Geraldo Rivera

Geraldo Unleashes Profane Attack on Anti-Vaxers and Vaccinated Fox News Hypocrites

Posted by on October 3, 2021 at 11:50 am. 3 Comments :

From the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News has been single-mindedly committed to disseminating disinformation that has had a demonstrably harmful effect on their viewers and the nation. They have parroted Donald Trump’s reckless lies belittling the risks, prescribing quack cures, and discouraging the wearing of face masks and getting vaccinated. As a resulted the nation is now suffering from what can fairly be called the Fox News Pandemic.

Fox News, Covid

There has been little pushback by anyone at Fox News to counter their predominantly pro-COVID narrative. Which makes a recent tweet by Fox’s Geraldo Rivera all the more peculiar. On Saturday he posted this message that appears directed to his Fox News confederates, without explicitly saying so…

“Open-minded & inclusive, I’m friends with all kinds of people. But as we pass 700,000 #Covid dead, I have zero tolerance for anti-Vaxers.

Most of all, I detest vaccinated dick heads who urge the unvaccinated to ‘fight for their freedom,’ the mob urging the man on ledge to jump.”

It’s difficult to take seriously Geraldo’s claim of “zero tolerance” considering he works side-by-side with the very same anti-vaxers he’s condemning. And while he doesn’t hold back in this tweet, he isn’t nearly as clear about “detesting” his colleagues when he is discussing this subject with them on the air. It isn’t like he doesn’t know how they feel:

Nevertheless, Geraldo is right about anti-vaxers being responsible for the current spike in COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. And his colorful assessment of the hypocrites who have been vaccinated discouraging others from protecting themselves, their families, and their communities, is spot on. They are, in effect, encouraging self-destructive behavior from the safety of their TV studio (where vaccine mandates are enforced).

The utterly dishonest argument that vaccine resistance is about freedom simply doesn’t fly. No one is being forced to get the shot. They are merely being told that, due to their ignorance and selfishness, they won’t be allowed to endanger others in public places. That’s a condition that society has imposed on everything from measles vaccinations, to drinking and driving, to wearing shoes and shirts in restaurants.

Every law is an imposition on personal liberty. But you don’t see these Fox Newsers advising people to run red lights, or shoplift at Walmart, or shoot their neighbors, in the name of freedom. You don’t have to obey those laws, but if you don’t, you lose certain societal privileges. It’s a not a question of freedom. It’s a question of safety and consideration for the rights and welfare of others. Geraldo has apparently come to recognize these facts. Now let’s see if he holds the rest of the Fox News hypocrites to them.

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

Fox News Trump-Fluffer Geraldo: Trump ‘Has Behaved Like an Entitled Frat Boy’

Posted by on December 27, 2020 at 1:41 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s official! Donald Trump and his Republican confederates don’t give a damn about the American people. That was obvious long ago, but now we can declare it officially. Today unemployment benefits ran out for about fourteen million people. In a few days the moratorium on evictions will expire. The government could get shut down around the same time. And the coronavirus relief funding contained in an omnibus appropriations bill that a bipartisan Congress voted for are still sitting on Trump’s desk at Mar-a-Lago without his signature as families are suffering.

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Donald Trump, Subway

Meanwhile, Trump is golfing at his Palm Beach resort and Mike Pence is skiing in Vail, Colorado. Trump managed to squeeze out a couple tweets on Saturday impotently demanding that the “politicians” in Washington increase the relief funds from $600.00 to 2,000.00. For the record, it’s the Republicans who are blocking that. Democrats long ago advocated for more money. But Trump refuses to put any pressure on his GOP comrades, or even say aloud that they are the obstacles.

Aside from his scant mentions of the coronavirus and its devastating impact on the nation, Trump has been furiously tweeting about his delusional belief that he won the presidential election. Never mind that he has lost more than sixty lawsuits on the matter for lack of evidence. He continues to pursue this figment of his diseased imagination in ever more ominous tones that suggest a call for violence.

That position is still supported by most of his bootlicking sycophants in Congress and on Fox News. However, one of the sheep seems to have briefly strayed from the flock. On Sunday morning Geraldo Rivera tweeted that…

No one should praise Geraldo for this faint-hearted blather. To begin with, he is proudly restating his four year idolatry of America’s first reality TV game show host president. That’s an achievement that proves (and forever tarnishes) the old adage that, in America, “anyone” can become president. Geraldo goes on to malign Democrats and other progressives, who comprise the majority of the populace, as “creeps.” And he dismisses the fully documented Russian interference in the 2016 election about which Trump was aware and approving. He was impeached for trying to cover it up and obstructing justice.

However, the most preposterous assertion in Geraldo’s twantrum was his admission that, since the election, Trump “has behaved like an entitled frat boy.” The description of Trump’s all-consuming narcissism itself isn’t the problem. That’s a diagnosis that many psychiatric professionals made before the 2020 election, and even before the one in 2016. Although they do concur that he’s getting worse.

The bigger problem is Geraldo’s assertion that this behavioral trait only recently surfaced following Trump’s humiliating loss to Joe Biden, a candidate he maligned as a “sleepy” socialist who is mentally unfit to serve. The American people felt differently, with most saying that Trump is the mental deficient.

Geraldo must have been in a coma for the past four years. Trump’s behavior for the entirety of his single term in office could not have been more childish. With every failure he presided over, he whined petulantly, blamed others for his incompetence, and bragged about imaginary achievements. His campaign promises were routinely broken. Regarding his former opponent Hillary Clinton, he didn’t “lock her up!” To the contrary, he released (pardoned) a flock of felons, war criminals, and accomplices. The wall he didn’t build wasn’t paid for by Mexico. He didn’t repeal or replace Obamacare. He didn’t even offer the healthcare plan that he promised in two weeks for years. He didn’t bring manufacturing back to the U.S. He didn’t grow the economy. He didn’t create jobs. He didn’t, to put it succinctly, do sh!t!

The only “successes” Trump could plausibly lay claim to were the tax scam that benefitted the rich, and the ultra-rightist and unqualified judicial appointments. However, not only is it a stretch to call those successes, but they were wholly engineered by GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell with no input whatsoever from Trump. And that’s precisely the path that he’s on today with the failed coronavirus relief legislation. He played no role in it’s drafting, nor its passage.

It’s just another failure to add to his list. But this is an especially repulsive one due to the tragic suffering and loss of life. Not that he cares. Nor does Geraldo. And Geraldo’s glassy-eyed devotion to Trump poisons anything he might say regarding him. He failed to see Trump’s infantile behavior as a problem four years ago, so it hardly matters that he’s seeing it now.

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

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

LOL: Geraldo Rivera of Fox News Floats Naming COVID-19 Vaccine for Trump

Posted by on November 20, 2020 at 11:12 am. 10 Comments :

Making a play for the 2020 Fox News Flunky Hall of Shame, Geraldo Rivera appeared on Fox and Friends Friday morning to propose what amounts to a bribe in order to get Donald Trump to admit he’s a loser. In a segment wherein Geraldo essentially concedes that Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, he proposes a solution to Trump’s stubborn refusal to accept reality.

Donald Trump Virus

It’s clear to most Americans that Joe Biden is the President-elect of the United States and will take the oath of office on January 20, 2021. But Trump is still disputing that fact and engaging in a delusional campaign to overturn the election results. His campaign consists mainly of lies and conspiracy theories dreamed up by Trump and his pathetic legal team that has lost virtually every case it has brought to court. Not to worry though because, according to Rudy Giuliani, losing is part of his master plan.

Trump’s obsession with opposing a peaceful transition is blatantly anti-democratic and un-America. That’s a position that he’s actually proud of. But the necessity of removing him from office, and allowing the orderly transition to a Biden administration is something that Trump’s sociopathic narcissism prevents him from accepting. Consequently, veteran Fox News Trump-fluffer, Geraldo Rivera, came up with a plan to reward Trump for his childish obstinance:

“I think I had an idea. With the world so divided and everyone telling him he’s gotta give up, time to leave, and time to transition, and all the rest of it, why not name the vaccine for Trump? Make it like, ‘Have you gotten your Trump yet?’ It would be a nice gesture to him, and years from now it would become just a nice generic name. Have you gotten your Trump yet? I got my Trump, I’m fine.’

“I wish we could honor him in that way because he is definitely the prime architect of this Operation Warp Speed and, but for him, we’d still be waiting into the grim winter for these amazing, miraculous medical breakthroughs.”

HOLY CRAP! First of all, America does not negotiate with terrorists. Trump shouldn’t require this sort of infantile incentive to obey the law and two and half centuries of American tradition. He needs to step aside simply because he lost and has no other choice. His defiance is causing real harm by inciting outrage among his cult followers, some of whom are advocating civil war.

What’s more, Trump doesn’t deserve any reward for the development of a vaccine for a viral pandemic that he exacerbated due to his ignorance, incompetence, and deliberate malfeasance. If Trump is concerned about what he will be remembered for, he can rest on his responsibility for the deaths of more than 250,000 Americans, and more than a million sickened, many with disabilities that are permanent.

It’s ironic that Geraldo would propose this sort of solution to lure Trump out of the White House like diseased skunk that came in through a hole in the screen door. After all, Trump loves to plaster his name on things that he had nothing to do with.

However, naming a vaccine for Trump would only be appropriate if it recognized his role in killing so many of the people he was obligated but failed to protect. His name should be synonymous with the pain and grief he caused. So we could call it the Trump Virus Vaccine. Then people could ask “Did you get Trump?” And those who weren’t idiots could reply, “No. I got vaccinated.” Then all we would need is a vaccine to prevent infections for the disease that causes the mental dysfunction evident in people like Geraldo, his Fox News cohorts, and the lost souls who fall for Trump’s bullpucky.

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

Fox News Shill Geraldo Rivera Confirms Trump is a Racist While Arguing that He Isn’t a Racist

Posted by on September 13, 2019 at 12:12 pm. 2 Comments :

The debate over whether or not Donald Trump is a racist has been over for months, years really. The evidence is in his frequent and virulent hate speech, as well as his policies that are deliberately aimed at disadvantaging people of color. And the fact that he is supported by the nation’s most prominent white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups is further proof of his embrace of bigotry.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

Most people upon discovering that KKK leaders are praising them would stop and reflect on what they did or said to attract such loathsome admirers. But not Trump. He actually panders to them and refuses to make any outright criticisms. He invites them to the White House and recycles overtly racist tropes that history has condemned. He even told women of color – who happen to be members of Congress and U.S. citizens – to “go back you came from.”

Notwithstanding all of these facts, Fox News continues to pretend that there is nothing remotely racist about Trump. It’s a position that mimics the worshipful fawning of state run media in Russia, North Korea and other totalitarian regimes. And on Trump’s favorite Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes earned their pay by ignoring the truth about Trump and slobbering over Dear Leader’s bottomless capacity for universal love.

Aside from the helpful montage of Democrats correctly pointing out that Trump is a racist, this clip features Steve Doocy wondering why they weren’t asked “What do you mean? What are you referring to?” The fact that he even bothers to ask that question demonstrates just how blind he is to reality, or more accurately, how blind they want their views to be. For the record, Doocy’s question has been answered many times, and this compilation from Vox serves as a convenient resource.

Later in the program, long-time Trump friend and blabbering sycophant, Geraldo Rivera, showed up for another of his regular appearances and began sucking up in the first few seconds of his segment. He started off with a glassy-eyed confession that “I love the President and I’ve known him for 45 years and he is not a racist.” Geraldo then blames Trump’s troubles on “sloppy rhetoric” that “makes him vulnerable” to charges of racism. But as he continues, Geraldo himself outlines Trump’s rancid bigotry that extends far beyond rhetoric:

“When the President says ‘shathole countries,’ and NFL players who kneel are ‘sons of bitches,’ and ‘Mexicans are rapists,’ I think that he should emphasize the positive.”

See? It’s as simple as that. Just ignore the fact that you’ve viciously insulted African countries, African-American athletes, and Latinx refugees fleeing violence and poverty. Focus on imaginary “positives” that can be exploited to brainwash the dimwitted Trump cultists and viewers of Fox News. Geraldo also advised Trump that “His staff should look more like the country. It should be more diverse.” That’s not the sort of advice you give to someone who isn’t noticeably prejudiced.

It’s ironic that Geraldo’s defense of Trump contains such a useful itemization of the evidence that he is, in fact, flagrantly racist. But Geraldo wants you to dismiss all of that and be filled with the same reverential and baseless adoration of Trump that he has. And this isn’t just the position of Geraldo. It’s the same irrational mask of delusion that all Republicans and Fox News hacks wear and that they want to strap onto you. It’s just that you don’t see them tugging at the strings this openly very often.

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

Whining on Fox News: Fact-Checking Trump Will ‘Reveal Him to Be Stupid, Uninformed, or a Liar’

Posted by on September 5, 2019 at 11:40 am. 4 Comments :

From the outset of Donald Trump’s presidency he has regarded the media as his most dangerous foe. That’s why he he repeatedly refers to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” He even explicitly tweeted on Wednesday that his “real opponent” is not the Democratic Party, but the press. It’s his innate hatred of any institution that is governed by facts and honesty that drives this dangerous and anti-constitutional hostility.

Donald Trump

Trump is right in a perverse way. He really does need to fear the press due to his unabashed and pathological lying. To date he has racked up more than 12,000 lies since his inauguration. Every fact-checker who tracks Trump’s pitiful record of falsehoods has compiled volumes of evidence that he simply doesn’t care about accuracy or truth. And his lies can range from easily verifiable nonsense like who pays for tariffs (which got shot down by Fox News), to his ludicrous battle to defend saying that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian (it wasn’t). Trump will lie about matters big and small because his internal morality doesn’t recognize the difference between truth and lies. He’s focused solely on whatever benefits him at the moment.

So it was not surprising to see Geraldo Rivera at his regular perch on Fox and Friends running defense for Trump. These relentless presidential bootlickers are as predictable as flies on bullshit, which is a pretty apt simile. During a segment that started out examining Trump’s diverting funds from the military to his vanity border wall, Geraldo took a detour to shield Trump from criticism about his lying ways, but belly-flopped painfully in the process:

“This is all clear to me what is happening is that this president gets the worst press of any president in the history of the republic. Everything he says and does is cross-checked and scrutinized to reveal him to be stupid, uninformed, or a liar, you know, it is very frustrating to see how other news networks obsess about any misstep or misstatement the president makes.”

Geraldo’s assessment of which president got the worst press might be disputed by Presidents Clinton, or Nixon, or even Lincoln. But to the extent that there is negative news about Trump, it’s entirely his own fault. After all, Trump is the worst president of any in the history of the republic. He’s the first to never have positive approval ratings (they never broke above 46 percent). And his inexperience, ignorance, and incompetence is exposed nearly every day in on his Twitter feed and his useless, impromptu “chopper talk” press avails. It would be easy for Trump to avoid bad press. Just stop doing idiotic, racist, and often illegal things.

More to the point, Geraldo is complaining because “Everything [Trump] says and does is cross-checked.” Oh my Gawd! What a horrible thing to do to a public servant who is pretending to lead the free world. What’s worse is that Geraldo actually admits that such scrutiny will result in Trump being revealed to be “stupid, uninformed, or a liar.” And that, as it happens, is the truth. So what Geraldo is upset about is that the true nature of Trump’s inadequacies will become apparent to everyone should he be held to reasonable standards of review. Which is the job of the press. But Geraldo isn’t seeking the truth. He’s seeking the suppression of it. Which is the job of Fox News.

Trump is upset about the very same thing as Geraldo. He doesn’t really care whether the media is honest or not. He’s only interested in making sure that his flagrant fabrications aren’t discovered and reported. And if they are, he will attempt to discredit the press so that no one – or at least his Deplorable cult followers – will believe them. He actually admitted that to Leslie Stahl when she asked why he attacks the press. “You know why I do it?” he replied. “I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.” So as Stahl suggested, “Put that in your head for a minute.”

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

NIXON? REALLY? Geraldo Rivera Gushes an INSANE Defense of Trump and Praise for Fox News

Posted by on July 15, 2017 at 4:30 pm. 6 Comments :

It must be awfully hard to be a Fox News shill these days. The still flowing flood of incriminating evidence against Donald Trump and his sleazy family is nearly impossible to justify. The contortions that Fox News hosts and pundits have to employ seem painful in the extreme. Some of them aren’t even trying anymore.

Geraldo Rivera

That, however, is not the case with the crew at Fox and Friends, and their Saturday morning guest, Geraldo Rivera (video below). In a discussion about Don Trump, Jr.’s meeting with Russian operatives, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes crawled all over themselves trying to defend the indefensible. Eventually they wound up where they often do – blaming the media.

For his part, Geraldo Rivera set up his remarks by reminding everyone that the Trumps were close, personal friends. He restated his “tremendous respect and admiration” for them. Then he gently chided them for what he characterized as minor goofs. Rivera described the meetings with Russian government operatives promising dirt on Hillary Clinton as “understandable,” but “not criminal.” Legal experts disagree. He did manage some criticism of Don, Jr. for his “dissembling” otherwise known as lying.

And then Rivera went flying headfirst off the tracks. Co-host Abby Huntsman asked a typically asinine question. She wondered whether the media was to blame for the troubles Don, Jr. was undergoing. Because of course it was the media’s fault that Donnie met with unsavory Russians and then lied about it repeatedly. But Rivera’s historical analog to this affair was the presidency of Richard Nixon. His take on it was pure lunacy:

“During the years of Tricky Dick Nixon, 1972 and 1973 principally. If there had been a Fox News then, if there had been a Sean Hannity then, I do not believe President Nixon would ever have been forced to resign. Why do I say that? Because when you see how his story evolves, and he has no one to defend him, how everybody’s deserted him, no on got the other side of the story. So that rinky-dink burglary then metastasized into the cover up, which led to the tumult, the nuclear explosions in the administration, and finally the resignation of the President.”

“I think if we had Sean then, if we had Fox and Friends then, I think that President Nixon would have weathered that storm. Now, I think that President Trump will likewise weather the storm, but I think that it will cause amazing stresses.”

So Rivera blames the downfall of Nixon on the absence of defenders in the media. Not on the fact that he presided over an illegal break-in of the Democratic campaign office. Not on the threats and bribes and lies that marked the cover up. Rivera thinks there was another side to the story of Nixon’s corruption that wasn’t being told. You know, the good side of the corruption.

But the best part of this cognitive meltdown is Rivera’s accidental admission that Fox News is nothing more than an alibi generator for crooked Republicans. He’s saying that despite the obvious crimes, Nixon might have survived if he had Fox News to lie for him. Nixon’s problem wasn’t that he broke the law, violated his oath of office, and had no discernible ethics. It was that he didn’t have someone like Sean Hannity to fabricate excuses and point fingers at innocent bystanders.

By extension, that’s the role that Rivera is admitting that Fox News plays now. They are deliberately denying reality and replacing it with manufactured falsehoods. They are covering for Trump and serving up other sides to the story of his corruption. And they are accusing others (Obama, Clinton, etc.) of crimes without any evidence whatsoever. It’s a strategy of deceive and deflect. And, as with Nixon, despite the obvious crimes, the goal is for Trump et al to skate free. Of course, many observers have already known this about Fox News for years. But it is helpful when one of their top correspondents is dumb enough it out loud on the air.

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

When Will Fox News Fire Bill O’Reilly For Lying About Combat Duty?

Posted by on February 7, 2015 at 1:34 pm. 19 Comments :

Conservatives have tenaciously sunk their fangs into the juicy scandal that is engulfing NBC News anchor Brian Williams. The fact that he has admitted (and apologized for) some false statements he made several years ago regarding his experiences covering the war in Iraq is troubling and particularly so for people who make their living on their reputation for honesty.

However, the degree to which the right has gone overboard with their overt hostility is a spectacle that is worth watching for the sheer entertainment value. Although it’s not as if they wouldn’t be showering their hatred on Williams and the rest of the so-called “lamestream” media even if their weren’t some budding scandal. For its part, Fox News has been exhibiting a Benghazi-like obsession with their relentless coverage of the story.

What’s missing from all of this is any sense of perspective or context. Has Fox given equal time to the false assertions by their own Geraldo Rivera who excused his lies as being the fault of the “fog of war?” Of course not. Neither do they make a distinction between the lies advanced by mis-remembering a distant event in the past in order to enhance one’s own personal image, and the lies perpetrated deliberately by national leaders (i.e. George Bush, Dick Cheney, etc.) that resulted in the violent deaths of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent, non-combatant Iraqis.

Brian Williams, George Bush

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Nearly every discussion about Williams in the Conservative Media Circus includes outright demands for his termination. Never mind that the false statements made over a decade ago were not made during a newscast or presented as part of his duties as a journalist. The wingnut brigade wants Williams fired for having said some things on David Letterman’s late-night comedy program.

Well, if that’s the standard they are embracing, then let them apply it to Bill O’Reilly as well. Back in 2006, O’Reilly took an extended book promotion tour to Kuwait where he visited with soldiers and signed copies of his book. Reports at the time described how “servicemembers asked O’Reilly about his own tour of duty in Kuwait during Desert Storm.” That might have been an interesting story except for the fact that O’Reilly never did a tour of duty in Kuwait during Desert Storm, or anywhere else since he never served in the military at all.

More recently, O’Reilly told his radio listeners about how he would have coaxed information out of an enemy soldier based on his personal experiences in combat (video below):

“I tell you what, I’ve been in combat. I’ve seen it. I’ve been close to it. And if my unit is in danger and I got a captured guy and the guy knows where the enemy is and I’m looking him in the eye, the guy better tell me. That’s all I’m gonna tell you. If it’s life or death, he’s going first.”

As noted above, and contrary to his statement, O’Reilly has never been in combat. Consequently, he has never commanded a unit or had to contemplate how he would deal with an enemy prisoner. His pretend bluster and machismo is all just a bunch of fantasizing of himself as a hero. So how is that any different than the offenses for which Williams is being pilloried?

There are, however, some very real differences between Williams and O’Reilly. Williams has been found to be less than truthful on this one occasion. O’Reilly has lied repeatedly over his career at Fox News with plenty of documentation to prove it. What’s more O’Reilly has demonstrated himself to be an arrogant, rude, bully who shoves his usually inane opinion down the throats of his guests and his viewers. That’s something that cannot be attributed to Williams.

So if anyone should lose their job over any of this, it would be most advantageous to the television viewing audience, and to society in general, if it is O’Reilly. But don’t count of Fox News to do the right thing. It would be against everything they hold dear.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


h/t Meteor Blades at Daily Kos for the video.

Fox News Fielding GOP Candidates For 2014: Pinheads On Parade

Posted by on February 2, 2013 at 10:43 am. 5 Comments :

The 2012 presidential election cycle saw an unprecedented exploitation of the media by Fox News. The network employed numerous on-air hosts and contributors who were also prospective candidates for the Republican nomination for president. These included Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, John Bolton, and Donald Trump. That relationship was wholly unethical by any standard, but Fox refused to comply with the professional standards that any credible news enterprise would maintain.

Now that 2012 is behind us, Fox has begun their campaigning for the next election cycle in 2014. Already at the gate are two Fox News employees who have indicated their interest in running for the senate. Geraldo Rivera announced that he is “truly considering” a run for the GOP nomination for senate in New Jersey. Keith Ablow reported on air his intention to seek the seat in Massachusetts. Setting aside momentarily the ethics dilemma this creates for Fox, these particular candidates would be a boon for professional comedians everywhere.

Geraldo RiveraGeraldo is best known for hosting an epically anti-climactic television spectacle to reveal the contents of Al Capone’s secret safe. After a two hour long buildup it turned out that the safe was empty. Geraldo also hosted a syndicated talk show that featured America’s low-life engaging in televised slap-fights. More recently he caused a stir by saying that “I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.” Geraldo later both apologized for, and defended the statement.

Keith AblowKeith Ablow is the disreputable psychiatric analyst Fox employs to make absurd and insulting diagnoses of Obama and other enemies of Fox. In the course of his practice, Ablow has praised marital infidelity as evidence of strong moral character that would enhance America’s leadership. He has suggested that the children of gay parents are at risk of sexual abuse. And he frequently offers public diagnoses of the President and others in violation of the American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics.

The qualifications of these Fox/Tea Party candidates are embarrassingly sub-par. They would have to rise significantly to be considered mediocre. These hacks have nothing to recommend them as legislators, thinkers, or public servants. All of this makes them perfect candidates for the radically dimwitted right-wingers who watch Fox.

However, for Fox to permit their punditry to toy with electoral politics and remain on the air is an affront to the profession of journalism. Fox is effectively donating valuable airtime to promote their candidacies and the platforms they espouse. What’s more, Fox cannot possibly cover them fairly because their colleagues would be afraid to criticize them for fear of retribution from the executive suites. Roger Ailes has publicly admonished his staff to refrain from “shooting in the tent,” which would make impartial analysis impossible.

This is likely just the beginning. There may be additional announcements of Foxies who think they are poised for positions of power due to the notoriety they get from being on Fox. They may be sorely disappointed. None of the candidates above got anywhere during a year when many people thought the president was vulnerable and Fox was riding high in the ratings. Now that Obama was reelected with a substantial majority and Fox has taken a devastating hit in the ratings, it would be far more difficult for their candidates to make a mark, particularly when they are as insipid as these two.

Still, for the sake of the well being of America’s comedians, we must hold out hope that Steve Doocy or Eric Bolling or Gretchen Carlson will throw their tri-corner hats into the ring. With Sarah Palin and Dick Morris off the air there is a severe drought of comic relief. So, please, won’t somebody think of the comedians?

Geraldo Rivera: The Hoodie Was Responsible For Trayvon Martin’s Death

Posted by on March 23, 2012 at 1:01 pm. 6 Comments :

In another example of how Fox News will turn a story on its head if it doesn’t fit into the network’s mission of division, bias, and anti-liberalism, Geraldo Rivera appeared on Fox & Friends to divert the Trayvon Martin murder story into an indictment of fashion and an exercise in blaming the victim.

Rivera: I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.

So it was Trayvon’s fault (or his parents) for wearing an article of clothing that exudes some inherent threat and justifies violent reactions against the wearer. I suppose that if Trayvon had been wearing a short skirt that would have been an invitation for Zimmerman to rape him.

Geraldo went on to assert that hoodies are exclusively associated with criminals and asked “What’s the instant identification?” He answered his own question by saying that wearing a hoodie will cause you to be perceived as a gangster and a menace. Uh huh. You mean like these degenerate hoodlums?

Hoodie Hoodlums

Geraldo and his enablers at Fox News need to stop fretting over superficial trivialities and put the blame where it belongs. Firstly on the guy with the gun who shot an innocent teenager in cold blood without provocation. Then on the barbaric “Stand your Ground” laws that permit people to commit murder with impunity. And finally on the media that rushes to divert responsibility from the guilty and place it on the victims. To paraphrase Geraldo, I think it would be more correct to say that “Fox News is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.” Still not correct, but closer to it than what Geraldo said.

[Update:] Geraldo thinks that if someone is murdered while wearing a hoodie, that law abiding people should alter their behavior to satisfy the murderers, rather than making the murderers stop killing people. It makes you wonder how he would have viewed some other historical events.

Fox News

Some Truth Deeply And Profoundly Infiltrates Fox News

Posted by on October 24, 2011 at 3:47 pm. 4 Comments :

Offered without comment because…well, because it says it all:

Geraldo Rivera to Occupier: “So what’s your goal?”

Occupier: “My goal here is to occupy everywhere possible. I think what you’re seeing here, Geraldo, is a large amount of people that have been deeply and profoundly fucked by the system.”

Geraldo felt compelled to apologize for this honest and accurate analysis.