Some Are More Equal Than Others

Posted by on March 28, 2010 at 1:57 pm. 4 Comments :

This site’s mission has always been to focus on the media and its impact on society and culture. But this morning I was just thinking about how dysfunctional some of our political institutions are, and I thought I’d wander off the reservation for a while.

Friday President Obama had to make recess appointments for 15 nominees to federal posts because Senate Republicans refuse to permit a vote on them. And there are still dozens more in the same state of partisan limbo. In addition to that, Republicans have conducted a record breaking number of filibusters in their attempt to supersede the will of the Senate and the voters.

All of this leads me to question whether the Senate is an anachronism that no longer serves the best interests of democracy. States do not have the sort of parochial concerns that were once a part of the independent and geographically distinct colonies that made up the early confederation. Citizens migrate throughout the nation with little regard to loyalty based on home state affiliation. But the most striking illustration of the Senate having outgrown its usefulness is this chart I drew up:


[Detail breakdown in comments]

What I’d like to know is why do 31.4 million Americans in the twenty smallest states command a 40% share of the votes in the Senate, while 36.9 million Americans in California alone have only 2%? Is that democratic? Have those small-staters done something to deserve so much more influence over the country? Not so far as I can tell. Yet they have a theoretical veto power over the other 276 million citizens in the rest of the nation. That’s just not right.

What this amounts to is that a bunch of states that are mostly inhabited by brush and rodents have an inordinate sway over the laws that govern the vast majority of the country. And it’s often the senators from those small states who are the most obstructionist members of the body.

Maybe it’s time for a change. Maybe senators should represent districts whose lines are determined by population rather than by state boundaries. That would seem to be a much more fair and democratic way of handling this. Personally, I’m pretty tired of watching 10% of the country dictate how the other 90% are going to live.

I know this is not a new question, and there are barriers to any substantive change (mainly because the same small-staters would oppose it in the Senate). But it doesn’t hurt to bring it up from time to time and to hold out some hope that positive, democratic reform might still be possible. Because, in the end, no one should be allowed to be more equal than anyone else in America. No, seriously.

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Liz Trotta: Fox News Apologist For Domestic Terrorism

Posted by on March 27, 2010 at 6:42 pm. 10 Comments :

This morning on Fox News, Shannon Bream interviewed Fox News contributor Liz Trotta. The segment dealt with what Bream characterized as the over-reporting of incidents of violence directed at Democrats in the days following the passage of the health care bill. Those incidents included death threats, smashed windows, mail with suspicious white powder, severed gas lines, etc.

On Fox News, however, such examples of domestic terrorism are irrelevant trivialities. Trotta began her spiel by asserting that the left invented violent dissent back in the 1960’s. You know, the peacenik, free love, flower children, who marched to end discrimination and war. They were a frightening bunch, weren’t they? And because of them, the overt hostility being played out by extremist conservatives today is, in Trotta’s words, “laughable.”

It’s funny, my recollection of the sixties is very different. It wasn’t the followers of the Gandhi-inspired Martin Luther King who were stirring up trouble. It was the right-wingers who were beating up (or worse) anyone with long hair or dark skin. And the rightward proclivity for violence exists today with armed patriot and militia groups, and NRA-sponsored tea partiers who show up with signs that say “We came unarmed – this time.”

But Trotta doesn’t stop there. She goes on to discuss particular acts of violence that she thinks are unworthy of attention. She told Bream that “a brick through a window is pretty low on the violence scale.” I wonder how she would react if it were her window? I imagine she would casually get up from the sofa, pick up the brick with a chuckle, and tell her kids to turn off the TV and go play outside. After all, it’s only a brick. Don’t be a wuss.

Trotta’s exhibition of bravado is nothing new. During the presidential campaign she came out in favor of assassination:

“…and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama … uh … Obama … well, both if we could.”

Trotta further disparaged the victims and critics of violence by portraying their complaints as “whining.” In Trotta’s view, if someone leaves you a profanity-laced message saying snipers are going to kill your children (as happened to Rep. Louise Slaughter), you are just a sniveling bellyacher if you bring it up on TV or report it to the police.

Trotta didn’t say whether she thought Republican Rep. Eric Cantor was whining when he held a press conference to disclose that he was a victim of violence. His allegations were broadcast on Fox News with a screen graphic that read “Gunman Shoots Up Office Of Number Two House Republican. Cantor whined that…

“I have been directly threatened. A bullet was shot through the window of my campaign office in Richmond this week.”

Perhaps it doesn’t qualify as whining if it is lying. Because police later revealed that the bullet did not directly threaten Cantor at all. It was not shot at his office (it was random gunfire into the air). It was not even his office that was hit (it was a different unit on a different floor). And no one even knew there was a campaign office in the building (the office was unmarked and wasn’t in his district). In short, everything Cantor alleged about the incident was utterly false. Yet Trotta never mentioned Cantor as one of the whiners for whom she has such scorn.

This is yet another example of Fox News embracing the most repulsively hostile rhetoric. Trotta, who has her own record of violent fantasy, is quite at home on the network that features folks like Ralph Peters who advocates military attacks on the press. And Michael Scheuer who told Glenn Beck that “[T]he only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

These sort of sentiments are a routine part of Fox’s editorial position. It isn’t whining, and it isn’t concealed. But It is an apologia for domestic terrorism and a justification, and invitation, for continued and escalating violence. The people at Fox News, from the administrative staff, to the presenters like Trotta and Glenn Beck, to the executives like Roger Ailes, and all the way up to Rupert Murdoch, should consider themselves culpable for any and all of the ugly events that their vulgar and irresponsible actions might predictably encourage. They are sitting on a powder keg and playing with matches. If something blows up they cannot pretend that they had nothing to do with it.


GUILTY! Pimp James O’Keefe To Plea To Misdemeanor

Posted by on March 26, 2010 at 6:22 pm. NO Comments :

Fox News TeamThe Associated Press is reporting that James O’Keefe, the ersatz pimp made famous in his fraudulently edited videotapes of ACORN, is likely to plead guilty to reduced charges stemming from his misadventures in the offices of Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu.

Federal prosecutors filed reduced charges Friday against conservative activist James O’Keefe and three others who were accused of trying to tamper with the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office. […] The new charges carry maximum sentences of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

When this plea bargain is concluded it will represent the only conviction of anyone involved in the ACORN sting. ACORN itself was found to be innocent of any wrongdoing by three separate, independent investigations. Additionally, poorly considered legislation from Congress prohibiting federal funds from going to ACORN was ruled to be unconstitutional in federal court.

Nevertheless, before the ink was even dry on the deal, O’Keefe’s Sugardaddy, Andrew Breitbart (who supports child molesters), was trumpeting it as some sort of victory. He tweeted:

“BWAAAH: Conservative activist, 3 others have charges reduced in phone caper at La. senator’s office. Developing…”

I’m not sure what he’s so happy about. His apprentice propagandist is still facing jail time and will have a criminal record. No matter how Breitbart downplays the significance of this, the facts reveal that O’Keefe was engaged in some pretty shady activities. He maintains that he was only there to find out if Landrieu’s office was avoiding the phone calls of constituents. He claims he never intended to tamper with the lines. That’s an obvious lie. If it were true, then why did he and his cohorts leave Landrieu’s office to go to a separate facility that housed the telephone wiring and equipment?

While it is disappointing that O’Keefe et al won’t be held to fully account for their felonious behavior, the reality is that this is the way many criminal cases are resolved by prosecutors and courts who have an interest in reducing caseloads and acquiring convictions. And while there is some likelihood that these delinquents will end up getting little more than a slap on the wrist, being caught and convicted for malfeasance in a senator’s office is certainly nothing to be proud of.


Death Wish DCLXVI: The Martyrdom Of Glenn Beck

Posted by on March 25, 2010 at 8:33 pm. 3 Comments :

Pope Glenn BeckThe rabid rhetorical posture of Glenn Beck and the far right’s martinets of virtue is now manifesting what was the inevitable and predictable outcome of their rancid zealotry. Reports are surfacing that members of Congress who voted in favor of the health care bill have been the targets of hatred and violence. At least ten overt acts of hostility have prompted more than 100 representatives to seek additional security.

I find it hard to grasp that anyone could have failed to see this coming. When conservatives frame their opposition to policy as a battle against tyranny, socialism, fascism, and an end to America as we know it, the prospect of the unbalanced contingent acting out violently is a virtual certainty. If I truly believed that the government was forming death panels, plotting to kill my grandmother, ration my health care, and incite Armageddon, even I might consider extraordinary measures to avert such catastrophes.

And no one is yelling “fire” in this crowded theater louder than Glenn Beck. He makes unequivocal pronouncements that the current administration is infested with dangerous subversives who literally want the nation to collapse and are working toward that end. But he goes farther than that – much farther. He now contends that the villains in Washington are actually trying to get some poor, deluded, conservative, psycho (like there’s no shortage of them) to embrace assassination. Beck thinks that Obama, Pelosi, et al, want to be murdered for their cause. He said this on his radio show:

“Why do you think they are needling and poking and prodding all the time? Why do you think they slap you down on health care and just as you’re getting up they punch you in the face with immigration? Why do you think they’re being so divisive? […] They need you to be estranged from them. They need you to pick up a gun or a bomb. They need you to break the law.”

And this on TV:

“This might be the most dangerous monologue I have ever done, because I am telling you now, they need you to be violent. They are begging for it. You are being set up. Do not give them what they want. […] I know people don’t say this on television, but it’s damn well time people do. Our country is in real trouble. Radicals – RADICALS – are poking and prodding.

Beck believes that this “poking” is a deliberate provocation to get someone to go off the deep end and commit an assault. He described an incident in Washington when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked through a crowd of people that included some aggressive protesters, as a staged event where Pelosi was hoping that she would be killed. Beck expressed his view of what she and other Democrats are thinking when they go out in public like this:

“What the hell do you have to do to these people to get them to kill us?”

My question: What the hell do you have to do to Beck’s audience to get them to realize that he is batshit insane? My answer: Don’t bother. They aren’t going to see it. They are fiercely devoted to his preaching and regard him as an anointed messenger of God. But no more than he regards himself as such. His program becomes more like the 700 Club every day. And this week he has stepped up the assholiness:

“You get down on your knees and pray. You pray for forgiveness for our arrogance; for how we’ve disregarded our freedoms; and you pray for the Finger of God. I have told you before, expect miracles in our lifetime. I am telling you you will see them. There are tough times ahead, but the only weapon in our arsenal we need is God. Beg him for help and guidance. He will take care of everything else.”

This sermonizing goes beyond mere admonitions to prostrate yourself before the Lord. Beck sees himself in the role of an evangelical savior of America to whom you must pay strict attention, and to no one else. And like any good savior, he is also at risk of persecution and even martyrdom at the hands of Obama’s Pharisees:

“Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. I want what they have. And for those who say somehow or another that I am distorting the socialist view of social justice, oh my goodness. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy brother. Holy cow. You’ve broken three commandments. Three of them. Three of them all on one principle. That’s amazing. And for those of you in the administration who are coming after me on this one, I mean, remember, you’ve broken three, let’s not make it four. Thou shalt not kill.”

The spectacle of watching Beck beg for his life would be hysterical if it weren’t for it being so ….. OK, it’s just hysterical. But at some point Beck is going to have declare himself a prophet and move his disciples to Guyana (or maybe South Carolina).


Myth Blusters: Sarah Palin Headed For Discovery

Posted by on March 25, 2010 at 10:55 am. 1 Comments :

The news that Sarah Palin’s Alaska has been picked up by the Discovery Channel should not come as a surprise to astute observers. After all, there are great opportunities for synergy with other Discovery properties.

First of all, Discovery has been on the forefront of environmental education. They broadcast documentaries on the subject frequently and even have a network devoted to the subject: Planet Green. This melds perfectly with Palin’s broadcast experience on the environment, which centers around her beliefs that global warming is a hoax and that we should “drill everywhere.” Her current employer, Fox News, also has an official position that states its commitment to the planet and reducing its carbon footprint, yet employs climate change deniers to convince their audience that the whole thing was trumped up by fascists and marketing executives at GE. So now both networks present people on air that are diametrically opposed to their official policies – and to science.

Secondly, Discovery’s schedule is loaded with complimentary programming. For instance…

  • Dirty Jobs: A peak into the world of politics.
  • Deadliest Catch: An examination of the loopholes in health insurance policies.
  • Cash Cab: Intimate stories of taxi rides with Washington lobbyists.

I haven’t actually seen any of these shows but I’m pretty sure that’s the gist of it.

But the big opportunity exists with Discovery’s best known show, Mythbusters. Just imagine the wealth of Palin-related material that Adam and Jamie can explore and debunk.

I can’t wait for their show Death Panels; or the trip to Alaska to find out just how much of Russia is visible from Palin’s porch; or their experiments on shooting wolves from helicopters; or the investigation into where that bridge to nowhere really went.

Congratulations Discovery. You have tea-bagged yourselves one heckuva star. I’m sure she will bring to the network a measure of respectability and credibility that you have long sought. And as for viewers…you couldn’t imagine a more compatible demographic of anti-science, God-fearing, creationists. I expect this show to be a ratings bonanza – for about fifteen minutes.

Late Breaking: Discovery will be airing Palin’s show on its TLC: The Learning Channel (which may have to undergo a name change). Her program will appear alongside “What Not to Wear,” “Paranormal Court,” and “Cake Boss.” And soon the premiere of “Sarah and Todd Plus Five.”


Why Does Andrew Breitbart Support Child Molesters?

Posted by on March 24, 2010 at 5:55 pm. 17 Comments :

The terminally choleric Andrew Breitbart (or Boogerman as he’d prefer to be known) is featuring a story on his BigGovernment web site that illustrates a disturbing affinity for child sexual abusers.

The article is authored by Jason Mattera, who appears to be auditioning to be Bill O’Reilly’s next ambush geek. If so, he has some pretty big clown shoes to fill: Stuttering Jesse Watters and Griff Teabaggin Jenkins. But Mattera is off to a good start with a video of him pestering Rep. Alan Grayson. The video is titled: “Why would Alan Grayson want to give your money over to Native American child molesters?”

In the video Mattera is shown slyly gaining Grayson’s trust by talking about his Brooklyn upbringing. But it doesn’t take long before he reveals his psycho side – and Grayson picks it up immediately asking, in an understatement, if Mattera is a kook. But Mattera presses on undaunted in his attempt to tie Grayson to a government program that Mattera says gives money to child molesters. The source for Mattera’s allegation is this language in the recently passed health care bill that addresses…

“(2) perpetrators of child sexual abuse who are Indian or members of an Indian household.”

What Mattera leaves out is that the bill does not give any money to abusers. It funds treatment programs to prevent future incidents of abuse. In the section of the bill immediately following the one Mattera cites it explicitly describes the use of funds, including:

(5) To identify and provide behavioral health treatment to Indian perpetrators and perpetrators who are members of an Indian household–

(A) making efforts to begin offender and behavioral health treatment while the perpetrator is incarcerated or at the earliest possible date if the perpetrator is not incarcerated;
‘(B) providing treatment after the perpetrator is released, until it is determined that the perpetrator is not a threat to children.

So apparently Mattera and Breitbart are opposed to protecting children from child molesters. They are openly advocating a position wherein criminal deviants would be permitted to maintain their perversions and pose a continuing threat to kids. Perhaps Breitbart and company don’t want such treatment mandated because they might find themselves at risk of being obligated to participate in such treatment. I don’t know, I’m just asking. But it is undeniable that Breitbart is more interested in the rights of child molesters than in the child victims.

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Fox Nation Scare Tactics: Armed IRS Agents To Enforce Obamacare

Posted by on March 23, 2010 at 3:53 pm. 16 Comments :

Fox Nation IRS ArmyIn a fit of psychotic bluster, the folks at Fox Nation have posted an article with a headline that was manufactured from whole cloth. There is nothing in their reporting, or the column to which they linked, that remotely implied the message in this headline:

“IRS Hiring Thousands of Armed Tax Agents to Enforce Obamacare.”

The source for the Fox Nationalists is a column in Tucker Carlson’s right-wing Daily Caller. You might expect that Fox could rely on Carlson to support their hallucinatory journalism. After all, Carlson is a Fox News employee. But the article in the Caller, while misleading on it’s own, doesn’t go anywhere near the Fox misinterpretation.

The Caller’s headline was somewhat less dishonest: “IRS looking to hire thousands of tax agents to enforce health care laws.” It does not make a declaration of fact that agents are actually being hired, only that the IRS is looking into it. But more importantly, there is no mention of these agents being armed. In all likelihood, any new hires are going to be accountants with calculators, not mercenaries with machine guns. That, however, didn’t stop the Caller from posting an accompanying photo of heavily armed soldiers in combat gear who have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. And, of course, Fox Nation re-posted the same photo.

The Caller’s article is filled with falsehoods. Anyone who actually bothers to read the article will notice that there is no substantiation of its claim that Democrats are working with the IRS to hire new agents. The only confirmation comes from Republicans supplying their own speculation as to staffing requirements.

It is fair to assume that expanding efforts to collect revenue would require additional personnel. However, the article notes that the new hiring is aimed at collecting taxes unrelated to the health care bill. So are Republicans and the Fox Nationalists taking the position that tax cheats should not be pursued or held accountable? Should law abiding Americans have to shoulder the burden for these deadbeats? Yes, that’s exactly their position. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee even issued a report that criticized the administration for proposing $8 billion to fund tax compliance measures. It seems to me that an $8 billion allocation to recover an estimated $300 billion in delinquent taxes is a pretty good return on investment and an effective way to reduce budget deficits.

The content of the article in the Caller is misleading in many respects, but the Fox Nation version is delusional. It states flatly that the IRS is hiring “armed” tax agents. It states flatly that these new agents will be dispatched to “enforce Obamacare.” Neither of those statements are substantiated and they aren’t even in the linked article. Yet the Fox Nationalists post the photo of soldiers in combat attire, weapons at the ready, deployed in a search and destroy posture.

The obvious intent of Fox is to frighten their congregation of Psycho-chicken Littles into believing that the “revenuers” are advancing on them to take their money and send them to FEMA camps where they will be forced to have abortions and marry gay socialists.

After struggling for fourteen months to derail the President’s agenda, and failing, Fox is upping the ante. They want people to be so afraid that they will fortify their bunkers, stockpile weapons, hoard rations, buy gold (brought to you by Glenn Beck), and prepare for Armageddon. And the way they advance that goal is by disseminating lies like this story from the scare-meisters at Fox Nation.

Boob BombsUpdate: Fox News continues to pour on the fear mongering. They are now reprising a story originally posted at Fox Nation almost two months: Boob Bombs! Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes.

Back in February the story was sourced to the ultra-wingnut WorldNetDaily web site. This time Fox is sourcing it to The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid, but, hilariously, the article quotes “terrorist expert Joseph Farah.” In fact, Farah is no terrorist expert, he is the publisher of WorldNetDaily. The propaganda comes full circle.

It seems that they are just going to repeat this story every few months until either people are sufficiently terrified of titties, or until Al Qaeda decides to give it a try. I maintain my position that this could have a devastating impact on air travel. As I said in February:

We would need to start including Scarlett Johansson in our profiling criteria. And because the same explosive devices could be inserted in the buttocks, Jennifer Lopez would have to be added to the no-fly list.

Update II: All of this is reminiscent of the hysteria Glenn Beck tried to trump up over what he said was a civilian national security force that Obama was supposedly amassing to assault him and his congregation. As it turns out it was just an initiative to expand the peace corps and similar organizations.

[Also…] FactChect.org debunked the claim of IRS hiring thousands of agents.

Stay scared America.


This Is A Big Fucking Deal?

Posted by on March 23, 2010 at 12:10 pm. 4 Comments :

President Obama signed the Senate health care bill into law this morning. While it is not the bill I would have written, it was still an historic moment that achieved something that 18 previous presidents failed to achieve.

But for much of the media, led by Fox News, the hot topic of the event was that VP Joe Biden whispered a congratulatory remark in the President’s ear:

“This is a big fucking deal.”

The President’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, reacted quickly to the growing hysteria in a tweet saying, “And yes Mr. Vice President, you’re right…” But this brewing scandal may yet overtake the frenzy surrounding the health care bill itself. I wonder if the President’s critics were just as incensed when then-VP Dick Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy to “Go fuck yourself.” right on the Senate floor?

And let’s not forget the time that Cheney pointed to a New York Times reporter at a campaign rally and whispered to George Bush “There’s Adam Clymer — major league asshole.” To which Bush responded, “Yeah, big time.”

My response to the media reaction to Biden’s remarks: This is a big fucking deal? Really?


Waterloo For Fox News?

Posted by on March 22, 2010 at 7:47 pm. 5 Comments :

Fourteen months. Fourteen long months of the most venal, histrionic, sensationalized, dishonest, and relentless crusade of disinformation, and what do they have to show for it?


[Purchase FreakShow stickers at Crass Commerce

Fox News has been the official campaign headquarters for opposition to health care reform. They dispatched their top personalities to headline rallies and protests. They consigned thousands of hours of valuable air time to anti-reform politicians and pundits. They converted their studios into Republican platforms for electioneering and fundraising. They adopted the Tea Party “movement” so thoroughly that they even rode along on its bus tours and branded its events as Fox enterprises.

And they lost.

Fox News is fond of reminding everyone of their ratings dominance. Although the cable news universe is comparatively tiny (Fox News has less than half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program on CBS), Fox incessantly boasts that it is the leader in the space. But the fallout from the health care debate ought to demonstrate precisely how little that victory means in the macro world of politics. If the number one cable news network cannot sufficiently move public opinion to produce a legislative victory after fourteen months of persistent propaganda, it would be folly to regard them as if they were some formidable bastion of power or influence. Yet that is exactly how they are regarded by their patrons in the Republican Party (and many in the press).

Last July I wrote an article describing how “Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party”

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.). […]

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. […]

This is a textbook example of how the extreme rises to the top. It is also fundamentally contrary to the interests 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.

See also: As Fox News Goes Up, The GOP Goes Down

Undoubtedly, Republicans will still embrace Fox News. They are not about to abandon the media megaphone that they believe is most in tune with their agenda. Consequently, they will continue to be hampered by the association with unhinged hyperbole like this:

Glenn Beck: This is the end of prosperity in America forever if this bill passes. This is the end of America as you know it.

Hannity: If we get nationalized health care, it’s over; this is socialism.

Neil Cavuto: National Healthcare: Breeding Ground For Terror?

In an inspired fit of illogic, Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard appeared on Fox News this morning to accuse Democrats of being partisan. His evidence was that 34 Democrats voted with Republicans against the health care care bill, but no Republicans voted with the Democrats in favor. Of course, that’s actually evidence that the Democrats were NOT partisan. They demonstrated some diversity in their views while Republicans all marched in lock-step against the bill. In further support of this inane argument, Hayes may have uttered the day’s funniest, and most truthful, commentary:

“If Bart Stupak was a Republican crazy he probably would’ve stuck with his original position.”

I couldn’t agree more. Sticking with his original position against the bill, would certainly have qualified Stupak as a Republican crazy. And it is generous of Hayes to admit that holding the Republican view is tantamount to being insane.

Where do you go after you’ve argued that Armageddon will be the result if your alarms are not heeded (as GOP chair Michael Steele did today) and your argument is rejected? Do you moderate your rhetoric and attempt to restore civility to the debate? Or do you accelerate into a frenzied panic and march a phalanx of livid lemmings over a cliff? My money is on the latter, so far as Fox News is concerned. They still consider it to be in their best interests to manufacture the sort of melodrama that captures television audiences.

Here it’s important to remember that the interests of a television network are worlds apart from those of a political party. So while Fox is happy to gin up the rancor in hopes of attracting more viewers stimulated by bloody conflicts, the GOP will only be further damaged by the partnership. However, unfortunately for them, they have nowhere else to go. Fox News, and a few other rightist authors and radio talkers, have become the de facto face of the Republican Party. This is a point made by conservative strategist David Frum in his discussion of health care winners and losers:

Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government.

Frum goes on to predict that the continuing, and escalating, hysteria will be a boon to right-wing media. I’m not sure that I agree with him on that point. Certainly the hardcore disciples of Beck and company will remain glued to their sets. But we might also see audiences recede out of frustration and/or fatigue. After pouring everything they had, including their sanity, into a winner-take-all death match and losing, it would surprise no one if a significant segment of the audience decided to take a vacation from the lunacy. If an effort as determined and prolonged as the one Fox just concluded could not prevail, then what would it take?

The good news from all of this is that, as abhorrent as Fox News is, it ought not to be viewed as a Goliath that will crush any opponent. They gave it their all and came up short. They huffed and they puffed, but the House stood strong (oh wait, that was a wolf). This is the clearest evidence yet that Rupert Murdoch’s empire is a paper Fox. However, that doesn’t mean that it should be neglected. It can still bark ferociously and the other members of the media pack continue to give Fox more credence than they deserve. And for these reasons we must remain vigilant and prepared to respond to the deceitful and unethical practices of this phony pseudo-news enterprise.

In the long term I continue to believe that an informed public will reject Fox’s brand of shallow and divisive disinformation. And looking back, the health care debate may one day be perceived as a turning point. It may be that this long, sordid affair will be the battle that turns the war for responsible journalism to favor reason and truth. It may be Fox News’ Waterloo.

[Update: 3/25/10] David Frum has been dismissed from his job at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. That’s what he gets for going rogue.


Jon Stewart: A Pawn Of The Insurance Lobby?

Posted by on March 19, 2010 at 5:38 pm. 4 Comments :

Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart let down his guard and revealed that he is not the independent voice of reason that he would like everyone to believe. He is not the beacon of truth who slays the hypocrites and deceivers of the international media conspiracy. No, he is just another lackey of powerful corporate interests that want to take over your life. The shocking evidence of this followed a segment wherein he mocked Fox News’ CPO (Chief Paranoia Officer), Glenn Beck:

At the end of this innocuous (and hilarious) comedic skit, Stewart’s true colors were shown. As he announced that the program would be back after a commercial break, a graphic appeared on screen, accompanied by a voice-over, divulging that the Daily Show was brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

PROGRESSIVE Insurance? If you were not previously convinced of Stewart’s complicity in the clandestine plot to destroy America, well, you can no longer feign ignorance. This is an overt admission of his membership in a cabal that hates the principles that made this country great. It is a cabal that includes one-world government advocates and global industrialists like Warren Buffet and Rupert Murdoch. This covert coalition is so thoroughly ingrained in our culture that it brazenly plays both sides of the fence as it seduces and perverts our country, our neighbors, and even our children. If you think you are safe from this threat, think again. Even Glenn Beck has fallen into its web. Pay close attention to his own words:

Beck, 02/20/10: “Progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution. And it was designed to eat the Constitution.”

Do you hear that Jon Stewart? Progressivism was built from the ground up to be hungry for parchment made of – can you believe this? – HEMP! Progressivism just wants to get stoned by consuming the document that enumerates our great nation’s values as if it was a batch of Alice B. Stalin brownies. And after you’re shit-faced (that’s a medical term – look it up), the forces of evil are free to feed you any ludicrous notion that suits their whim, i.e. social justice:

Beck, 11/03/09: “Progressives think they know better than you and they want to control every aspect of your life. […] They like to call it “social justice” or fairness; I like to call it Marxism.”

And with that, Beck prevailed upon his disciples to abandon their corrupt churches for ministering to the poor. With regard to the progressive obsession for control, Stewart ridiculed this threat last night with obscene references to self-gratification. But this threat is all too real. Witness the remarks Beck made on the subject earlier this month:

Beck, 03/12/10: “So here is the deal, if you don’t have insurance and you need to take the government insurance, then the government has the right to regulate every aspect of your life.”

There you have it. When even Glenn Beck can declare publicly that the government has the right to rule over you like a slave master, then you know the risks are deadly serious. And notice how Beck wavers between a complaint that progressives want to regulate “every aspect of your life,” to an assertion that the government already has that right which he regards as entirely appropriate. This is all carefully designed to freak you out!

It is no accident that Jon Stewart is sponsored by Progressive Insurance. And it ought not to surprise you that Beck was once sponsored by GEICO (but they recently left him along with 100 other advertisers).

Note that GEICO, which is owned by billionaire and Illuminati lord Warren Buffet, was originally known as the “Government Employees Insurance Company.” That’s right! It was a state takeover of insurance by government union thugs. Today GEICO is supposedly engaged in fierce competition with Progressive. This may explain why Beck is so adamantly opposed to the Progressives who are sponsoring Stewart. Or maybe not. In the end they are all a part of the same congregation of villainy and much of the contentiousness may be staged to throw us off.

But whatever you do, don’t be mislead. They are coming after us. They are determined and relentless and, in addition to that, they just keep going and going (which reminds me, watch out for that cap and trade Energizer bill, and take your Avodart). And don’t let the veneer of comedy seduce you into submission. This is not about rodeo clowns and satirists. It is not about laughter and wackiness and goofballs who act like they’re crazy. Never forget these words from someone who knows what it means to be presumed to be nuts:

“I have been laughed to scorn as a prophet; for many a year my warnings and my prophecies were regarded as the illusions of a mind diseased […] I appear in the eyes of many bourgeois democrats as only a wild man.”
~ Glenn Beck Adolph Hitler, September 1936