GOPee Yew: What The Media Isn’t Telling You About Obama’s Poll Numbers

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) has some decidedly bad news for President Obama. The American people, according to this survey, are losing patience with the President and expressing it with low opinions of his job performance, foreign policy, and leadership. It is a distinct concern for him as his administration heads into its final two years.

That said, the news isn’t all bad. But far be it for the media to put the results in context so that people get a balanced perspective of the nation’s mood. In addition to the floundering numbers, there are some areas that ought to produce some optimism for the President and those aligned with his policies. First among them is the fact that, while Obama’s numbers are nothing to write home about, his political rivals are doing so much worse that may want to run away from home.

NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll

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Both the President and his party are putting the Republicans to shame. He is 30% more popular than the Republican Party, and nearly 50% more popular than the laughably inane Tea Party. If his presidency is over, as some right-wing pundits are gleefully claiming, what does that mean for conservatives?

And that’s not all. When asked which party they prefer to control Congress, respondents chose Democrats over Republicans by 45% to 43%. The poll also reports that progressive positions on prominent issues are far more popular than those of conservatives. For instance, respondents support the Common Core education initiative 59/31. They believe that immigration helps rather than hurts the nation 47/42. They advocate action on climate change 61/37. They approve of Obama’s recent move to set strict carbon dioxide emission limits 67/29.

Clearly the electorate is in a bad mood, and they are taking it out, with justification, on their representatives. But when directly asked about solutions to the problems that affect them most, they consistently respond with agreement for the liberal agenda.

So why doesn’t the press report that? This is the so-called “liberal” media we’re talking about. Apparently they are not as driven by partisanship as right-wingers would have you believe with all of their childish carping. More likely the media is driven by ratings and revenue. In that regard, conflict and drama have always been a bigger draw than harmony. It’s the same reason that local news features murders and car chases, rather than more uplifting stories.

Obama has some work to do to counteract the effect of the relentlessly negative coverage he receives. Even the arrest of a suspect in the Benghazi attack drew absurd criticisms from Fox News and other wingnut media. But in the interim, it is important to look below the surface to see the whole story. And what this survey is telling us is that if Democrats run on progressive policies they are more likely to achieve success at the polls later this year and in 2016.

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Obama Captures Suspect In Benghazi Attack To Distract From Benghazi

You might think that today’s news that a suspect in the Benghazi terrorist attack was captured in Libya would be greeted with satisfaction and relief. You would be right with respect to the reaction of the American people, but over at Fox News it’s a different story.

As usual, nothing that Obama does can be characterized positively at Fox News. They work studiously to maintain their warped view that Obama is a foreign-born, anti-American, terrorist-sympathizing, incompetent, evil genius. And so it is with the apprehension of Ansar al-Sharia commander Ahmed Abu Khattala.

Fox News

Within seconds of the report, Kennedy, co-hosting today on Outnumbered, launched into a paranoid rant infused with suspicion and conspiracy that dismissed the arrest as a political stunt (video below). Following an absurdly presumptive statement by Fox News analyst Pete Hegseth, who asserted that “we all have questions about the timing.” Kennedy offered a thinly veiled swipe at Hillary Clinton:

Kennedy: “You have the former secretary of state, who is in the middle of a really high-profile book tour, and I think this is convenient for her to shift the talking points from some of the things that she’s been discussing.”

Hegseth agreed and added that the administration had some sort of motivation to execute this mission today, again slyly referencing Clinton. And for some reason they all seem to be afraid to say her name as if saying it three times might cause her to appear in the studio. (Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetleju…)

Hegseth: “I think this thing needs to be tied in a bow for certain individuals to have a clean break from an incident that has become, and will continue to be a scandal — an anchor around a certain individual’s neck, who may want to run for president.

Kimberly Guilfoyle picked up on the theme and added that “She’s having an interview today on Fox News.” That clinched it for Hegseth who, appearing quite pleased with himself, laid out the reasoning for this dastardly plot:

Hegseth: “What a great thing to announce on an interview tonight at Fox News, that the perpetrators have been brought to justice. It’s all too neat, and it’s too cute.”

Exactly! The impulse to bring to justice someone who was responsible for the deaths of Americans had to be inspired by a desire to create something to talk about in a TV interview. Because otherwise there would have been nothing to talk about except the newly published book that was the whole reason for the interview. Surely Clinton didn’t want that to come up.

It’s ludicrous in the first place to suggest that Obama contrived the timing of this capture to help Clinton. The timing isn’t all that helpful to her being two years before a presidential race for which she hasn’t even announced her candidacy. Then, of course, why wouldn’t he have timed it to help himself when the health care rollout was floundering? Or when the IRS was accused of targeting the Tea Party? Or when the Veterans Administration affair erupted? Let’s face it, no matter when this terrorist was apprehended something else would be going on somewhere in the world that conservative nutcases could claim it was a distraction from. And they would have.

The shockingly obvious determination to turn this good news into an evil scheme is typical of Fox News to the point of being cliche. They have made it their mission to defame this president, and all liberals, from their inception. And the uniformity of thought suggests that they were given orders to present this news in the twisted manner that they did. And the fact that they conspicuously avoided uttering Hillary Clinton’s name even once in the segment, despite making her the single subject of their conversation, it is likely they were forbidden to do so by Roger Ailes or their other handlers.

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This isn’t the first time they have done this sort of thing. They similarly attributed ulterior motives to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, which many wingnuts saw as an attempt to distract from his “fake” birth certificate. And they assigned a half dozen different news events as alleged distractions from the travails of the ObamaCare launch (although now that it’s a success, it is Fox that is playing the distraction game).

So you can bet on it. Before too long somebody is going to accuse Obama of orchestrating the capture of this Benghazi terrorist as an attempt to distract from Benghazi. More times than I can count, these delusional rightists have proven that their reality is funnier, and more far-fetched, than any satire that I can concoct.

[UPDATE:] The New York Times is now reporting that Khattala “was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.” Which means that everything that Obama, Clinton, and Rice (and the whole intelligence community) said in the initial stages of the attack was true. Which means that one of Fox’s most desperate lines of attack is shredded. Whatever will they say now? (Don’t worry. They will ignore this detail and continue to make up whatever they want, just like they always do.)


Banned In Fresno: Veterans Demand Fox News Be Turned Off – Fox News Whines

A local TV station in Fresno, California did a rather trivial story about a waiting room at a Veterans Administration pharmacy. The story concerned an allegation that Fox News had been banned from the televisions at the facility. So the reporter sent one of his veteran buddies into the pharmacy to pretend to want to view Fox News. Whereupon they discovered that the channel was not accessible.

That set off a flurry of outrage over at the Fox News mothership. They aired panicky segments on this massive censorship plot on multiple programs, including America’s News Headquarters, The O’Reilly Factor, and Fox & Friends. In each case they characterized the situation as a blatant attempt to silence Fox News due to their reporting on the scandalous backlogs and corrupt management at some V.A. hospitals. The only thing wrong with these reports was – well – everything.

Fox News

First of all, there was no attempt to censor Fox News. A spokesperson for the facility made it clear that that the channel was removed because of patient concerns. At least some of the patients explicitly objected to Fox News and the resultant controversy created an uncomfortable environment.

“It was just a misunderstanding. We’ve had a lot of veterans with diverse personalities. A lot of veterans complaining about one news station or the other, so the intent was really to be fair and equitable and take all stations off. […] We’ve had several incidents of veterans actually arguing, fighting over the different news stations. Some wanted to watch news, some did not. Others wanted to watch specific stations.”

In addition, while Fox News did air reports on the V.A. scandal, so did every other news network. Fox had no more coverage of the affair than their cable news peers. Although they certainly had more spittle-inflected animosity directed at President Obama than some of the others. However, It was CNN that originally broke the story, so if there was an intent to censor the source of bad news about their operations, the pharmacy would more likely have banned CNN. Here is how Politico reported the evolution of the story:

“The slow-burn story at the Phoenix VA went from a largely ignored congressional hearing and a local news report before it landed on CNN and then exploded in the national media and seized the White House.”

Particularly disturbing was the framing of this phony whining about censorship by the Fox & Friends crew, where co-host Brian Kilmeade packaged the segment as “Abandoned Brothers.” They actually employed language generally reserved for prisoners of war or fallen soldiers on the battlefield to describe people waiting to get their prescriptions filled in a downtown Fresno drug store who weren’t able to watch a gaggle of Fox News blondes in short skirts mutilate journalism.

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It’s pretty nauseating that Fox regards not being able to watch their network for a few minutes as comparable to being abandoned in wartime. Especially so soon after their repulsive coverage of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, whom they defamed as a deserter, a traitor, and a jihadist, before any hearing or even getting his version of events.

Some Fox commentators literally advocated for Bergdahl to be abandoned to his Taliban captors. So Fox hardly has the moral authority to use rhetoric about “abandoned brothers” in their programming. But you can always expect them to make themselves a part of every story with an emphasis on how victimized they are by the rest of the media. That’s the sort of behavior generally exhibited by crybabies who can’t accept not getting their way.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: Hillary Clinton’s High Ethical Standards Infuriate Fox News

The folks at Fox Nation are working overtime to unearth scandals they can attribute to Hillary Clinton. Lately their crack(head) reporters have discovered that, although Clinton did leave the White House in debt, she later made lots of money (Oh my!). They ferreted out that she is no longer young (You don’t say?). They alleged that she had suffered brain damage (Uh-oh!). And they continually try (and fail) to blame her for Benghazi. But now they may have hit on a charge that could stick: Hillary Clinton is an ethical attorney! (Yikes!)

Fox Nation

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The Fox Nationalists posted an article that they sourced to the ultra-rightist Washington Free Beacon announcing the discovery of “The Hillary Tapes” from deep within the – well, the very public archives of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. The release of these tapes were intended to tarnish Clinton’s reputation as an advocate for abused women and children. The article began saying that…

“In 1975, the same year she married Bill, Hillary Clinton agreed to serve as the court-appointed attorney for Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old accused of raping the child after luring her into a car.

“The recordings, which date from 1983-1987 and have never before been reported, include Clinton’s suggestion that she knew Taylor was guilty at the time. She says she used a legal technicality to plead her client, who faced 30 years to life in prison, down to a lesser charge.

“The full story of the Taylor defense calls into question Clinton’s narrative of her early years as a devoted women and children’s advocate in Arkansas—a narrative the 2016 presidential frontrunner continues to promote on her current book tour.”

Apparently the Fox Nationalists, and their ignorant pals at the Free Beacon, are unaware of the constitutional provision that grants all defendants the right to competent counsel. It is the responsibility of the attorney to work on behalf of the client’s best interests regardless of guilt or innocence. And in this case Clinton did just that after being assigned the case by the court. It would have been unethical to do anything else.

What’s more, the “technicality” that Clinton employed was that the lab contracted by the prosecutor had lost the material evidence in the case. That’s a pretty significant technicality. The defense can’t examine or rebut, nor can the state convict, on evidence that doesn’t exist.

So Clinton did her job as the law requires her to do. And for demonstrating those strong principles Fox tries to twist the story into something negative. Instead, they expose themselves as opponents of the Constitution and those who respect it. Descending to these depths of dishonesty in order to demean Clinton tells us something about Fox in the clearest terms: They are staggeringly scared of Clinton and the prospect of her candidacy in 2016.


FOX NEWS HYPOCRISY: Lost IRS Emails vs. Lost Bush White House Emails

On Friday the IRS reported to the House Ways and Means Committee that some email from the account of Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations division, were missing due to a computer crash that occurred in 2011. That morsel of news set the conservative media to salivating with hopes of a new controversy to wrap around the neck of the Obama administration. Never mind that after a year of congressional hearings, independent investigations, and media scrutiny, there has not been an iota of evidence tying any of the IRS activities to the White House, right-wing pundits and politicians scurried to spread innuendo and place blame.

Leading the pack, as usual, was Fox News. They pounced on the missing email story with a barely disguised glee, despite the fact that they had little information to report. However, they did succeed at what they do best: spewing outrage over alleged improprieties by President Obama that they cavalierly dismissed during the Bush years.

Fox News

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To be sure, it is reasonable to be concerned, even suspicious, when government agencies announce that data critical to ongoing investigations is unavailable. But when a media enterprise pretends to exhibit such concern for blatantly political purposes, it can hardly be regarded as credible. What’s missing in Fox’s reporting is the context that would put this story into perspective. Their reporting went straight for the jugular with premature conclusions of wrongdoing and dishonesty. The story was presented as an outrageous and unprecedented act of probable criminality.

Flashback to April of 2007. The Bush administration was in the midst of dual scandals regarding: 1) the outing of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent whose identity was deliberately compromised as payback for her husband’s criticism of the Bush lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, and 2) the unethical firing of eight federal attorneys for politically ideological reasons. Additionally, there were questions about Karl Rove improperly using a Republican National Committee e-mail account that the White House later said disappeared. While Congress was investigating these activities, the White House announced that two years of emails were lost and unavailable to the committees of jurisdiction.

Hmmm. Sound familiar? In fact, it is identical to the story now being pushed by Fox. However, Fox News never blew a gasket over the lost emails from the Bush administration. Dana Perino, a co-host of the Fox News program The Five, was among those expressing outrage on Friday when the news of the missing IRS emails was released. She and her fellow co-hosts lit into the topic, bemoaning the administration’s “ignorance” and “incompetence.” And without any proof whatsoever, they implied that the administration was lying and covering up.

What makes this even worse is that Perino was Bush’s press secretary when it was revealed that two years of White House emails were lost. This, of course, cannot be waived off as an isolated problem that occurred at another agency. This was the White House itself that lost emails that were presently being requested by investigators. And it was Perino who came to the defense. Here she is downplaying the matter in a report on CNN by Ed Henry (now at Fox News):

Here is Perino & Co. aghast at the revelation that IRS emails went astray:

It is astonishing that Perino could be so rattled by the IRS email report when she herself was so intimately involved in spinning an identical controversy when she worked for Bush (Of course at Fox, she’s still working for the same gang). Either she has the memory of a gnat or she is purposefully deceiving the gullible waifs who watch Fox News. And since deception is an integral part of the Fox News mission, we can safely assume it’s the latter.

See also part II of this story featuring another hypocrite, Darrell Issa.


How The Media Got EVERYTHING Wrong About Cantor’s Primary Defeat

Last week a tsunami of shock washed over the Washington press corps as the second highest Republican in congress was swept overboard in a primary race against an unknown Tea Party opponent. Eric Cantor’s embarrassing loss has sparked debate as to how such a powerful GOP leader could have been caught looking. Unfortunately, the media contribution to the debate is rife with speculation and error.

Koch-Cycle Dave Brat

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First off all, the characterization of Cantor’s opponent, Dave Brat, as an outsider who sprung from the grassroots to slay Goliath is a reflection of the shallowness of the research conducted by the mainstream media. Thom Hartmann went deeper and discovered that Brat was on the radar of the billionaire Koch brothers long before he launched his allegedly underdog campaign. Koch-affiliated financiers endowed Randolph-Macon College with half a million dollars to seat the Ayn Rand disciple as a trickle-down economics professor. Then, when the campaign commenced, radio talk show hosts like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin took the baton and fervently promoted Brat’s candidacy. Ingraham and Levin are just a couple of the radio talkers who are sponsored by Koch front groups like Americans for Prosperity.

This brings us to the second point. The media repeatedly cast a spotlight on the campaign spending differential between Cantor and Brat. Cantor raised more than $5,000,000 compared to Brat’s $200,000. Many reporters latched onto the amusing anecdote that Cantor spent more on steak dinners than Brat spent in total. However, what they failed to take into consideration was the value of the airtime contributed by the likes of Ingraham, Levin, Beck, Limbaugh, Fox News, et al. It could cost a couple of hundred dollars for a thirty second spot on a high performing radio program. Extrapolate that to twenty or thirty minutes of direct advocacy by the the program’s host every day for a month or two and you could easily have exceeded Cantor’s budget for broadcast advertising.

Adding in the value of the donated airtime rips apart the third fallacy peddled in the press – that Brat’s low cost campaign disproves the contention that money makes the difference in elections. This is a target that has been in the sights of conservatives since the Citizen’s United debacle in the Supreme Court. The rush to exonerate wealthy donors of having any untoward impact on electoral outcomes was head-spinning. Every right-wing pundit with a microphone hailed the demise of the theory that cash-laden campaigns had an unfair advantage. In truth, Brat’s campaign was far richer than acknowledged due to the media support detailed above. But even if there were no other factors, a win by a single candidate in one race surely doesn’t negate the fact that in 99.99% of other races the better financed candidate prevails. If the right is so convinced that Brat’s showing proves that money doesn’t matter, I dare any of them to announce that they are halting their fundraising and capping their spending at $200,000.

Fourth: Tea Party supporters were quick to jump on Brat’s win as evidence of a Tea Party resurgence. In just about every other race this cycle, the Tea Party challenger lost to an establishment incumbent. With Brat’s resounding victory, they claim to have regained their mojo. But the only way they can make that argument is if they forget that they lost just about every other race this cycle.

Finally, the Washington set is dead certain that Brat’s triumph was due to his stance against immigration. After all, he did feature it in his campaign ads and it was a point of departure between him and Cantor. Unfortunately for those who seem to have a desperate yearning for that to be true, polling on the day of the election proved otherwise. Public Policy Polling released the survey showing that “72 percent of registered voters in Cantor’s district polled on Tuesday said they either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ support immigration reform.” And the anti-immigration forces conveniently ignore the fact that on the same day Sen. Lindsey Graham, an establishment, pro-immigration candidate, from an even more conservative state, handily dispatched a slew of Tea Partiers. More likely, the problem for Cantor was that he mustered only a 43% job performance approval, just a couple points off of his losing election results.

So Dave Brat won a peculiar contest in Virginia where he had hidden support from billionaires and an opponent who was widely disliked. Then he disappears and refuses to speak to the voters he hopes will be his constituents. It’s been three days and he hasn’t held a post election press conference. And yet the press continues to misrepresent the realities that produced the results of this election. It’s a state of affairs that proves that Cantor wasn’t the only loser last week. The voters and others who rely on the media to provide useful information and analysis also lost. But they should be used to that by now.

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Sarah Palin Proves: It Takes A Village Idiot To Exploit The Suffering Of Children

There are far too many political charlatans, deceivers, and opportunists in contemporary public life. But there is only one Mistress of the Grifters who could publish a thoroughly revolting screed that pretends at times to be concerned about the welfare of suffering children, but repeatedly turns that feigned concern into a vitriolic, self-serving tirade aimed at her eternal enemy, President Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin

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Never mind that the American people rejected Sarah Palin and her veep-daddy, John McCain, in a glorious rout, and that Obama repeated that electoral success four years later. Palin thinks she knows what’s best for the nation that hates her. And today she demonstrated how insensitive and unscrupulous she can be. Her latest Facebook harangue will long serve as a benchmark for deranged ranting. Here are some excerpts from Palin’s twisted take on the plight of immigrant children who are being warehoused in border states awaiting some way to resolve what is a dismal and daunting problem:

“Finally, they have won me over. I actually agree with the liberals’ war whoop. I, too, demand that this issue of young illegal aliens flooding across our border into horrendous conditions be taken care of. Now!”

Sadly, Palin’s solution begins with denouncing the President’s allocation of funds to improve conditions for the children. She apparently prefers to let them languish in 90+ degree heat and sleep on concrete floors. She does, however, offer own advice for allocating relief funds saying that

“The primary expenditure we need to supply in this humanitarian crisis is jet fuel to fly these children back home.”

This is what Palin regards as a serious response to a humanitarian crisis. Who does she think will greet these kids at the airport in whatever country they came from? And there are thousands of kids from many different countries, so we’d need a fleet of jets with different itineraries. Then, according to Palin’s plan, they would be shoved out of the plane onto the tarmac. Maybe we could save even more money by throwing them out midair with parachutes.

Palin continues in a mocking mode as a “bleeding heart compassionate woman and mother,” who sees some sort of plot here that involves both ObamaCare and the NSA spies. But most of all, it’s a socialist trick to redistribute the wealth from hard-working patriots to greedy urchins seeking handouts.

“Expect to see hundreds of thousands of another country’s children walk right through our welcoming open border, counting on America’s families to render all aid. We owe it to ourselves to be prepared – so, work even harder, working class, while our President uses his trustworthy discernment to redistribute your paycheck, because it IS for the children.”

Palin is profoundly moved by this crisis and says of those who ignore it that it “proves you are heartlessly oblivious to the plight” But wait until you read what she regards as the nature of the crisis:

“As a Christian I find it unforgivable to ignore this issue of overrunning border security into these conditions in southern states, and this one issue is just about driving me to renounce my Republican ties because, see, even leaders on the RIGHT side of the aisle haven’t exerted all Constitutional power to stop the madness.”

So it isn’t the suffering of children in dreadful conditions that offends her Christian values. It’s lax border security because, as we all read in the Bible, “Thou shalt build a wall to close the borders and leave the children to starve.” And she’s so disturbed that she is even contemplating a separation from her Republican comrades. She then beseeches both parties to take a stand on the issue. And again, she helpfully defines the issue for us:

“Hang on to your hat, because here’s the issue: Barack Obama has orchestrated this newest ‘crisis’ in order to overload the system with the intention of ‘fixing’ the problems his own policies create – by fiat, and that infamous phone and pen; screw the rule of law.”

Once again, the issue isn’t the children. And this time it isn’t even the border. It’s Obama! You know, the Stalinist oppressor who was elected twice and continues to fight for reforms that the American people broadly support (e.g. immigration reform, gun control, protecting the environment, raising the minimum wage, and equal rights for women, minorities, and gays). For this Palin labels Obama a tyrant:

“Congress and American voters, how long will you let Team Obama get away with this? The recent avalanche of devastating crises caused by a president believing he is above the law has set the most dangerous precedent a once-free people can imagine. To encourage and reward lawlessness by refusing to enforce the will of the people as proven by laws passed by our political representatives is the signature of a tyrant. In this case, Obama’s refusal to enforce immigration laws and his blatant suggestion that his chosen illegal activity will be rewarded are proof of his tyrannical tactics.”

Palin closes with an appeal to citizens – not to get relief for the children – but to vote out the “Team Obama” fiends who dare to search for workable solutions to vexing problems. But that’s really her second choice. What she really wants is…

“So, how much more will you take, Congress and We the People? I sense not enough guts in D.C. to file impeachment charges against Team Obama for their countless documented illegalities.”

Of course, that’s what Palin and her ilk have wanted since January 20, 2009. They have never accepted the legitimacy of Obama or the mandate that he has received twice. Her idea of “We the People” is a narrow swath of white, ultra-conservative, Christians, rather than the actual voters who have had their say. And now for her to position this heartbreaking situation with innocent kids in an unconscionable quandary, as just another opportunity to call Obama a tyrant, advocate for his impeachment, and beckon her disciples to the voting booth, is repulsive in the extreme. This goes way beyond her ordinary repulsiveness. But you have to give her credit for always managing to find a new low.


Fox News Is STILL Killing The Republican Party

Once again, an academic study of the American electorate has found that “Fox News Republicans are the most uninformed.” This new survey was conducted by the Brookings Institution along with the Public Religion Research Institute. What’s different about this study is that it does not merely pit Republicans against Democrats and Independents. It distinguishes between Republicans who regularly watch Fox News and those who don’t. And the conclusions reveal that Fox News Republicans are even more uninformed and extreme in their views than their non-fox viewing comrades in the same party.

Go Fox Yourself

What this tells us is that Fox News is polluting the Republicans who tune in to the network with reporting and commentary that is biased, misleading, and downright false. The ideological corruption is evident in some basic political differences between the Foxies and the Foxless. For instance, the DREAM Act was drafted to permit undocumented residents who came to the U.S. as children, and either completed college or served in the military, to obtain temporary residency status and eventually apply for citizenship. This bill is supported by a 62% majority of Foxless Republicans, but only 42% of GOP Foxies. Likewise, the campaign to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour is supported by a majority of 56% of the Foxless, but only 33% of the Foxies. In both cases the Foxless Republicans are more closely aligned with the electorate at large. It is the Foxies who hold the extremist position on the fringes of the far right.

The study asks the question: Does Fox News cause ignorance, or do ignorant viewers prefer Fox News? The answer is not particularly clear cut and is likely a combination of the two. However, the real problems for the GOP come into the equation when the party tries to evaluate the opinions of their constituents as represented by the folks at Fox News. It’s clear that the Fox version of Republican views are far removed from reality. The study notes that party strategists may think that the Foxy…

“…represents the center of the GOP. Under that mindset, presidential candidates should adopt a policy platform that appeals to the average Fox News viewer. But that’s a mistake when the average Fox News member is an extreme conservative. […] This makes the Fox News echo chamber a hazard for the party. It creates extreme candidates under the guise that they are electable.”

The notion that Fox News is demonstrably harmful to the Republican Party is one that News Corpse examined five years ago in an article titled “Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party.” Some excerpts show that the results of the new Brookings/PRRI study somewhat belatedly affirm my own conclusions:

There is a case to be made that Fox News is demonstrably harmful to the Republican Party. In fact, it may be the worst thing to happen to Republicans in decades. That may seem counter-intuitive when discussing Fox News, the acknowledged public relations division of the Republican Party. Fox has populated its air with right-wing mouthpieces and brazenly partisan advocates for a conservative Republican agenda. They read GOP press releases on the air verbatim as if they were the product of original research. They provide a forum where Republican politicians and pundits can peddle their views unchallenged. So how is this harmful to Republicans?

Fox has corralled a stable of the most disreputable, unqualified, extremist, lunatics ever assembled, and is presenting them as experts, analysts, and leaders. These third-rate icons of idiocy are marketed by Fox like any other gag gift (i.e. pet rocks, plastic vomit, Sarah Palin, etc.). […] The problem is that by elevating bona fide nutcases, they are debasing honest and informed discourse. The mental cases are crowding out any reasonable voices that might exist amongst the more moderate Republicans (if there are any left). Fox appears to have made a tactical decision to permit the inmates full run of the asylum.

By doubling down on crazy, Fox is driving the center of the Republican Party further down the rabid hole. They are reshaping the party into a more radicalized community of conspiracy nuts. So even as this helps Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, it is making celebrities of political bottom-feeders. That can’t be good for the long-term prospects of the Republican Party.

The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds.

Recent events have borne out the worst of these considerations. Shortly after Fox News heralded the Deadbeat Rancher, Cliven Bundy, as a hero for confronting law enforcement officers with armed militia, three people, including two police officers, were murdered in Las Vegas, by a pair of Tea Party Terrorists. The perpetrators were the spitting image of the Fox News profile for conservative activists who virulently opposed what Fox told them was a rogue government that was devolving into a godless abyss of socialist deception and tyranny.

In addition, Fox News has stridently pursued a political agenda that seems to be intent on alienating the most critical voter demographic groups, including African-Americans, Latinos, women, and youth. And lately they even added their most loyal viewers to that list. The median age of the Fox News audience is 69 years old. That’s six years older than the median for their competition at CNN and MSNBC. And yet, Fox is embarking on an anti-Hillary Clinton crusade that is largely based on her age. That surely won’t go over well with the seniors tuning in to Fox.

Shameless self-promotion…
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So with Fox continuing to feature the fringiest characters they can find, and academic studies certifying the damage that this strategy will cause to their purported allies in the GOP, the closing paragraph of my 2009 article is as relevant today as it was then:

The mission of Fox News from its inception was to be more than just a voice of opposition to Democrats. It was to utterly crush the left end of the political spectrum leaving only a teetering right wing with no counter balance. Yet, despite the torrid embrace between Republicans and Fox News, it is apparent that Fox is the source of a sort of friendly fire that is decimating the GOP by exalting its most outlandish and unpopular players. And since Republicans have not been particularly popular anyway lately, the anchor being thrown to them by Fox can’t be all that helpful – – – Except to Democrats.


Glenn Beck Feels Oppressed Because He Can’t Say ‘Fag’ And ‘Nigger’

In the ever paranoid and dystopian world of Glenn Beck, the burdens of tyranny are a constant aggravation for him. Being a persecuted white Christian male in a nation that abhors such creatures must cause him terrible distress. And what is it that he yearns for to bring him some small measure of relief? Nothing more than to be able to utter the words “fag” and “nigger” with the carefree abandon that he believes is his birthright.

Glenn Beck

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On an episode of his video blog Monday, Beck hosted a reprehensible street artist to share his artwork and political wisdom (video below). Sabo, who for some reason wants to remain anonymous and blurry (as if anyone cares what his identity is), regaled Beck with a variety of cheesy posters that took cheap shots at “libruls” and other enemies of America. For instance, he featured one where Texas candidate for governor, Wendy Davis, is mocked as “Abortion Barbie.” But one in particular caught the attention of Beck and launched a discussion about free speech and the Nazis in Washington.

Sabo’s ersatz poster simply had the words “FAG THE NEW NIGGER” written on it. As Sabo began to discuss the “art” he complained that…

“It bothers me you can’t say the name. I mean, we are such a politically correct environment that you can’t even say ‘fag the new nigger.’ Why is that?”

Exactly! And Beck responded forcefully saying that “It bothers me” too. What has this country come to that you are discouraged from using hateful epithets that are viscerally offensive to innocent people? All they want to do is run around saying fag and nigger to their heart’s content and society threatens to look down on them for it. And worse, they literally silence them (except for the fact that Sabo did actually say those words just as he was whining about not being able to, ironic obliviousness notwithstanding).

From there, Sabo waxed idiotic about long ago debunked conspiracy theories that claimed that President Obama is arming every federal agency from the FBI to Head Start with bullets and tanks in order to enslave American citizens. He saw an ominous parallel in this nefarious and non-existent activity:

“You’re almost seeing what happened in the beginning of World War II right in front of you and no one’s questioning the man because he’s black.”

It couldn’t be more similar. Obama has made health care available to millions of Americans who were previously denied. He has rescued the economy from the worst collapse since the Great Depression. He has advocated for the rights of women to have control of their own bodies. He ended two wars while keeping the U.S. homeland safe from foreign terrorists. See? He’s exactly like Hitler.

To be fair, Sabo did concede that Obama hasn’t done anything like Hitler – yet. And all that Sabo wants is to make sure that Obama doesn’t fulfill his desire to become the next Hitler. Who could argue with that goal? Certainly not Beck. In fact Beck applauds the paranoid artist and agrees wholeheartedly. He wishes there were more like him. That might help to change the social environment to allow the use of more racial epithets.

Although it is a little confusing that Beck is so perturbed by what he regards as restrictions on his right to free speech. This is the same guy who puts on a cavalcade of outrage every year after Thanksgiving if somebody should dare to wish him a “Happy Holiday.” He has warned his disciples to “run as fast as you can” if their church should ever utter the phrase “social justice.” And he has a whole lexicon of evil words associated with the United Nations plot to force everyone into a One World Government dictatorship. So Beck’s list of verboten language is as long as his arm, but if anyone tries to stop him from spewing vile racial slurs, watch out. That’s an affront to his warped notion of liberty.


Fox News Has Ceased Coverage Of Las Vegas Tea Party Cop Killers

After only one day Fox News has already eliminated coverage of the Tea Party Cop Killers in Las Vegas who went on a murderous rampage Sunday. On Monday, Fox’s primetime programs (Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, and Sean Hannity) were silent on the subject except for four sentences on Kelly’s show.

On Tuesday morning’s edition of Fox & Friends, the curvy couch potatoes failed to mention Jerad Miller and his wife Amanda. Later, on Happening Now, Fox ignored the story entirely. Outnumbered also declined to report on the Millers, despite having guest co-host “doctor” Keith Ablow who has psychoanalyzed every criminal, politician, and other public figure this century (without ever examining, or even meeting, any of them).

Fox News Creed

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Fox has replaced the Sunday massacre with older stories about the Bergdahl prisoner swap, the Veterans Administration, and Hillary Clinton’s book release and presidential aspirations. The producers and editors at Fox News have never been shy about reporting acts of alleged terrorism, even before any evidence has emerged. But for this story they have refused to even refer to the crime as terrorism. There are some obvious reasons why Fox would skew their reporting and ultimately remove this story from their news coverage. And all of them represent biases that are a long-standing part of what can be called the Fox News Creed.

First of all, the perpetrators are not who Fox’s racist producers typically profile as terrorists. Rather than being brown-skinned, Muslim, foreigners, the Millers are white Christians from Indiana. So not only would it run counter to Fox’s philosophy to implicate the Millers in terrorism, it would offend their 90% white, right-wing audience.

Secondly, the issue raises concerns about access to dangerous firearms. The NRA constituency at Fox is loathe to focus on such events that make the public uncomfortable with the wild west society that is favored by the gun fetishists and right-wingers who program and watch the network. Fox avoids or downplays most stories about gun violence, but jumps on any report that they can frame as an Obama attempt to repeal the Second Amendment.

Thirdly, Fox is well known for promoting some of the very same political ideologies as the Millers. They have featured guests who advocate secession from the United States, as well as armed resistance to federal law and authorities. An example of that is the recent Cliven Bundy affair where Jerad Miller just happened to show up threatening to use “the language of violence” against representatives of the Bureau of Land Management. Fox has also hyped Republican leaders, like Texas governor Rick Perry, who have made public statements that come just short of declaring secession.

Finally, the Millers’ association with Tea Party groups is something that Fox will work vigorously to excise from the public discourse. The Millers were supporters of the biggest Koch brothers-bankrolled Tea Party organizations (Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks), and openly espoused their anti-government views. It was only a matter of time before people who came to rallies with signs that said “We Came Unarmed – THIS TIME,” would keep their promise of violence. Of course, Fox News also supports the same groups and views, and has been instrumental in creating and promoting the Tea Party. In fact, there would be no Tea Party without Fox News. Consequently, Fox is not going to risk alienating such a critical part of their audience.

[Breaking] Further analysis of Fox’s coverage of the Tea Party Cop Killers was interrupted as this article was being written by the breaking news of yet another school shooting, this time in Oregon. This is the sort of tragedy that Fox can latch onto (briefly) because it lacks the political context of the Millers’ case. And the sensationalism of a breaking story is something that Fox will happily exploit.

In the meantime, Fox is probably glad to have something to report other than Sunday’s domestic terrorism in Las Vegas. The last thing they want is to have to acknowledge the relationship between the Millers and the the various enterprises that Fox News has endorsed and encouraged so feverishly. The Fox News Creed is one that was embraced by the Millers and, sadly, by many other viewers who Fox has worked so hard to deceive. And now they are reaping their reward in blood.

[Update:] As Fox returned to news other than the Oregon school shooting they continued to evade the Tea Party Cop Killers. The stories they have run so far on programs by Shepard Smith and Neil Cavuto on were on immigration, Sgt. Bergdahl, the IRS with an interview of Darrell Issa (Slimeball-CA), and extended, free campaign ads/interviews of Republicans Rick Snyder (governor of Michigan) and Ed Gillespie (senate candidate in Virginia). Following those programs, The Five was almost all Hillary Clinton, and Special Report with Bret Baier led with Bergdahl and then segued to bashing Clinton. It’s easy to see their editorial prejudices, but there was nothing (i.e. bupkis) on the Las Vegas Tea Party massacre.