Jon Stewart Puts The So-Called “Real” News To Shame – Again

Posted by Mark NC on December 14, 2010 at 2:23 pm. 3 Comments :

Last Thursday the Senate voted down a bill that would have provided health care for the 9/11 first responders, many of whom are suffering debilitating illnesses as a result of their heroic efforts following the worst act of terrorism in our nation’s history.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 failed to pass because every Republican senator voted against it. By contrast, every Democratic senator voted for it (with the exception of Majority Leader Harry Reid who changed his vote to “no” so that under senate rules he could bring it up for another vote).

As if it weren’t bad enough that the GOP once again put politics before people, the media exacerbated the insult by virtually ignoring the story altogether. There seemed to be a firewall erected across the mediasphere to insure that Americans didn’t learn that a pack of heartless Republican hypocrites had voted to let America’s heroes suffer and die.

However, there was at least one channel on your TV dial where you could have actually been informed about this significant issue. Guess which one:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Lame-as-F@#k Congress

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

The Daily Show on Facebook

Jon Stewart has repeatedly insisted that he is only a comedian on a fake news show. But his work belies his modesty, just as it indicts the purveyors of “real” news as unprofessional hacks with a vested interest in maintaining a corrupt status quo. Stewart once again demonstrates why many regard him as more trustworthy than the conventional press, and he does it with passion, honesty and, of course, humor.

Glenn Beck’s Amazon Wish List Revealed

Posted by Mark NC on December 6, 2010 at 2:50 pm. 2 Comments :

You’ll never guess what Glenn Beck wants for Christmas. Here’s a hint: It’s something he really, really needs.

Well, you don’t have to wonder any more. The crack investigators at News Corpse, with help from Glenn Beck Unhinged, have discovered Beck’s Wish List on Amazon.com.

Stop by and consider helping to make Glenn’s holiday the best ever.

Fox Spews: Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly And The Simpsons

Posted by Mark NC on November 23, 2010 at 4:00 pm. NO Comments :

Fox Spews: An irregular column featuring selected morsels of regurgitated nonsense from everyone’s favorite propaganda pit.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska Ratings Plummet

After setting a TLC ratings record last week, Sarah Palin’s reality show plummeted for its second episode.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska fell 40% on Sunday night to 3 million viewers.

Not many were in the key adult demo either. Only 885,000 viewers were ages 18-49, dropping 44% from last week.

In fact, the median age of the show is 57 — that’s 15 years older than TLC’s average.

Gee. Who would have guessed that a program featuring a failed VP candidate and half-term governor, whose public approval is on par with herpes, would have trouble holding a television audience?

Glenn Beck’s Media Conspiracy Unraveled

During Glenn Beck’s Week of Soros, Beck advanced his theory that Soros was attempting to take control of the media. He offered as evidence a glimpse of a blackboard that he never showed close enough for the audience to see the elements of Soros’ alleged media empire. Well, I finally tracked down the source for Beck’s allegations. Wouldn’t you know, it was an article on Andrew Breitbart’s notoriously dishonest BigJournalism.

Beck’s Blackboard and BigJournalism’s media map (click images to see full size):

For the record, the Soros empire consists of NPR and a collection of mostly Internet media reform organizations. There is not a single prominent radio station or TV network or newspaper. Some empire. For comparison, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire consists of Fox News, Fox Business, the Fox Entertainment Network, FX, Fox Radio, the Fox TV Station Group, 20th Century Fox Studios, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Harper Collins Publishers, MySpace, Hulu, and much more domestically and internationally. Which one sounds like a mogul trying to take control of the media to you?

Bill O’Reilly Strikes Back At The Simpsons

Last night The Simpsons took another swipe at their Godfather Rupert and Fox News. The segment had Murdoch arriving at a meeting of media moguls in a helicopter with the Fox News logo and the motto “Not Racist, But # 1 With Racists.” Not surprisingly, Bill O’Reilly took offense at this saying…

“Continuing to bite the hand that feeds part of it, Fox Broadcasting once again allows its cartoon characters to run wild. Pinheads? I believe so.”

Presumably O’Reilly is disturbed that the folks at one Fox division would disparage another. So his reaction is to do the same thing. How is O’Reilly calling the producers and writers of the Simpsons pinheads any different than what the Simpsons did? Except that the Simpsons were joking and O’Reilly was serious. It seems to me that it is O’Reilly who is “biting the hand that feeds” him. And it’s a much bigger and more profitable hand because the Simpsons routinely get about twice the ratings that O’Reilly does.

Glenn Beck Goes Full Blown Contrailer

Posted by Mark NC on November 20, 2010 at 2:06 pm. 6 Comments :

These are boom days for conspiracy theories. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one. And who do you think killed the cat? Hmm?

We’ve seen the Birthers who demand to see President Obama’s birth certificate. We’ve seen the Truthers who allege that the U.S. government was in on 9/11. We’ve seen the Tenthers who cite the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution as justification for declaring everything from health care to income taxes as unconstitutional.

Now we have the debut of the Contrailers. Let me have Contrailer Creator Glenn Beck explain it to you:

Did you see the story today about the Chinese missiles and military? How many submarines they’re buying and how many missiles they have? And how they can destroy everything here in America with their missiles?

Do you really believe that that was an airplane contrail off the coast of California? Do you really believe that? Really?

That was a two stage missile. And don’t take that from Glenn Beck. Take that from Glenn Beck who knows an awful lot of people in the military.

Who launched that missile? Do you thinks it’s the military? I told you when that happened I don’t know enough about missiles.

Oh I do now. Oh I do now. And I talked to some military experts who know all about missiles.

What they’re telling you on television is bullcrap.

Really? That’s an airplane. Hmm. That’s an airplane. Shooting right out of the water. That’s an airplane. Why is it that it had the little…It had the little flame at the end?

I mean I lived in Florida. I’ve seen space shuttles launch before.

Come on. Two stage missile. That’s what that was.

Beck goes on to offer his theory for what the mysterious trails were:

China launches a missile to let everyone in the world know, including the United States of America, and especially the president of the United States of America, know how impotent you are.

There you have it. China somehow managed to navigate a submarine into the Los Angeles harbor without anyone catching on. Then they fired off an ICBM into the Pacific. And they took that risk and expense in order to emasculate the President. Makes perfect sense. Except for this.

You do know that insanity runs in his family, don’t you?

ANNOUNCING Glenn Beck Unhinged: The Web Site

Posted by Mark NC on November 17, 2010 at 10:34 am. 1 Comments :

Today is the official launch of the latest News Corpse production that is predicted to alter the course human civilization:

Glenn Beck Unhinged: A compendium of crazy/hate speech from America’s #1 fear mongering tele-pundit/pastor.

Glenn Beck has proven himself to be a wildly dishonest purveyor of doomsday scenarios and an inspiration to violent nut cases everywhere. His repeated abuses of civility and thinly disguised advocacy of violence would have resulted in his cancellation from any reputable television network. Lucky for him he works at Fox.

Nevertheless, it is important to take action in the face of such irresponsible behavior. At Glenn Beck Unhinged you can peruse the collected discharge of mental decay that gushes from the mind of Beck. It is a one-stop resource for Beck’s demented psychobabble. Plus, you can join the growing chorus of Americans calling for Fox to fire Beck and for advertisers to refuse to sponsor Fox News until he is gone and they repudiate the dangerous and divisive rhetoric he personifies.

While this new web site is presented with a healthy dose of humor, its goal is serious and necessary. Glenn Beck has already been cited as the motivation for several violent incidents, and his language is deliberately provocative and incendiary. No one here is attempting to suppress free speech. Beck is, of course, entitled to be as hostile and racist as he likes. But free speech is for everyone, and reasonable people are also entitled to express their disgust and make their opinions known.

To those who think that lobbying for Beck’s program to be canceled is inherently censorship, you need to learn two things on the subject. First, censorship, as prohibited by the Constitution, refers to the government infringing on speech, not private enterprises. Secondly, the right to free expression is not a right to a television show. If it is, then I want mine to be weeknights at 7:00pm.

We hope this new site will become a valuable resource for people interested in learning more about Beck. And we hope that you will feel free to participate, via the “Submissions” link, with additional occurrences of his vile eruptions, as well as news, entertainment, and action items.

NOTE TO GEORGE SOROS (and everyone else): You can help support Glenn Beck Unhinged by making a donation. Every donor will receive as free gift a set of stickers of the artwork above as appreciation for your generosity and your commitment to sweeping hateful filth off the airwaves.

Literacy Testing For Clowns Elected To Congress

Posted by Mark NC on November 12, 2010 at 10:59 am. 6 Comments :

While some people may think this is a good idea, it would present a variety of unanticipated problems (like being able to form a quorum). But rest assured, this is not a joke:

Michele Bachmann: Clown

SAO PAULO — Grumpy the clown won election in a laugher, getting more votes than any other candidate for Brazil’s Congress. Now he has to prove that he can read and write.

The Sao Paulo Electoral Court held a closed-door exam for the clown turned congressman-elect on Thursday to determine if he meets a constitutional mandate that federal lawmakers be literate.

I shudder to think what would happen to the Republican Party’s freshman class if there were such a mandate here. Of course, because of our Constitution, we will never see a headline proclaiming that the “U.S. Tests Literacy Of Clowns Elected To Congress.” No sir. When we elect clowns to Congress they take their posts no matter how ignorant or unqualified they may be. In fact, they form their own caucuses (see Tea Party Caucus).

Glenn Beck Gone Wild: Day Two Of Soros-Fest

Posted by Mark NC on November 11, 2010 at 1:01 am. 4 Comments :

On the second installment of Glenn Beck’s Soros-palooza, Beck had so little to say that he pretty much repeated the same delusional ravings as the day before. This is nothing new for Beck who is known for regurgitating the same old conspiracy nonsense day after day. Anyone who watches regularly has seen the same video of Van Jones hundreds of times.

The principle problem with Beck not producing any new content for today’s show is that…well…now I don’t have anything to write about. Obviously this was Beck’s intention. He deliberately aired an hour of leftovers to deprive me of material for my blog. Well, I’ve got news for him. I can be just as redundant as he is any day of the week.

So let’s start with the fact that Beck worked over the same checklist of steps to control any country. Here’s what I wrote yesterday about that:

Form a shadow government: Beck begins by pointing fingers at the Center for American Progress, but that’s a dodge because the real target could just as likely be the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute.
Control the airwaves: In a bit of misdirection, Beck cites NPR and Free Press, however they are hardly major players in the media. The top rated cable news channel is Fox News. Most of the rest of the media is owned by giant, multinational corporations run by conservatives. And radio is dominated by names like Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh.
Destabilize the state: Here Beck suggests that the Puppet Master would cause a political or economic crisis. Perhaps like the one that sent the country into a tailspin in late 2008?
Provoke an election crisis: Anyone who watched Fox News in the days leading up to the election couldn’t help but notice the incessant accusations of alleged election fraud. And no one focused more intently on the imagined scandals involving ACORN and the New Black Panthers than did Fox.
Take Power: Stage massive demonstrations and accuse opponents of voter fraud through radio and TV stations that you control. Does that sound like any Tea Party/Fox News coalition you might have heard about?

Actually, there is a bit of news since yesterday. With regard to “controlling the airwaves,” Beck was a bit more specific. He re-addressed what he portrayed as a vast network of television and radio outlets that Soros controlled and identified them as Media Matters, Tea Party Tracker, and ThinkProgress. Of course, those are all Internet sites. Beck didn’t name a single radio or TV station that answered to Soros. Apparently Beck doesn’t know the difference between airwaves and information superhighways.

Another notable regurgitation by Beck was his assertion that everything he says must be true or Rupert Murdoch would throw him off the air. He made this claim last April saying…

“Who owns this network? Rupert Murdoch. Do you know how much money Rupert Murdoch is … you know he’s got all these things going on. Do you think he’s going to let a guy at five o’clock say a bunch of stuff, put this together, it’s completely wrong, and stay on the network? Do you think he became a billionaire because he’s stupid? No, so that’s not it. Because Fox couldn’t allow me to say things that were wrong.”

In response to that I noted that Murdoch must agree with Beck on the plethora of ludicrous accusations that Beck has made over the years, like…

President Obama is a racist with a deep-seated hatred for white people.
It is the eve of destruction in America.
The climate cult is teaching your children that the earth is God.
The current administration is full of Nazis, socialists, communists, Marxists, and Maoists.
Katrina victims are scumbags.
Progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution.
The founding of the United States, and the Constitution, were divinely inspired.
If your church preaches social justice you must run from it as fast as you can.
If we don’t face the truth right now, we’ll be dead in five years; this country can’t survive.
The passage of the health care bill marks the end of prosperity in America forever.
There are traitors in this government who are deliberately trying to destroy it.
The only hope left for America is for Osama Bin Laden to attack again.

Since beck has dragged Murdoch into this, it is now incumbent on Murdoch to refute Beck’s assertion that Murdoch agrees with all these statements. Barring that, Murdoch is just as responsible for them as Beck. Today on his radio show Beck again recruited Murdoch as his corroboration for the insanity he spews. This time in a sort of open letter to George Soros:

“Mr. Soros, do you actually expect America to believe that I could get on the radio and television and tell wholly fabricated lies about the most powerful man on planet earth and you would not crush me overnight? You would not have your attorneys, you would not have everything at your disposal going after Rupert Murdoch and Fox News. Of course you would. You would do it a legal way. If I were making up lies about you, I couldn’t stay on the air. First of all, you wouldn’t have to pressure. Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t put me on the air. He would fire me.”

So once again, Beck asserts that Murdoch is in complete agreement with him by virtue of the fact that he still has a show. But Beck’s logic is a bit faulty (now there’s an understatement). He believes that Soros could crush him at will if he were fabricating lies. But couldn’t Soros also crush him at will if he were telling a truth that Soros wanted suppressed? In fact, wouldn’t Soros have even more incentive to crush him if the allegations were true? After all, Soros is the most powerful man in America according to Beck.

One other relatively new item is that Beck is now asserting that Soros has “threatened” him by giving him a gift. Was it a horses head in his bed? Was it a fish wrapped in newspaper? Nope. The ominous present was a DVD of the old movie “A Face in the Crowd” starring Andy Griffith. In the film Griffith played a Beck-like demagogue who rose from an alcoholic drifter to become a national broadcast star. Gee, what do you suppose the connection is? Somehow Beck regards this as a threat, but he neglects to explain what’s so threatening about it. Does he think that Soros is hinting that he’s going to sign Beck up for Netflix without permission?

I suppose I’ll leave it at that and hope that Beck provides a little more original content on tomorrow’s program. I can’t be expected to carry this debate all by myself.

BROKE: Glenn Beck’s “PLAN” To Collapse The System

Posted by Mark NC on November 7, 2010 at 9:50 pm. 12 Comments :

A year ago this month Glenn Beck announced that he had a “Plan” that he promised to unveil at public event to be held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. It is a 100 year plan to restore America to what Beck imagines it was a hundred years ago, before the progressives came along and convinced everyone to eat some forbidden apples. The big event would be the launching pad for his “Plan” and a book by the same name.

In the intervening year Beck fundamentally transformed the purpose of his rally into something that resembled the old Holyroller Roadshows and Salvation Emporiums. He had completely abandoned the book launch and the mysterious “Plan” in favor of an open air revival meeting and the witnessing of a miracle flock of geese.

However, as it turns out the book wasn’t shelved. It was repackaged, retitled, and released a couple of weeks ago.

Glenn Beck - Broke BROKE: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure, is now available with a new emphasis on the country’s fiscal woes. This isn’t exactly a new theme for Beck who has been predicting (craving) an American economic calamity for several years. The irony is that his “Plan” now places the blame for our dilemma on the American people:

“Once you see what we’re really up against, it’s much easier to develop a realistic plan. To fix ourselves financially, Glenn argues, we have to fix ourselves first. That means some serious introspection and, ultimately, a series of actions that will unite all Americans around the concept of shared sacrifice.”

See? We are the problem. And to fix it Beck has suddenly adopted the notion of shared sacrifice, a concept he previously regarded as abhorrent and a product of the socialistic ideology that he believes diminishes individual freedom and responsibility. Furthermore, his own philosophy is one that advocates allowing our economic system to crash and burn. Again, a concept he previously reviled as the Cloward/Piven strategy. He asserts that we are beyond the point of no return and must abandon all measures to stimulate growth and create jobs. Let the bottom fall out, cower in your bunker with your Survival Seeds and gold coins. Cling to your God and guns and, if your faith is strong enough, you will be redeemed by some miracle from above.

I don’t plan on reading Broke any time soon because … well because reading Beck’s books falls somewhere below bobbing for Ebola on my to-do list. And what I’ve read of his in the past has always been just a rehashing of the tired lies and disinformation that he spews on TV and radio.

However I can’t help but comment on the nauseating image he has chosen for the cover. To place himself, a man of prodigious wealth, behind a banner proclaiming destitution, with empty pockets and an expression of distress and defeat, is an insult to the millions of families who are truly suffering and struggling to maintain some semblance of comfort and security. This is a man who extorts sums exceeding $100.00 from his humble disciples for the privilege of hearing him blame them for the mess that greedy conservatives, like those Beck admires, have gotten this country into. This is a man who preaches a brand of economic isolationism that will bring misery to millions, but leave himself unscathed – hardly broke. That cover is as dishonest as everything else that Beck does and says.

The unmitigated gall of this self-centered, Randian, populist impostor, pretending to have something in common with hard-working Americans, is repulsive in the extreme. Consequently, I have come up with a couple of alternative titles and covers for his book:

Either of these is a better representation of the scoundrel Beck is and the immorality for which Beck stands.

Top Ten Reasons A Democratic Victory Is Worth Fighting For

Posted by Mark NC on November 1, 2010 at 11:26 am. 2 Comments :

Tomorrow is election day, and if you think there isn’t a lot at stake your Lunesta dosage is too high.

The media is falling all over itself predicting a Republican landslide, but this campaign is far from over. Polling for midterm elections is difficult under the best of circumstances, but with the wild fluctuations caused by Tea Partiers, minorities, and young voters who pollsters ignore, anything is possible. The most important thing is to stay strong, vote, and make sure you get everyone you know to vote as well. As much as he might like to believe it, Rupert Murdoch does not decide who wins elections in America. That is, unless Americans allow it. Therefore, if you need a little extra motivation, I give you…..

The Top 10 Reasons A Democratic Victory Is Worth Fighting For:

George Soros will send you a crisp, new $100.00 bill.
Michael Steele will take that call center job in Guam.
Seven year old girls will get their Tea Party back.
The Learning Channel will relaunch Sarah Palin’s Alaska as Sarah Palin’s Jersey Shore.
Christine O’Donnell will turn Karl Rove into a Newt Gingrich.
Fox News advertising will consist entirely of gold coins, Egg Genies, and penis enlargers.
Linda McMahon’s WWE will air a death match between Sharon “Man-up” Angle and Rand “Aqua Buddha” Paul.
Hundreds of media pundits and pollsters will be fired (don’t count on this one).
The war between the GOP and the Tea Party will go nuclear.

And the #1 Reason A Democratic Victory Is Worth Fighting For…

This will happen to Glenn Beck:

And an honorary mention: The country may actually have an opportunity to move forward and avoid the agenda of the GOP Dark Ageists for a couple more years.

GET OUT THE F’ING VOTE!

Stewart And/Or Colbert Restore Sanity And/Or Fear

Posted by Mark NC on October 31, 2010 at 1:17 am. 2 Comments :

Today was the day that many historians will record as the day that sanity was restored to America. And the rest of the historians will mark it as the day fear was kept alive. Then the two warring groups of historians will pelt one another with eggs. That’s just the way historians are.

Jon Stewart’s long anticipated Rally to Restore Sanity, and Stephen Colbert’s opposing March to Keep Fear Alive, took place at the National Mall in Washington, DC. By all accounts it was a rip-snorting success. But as Stewart noted, what’s important isn’t what happened there, but how what happened there would be reported:

“I think you know that the success or failure of a rally is judged by only two criteria: the intellectual coherence of the content, and its correlation to the engagement…I’m just kidding. It’s color and size. We all know it’s color and size. But I think we’re in good shape. As I look here today I can see we have over ten million people.”

In fact, the actual estimates were slightly lower. CBS News hired a firm to estimate attendance and they reported the crowd to be 215,000. The same firm pegged Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor at 87,000. Expect Beck to bitterly condemn the socialist, mathematician, elitists who deliberately skewed the estimates in order to plunge America into tyranny.

Amongst the highlights of the event were Colbert’s entrance from far beneath the stage in the Fenix capsule that was used to rescue the Chilean miners. Then there was the epic battle between Yusuf Islam’s Peace Train and Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train. That skirmish was settled by The O’Jays’ Love Train.

It’s funny how this rally, whose purpose was to lower the rhetoric and to “take it down a notch,” has incited much of the right to blow a virtual gasket as they complain that Stewart and Colbert are hopelessly far-left and are engaged in propaganda and disinformation. They regard this event as a blatant attempt to manipulate the upcoming election. There are even some who are disturbed by the presence of Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens), a devious Muslim trying to infiltrate American culture and commerce. To these demented Tea Partiers and pundits everything is a conspiracy. And that really isn’t funny at all, when you think about it.

In addition to the massive crowd in Washington, some satellite rallies were held around the country, including one in Los Angeles that I attended. There were approximately 2,500 people at this unofficial, spontaneously planned gathering at MacArthur Park. That’s an impressive turnout. And we were treated to some high quality entertainment that included cartoonist extraordinaire Lalo Alcarez and comic Jimmy Dore.

Obviously having a good time:
Sanity Rally