The Hive Mind Of Donald Trump And The GOP Was Cultivated By Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on February 6, 2016 at 9:11 pm. NO Comments :

The emergence of a villainous dystopian character like Donald Trump might seem like a grotesque aberration of the political process and, in fact, it is. But it is not wholly unexpected when put into context by the events that preceded his arrival and the purposeful efforts of a rogue media empire’s desire to manipulate and control a significant segment of the population. With that in mind, the blind obedience to a perverse doctrine becomes much easier to understand.

Trump’s disciples don’t care that he is a flagrant racist who has demonstrated his prejudice against African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, and women. They aren’t put off by his promises to commit war crimes against women and children in Syria and Iraq. They let slide that he isn’t bothered by being compared to Hitler. And no matter how much he lies they just brush it off and keep applauding like slap-happy seals (See the Trump Bullshitopedia) They even applaud when he insults them as mindless baboons saying that…

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters. OK? It’s like, incredible.”

Trump’s followers are so zealous and undiscerning that he could tell them to burn down a church and they would comply. He could tell them to block access to polling places. He could tell them to steal the coats of protesters and throw them out into the cold. Oh wait, he actually did do that. He also ordered them to “knock the crap out of” protesters at one of his rallies and he told New Hampshire businesses that they could “go f**k themselves.” So it isn’t far-fetched to imagine that if he told them to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid they would raises their glasses to toast him before chugging down the poisonous cocktail.

It is that sort of unquestioning devotion that forms the foundation of every successful cult. And those components were built into Fox News from its inception. In an effort to document this phenomenon, News Corpse published a collection of articles that highlighted the deception, propaganda, and outright lies disseminated by the Fox News community website, Fox Nation. The second volume of this series was dubbed “Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult Of Ignorance.” Every chapter is fully verified by reputable sources and exposes the website for its shameful dishonesty and lack of ethics. It reveals the concerted effort by wealthy and powerful media fabulists that is aimed at crippling the intelligence of the willfully dimwitted. It is a great resource for proving to your Fox-deluded friends and family what a den of deceit it is.

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

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

Two years ago the first volume of Fox Nation vs. Reality was published revealing an Internet operation that was dedicated to fiercely partisan, right-wing distortions of the truth. Its mission was, and remains, to construct a safe haven for the broader Fox News community to reinforce their preferred fantasies and unfounded preconceptions. The articles aggregated there were from the fringiest sources (i.e. Daily Caller, Alex Jones’ Infowars, Breitbart News, etc.) and often contained nothing but easily disproved falsehoods and rank defamation of liberals.

Since then Fox Nation has evolved into an even more sheltered environment that has taken on many characteristics of culthood. It is a pattern they adopted from their parent, Fox News, where the slogan “fair and balanced” was an implicit condemnation of all other news sources as being neither. Recognizing that the prime directive of a cult is to convince your followers that your version of reality is the only true version and that all others are agents of deception, Fox segregated their disciples to prevent them from being contaminated by impure thoughts, otherwise known as facts.

Some of the enlightening, infuriating, and entertaining chapters include:

Obama’s Imaginary Foreign Fundraising
Paranoid Gun Nuts Go Wild
Night Of The Living Tea Party
The Poor Have It Way Too Good
Was Benghazi A Koch Brothers Plot?
Zombie Reagan’s Fake Declaration Of War

Check out the reviews on Amazon to get an idea of what previous readers have had to say. On a platform that is notorious for focused criticism it has maintained an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

Purchasing Fox Nation vs. Reality is a great way to support this website and the work done here to reveal the malignancy of conservative media. Plus, it makes a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift. And as always, your continued support and patronage is very much appreciated.

Paranoid Wingnut Media Imagines Liberal “Plants” On The Attack

Posted by Mark NC on January 10, 2016 at 4:58 pm. 1 Comments :

The conservative response to criticism has always been a mixture of denial and accusations of liberal media bias. They have never been particularly adept at debating a subject on its merits and employing critical thinking skills to construct a coherent rebuttal. But now, during what may be one of America’s most hysterically delusional election seasons, right-wingers are falling into an abyss of paranoia.

This week there were a couple of Republican campaign events that demonstrate how ludicrous the wingnut media have become. They both exhibited laughably dishonest methods of dismissing valid criticism and deceiving their audience.

The first occurred at a Donald Trump rally in South Carolina. During Trump’s standard spewing of thinly veiled hate speech, a woman in a turquoise blue hijab stood up in silent protest. Almost immediately the crowd began a vile chant of disapproval. Trump joined in and ordered her to be ejected from the hall. She was escorted out amid continuing taunts and insults, including one Trumpster asking her if she had a bomb. She responded wonderfully saying “No. Do you?”

The reporting of this disgraceful act of prejudice and intolerance of free expression made its way to the Fox News community website, Fox Nation, with a headline saying “Muslim Woman Removed From Trump Rally Used CNN To Coordinate Her Spectacle.” The story was sourced to the right-wing web-rag BizPac Review, who said that she had “disrupted the event.” How standing silently constituted a disruption was never explained.

More to the point, the article also never explained how she “coordinated her spectacle” with CNN. The only thing that tied these two events together was that she was interviewed by CNN after she was removed from the hall. That’s a fairly typical occurrence in this situation, and Fox News has made it a regular feature to interview people who protested President Obama or Democratic candidates. Nevertheless, in the minds of rightist crackpots, it was a plot designed by the liberal media cabal to force Trump into throwing a peaceful advocate for improving interfaith relations out into the cold.

On a side note, the story also mentioned that she was wearing a Jewish Star of David, but she was not. She did have an eight-pointed yellow star on her outfit with the word “Muslim” written on it (the Star of David has six points). This may have been a reference to the Nazi practice of forcing Jews to wear identifying patches, but since Trump has actually called for Muslims to be marked with identifying badges and cataloged in databases, the rightist media has no cause to complain about such messaging.

The other event this week was an appearance in Iowa by Sen. Ted Cruz. While taking questions from the audience a young Latina stood up to ask him about his policy on immigration. She said that she was “worried about whoever comes next to the presidency and what’s going to happen to people like us.” It was a heartfelt plea for understanding from someone who was clearly concerned about whether she would be able to remain in the country she loved and in which she was raised. Cruz adopted a mock compassionate tone while telling her that, if he becomes president, she will very likely be deported as a criminal because “violating the laws has consequences.”

It should be noted that this woman broke no laws. She was brought to the U.S. as a child by her parents and has distinguished herself by finishing school and working for a non-profit that assists children with special needs. She was even praised by GOP Rep. Steve King, a notoriously anti-immigrant Tea Party Republican who just happened to have met her previously and was impressed.

Once again, this story found a home at Fox Nation where they plastered on a headline reading “DNC DREAMer Plant Tries To Ambush Ted Cruz And It Backfires Miserably.” This article was sourced to something called Red Alert Politics and alleged that…

“The Democratic National Committee tried to entrap Cruz at a campaign event in Storm Lake, Iowa yesterday by having an illegal immigrant DREAMer named Ofelia Valdez confront the Texas senator.”

There was no evidence in the article that tied the woman to the Democratic National Committee. Apparently, just the fact that she asked a question that was less than a sycophantic exercise in kissing up to Cruz was enough to label her a plant. The reality that there are millions of people just like her isn’t sufficient to presume that she is merely a sincere constituent who is genuinely concerned about her future.

This paranoid behavior is nothing new for the right-wing press. Last September at a Trump rally, a man rose to complain about what he called “the Muslim problem” and asked “When can we get rid of them?” That led to an article in the ultra-conservative Daily Caller that baselessly alleged that the questioner was a plant. And the intrepid pseudo-journalists over at Breitbart News went even further to claim that they had found proof that consisted of a photo that was plainly somebody else entirely.

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

This is what happens when crackpot partisans abandon reason and rely on conspiracy theories and the blathering of fact-averse propagandists like Alex Jones, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. It goes beyond conventional disinformation to a state of reduced capacity wherein the only response to criticism is to allege that your critics are members of secret societies bent your destruction. Because – well, of course they are. Can’t you tell? Or maybe you’re one of them.

The Year In Hate And Lies On Fox News: An Embarrassing 2015

Posted by Mark NC on December 31, 2015 at 7:10 pm. 4 Comments :

Annual reviews are often routine exercises that involve collecting a few thematically aligned events and presenting them in an ordered list to remind people of what went down in the previous twelve months. However, for Fox News it just isn’t that simple. There are so many examples of blatant dishonesty, cringe-worthy ignorance, and shameless biases that any list would be too long for anyone to wade through.

Consequently, this year News Corpse is limiting the 2015 retrospective to a few instances that were notable for how embarrassing they are – or would be to a network that had the capacity for shame. And even this list is not meant to be comprehensive, but it will give a taste of the journalistic malpractice and general noxious mismanagement of the news as practiced by Fox – a network that has the unique distinction of having started the year with a huuuge majority of its ratings on PolitiFact (61%) deemed “Mostly False, False,” or “Pants On Fire.”

1) French TV: Laughing At The Credibility Of The Fox News Clowns And #FoxNewsFacts

Fox News hosted Steven Emerson, an alleged terrorism expert, who claimed that the entire city of Birmingham, England was occupied by radical Muslims and was inaccessible to anyone else. His remarks were widely ridiculed, including by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, who called Emerson an “idiot.” Emerson later recanted and apologized for his “terrible error.” But Fox wasn’t done embarrassing itself with false tales of horror. Click the link above to see the hilarious video.

2) High Schoolers Scorch Bill O’Reilly/Fox News For Lack Of Journalistic Ethics

Fox News has been proven repeatedly to be a purveyor of disinformation and outright lies presented as facts. Knowledgeable observers long ago ceased to take their reporting seriously. However, it’s one thing to be called out for shoddy journalism by experienced media analysts and news professionals. But when a high school class can demolish the highest rated cable “news” network with ease, the folks responsible should reconsider their career choices.

3) Bill O’Reilly’s Cavalcade Of Lies: A Handy Collection Of The Damage – So Far

After NBC suspended Brian Williams for six months for a single incident of embellishing his experiences in Iraq, it seems like a fair and balanced review of O’Reilly’s behavior would net him a suspension of two or three years. Of course, Fox News does not generally hold itself to the standards of journalistic ethics to which real news enterprises adhere. Nevertheless, O’Reilly and Fox News should not be allowed to sweep these fibs under the floorboards.

4) Watch John Oliver Bust Fox News For Falsifying Refugee Video

Fox News mounted a relentless campaign to slander Syrian and Iraqi refugees as terrorists seeking to infiltrate Europe and the U.S. This propaganda blitz is based on nothing but invented tales of horror and racist speculation. But apparently those attempts to deceive their pre-rattled viewers were not sufficiently frightening. Consequently, Fox News had to manufacture “evidence” of the doom that awaits any nation that shows empathy for the suffering refugees. So they enhanced their fictional narrative with video that was completely unrelated to the story. And John Oliver caught them red-handed.

5) Fox News Propagandist Caught And Arrested, Charged With Fraud

Wayne Simmons has been a frequent guest on Fox News for many years, providing what they said was expert analysis of intelligence and military issues from an experienced professional. Fox often relied on his commentary to inform their audience about serious national security issues as they arose in the news. But as it turns out, Simmons had lied on his resume to the federal government when seeking employment and contracts, and now he is under indictment for “major fraud against the United States, wire fraud, and making false statements to the government.”

6) After Falling For Hoax News Site, Sean Hannity Takes On PolitiFact’s ‘Stupidity’

You really have to give the wingnut media credit for standing firm in the face of flagrant ridicule. On Sean Hannity’s Fox News program last week he cited a statistic that was not only wildly implausible, it was sourced to an Internet website that was obviously satirical. The hoax website, Real News Right Now, also prominently displayed plainly absurd (and humorous) articles like “Starbucks Opens Five Stores in Jordan’s 2nd Largest Refugee Camp,” and “Trump: I Would Have Prevented the Asteroid From Killing the Dinosaurs.” The author of these articles is R. Hobbus J.D, who the website says is the recipient of the Oscar Mayer Award for Journalistic Excellence. And it was from this source that Hannity based his reporting.

7) Foul-Mouthed Fox News Obama-Hater Is Given Time-Out By Puppet/Anchor

The seething hatred of President Obama by Fox News came gushing out this morning by one of the network’s most notorious hatchet men. Lt. Col Ralph Peters (whose name translates to “vomiting penises” in Slanglish) appeared on Stuart Varney’s Fox Business program to discuss/bash Obama’s Oval Office speech on terrorism. Peters was virtually spitting teeth as he was unable to control his most primitive tendencies.

8) Fox Nation Commenter Arrested For Making Terrorist Threats

Anyone who has watched Fox News long enough is aware that the alleged “news” network engages in a relentless stream of hate speech and incendiary rhetoric that has the potential to incite actual violence. Indeed, there have been violent incidents already that are directly attributable to Fox News. Now there has been an arrest in Washington state of a man, Scott Anthony Orton, who has been posting terrorist threats aimed at an organization formerly associated with Planned Parenthood.

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

And there you have it. A nauseating, albeit incomplete, list of some of the most embarrassing moments on Fox News in 2015. This collection will serve as a reminder of the past year as well as a warning for the year to come. 2016 is an election year with what may be the most embarrassing candidate either party has produced in modern times. Donald Trump has already spewed a fountain of lies which News Corpse is compiling in the Donald Trump Bullshitopedia. So next year’s retrospective will have plenty of material from which to choose.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY

Desperate Headlines: Fox Nation Skips Over Obama To Report Second Most Admired Man

Posted by Mark NC on December 28, 2015 at 2:20 pm. 3 Comments :

You know that a news organization has completely given up on the practice of journalism when they sink to dishonest (and hilarious) levels as low as this:

This is the actual headline of a featured article on the Fox News community website, Fox Nation: “Trump Ties With Pope Francis In U.S. Poll For Second Most-Admired Man In The World.” Now some readers might wonder what happened to the first most-admired man. But not Fox News readers. They are perfectly happy stuffing their thick craniums with incidental information that satisfies their lust for pre-chewed wingnutisms and promises to keep them blissfully ignorant.

For the rest of the world it was President Obama whom the poll found was the most-admired man in the world. This was his eighth time to be honored as such, and he achieved this ranking with more than three times the support that Trump received for his second/third place tie with the Pope.

For Fox News to report the findings of a poll by omitting the winner and announcing an also-ran in the headline is representative of their aversion to honest journalism. It is reminiscent of the 2012 presidential campaign when Fox ignored their own polls that showed Obama beating Mitt Romney, and instead reported other polls with Romney in the lead that turned out to be wrong. Indeed, Fox spent much of that campaign “unskewing” the polls to artificially produce a Romney lead.

Also buried by the Fox Nationalists was the news that Hillary Clinton was named the most-admired woman in the world for a record twentieth time. This is a particularly notable feat considering the rampant negative treatment she has gotten in the press that has been badgering her over everything from Benghazi to her email account. Certainly Fox has an incentive to suppress the fact that Clinton is widely admired as she seeks to become the next president of the United States.

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

The brazenly biased reporting by Fox News here exposes their pitiful desperation to shape a false narrative. It would not be dissimilar to posting a celebratory headline after the 2012 campaign that boasts “Romney Finishes Second In Presidential Election.” They could have just left out that Obama won and let their dimwitted audience dance around in utter ignorance. It’s a dance they know very well, and for which they will once again be choosing partners as the 2016 campaign unfolds. This should be fun.

Fox News Created Donald Trump In Their Own Lying Image

Posted by Mark NC on December 22, 2015 at 7:06 pm. 3 Comments :

This bears repeating: Fox News created Donald Trump in their own lying image. And if anyone is looking for more proof of that, the Fox Nation website provided it today.

An article posted on Fox Nation bore the headline “No, Donald Isn’t Deluded.” It was referring to Trump’s assertion that he saw “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. There has never been any evidence of that happening. There are no photographs, no video, no police reports, nothing. In other words, Trump is either very much deluded, or lying through his dentures.

It is, of course, ridiculous to believe that thousands of people could assemble in a major city for any purpose and leave no trace of it ever having taken place. Nevertheless, Trump has steadfastly clung to the obvious falsehood. And he’s had help from Fox News, who has been there to defend the indefensible many times in the past. However, this new attempt is astonishing for its own brazen dishonesty.

The Fox Nationalists linked to an article from the New York Post, a sister publication that is also owned by Rupert Murdoch. The Post’s article was titled “NJ police captain says some Muslims did celebrate on 9/11.” That’s accurate, as far it goes, which isn’t very far. The Post used as its source an article published by a New Jersey news website and written by Mark Mueller of NJ Advanced Media. Nowhere in the article were Trump’s assertions affirmed. In fact, very near the beginning Mueller wrote that…

“The NJ Advance Media inquiry, encompassing more than two dozen interviews conducted since Nov. 25, found Trump’s broad assertion that thousands of people cheered to be baseless.”

That’s a pretty clear statement that the investigation had failed to uphold the ludicrous claims made by Trump and parroted by Fox News. And yet, the Post’s article cut and pasted many of the anonymous and uncorroborated accounts of relatively low-key partying by some small groups of people, but never reported the primary finding that the claims of mass celebrations were baseless.

What’s more, Mueller was interviewed on Fox News yesterday by Gretchen Carlson, who sought to churn the author’s article into a bigger story than it was. Unfortunately for her, after her first question inquiring as to what he found, Mueller doused the whole affair by saying that…

“First I can tell you what we didn’t find, which was large celebrations at multiple locations. As the reporter who wrote this story I have a great concern that this story will be used for political gain, so I wanted to set that out there right away. Donald Trump claimed that there were thousands and thousands of people celebrating in Jersey City. We have found no evidence of that whatsoever.”

So Mueller anticipated that Fox News would try to stir up a phony controversy and put it to rest before it could even be launched. Carlson soldiered on, trying to pretend that it was just as bad that a couple of dozen people might have celebrated, as if that would exonerate Trump for his gross dishonesty.

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

Since Carlson knew that Mueller’s investigation had concluded that Trump’s claims were baseless before she booked the interview, she clearly intended to deceive her audience by not addressing the most salient fact in the article. Making things worse was the New York Post, who published their own article based on Mueller’s without mentioning once that it essentially proved Trump to be a liar.

And worst of all was Fox Nation who, after the publication of Mueller’s article, and the airing of Carlson’s interview, and a day’s extra time, still posted their piece declaring that Trump was not deluded. Let that sink in. They knew that the investigation found “no evidence whatsoever” that Trump was right, but they still posted an item hailing how right he was – the complete opposite of reality according to their own sources. Does that sort of oblivious, self-obsessed behavior sound familiar? Like I said at the start: Fox News created Donald Trump in their own lying image. And they shamelessly mirror each others deceit.

Fox Nation Commenter Arrested For Making Terrorist Threats

Posted by Mark NC on December 16, 2015 at 11:46 am. 13 Comments :

For instance, Bill O’Reilly’s repeated references to Dr. George Tiller as “Tiller the baby killer” preceded the doctor’s murder in his church by an enraged anti-abortion activist. A mosque arsonist explains his crime by saying “I only know what I hear on Fox News.” An ordained minister in the Christian National Church pleaded guilty to plotting a massacre of the citizens of an upstate New York community of Muslims after hearing a Fox News analyst say they were training to launch domestic attacks. And when Glenn Beck was on Fox he was responsible for inspiring at least three violent criminals.

Now there has been an arrest in Washington state of a man, Scott Anthony Orton, who has been posting terrorist threats aimed at an organization formerly associated with Planned Parenthood. Orton, who used the name “Joseywhales” (after a pro-confederate Civil War outlaw), posted his comments on the Fox News community website, Fox Nation. The content of his posts were transparently hostile indicating both his own intent to commit murder, as well as an appeal to induce others to do so. Here are a few examples of Orton’s comments (more below):

“Kill StemExpress employees. I’ll pay you for it.”

“Stop the death of innocents. Kill the killers.”

“I’ll take care of [Victim 1] myself.”

As grotesque as these comments are, they only scratch the surface of the routine hate speech that is tolerated (encouraged) on Fox Nation. News Corpse has been compiling examples of such speech for a few years and has them on display at The Collected Hate Speech Of The Fox News Community. It is a revealing look at the mindset of the Fox News audience that openly expresses the most vile thoughts. It is also significant that the other commenters rarely object to these posts and the Fox moderators leave them in place to inspire other hate mongers.

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

The dangerous dialog that occurs daily on Fox Nation is part of the reason I wrote two books about the website (Fox Nation vs. Reality: Volume I and Volume II). It is the meeting place of the most deranged faction of the Fox News audience. And it serves as a de facto congregation of like-minded malcontents who support each others malevolent fantasies, molding them into realities. The result is entirely predictable, and is perfectly illustrated by this most recent incident of Fox News inspired terrorism.

[Update:] Raw Story has found some additional comments by “Joseywhales” that also threaten violence against President Obama, Baltimore state attorney Marilyn Mosby, former Attorney General Eric Holder.

Fox Nation Promotes A Racist Hate Group’s Twisted Defense Of Donald Trump

Posted by Mark NC on December 9, 2015 at 8:17 pm. 3 Comments :

FrontPage Mag, the online organ of David Horowitz’s right-wing Freedom Center, regularly publishes virulently anti-Muslim screeds intended to spread disinformation and fear. Horowitz is a radical rightist who has been called “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. His organization is a fringe assembly of wingnuts that is tied to notorious Islamophobes like Pamela Gellar and Daniel Pipes. And that makes it a perfect source for the bigots at Fox Nation.

Seeking to shore up Donald Trump’s widely lambasted proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, FrontPage reached back thirty-five years to post an article titled “Jimmy Carter Banned Iranians from Coming to the U.S. During the Hostage Crisis.” The apparent purpose is to exonerate Trump by suggesting that Carter did the same thing. There’s just one little problem: It isn’t the same thing at all.

It takes a deliberately obtuse individual to find any similarity between what President Carter did when Americans were being held captive in Iran, and what Trump is proposing now. Iran is a sovereign nation with an identifiable and accessible governing body. In 1979, in what became known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis, students, with the support of the government, took over the American embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two diplomats hostage. Responding to that act of terrorism, Carter implemented a series of sanctions against the nation of Iran to pressure them to release the hostages.

Among the measures taken by Carter was the breaking off of diplomatic relations, suspension of trade, freezing financial assets, and this one that was included in the FrontPage article to vindicate Trump:

“Invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires.”

That is what FrontPage and the Fox Nationalists think is comparable to Trump’s desire to prohibit all Muslims, from all nations, from entering the U.S. based on their religion. Carter was imposing sanctions on the citizens of a country that was unlawfully detaining Americans. That is a reasonable reaction to an act of aggression by sovereign state. It is how diplomacy is conducted in order to pressure an antagonistic country into complying with international law.

Trump, on the other hand, is advocating a ban on all individuals of a particular faith. They may have nothing to do with any other nation or entity that is in conflict with the U.S. They may, in fact, be supporters of the U.S. who seek to travel here in order to help in the fight against terrorism. They may be doctors or scientists or teachers who cherish Western freedoms. They may be diplomats or politicians from Canada or Italy or Indonesia. They may be relatives of American Muslims who simply want to visit or reunite with their families. The one identifying characteristic prohibiting them from entry under Trump’s proposal is their religion.

That sort of religious bigotry is antithetical to everything for which America stands. It violates the very principles that inspired the first Europeans to venture to a New World. And, unlike the sanctions imposed by Carter, there is no discernible benefit that could be derived from imposing it. Nevertheless, here is the nearly incoherent argument offered by FrontPage:

“Now unlike Muslims, Iranians were not necessarily supportive of Islamic terrorism. Many were and are opponents of it. Khomeini didn’t represent Iran as a country, but his Islamist allies. So Trump’s proposal is far more legitimate than Carter’s action. Carter targeted people by nationality. Trump’s proposal does so by ideology. […] Classifying Iranians as a group is closer to racism than classifying people by a racist supremacist ideology that calls for the mass murder and enslavement of non-Muslims, as ISIS is doing today.”

To set the bar for idiocy as low as possible, the very first sentence of their argument implies that all Muslims are “supportive of Islamic terrorism.” They go on to make the absurd contention that “Khomeini didn’t represent Iran as a country.” WTF? And based on those ludicrous assertions, they conclude that Trump’s proposal is “far more legitimate than Carter’s.” This is literally too stupid to respond to.

But they aren’t done embarrassing themselves. The next half-baked notion they float is that targeting citizens of a nation with which you are in conflict is racist, which by definition, it is not. At the same time they dismiss that notion that targeting people by religion is racist, which by definition it is. And they close by again implying that all Muslims practice the sort of perversion of Islam that is practiced by ISIS.

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

This is the sort of garbage “journalism” that Fox News has chosen to pluck out of the hate mongering fringe in order to defend Donald Trump. That tells you just how desperate they are to maintain their appeal to Trump’s bigoted supporters. It is a marriage made in hell that only furthers the interests of America’s enemies.

Fox News Promotes Crazy Ex-Congressman’s Unhinged, Islamophobic Rant

Posted by Mark NC on December 7, 2015 at 7:56 pm. 4 Comments :

On a day that has seen two Fox News loudmouths suspended for using profanity on the air, and the leading Republican presidential candidate (yep, Donald Trump) propose banning all Muslims from entering the United States (an idea so repulsive that Dick Cheney (!) said it “goes against everything we stand for and believe in”), there is still another lowlife wingnut competing for recognition as asshole of the day.

Former Illinois representative Joe Walsh (R-Loon) is a world-class nutcase who has called for beheading members of the media. He posted a video on his Facebook page (see below) to express his dismay over something he thought he heard Attorney General Loretta Lynch say. The resulting tirade was a spectacularly deranged descent into rank Islamophobia. So obviously Fox News featured it on their community website, Fox Nation, so as to spread the hate to the biggest audience possible.

Walsh: You got a problem Loretta Lynch? Well this is for you and everybody else in this country who is trying to shut me up.

[This paranoid douchebag seriously believes that scads of people are trying to shut him up, when there probably aren’t a dozen who even know that he’s talking]

Walsh: You come out today and you say you’re going to prosecute Americans who use anti Muslim speech? That doesn’t happen in this country. I can say whatever I want about Christians, Jews or Muslims.

[Actually, Lynch never said anything like that. More on that point later]

Walsh: I think Islam has a real freaking problem, alright? There is a cancer in Islam, and if they’re not going to learn to assimilate, I don’t want them in this country. You got a problem, Loretta Lynch, with me saying that? Then throw me in jail. […] Well you know what? I hope that there is a backlash. There should be a backlash. I’m going to encourage a backlash. And do you know what Loretta Lynch? If that bothers you, prosecute me.

[And not only is Walsh paranoid and delusional, he’s bitterly racist. And he is not shy about advocating violence]

Now let’s take a look at what Lynch actually said:

Lynch: When we talk about the First Amendment we [must] make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not American. They are not who we are, they are not what we do, and they will be prosecuted. My message not just to the Muslim community but to all Americans is: we cannot give in to the fear that these backlashes are really based on.

Notice that Walsh is trembling with anger at the thought that his God given right to hurl noxious insults at Muslims who have never harmed him might be infringed upon by the chief law enforcement officer of the land. He is absolutely furious that she would suggest something so un-American.

The only problem with Walsh’s bitchfest is that Lynch didn’t suggest anything of the kind. What she said plainly referred to “actions” not words. And in America, if you engage in violent actions that were incited by the sort of crackpot rhetoric that Walsh is dishing out, you can and will be prosecuted. It is also possible to be prosecuted if speech is deemed to have incited violence, but there has to an imminent threat and a direct causal association and intention. That’s much harder to prove.

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

So Walsh’s howling harangue was a big waste of time and energy wherein he completely misunderstood what Lynch said. It accomplished nothing other than to reveal what an ignorant, racist dickwad he is. It’s also an ideal illustration of what President Obama was warning against in his speech last when he said…

“We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death […] the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim. If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.”

Super Sleuths At Fox News Finally Find Hillary Clinton’s ‘Smoking Gun’ Email

Posted by Mark NC on November 1, 2015 at 3:56 pm. 36 Comments :

On Friday the latest batch of nearly 7,000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails were made public. As with with prior data dumps, conservative media feverishly combed through the documents desperately seeking some damaging material with which to put Clinton out of their misery.

Most of what they found was precisely the boring material that Clinton has been telling everyone would be there for months. There was nothing incriminating, or even controversial. The best they could come up with were emails that exposed her as inquiring about the use of smileys on her phone and having communicated with Ben Affleck. It’s not the stuff on which impeachments are based. That is, until Fox News stepped up to uncover the biggest bombshell to date that may upend her campaign for the presidency: “Hillary’s Email Subject Read ‘GUNMEN Try To ASSASSINATE Head Of Libyan Army’ But That’s NOT What She Wrote About…”

That’s right! The former Secretary of State exchanged emails with a top aide that were not related to what was written in the subject line. Assemble the firing squad!

What we have here is a situation wherein Clinton aide, Huma Abedin (whom most wingnuts are certain is a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood), sent Clinton an email with an attached article from the Associated Press about an event in Libya nearly a year before the famous Benghazi attack. So Clinton took advantage of the email to reply with something else that was on her mind without bothering changing the subject line.

Millions of Americans do this every day without being accused of treason. But to the brainiacs at Fox News this was so significant that they posted it to the very top of their Fox Nation website, where it remained most of Sunday morning. [When they eventually updated the site it was with another article about Clinton that implied she was headed for jail] After all, this is big news. And notice their use of caps that were not used on the actual email.

The absurdity of this article was evident in the graphic that the Fox Nationalists were kind enough to include. It shows the exchange between Clinton and Abedin, with the ominous parts highlighted in red.

If this is the sort of “journalism” that Fox News thinks will bring down Clinton, they are pitifully delusional. Although it is typical of their lame efforts in the past to attempt to turn completely trivial events into full-fledged scandals. Jesse Watters has proven himself to be an immature, logic-challenged, amateur in his role as editor of Fox Nation, as well as his duties as staff doofus on Bill O’Reilly’s show.

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

The only thing this type of story can accomplish is to set the saliva glands of the dimwitted Fox audience to flowing uncontrollably. But that isn’t a particularly difficult task. All you really have to do is show them a picture of Clinton or President Obama with a swastika and stink lines and these miscreants will guffaw and wave their Gadsden flags.

Fox Nation Wants To Know: Is Campbell’s Soup ‘Pushing Gay Agenda’

Posted by Mark NC on October 22, 2015 at 3:03 pm. 4 Comments :

The outrage meter is once again spinning off the dial at the Fox News community website, Fox Nation. This time they are fretting over the threat to traditional American values caused by a TV commercial for Campbell’s Soup (video below).

The objection to the fearsome soup advertisement was that the people featured enjoying a hot bowl of Campbell’s goodness were a gay family with two fathers and their young son. They sat at the dinner table mimicking Darth Vader’s famous line, “I am your father,” as they fed the boy. Most people would find it a heartwarming presentation of family life in an American home.

However, the Fox Nationalists considered the ad an abomination and posted a link to a right-wing website that accused Campbell’s Soup of “Pushing [A] Gay Agenda.” Because obviously, just showing a gay family is a provocative act that will result in hapless saps being indoctrinated into a deviant lifestyle against their will. Think of all the marriages that will be dissolved after watching this ad. And what about the damage done to the wholesome reputations of both Campbell’s and Star Wars?

The comments of the Fox Nationalists are at once horrifyingly bigoted and endlessly comical. The ad, they say, makes them ill, and promotes an unnatural, anti-God culture. They pledge to never buy Campbell’s soup again, switching to Progressive (which is actually Progresso, but still too close to sounding socialist). They are convinced that the ad (which I doubt any of them have seen on TV unless they’re watching the LogoTV network on cable) will destroy the Campbell’s Soup Company because America cannot abide such tolerance for diversity, which is evident by their rejection of television programs like Modern Family (the #8 ranked show among viewers 18-49).

This isn’t the first time that such an insidious threat has been forced on the American public by dastardly marketing villains who seek to shove multiculturalism down the nation’s throat. Last year they went berserk over an allegedly controversial Cheerios commercial that featured a bi-racial family with an adorable mixed-race daughter. And they also lost their lunch when Coca-Cola produced an ad for the Superbowl that featured a variety of people from different ethnic and national backgrounds singing “America the Beautiful.” What could be uglier?

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

The inbred prejudices of the rightist Fox News audience are fairly predictable. They simply hate anyone that doesn’t conform to their narrow definition of a traditional, conservative, white, Christian, American. Unfortunately for them, that definition is outdated and irrelevant in the twenty-first century. And one of the best demonstrations of how detached they are from reality is the treatment this issue got by Stephen Colbert, whose commentary was devastating and includes the Campbell’s ad in full.

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1) French TV: Laughing At The Credibility Of The Fox News Clowns And #FoxNewsFacts

2) High Schoolers Scorch Bill O’Reilly/Fox News For Lack Of Journalistic Ethics

3) Bill O’Reilly’s Cavalcade Of Lies: A Handy Collection Of The Damage – So Far

4) Watch John Oliver Bust Fox News For Falsifying Refugee Video

5) Fox News Propagandist Caught And Arrested, Charged With Fraud

6) After Falling For Hoax News Site, Sean Hannity Takes On PolitiFact’s ‘Stupidity’

7) Foul-Mouthed Fox News Obama-Hater Is Given Time-Out By Puppet/Anchor

8) Fox Nation Commenter Arrested For Making Terrorist Threats

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY

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