Fox Nation vs. Reality: West Virginia Is For Lovers Of Felons

Posted by on May 9, 2012 at 9:57 am. 13 Comments :

Yesterday was another election day in this seemingly never-ending primary season. And, true to its nature, Fox Nation has managed to mangle reporting of what took place. Here is the headline they went with this morning: “Democrats Pick Jailed Felon Over Obama.”

Fox Nation

There are only two reasons that Fox would run with this story: 1) It makes Obama look bad. 2) They had funny pictures of Obama and a pony-tailed felon. The decision to publish this obviously had nothing to do with truthful reporting because, contrary to the sensationalistic headline, the Democrats did not pick a jailed felon over Obama. The felon lost. Nevertheless, Fox posted this story at the top of their web page indicating that they considered it more important than any other election news, such as the defeat of veteran senator Dick Lugar in Indiana and the victory for homophobes in North Carolina.

More to the point, however, the Fox Nationalists failed to provide any context for this item. They never mentioned that in West Virginia Independents are permitted to vote in any primary. What’s more, all voters are permitted to declare and/or change their party affiliation in the voting booth. Consequently, there is a pretty good chance that the votes for the felon were actually made by Republicans seeking to cause mischief. Since Obama was not being challenged by any serious candidate, the turnout for Democrats was probably quite low. And since Romney’s opponents had all quit, GOP voters could safely cast their votes for a joker on the Democratic ballot.

In any case, the tendency for some portion of West Virginians to align themselves with a white criminal over the President says more about them than it does about Obama. And a closer look at the felon reveals a decidedly Republican mindset. His FEC filings resemble the mission statements of Tea Partiers that rant about gun rights and the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. That affirms the likelihood that his voters are predominantly right-wingers.

Another bit of context that was left out is that 30% of Republicans voted against Romney in the GOP primary. That means that 30% of West Virginian GOP voters preferred people who were not even in the race to their presumptive nominee. And more West Virginians overall cast ballots for Obama (70k) than for Romney (54k). But don’t expect to hear any of this from Fox News.

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Rush Limbaugh Affiliates Losing Millions As Advertisers Flee

Posted by on May 9, 2012 at 2:14 am. 4 Comments :

When Rush Limbaugh called law student Sandra Fluke a slut he may not have grasped how expensive his despicable misogyny would be. Yesterday Politico reported that the CEO of Cumulus Media revealed that…

…the advertiser boycott against Rush Limbaugh cost his company millions of dollars in revenue for the first two quarters of the year.

“It hit us pretty hard,” [Lew} Dickey said during a call with financial analysts yesterday. “A couple of million bucks in the first quarter and a couple of million bucks in quarter two.”

Thirty-eight Cumulus-owned radio stations currently carry Limbaugh’s show. The public admission that the cost of the advertiser exodus has reached into the millions directly contradicts Limbaugh’s transparently phony assertions that the defections have had no effect on him. Limbaugh is broadcast on about 600 stations nationwide. If the loss at 38 stations runs into the millions, extrapolate what the losses must be across the whole Limbaugh network of 600 stations.

Coincidentally, the same day that news broke of the costly repercussions of Limbaugh’s beastly behavior, Limbaugh announced the launch of his response to the controversy. In an attempt to prove that he does not hate and disparage women, he created “Rush Babes for America.” That’s right, Limbaugh’s way of demonstrating his respect for women is to start a self-promotional campaign that disparages women right in the name. Perhaps we should be thankful he didn’t call it FemiNazis for America.


Sean Hannity’s Great Misogynist Panel

Posted by on May 8, 2012 at 2:09 pm. 3 Comments :

Last week Sean Hannity welcomed to his Fox News program Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a frequent guest with whom he has a close association. Here is how Hannity introduced him:

“He’s the founder, president of the group BOND Action, Brotherhood Organization for a New Destiny, of which I’m a board member, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. I say that just for Howard Kurtz because he whines about it like a big baby every time I don’t mention it.”

It’s ironic that Hannity calls Kurtz a big baby when it’s Hannity who is whining about having to exercise the ethical practice of disclosing personal affiliations with his program’s guests. It is apparently too big a burden for Hannity to behave honestly or professionally.

However, that is not the real problem with Hannity’s “reverend” pal. It seems that Peterson recently delivered a sermon in which he demeaned women as whores and bemoaned that they were ever given the right to vote:

Peterson: “I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote,” Peterson says. “We should’ve never turned this over to women. And these women are voting in the wrong people. They’re voting in people who are evil who agrees with them who’re gonna take us down this pathway of destruction.”

“And this probably was the reason they didn’t allow women to vote when men were men. Because men in the good old days understood the nature of the woman,” he adds. “They were not afraid to deal with it. And they understood that, you let them take over, this is what would happen.”

Peterson has a long history of misogyny, as well as some other repulsive views. For instance, he thinks it would be a good idea to bring back slavery so that blacks would learn the value of work. This is the sort of caliber of guest that Hannity not only invites to be on his “Great American Panel,” but also serves on his board.

Hannity’s other guests that evening included Indiana GOP/Tea Party senate candidate, Richard Mourdock, and Fox Democrat Kirsten Powers. Uncharacteristically, Powers actually stood up for principle by objecting to Peterson’s presence on the program. Powers blasted his hateful rhetoric and told Hannity that had she known he would be there, she might not have been. Neither Hannity, nor Mourdock, had anything to say about Peterson’s open hostility toward women.

If this is a “Great” American Panel, I’d hate to see Hannity’s idea of a crappy panel. Or maybe that is what Hannity has every night.


Allen West Joins Hate Group Advisory Board

Posted by on May 8, 2012 at 10:43 am. 6 Comments :

Allen WestAllen West has already distinguished himself as a commie-phobic, Nazi-baiting extremist who engaged in mock executions against innocent Iraqis before leaving the Army and running for congress. He has not even completed his first term yet he has offended millions of Americans as well as his colleagues. He called Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz “the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives.” And he hired a staffer who excited her Tea Party audience by declaring that “If ballots don’t work, bullets will.”

Now West has added to his resume his participation as a member of the advisory board of the Thomas More Law Center, a notoriously aggressive group of Christian extremists with a record of blatant bigotry. The TMLC supported former judge Ray Moore who was ousted from the bench for violating a federal court order to remove a religious monument from his courthouse. They also brought suits to force schools to teach creationism along side evolution. They challenged the Hate Crimes Prevention Act which was passed after the brutal murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. They tried to force Planned Parenthood to falsely declare a link between abortion and breast cancer. They are virulently homophobic. And they have been amongst the most rabid anti-Muslim organizations in the country with wild assertions that Islam is a hoax disguised as a religion bent on destroying America.

It seems a perfect affiliation for West who shares the same principles. In a press release announcing the appointment, West said…

“What impressed me about the Law Center is that it knows the true threat to our nation posed by radical Islam and it has initiated and funded more cases challenging the Stealth Jihad being waged against our Nation than any other public interest law firm in America.”

That sentiment was captured by West recently when he said that, “When tolerance becomes a one-way street it will lead to cultural suicide.” Let that sink in for minute. What West is saying is that if we encounter intolerance on the part of others and do not thereafter become intolerant ourselves we are committing cultural suicide. So West believes that we should assume the worst characteristics of our enemies. If they are racist, we should be racist. If they torture, we should torture. The problem with that is that when we become as bad as those we are fighting, then what the hell are we fighting for?

Patrick Murphy is West’s opponent for the 18th district congressional seat in Florida. Here is how you can help him defeat West.


New York Post Columnist Tells Fox News That Obama Might Kill Biden

Posted by on May 7, 2012 at 1:13 pm. 1 Comments :

Michael Goodwin is a notoriously uber-conservative writer for Rupert Murdoch’s wingnut tabloid, the New York Post. This morning he ventured over to Murdoch’s Fox News studios to be interviewed about the presidential election.

Fox News Alert

When the subject turned to vice-presidents, Goodwin couldn’t resist making a Mafia association with President Obama caste as the Godfather. His prediction is that Joe Biden will be disposed of to make room for Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket.

“Joe Biden is the Fredo of the Obama family and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him sent out on a little fishing boat one early morning. […] If it comes close in the summer, if the polls show Obama trailing, he will make the switch. Hillary Clinton will be on the ticket and Joe Biden will be sleeping with the fishes.”

Twice in Goodwin’s remarks he refers to Biden being assassinated in order to reassign Clinton. The “little fishing boat” and “sleeping with the fishes” are both Mafia-speak for mob hits from the iconic Godfather movies.

The outlandishness of Goodwin’s assertions are nearly matched by his incoherent analysis. If Obama were going to ditch Biden he would have done so before having produced warehouses full of Obama/Biden campaign paraphernalia. And making such a switch later in the season would only reek of desperation. What’s more, Clinton has absolutely no incentive to leave her post as Secretary of State, where she is a dominant player on the world stage, for a demotion to vice-president, where she’d be relegated to attending funerals and other ceremonial duties. And the cherry on the top of Goodwin’s nuttiness is that he actually aligns himself with the political analysis of the deceased leader of Al Qaeda:

“Even Osama Bin Laden, in those letters, said that Biden is woefully unprepared to be president.”

When right-wingers praise Bin Laden as an ideological ally something has gone terribly wrong. But the right’s obsession with hostile rhetoric is well documented. They frequently engage in assassination fantasies featuring Obama, and they openly yearn for violent ends to their political adversaries. So it is not surprising to see them project their psychotic behavior onto the President and suggest that he would off his own VP. That’s how the right thinks about these matters, and they assume that everyone else is as emotionally perverse as they are themselves.


LOL! Desperate Right-Wing Media Mocks Obama Rally

Posted by on May 6, 2012 at 10:05 am. 4 Comments :

Let’s face it, conservatives are becoming more desperate and delusional every day. They hate their nominee for president and, in order to avoid the unthinkable prospect of President Obama’s reelection, they are literally hallucinating as they report on campaign events.

Obama / Romney Rallies

The Fox Nation posted an article they sourced from Twitter (that’s right, the anonymous news pros at Twitter) that featured a photo taken at Obama’s rally in Ohio yesterday. The headline reads “Not The ‘Overflow’ Crowd Obama Hoped For.” However, the photo contradicts the headline by showing thousands of supporters in the stadium’s stands. While it does not appear to be a full house, it is clearly well-attended. Officials estimated the crowd to be approximately 14,000. It should also be noted that the Twitter photo appears to have been taken prior to the start of the rally as other photos show the area in front of the stage to be packed with supporters.

The severity of delusional dysfunction was even more acute at Breitbart where they posted the same Twitter pic with the headline “Obama Launches Campaign In Empty Arena.” Empty? Really? Their readers must suffer from extreme cognitive impairment if they can read this tripe without falling down laughing. They even have a visual aid to make clear that the arena was far from empty. The arena holds 20,000, so it was more than two thirds full for an event six months prior to election day.

The brazen dishonesty of the the Breitbrats and the Fox Nationalists seems to have no lower boundary. They just keep descending into ever more surreal fantasy. By posting these hilariously mislabeled images they invite real world comparisons – which I have provided above. With rallies on the same weekend, Obama inspired thousands more than Romney’s paltry meetup. Which audience would you rather have if you were running for president?

You really have to wonder what motivates these wingnut propagandists. Surely they could produce better material than this. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit. Maybe this really is the best they can do. Or maybe the GOP has been overrun by a cell of Dadaist comedians and this is their idea of humor. God, I hope it’s the latter. That would explain things, because this is truly hysterical.

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News Corpse Endorses Tea Party Candidate For Indiana Senate

Posted by on May 5, 2012 at 2:24 pm. 1 Comments :

State treasurer Richard Mourdock is challenging veteran Dick Lugar for his senate seat in Indiana. Mourdock is a Tea Party favorite and has been endorsed by Sarah Palin. For those reasons, and the explanation below, News Corpse is jumping on the Mourdock bandwagon.

Richard Mourdock

Lugar is a popular figure in Indiana across the political spectrum and would be a shoe-in for reelection in November. He is seeking his seventh term in the U.S. Senate and is the third most senior member of the body. Were he to win, and if the Republicans gained a majority, Lugar would become the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and third in line for succession to the presidency.

However, Indiana’s Republican primary voters are poised to throw all of that away on an ultra-conservative state pol with a narrow range of support from the Tea Party and right-wing SuperPACs from outside the state. He is presently beating Lugar in recent polls and has a significant financial advantage due to the wealthy PACs who are backing him like the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity.

The good news is that there are some precedents for his candidacy that point to an outcome that Democratic operatives are excited about. In 2010 there were seven candidates who defeated establishment Republicans in the GOP primaries. All seven were supported by the Tea Party (and most by Sarah Palin). And all seven lost to Democrats in the general election. Some of these seats would have gone easily to the Republican that lost in the primary, and but for that, the GOP might have been in the majority now.

The same scenario is playing out today in Indiana. It would be highly unlikely that Democrat Joe Donnelly would defeat Lugar in the general, but he is running neck and neck with Mourdock in recent polling. So a Mourdock victory on Tuesday represents the Democrats best chance to pick up a senate seat that would otherwise not be in play. And history suggests that Mourdock’s prospects are dim. Just take a look at Christine O’Donnell (DE), Joe Miller (AK), Ken Buck (CO), Linda McMahon (CT), Carl Paladino (NY), Sharron Angle (NV), and Carly Fiorina (CA).

So thanks Mr. Mourdock, and good luck on Tuesday. If you prevail in the primary you will be doing the Democrats a huge favor by opening up an opportunity they hadn’t expected. Even if you win in November, it will be better for Dems because you’ll be a junior member with no seniority and the ill will of your colleagues for having ousted their pal, Lugar.


Fox Nation Panic: Run For The Hills, The World Is Ending

Posted by on May 5, 2012 at 10:39 am. 2 Comments :

Sell! Sell! Sell! It’s all over. The stock market is collapsing. Wall Street is bankrupt. The economy is toast. Head for your bunker with your gold bullion, guns, and bibles. The End Times are here.

Fox Nation is feverishly reporting that “Stocks Tank, Nasdaq’s Worst Week Of 2012.” If this isn’t evidence of Armageddon, I don’t know what is.

Fox Nation - Stocks Tank

After this horrific market crash the NASDAQ will only be up 13.5% year-to-date – a mere nine times more than what the average bank savings account is earning for the whole year. If you listened to Fox you would have missed out on one of the most precipitous stock rallies in decades.

And when was the last time that Fox reported that the market was significantly higher in any week this year? Good luck finding that report. Fox is on a mission to make President Obama and his administration look bad. That requires trumpeting bad news about the economy and ignoring the good news.

The problem is that by doing that, Fox also exacerbates negativity that can have the effect of producing a self-fulfilling prophecy and frighten people out of the market. But Fox doesn’t care about that. Hurting Obama is more important to Fox than accurately reporting on the economy.


Born And Bred In Brooklyn, U.S.A., They Call Me Adam Yauch But I’m M.C.A.

Posted by on May 4, 2012 at 3:57 pm. NO Comments :

The Beastie Boys may be remembered best for fighting for their right to party. But they were a groundbreaking trio of rockin rappers who cared about music and the world they lived in. Even if it was a World Gone Mad.

Adam Yauch passed away today at the age of 47 after a three year battle with cancer.

R.I.P. M.C.A.


Heartland Institute: Osama Bin Laden Was Pro-Life. Are You?

Posted by on May 4, 2012 at 2:14 pm. 4 Comments :

In the annals of advertising, there are some notorious chapters wherein misguided persons or organizations justified displaying disgusting and hateful images and messages on billboards. However, it will be a long time (I hope) before anyone comes close to sinking as low as the Heartland Institute has done with its new series of advertisements promoting its upcoming anti-environment conference in Chicago.

Heartland Billboard

The Heartland Institute is a far-right think tank that denies the scientific reality of climate change. It is notoriously anti-science and has previously taken positions that rejected claims that tobacco was bad for your health. The reason for their advocacy of the absurd is that they are funded by corporations with vested interests in deceiving the public (i.e. Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, etc). Additionally, they receive grants from ultra-conservative zealots like the Kochs, Scaifes, Waltons, etc.

This billboard campaign is particularly repulsive in that it associates honest and clear thinking advocates for the environment with some of the most horrific creatures of crimes and atrocities. In addition to the Unabomber, the Heartland’s campaign features Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden. The argument they are making is that these monsters believed in climate change and therefore you are also a monster if you believe in it. That is not an implied interpretation. It is what they say explicitly in their own justification:

“These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it.” […]

“Because what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the ‘mainstream’ media, and liberal politicians say about global warming. […]

“The point is that believing in global warming is not ‘mainstream,’ smart, or sophisticated. In fact, it is just the opposite of those things. […]

“The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.”

Aside from being grossly insulting, the Heartlanders are 100% wrong. The vast majority of scientists, climatologists, and other experts agree that climate change is occurring and that human activity is at the very least a significant contributor. There is no dispute among reputable scientists. The only dispute comes from conservative politicians, pundits, and researchers working for the corporations profiting from the destruction of the planet’s ecosystem.

The tactic of recruiting murderers and madmen for this campaign disparages all of the sincere people who are fighting for a better, cleaner, healthier world. But it also opens the door to reciprocal attacks on the Heartlanders. For instance:

Heartland Billboard

That’s right. Osama Bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, Scott Roeder, Eric Rudolph, and others, were all anti-abortion extremists and terrorists. Does that mean that all pro-life activists can be lumped together with these despicable characters just because…

“…what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the [National Right to Life Committee], journalists for the ‘mainstream’ media, and [conservative] politicians say about [abortion]?”

See how easy this is? Hitler was anti-union. Stalin opposed gay marriage. Anders Breivik hated Marxism. I could go on. The obvious conclusion is that conservative principles inspire mass murderers, right?

The propaganda purveyors at the Heartland Institute have demonstrated that they are not a serious organization whose opinion matters to people who truly care about this issue. The media ought not to provide a platform for their views and politicians who associate themselves with this group should be asked whether they endorse the hate mongering that flows from these phony Heartlanders. There is simply no room in the debate for this sort of irresponsible rhetoric. Especially when it comes from an enterprise that has been lying about the substance of the matter for years.