’s “brain” trust (i.e. Karl Rove, John Bolton, Liz Cheney), and party leaders like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and their just past nominee for VP Sarah Palin.

Fox is, without a doubt, the PR arm of the Republican Party. Their anchors are as much responsible for GOP propaganda as their well-connected contributors. No one at MSNBC has anywhere near the tight relationships that Fox has with the GOP. And Fox doesn’t have any Democrats on staff that balance their reporting in an equivalent way (sorry, Kirsten Powers and Juan Williams don’t cut it). When Fox gives a former chair of the Democratic Party the air time that MSNBC gives to Steele, or when they give a three hour morning block to a liberal Democratic host (i.e. MSNBC’s conservative Joe Scarborough), then maybe Fox can talk about messaging without being so desperately hypocritical.

Feb 21 2013 6 cmnts

General

The Fox News Community Reveals Their Racist Vulgarity – Again

Posted by: Mark @ 3:11 am

Those who have been paying attention are already aware of the blatantly dishonest practices of Fox News, particularly on their community web site (see Fox Nation vs. Reality) The only thing more repulsive than their disregard for the truth is the disgraceful conduct of their audience. So for anyone out there who hasn’t had the displeasure of meeting an actual Fox News viewer (a truly endangered species whose numbers are dwindling), here is a sampling of how they express themselves when informed about something as incidental and non-controversial as a new official portrait for the First Lady, Michelle Obama.

There isn’t much to add to that except to note that it isn’t a new or isolated occurrence. It is, however, important to acknowledge that there is an abundance of crude behavior and overt hatred on the Internet emanating from across the political spectrum. Most of it occurs on fringy outposts run by anonymous extremists with tiny followings. But for this sort of dialogue to be hosted by a major so-called “news” organization that seeks to present itself as reputable – even fair – tells us a great deal about the type of audience they cultivate.

Feb 19 2013 2 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: A Full-Blown Akin? That’s Disgusting!

Posted by: Mark @ 11:08 am

Last November the GOP lost two senate seats that Republicans should have won easily. In both Missouri and Indiana GOP candidates made shockingly ignorant and insensitive comments about rape that cemented the anti-woman attitude that permeates the party. It wasn’t enough that they oppose a woman’s right to choose, they voted against the Violence Against Women Act, they resist efforts to secure pay equity, etc., they also felt it necessary to reveal that they regard rape-induced pregnancies as blessings and that they know nothing about the reproductive system that they so feverishly wish to regulate.

Having been incapable of countering their obvious disdain for half of the electorate, Republicans, with the help of Fox News, are now trying fabricate an equivalent controversy by a Democrat. Unfortunately, they are only further demonstrating their pitiful lack of understanding. Here is the Fox Nation headline story this morning: “Democrats Have A Full-Blown Akin On Their Hands.”

First of all, could they have come up with a more disturbing way to say that? More to the point, the Fox Nationalists seem to have no idea what the original controversies were about. To refresh the record, it was Missouri’s Todd Akin who said that womens’ bodies had a magical ability to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly sperm. It was Indiana’s Richard Mourdock who opined that babies resulting from rape were God’s gift to the rape victim.

However, the comments by a Democratic state senator in Colorado are not remotely similar. Joe Salazar was engaged in a debate over arming students at Colorado universities. He opposed the measure and stated his reasons to his legislative colleagues:

“It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop around at somebody.”

Salazar was not making any absurd statements regarding the physiology of women or the ancillary benefits of rape. He was simply noting that armed civilians might possibly misinterpret the intentions of someone else and that such a mistake could lead to the tragic shooting of an innocent person (remember Trayvon Martin?).

Nevertheless, Fox Nation saw fit to compare this perfectly reasonable argument against the proliferation of guns to the Akin affair, to which it has nothing in common. To make matters worse, the issue was also taken up on Fox News when Laura Ingraham visited the Kiddie Krew at Fox & Friends. Ingraham twisted the matter to imply that Salazar was opposed to women defending themselves from known rapists. But his remarks were clearly directed at situations where there was no actual threat and the suspected assailant was actually innocent.

That little complexity apparently made the Fox gang incapable of understanding Salazar’s comments. But it didn’t keep them from exhibiting their feeble-mindedness and leading their viewers down another blind alley of ignorance.

Feb 19 2013 10 cmnts

General

The Fox News Paranoid Conspiracy Follies And The Collapse Of Society

Posted by: Mark @ 2:51 am

Last year there was a flurry of panicky hand-wringing by notorious conspiracy mongers like Alex Jones and the fruitcakes at WorldNetDaily and Newsmax. Reports that agencies of the federal government had purchased large caches of ammunition set the rumor peddlers tongues to wagging as they imagined brigades of Obama’s stormtroopers marching into the corn fields and trailer parks of rural America gunning down everything in their path.

This sickness infected much of the right-wing crackpot community and spread via chain letters and the blogs of Psycho Chicken Littles who were convinced by Glenn Beck that the End of Days was upon us. At the time, these ludicrous delusions were smacked down by more rational thinkers including those at PolitiFact. But the acutely deranged conservative mind is not an easy thing to assuage. And as a result the tales of doom persisted and are even now being retold by Fox News and its heralds.

The latest incarnation of this horror story is a rehashing of the news that the Department of Homeland Security had purchased more than a billion bullets. In the minds of the nutcases on the right, that is evidence that the DHS is plotting a response to some impending disaster scenario wherein they will be forced to kill every person in America five times. That is precisely what Mark Levin, Sean Hannity’s replacement for Sarah Palin, is terrorizing his radio listeners with:

“I’m going to tell you what I think is going on. I don’t think insurrection. Law enforcement and national security agencies — they play out multiple scenarios. They simulate multiple scenarios. I’ll tell you what I think they’re simulating: the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence, looting, killing in the streets, because that’s what happens when an economy collapses.”

Repent sinners – the end is near. Never mind that in the past four years, since George W. Bush actually did come within a hair’s breadth of collapsing the economy, America’s financial state has recovered nearly everything it had lost. The stock market is higher today than it was before the crash. Housing markets are heating up. Unemployment, though still uncomfortably high, is three points lower than its recessionary peak. None of that, however, has any impact on the FoxPods who are stubbornly certain that we are on the brink of disaster.

What makes this particularly idiotic is that the DHS has fully explained the ammunition purchases and that explanation was even reported by Fox News in a wire story from the Associated Press:

“Federal solicitations to buy the bullets are known as ‘strategic sourcing contracts,’ which help the government get a low price for a big purchase, says Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga . The training center and others like it run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.”

The story goes on to note that these munitions were to be used by “more than 90 federal agencies and 70,000 agents.” In addition they are also used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal government’s second largest criminal investigative agency. But this exceedingly reasonable explanation didn’t deter Fox from advancing an utterly insane conspiracy theory. It’s what they do and, dammit, they do it pretty well.

[And for good measure...] Sarah Palin couldn’t resist the urge to make an ass of herself:

Feb 18 2013 1 cmnts

General

News Corpse eBook ‘Fox Nation vs. Reality’ Reviewed By Wonkette

Posted by: Mark @ 9:59 am

Fox Nation vs. Reality, the international ~~best-~~seller that has blown the lid off of the corruption and dishonesty that runs rampant on the the Fox News community web site, has been reviewed by Wonkette.com. It’s a comprehensive and candid analysis of the book that compiles more than fifty examples of documented falsehoods published by the editors at Fox who appear to be fourteen year old interns from the remedial class at “I’m More Immature Than U.”

Wonkette astutely recognizes the merits of owning this digital tome for its convenience and technical features. They go on to laud the author (me) for “address[ing this inequity” regarding the scarcity of reporting and analysis of Fox’s Internet outpost. While much is written about the Fox News mothership, Fox Nation has been left largely untouched by rational examination. That omission is articulated well in the review’s opening paragraph:

“When Americans think of ‘lying Rupert Murdoch-owned filthyweasels spewing rightwing talking points,’ they of course think of Fox News. But There’s a whole ‘nother arm of the Murdoch Bullshit Machine that operates semi-independently of the Fox News domain, and that’s their terrible stinky community website, Fox Nation.”

It would be difficult to sum it up much better than that. The review continues by providing some of their favorite excerpts from the book and even pointing out a couple of criticisms. For instance, they complain that the book doesn’t provide links to the Fox Nation articles it criticizes. But that was a deliberate choice to avoid awarding Fox’s smarmy news-spoofery by sending them traffic they do not deserve.

On the whole, however, the review is a positive portrayal of this epic work that should be a part of everyone’s library. And just to rub it in, here are few choice quotes from the review:

“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.”

“A valuable contribution to the effort to chip away at Bullshit Mountain.”

“Fox Nation vs. Reality is definitely not hastily written Furry porn.”

That last quote may be the most flattering part of the review. It is gratifying that they noticed that this Furry porn was written slowly and methodically. And if that isn’t enough to get you to click on this link and consider buying the book, I don’t know what is. Except to say that your purchase helps to sustain this web site and its dogged pursuit of the deceitful fabulists at Fox News and other right-wing media dissemblers and propagandists. Your welcome.

Feb 16 2013 3 cmnts

General

So F**king What? Obama Aint No Emperor

Posted by: Mark @ 3:05 am

The weasels at Fox News must be working overtime to find new ways to demonize President Obama as a tyrannical defiler of freedom. They seem to love nothing more than inventing paranoid conspiracies wherein the President is plotting to crown himself king and drag patriotic teabaggers off to reeducation camps. Of course the first flaw in that theory is that you would have to be educated in order to be reeducated.

Earlier this week Obama participated in a Google Hangout event and was asked about his immigration policy. Specifically, the questioner wanted to know what he would do to prevent deportations that resulted in the break up of families. Obama responded…

“This is something I’ve struggled with throughout my presidency. The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed. And congress right now has not changed what I consider to be a broken immigration system. And what that means is that we have certain obligations to enforce the laws that are in place even if we think that in many cases the results may be tragic.”

So the President’s thoughtful response was that his administration was required to act in accordance with existing law and would do so until such time as those laws were changed. But the wingnut brain instinctively edits Obama’s utterances to conform with their twisted preconceptions. Consequently, all they heard was “The problem is…I’m not the emperor of the United States.”

So F**king What?

The obvious point the President was making was that the American system of government requires some measure of cooperation between equal branches of government. He wasn’t knocking it or proposing that he be elevated to Supreme Leader. He was merely explaining why he could not unilaterally revoke existing laws with which he has objections and impose his version.

Rather than accurately report the exchange, Fox Nation posted the most wildly distorted misrepresentation of what the President said and left it to their dimwitted audience to wallow in a fear-soaked nightmare of an impending dictatorship ruled by a freedom-hating, devil worshiper who wasn’t even born here. And, as usual, their outrage is reserved for Obama despite the fact that the previous Republican president made similar remarks with not so much as a whimper from the right:

The Fox Nationalists didn’t bother to publish the complete quote or to link to an article that reported the event in greater detail. And heaven forbid they would provide the sort of context that included Bush’s remarks. Their purpose was clearly to portray Obama as power-mad in order to induce a state of frothing hysteria amongst the FoxPods. And judging by the comments attached to the Fox Nation item, it worked spectacularly well. They are nothing if not predictably and pitifully gullible.

Feb 12 2013 0 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Record High Gas Prices Far Below Actual High

Posted by: Mark @ 10:11 am

Be sure to read the book that Wonkette calls “A valuable contribution to the effort to chip away at Bullshit Mountain.”
Fox Nation vs. Reality

Perhaps the single biggest driver of economic activity among commodities is the price of gas. It impacts the economy on a multitude of levels from shipping to manufacturing to households, and of course, automobiles. Consequently, it is a favorite subject of Fox News to wield as a club when they believe that it will negatively impact President Obama. They are so enamored of this particular propaganda weapon that they will even deploy it if they have to make up the allegedly bad news.

The headline plastered atop the Fox Nation web site yesterday screamed “Gas Prices Hit Record High.” The underlying article reported that the national average had just reached $3.59 per gallon. Those of you who pay attention to gas prices are now wondering how that figure can be described as a record high. After all, the national average gas prices were significantly higher in the past, most notably during the summer 2008, during the Bush administration, when they topped out at $4.12 per gallon.

Apparently the record being heralded by the Fox Nationalists is for a single day. It appears that $3.59 sets a record for all previous February 11′s. What the significance of that is remains a mystery. By itself it says nothing about the state of the economy or even the prospects for gas as a commodity. It doesn’t take into consideration the fact that there was a little old hurricane a couple of months ago that shut down imports and refineries throughout most of the eastern seaboard. Neither does it note the impact of the current blizzard slamming the region.

For Fox to misleadingly post a headline that claims record high gas prices without noting the qualification that it only applies to a single day is fairly typical of their journalistic malpractice. And it affirms that they are more interested in proselytizing a message of doom and fear than they are in informing their already ignorant audience.

Feb 12 2013 1 cmnts

General, Media Bias

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes Thinks Latinos Are Idiots

Posted by: Mark @ 3:40 am

“The president likes to divide people into groups. He’s too busy getting the middle class to hate rich people, blacks to hate whites. He is busy trying to get everybody to hate each other. We need to get along.”

That’s the first quote in a New Republic article profiling Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and his latest project to deceive and exploit America’s growing Latino community. And it frames the the rest of the article perfectly by illustrating just how delusional Ailes is if he thinks people are going to buy his Rodney King act.

Roger Ailes is, without peer, the most divisive media figure in America. His stewardship of Fox News brought us Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin. He presides over a ship of fools, liars, and racists who rip apart the fabric of this diverse nation, and now he wants us to believe our literally multiracial president is the source of our division and that Ailes genuinely wants us all to get along?

The truth is that Ailes has belatedly realized that the patently offensive portrayal of Latinos as illegal, drug-using, job-stealing, criminals, has had a negative effect on both the Republican Party’s electoral prospects and the network’s bottom line. So not long ago he added a web page to the Fox News site aimed at pandering to this audience while he continued to insult them daily on Fox News. The obvious contradiction was apparent in how the two entities covered the same story.

Note the Latino site’s adorable child draped in an American flag, and the Fox Nation site’s “illegals” handcuffed on the ground. That editorial disparity is evidence of Ailes’ intent to manipulate people for whom he clearly has no respect. And manipulation is at the core of the next quote:

“The fact is, we have a lot — Republicans have a lot more opportunity for them. If I’m going to risk my life to run over the fence to get into America, I want to win. I think Fox News will articulate that.”

Notice how Ailes started to say “we have a lot,” then switched to “Republicans have a lot,” having caught himself nearly admitting that Fox is indeed the Republican network. And his assertion that Fox will articulate a message that they want the people they characterize as invading moochers to be more successful in that pursuit is ludicrous. Ailes isn’t the least bit interested in moderating the rhetoric on immigration, despite his remarks to the New Republic:

“Republicans haven’t used the right language. They keep talking about illegal immigration. I think the word ‘illegal immigration’ is a false name. You are talking about two separate issues. One is sovereignty….Immigration is a separate issue.”

That is just gibberish. It’s Ailes’ way of justifying a position that discriminates and insults Latinos and ignores entirely that his network is the only major news enterprise that still regularly calls undocumented workers “illegals.” If he honestly objected to the term he could simply instruct his employees to discontinue the use of it. He hasn’t done that because he still regards them as illegals and he knows that his audience does as well. At least the Fox News audience. Now he also has to worry about the Fox News Latino audience and, according to the New Republic, he persists in clinging to the demonstrably false notion that there is no difference in the way they handle their reporting.

“There’s an assumption that Fox News Latino is softer on Latinos than Fox News in general. That’s ridiculous.”

For Ailes to support that view he would have to explain all the documented examples of Fox News Latino reporting stories in a relatively fair manner while the Fox mothership was blatantly disparaging and downright racist.

Ailes may have intended this New Republic piece to be a bit of PR to advance his campaign for Latino dollars and votes, but his own words betray the disrespect he has for the Latino community. And if he thinks he can fool them into thinking that his transparently self-serving Fox News Latino web site absolves him of any responsibility for the hatred oozing from the rest of his news empire, he really doesn’t understand people, and he will be sorely disappointed when he discovers that they are not as stupid as he thinks they are.

Feb 05 2013 2 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Amnesty For 9/11 Hijackers?

Posted by: Mark @ 2:36 pm

Conservative myth-makers have long held that the immigration reform measures advocated by Democrats were back-door paths to amnesty. That has never been true in the past, and it is not true for the most recent proposals put forth by the Obama administration and a bipartisan committee of senators. Nevertheless, the Fox Nationalists are engaging in their trademark brand of hysterical panic-mongering to incite fear among their gullible readers.

The claim featured here that “Obama’s New Immigration Rules Would Have Spared 9/11 Hijackers” is re-posted from the “Moonie” Washington Times. The implications of this assertion would be troubling but for the fact that it is completely false. There is nothing in Obama’s proposal that would have had any affect on the immigration status of the 9/11 plotters for one simple reason: None of them had entered the United States illegally.

That’s right. Every single one of the nineteen 9/11 terrorists came to America on legal visas. The only point at which any of them might have been affected would be via an enhanced tracking procedure to identify visitors who overstay their visa, which only applied to perhaps three of them. So since the proposed immigration rules were never designed to address legal immigration, it is absurd to assert that they would have “spared” anybody. By the same logic you could say that laws against littering or jaywalking “spared” the terrorists, because nothing in those laws would have prevented the hijackings either.

The Fox Nationalists are making an argument that is as nonsensical as accusing Ronald Reagan of aiding Al Qaeda because he once fired a bunch of air traffic controllers. It appears that Fox is graduating from merely lying about everything to inventing surreal theories that seem to be hallucinogenically inspired.

Feb 03 2013 3 cmnts

General

Weird Video Pops Up On YouTube For “Fox Nation vs. Reality”

Posted by: Mark @ 9:42 am

I swear I had nothing to do with this:

Yep, that’s my ebook “Fox Nation vs. Reality.” I’m not sure how that got posted to YouTube or who was responsible, but I am oddly drawn to the electronic, British narrator’s sultry recitation.

And speaking of my book … It is currently #4 in Media Studies, and #4 in Political Advocacy, on Amazon. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, please consider doing so now. It’s a revealing and entertaining look into the blatant dishonesty practiced by Fox News at their bile-drenched community web site, Fox Nation.

Feb 02 2013 8 cmnts

General, Racism

So F**king What? Students Pledge Allegiance To The United States In Arabic. Fox Freaks Out

Posted by: Mark @ 2:06 pm

Isn’t this a good thing?

The rabidly Islamophobic racists at Fox News have found yet another manufactured threat over which to obsess. It seems that a high school in Ft. Collins, Colorado, has taken the radical step of embracing the patriotism of all of its students. The horror of this activity prompted the Fox Nationalists to rush out a story with an alarmist headline saying “School Pledges Allegiance in Arabic, One Nation Under Allah?”

So F**king What?

What we have here is a group of students with diverse national and cultural backgrounds who are proud to be Americans. They are explicitly articulating that pride by pledging their allegiance to the country they love. Where’s the harm in that? Apparently the bigots at Fox are only comfortable with stereotypes of foreigners who are angry or violent or otherwise cast as enemies of the United States. The Foxies simply cannot comprehend the notion of patriotism unless it is expressed by white Christians.

One thing we can rely on with certainty is that Fox Nation is either lying or they are oozing bigotry on many levels. First of all, The question as to whether these students are making an oath to Allah ignores the fact that there are millions of Christians in the world who speak Arabic, which is a language, not a religion. Fox is making an assumption about the faith of these students that is based on prejudice. Which brings up the second point: What’s wrong with Muslims pledging to their God that they will be loyal to America? Would Fox prefer that anyone who believes in Allah reject this country? Or does Fox think that in order to love America you first have to convert to Christianity? Where would that leave Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Native Americans, atheists, etc.?

While this is just the latest example of the blatant racism that is frequently expressed on Fox News, it is still unnerving to witness this sort of overt hate speech emanating from a major so-called “news” network. And it is more than a little ironic that a man named Al-Waleed bin Talal, a Muslim and a Saudi prince who has not pledged his allegiance to America in any language, is the largest shareholder of Fox’s parent corporation outside of the Murdoch family.

Jan 31 2013 4 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama’s Imaginary Bulldozer Rolls Over Saint Reagan

Posted by: Mark @ 2:10 pm

The Fox Nationalists are working overtime to scare up horror stories about FrankenObama and his dastardly schemes. The latest episode features President Obama plotting to erase the memory of Ronald Reagan from the history of all mankind. As might be expected, they are lying.

In order to facilitate this nonsense. Fox scoured the InterTubes to find a posting at the “Moonie” Washington Times by a reader. He was not a part of the newspaper’s editorial staff whose credibility is already in tatters. He was merely a member of the community who posted an entirely speculative comment.

The allegation that Obama was planning to bulldoze Reagan’s childhood home to make way for his presidential library is false on many levels. First of all, the apartment building in question was not a significant place in Reagan’s early life. He lived there for less than a year when he was four years old. The city’s Landmark Commission had ruled it not to be of any historical value. Secondly, the building is being razed by the University of Chicago’s medical school to expand their facilities, not anyone associated with Obama. Thirdly, Obama could not possibly have ordered the demolition on behalf of his library because he has not even decided where to build it. Certainly Chicago is on the short list, but so is Hawaii.

None of this matters, however, to Fox Nation because the phony perception of Obama trampling the memory of Reagan was just too good to pass up – or to fact check.

Jan 28 2013 18 cmnts

General

So F**king What? ObamaCare Makes Smokers Pay More?

Posted by: Mark @ 2:40 pm

And the problem here is what?

The Fox Nationalists are very concerned about the allegation that “ObamaCare Makes Smokers Pay $5,100 More A Year.” It’s a display of empty outrage because insurance companies have required smokers to pay higher premiums for years. And why shouldn’t they? Smokers are willfully engaging in behavior that will result in severe and expensive health problems that may cause their premiums to rise.

So F**king What?

If smokers don’t pay more for coverage, their hospital bills will be dispersed to everybody in the plan. That would raise premiums for people who have healthier lifestyles and keep health care costs down. Is that fair? Whatever happened to the conservative principle of personal responsibility? Now that ObamaCare is being rolled out, conservatives think that smokers should not be charged for the expenses they ring up. All of sudden Fox is for socialist medicine?

If America is going to continue to be the only industrialized nation to lack national health care, then the free market insurance programs (which is what ObamaCare is) have a right to establish conditional premiums based on health models and actuarials. If smokers are able to pay, then they must do so. They always have the option to quit smoking which would remove them from the high risk group as well as improve their health and make them less annoying to others.

Jan 25 2013 3 cmnts

General

So F**king What? Fox News Panics Over Spanish Speaking Muslims

Posted by: Mark @ 1:02 pm

Can anyone explain what the Fox Nationalists find so newsworthy about this?

A billboard that gives information about where people can go to learn more about Islam doesn’t seem like something that would stir up much controversy. It isn’t espousing a point of view. It isn’t disparaging any other faith. It would only be of interest to people who have a desire for the information.

Nevertheless, Fox manages to fire up the panicky bigots who populate their web site by focusing on a small disclosure at the bottom of the billboard that simply says “Se Habla Espanol.”

So F**king What?

It’s not enough that Fox News routinely maligns Muslims by associating them all with terrorism. Now they seem to be matching up their viewers fear of Muslims with their anxiety over Latinos, whom they regard universally as illegal aliens. It’s a Fox twofer. With a single news item they can whip up hysteria about Islamic terrorists sneaking into the country, taking our jobs, and blowing them up, all while refusing to learn our language. Ethnic and religious bigotry all rolled up into one posting about a conventional advertisement that has the audacity to address Spanish speakers in (of all places) south Florida.

Jan 25 2013 1 cmnts

General

Women In Combat: A Social Experiment?

Posted by: Mark @ 11:02 am

Colonel Eugene Householder on opposing reforms to combat protocol:

“The army is not a sociological laboratory; to be effective it must be organized and trained according to the principles which will ensure success … Experiments are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.”

That was the argument in 1941 against integrating army units and permitting black soldiers to fight alongside white soldiers. It is the same argument that is used against gays in the military. Bigots have a tendency to declare that morale and unit cohesion will suffer if soldiers are asked to serve with like-minded patriots who they regard as “different.” And now this insipid and disproven viewpoint is being aimed at women in the wake of the recent order by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to integrate women into combat units under certain conditions.

Allen West: “Now is not the time to play a social experiment with our ground combat forces…This is the misconceived liberal progressive vision of fairness and equality which could potentially lead to the demise of our military.”

Nothing hyperbolic about that, is there? It’s the typical alarmist overreaction that one would expect from West, who has so little faith in the integrity and loyalty of America’s soldiers that he actually believes that serving with women (which already occurs) would “lead to the demise of our military.” And there is retired Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, whose military career ended after making disparaging remarks about Muslims. Boykin is currently an executive at the right-wing Family Research Council. He had this to say about Panetta’s decision:

Boykin: “The people making this decision are doing so as part of another social experiment, and they have never lived nor fought with an infantry or Special Forces unit.”

It is not a coincidence that the arguments in favor of discrimination sound so similar. They are always efforts on the part of intolerant, exclusionary elitists to dismiss the humanity of those they cannot abide. They aspire to keep the military (and America) a straight, white, male club that designates everyone else as second-class citizens. And, not surprisingly, Fox News concurs with those aspirations by promoting the views of the bigots.

Jan 23 2013 4 cmnts

General

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Clinton/Benghazi Facts Don’t Make A Difference On Fox

Posted by: Mark @ 5:25 pm

The congressional hearings on Benghazi continued today with their star attraction, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was as predictable a production of theatrics as might have been expected with Republicans spewing outlandish accusations at Clinton and Democrats rushing to her defense.

Watching from their secret lair, the editors of Fox Nation picked apart the testimony looking for soundbites they could misrepresent. They found one in an exchange with GOP Sen. Ross Johnson (WI-Tea Party) and quickly posted it with a thoroughly dishonest headline: “WH Says It Agrees With Hillary When She Said ‘It Doesn’t Make A Difference’ Who Killed 4 Americans In Benghazi.”

There are two obvious falsehoods contained in that item. First, Clinton never said that it “doesn’t make a difference who killed 4 Americans,” or anything remotely similar. She was responding to a question from Johnson about the early descriptions of what had taken place. There are still varying reports that are being sorted out. Clinton was saying that the debate over what was said in the first few hours or days after the assault was not as important as completing the investigation and bringing the perpetrators to justice. Here is the whole exchange:

JOHNSON: Again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests and then something sprang out of that, an assault spread out of that and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact and the American people could have known that within days and they didn’t know that.

CLINTON: With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or because of guys out for a walk one night and decided to go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The I.C. [Intelligence Community] has a process, I understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today, looking backwards, as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.

Clinton’s statement was the exact opposite of what the Fox Nationalists wrote in their headline. She was unambiguously stating that her specific concern was about who killed the Americans at the Benghazi facility. That could not have been missed unless it was a deliberate attempt to deceive.

The second falsehood in the headline is, of course, that the White House was not agreeing with the false characterization that Fox posted. They did, however, agree with what Clinton actually said. In fact, press secretary Jay Carney was explicitly agreeing that “whatever was said — based on information provided by the intelligence community – on a series of Sunday shows bears no ultimate relevance.”

So the statements of Clinton and Carney were in alignment, while the reporting of Fox was delusional. And as a small side note, Fox Nation sourced their report to the Washington Post in a link that went somewhere else. If you clicked the “WaPo” link you would have been taken to a right-wing blog called Weasel Zippers. That’s just another example of why you can’t trust anything you read at Fox Nation.

Jan 22 2013 7 cmnts

General, Ratings

Fox News Is The Biggest Ratings Loser On Inauguration Day

Posted by: Mark @ 6:43 pm

Monday’s presidential inauguration was a television event that was heavily promoted by all of the networks covering it. But one network was conspicuously short of viewers during President Obama’s speech and throughout the broadcast day.

While overall viewing was down for all three cable news networks compared to 2009′s inauguration, Fox took the deepest dive. CNN led during the President’s address with 3.1 million total viewers. MSNBC came in second with 2.3 million. Fox was dead last with 1.3 million. In the critical 25-54 year old demographic the numbers for Fox were even more dismal: CNN had 1.1 million in the demo. MSNBC had 706,000. Trailing significantly was Fox News with only 294,000, which was less than half of MSNBC and just over a quarter of CNN.

To some extent it is not surprising that the network that appeals most to Obama haters did not deliver their audience of whiny-ass sourpusses. It’s a constituency of sore losers who aren’t interested in staying informed and were probably busy cuddling their Bushmasters and forwarding chain emails about tyranny and the collapse of civilization.

What’s most startling in the ratings data is the relative disparities between the networks and their declines. Fox News was off a jaw-dropping 75% (82% demo) from 2009. CNN sunk a hefty 61% (67% demo). MSNBC, by comparison did fairly well with a mere 25% decline (37% demo). Digging deeper, these numbers tell us something that is even more foreboding for Fox. The percentage of their audience composed of the lucrative younger demos falls way below that of their competitors. CNN’s demo audience was 35% of their total viewers. MSNBC has 31% in the demo. But only 22% of Fox’s viewers are 25-54 years old.

That means that the next generation of news consumers is avoiding the severely conservative channel in droves. What’s more, MSNBC’s primetime anchors Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell were number one in their time slots for 2012 in the 18-34 demo. MSNBC has also led in African-American and Latino viewers. So by every measure MSNBC is positioned for future gains, while Fox is bracing for the bottom to fall out.

These numbers are not merely tabulated for bragging rights. They represent the potential for ad revenue. As the numbers fall, so do Fox’s profits. And with their dearth of the desirable youth demos, the advertising Fox maintains will command lower rates.

To top it off, Fox is actually advertising their own unpopularity. Today an article on Fox Nation beamed that “Viewership of Obama’s 2nd Inauguration Plunges.” It’s one of those rare occasions when Fox Nation posted something that was true.

However, it is also true that the lion’s share of that plunge was the 75% of Fox viewers who tuned out. Apparently Fox is so intent on publicizing information that they believe reflects badly on the President that they didn’t even notice that it looks even worse for themselves. Well, nobody ever accused them of being brainiacs.

Jan 21 2013 10 cmnts

General, Media Bias

Fox News Covers the Obama Inauguration: ‘Saddest Day Of The Year’

Posted by: Mark @ 3:12 pm

Seconds after the first inauguration of President Obama, Chris Wallace of Fox News speculated that he wasn’t really president because the oath was flubbed by Chief Justice John Roberts. That suggestion that Obama was not a legitimate president foreshadowed what would become a cacophony of Birthers and Republicans determined to reject any and all of what Obama put forth.

On this morning’s broadcast of Obama’s second inauguration, Fox News continued their dismissive coverage of the President. They led it off with the kiddies at Fox & Friends who exhibited their respect for this historic day by reporting what an awful day it is.

Steve Doocey: “As if a cold Monday in January wasn’t dreary enough, today has been dubbed ‘Blue Monday’, the most depressing day of the year.”

I’m quite sure that the day of Obama’s inauguration is decidedly depressing for the these remedial, right-wing buzzkills. But Fox was not through casting aspersions on this day and the President. Immediately following the inaugural address, Fox’s panel of sourpuss pundits picked apart the speech, which they universally agreed was a partisan screed aimed at bashing the GOP.

Chris Wallace: “This was an unyielding, uncompromising espousal of a liberal agenda.”
Brit Hume: “This is utterly bereft of an outreach to the opposition.”

Never mind that the President repeatedly spoke of how the nation’s greatest accomplishments were achieved by working together and how that was a necessity for moving forward today in light of the difficulties that lie ahead. Fox is positioning itself for another four years of blind opposition to anything that might help this president – or this country while this president is in the White House.

Their community web site, Fox Nation, went to even further extremes to disparage the President with at least five derogatory articles by virulent Obama adversaries, including their headline piece featuring Mark Levin who was quoted from a Breitbart interview where he ripped the President in the most repulsive terms.

Levin: “I think there’s a lot of perverse thinking that goes on in Obama’s mind, radical left-wing thinking. He was indoctrinated with Marx and Alinksy propaganda.”

And this is how Fox News covers Obama on the day of his inauguration, a day usually set aside to celebrate America’s democratic principles and offer best wishes for the new administration’s efforts to meet the challenges facing the nation. We can hardly wait to see what Fox is dreaming up for tomorrow, or the next day, or the next four years. And Fox wonders why they are shunned by the White House.

Jan 20 2013 0 cmnts

General, Media Bias

FoxBusters: Right-Wing Media Seek To Disown GOP Crooks

Posted by: Mark @ 11:36 am

On several notorious occasions Fox News has “accidentally” labeled dishonest or scandalized Republicans as Democrats. It seems to be a strategy on their part to protect the GOP from bad publicity while tarnishing their opponents. And despite their “zero tolerance policy” for such errors, they never air corrections or apologies.

Consequently, it should not come as a surprise that Fox, in tandem with the uber-rightists at NewsBusters, have ratcheted up a phony controversy concerning the party affiliation of former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who was just indicted by a federal grand jury on 21 counts of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering, tax fraud and filing false tax returns.

The right’s panic over whether or not the media should have identified Nagin as a Democrat ignores the fact that his association with the Democratic Party was a matter of political opportunism. Nagin had been a registered Republican for most of his adult life. He only switched parties when he decided to run for mayor of the heavily Democratic city of New Orleans. Even after his election he associated with, and behaved as, a Republican. As mayor he routinely favored the interests of his business constituents over the people. He was an avid supporter of George W. Bush prior to his election, and GOP governor Bobby Jindal afterwards. The most damning evidence that Nagin is, and always has been, a Republican is the nature of the crimes for which he was indicted.

“Nagin used his public office and his official capacity to provide favorable treatment that benefited the business and financial interests of individuals providing him with bribery or kickback payoffs.”

That’s pretty much the hallmark of Republican politics. Were he a Democrat there would have been charges connected to union malfeasance or public works projects. But Nagin was acting on his nature as the life-long Republican he truly is. Neither Fox nor NewsBusters bothered to point out these facts.