Continuing the “Fox Nation vs. Reality” series, this episode has the Fox Nationalists declaring that things are “Ugly For Obama In Ohio.”
And to support their declaration, Fox Nation referenced a poll by Quinnipiac University that shows Obama out-polling every leading Republican challenger. Obama beats:
I can see why Fox thinks that’s ugly.
Over the last few months, Republican governors and state legislatures have been busily implementing laws ostensibly designed to prevent voter fraud. It has been a project largely directed by the rightist American Legislative Exchange Council and financed by the Koch brothers
See The GOP War On Voting for more.
For the sake of clarity it should be noted that “voter fraud,” as defined by Republicans, occurs when any votes are cast by minorities, students, senior citizens, or Democrats.
Now in Florida, the first casualty of this discriminatory and unconstitutional policy has been targeted and become subject to severe penalties. The fiendish scofflaw is, Jill Cicciarelli, a teacher in a New Smyrna Beach high school:
“The teacher who heads up New Smyrna Beach High School’s student government association could face thousands of dollars in fines. Her transgression? Helping students register to vote.”
This is the completely predictable result of the abuse of power exercised by Governor Rick Scott and the GOP in Florida. It is inconceivable that anyone could defend fining a high school civics teacher for doing her job: teaching students how to participate in the democratic process. Instead, her students are learning more about the sort of tyrannical regimes that the GOP is modeling itself after.
When the law was first enacted, the League of Women Voters was forced to suspend voter registration efforts in Florida due to the risk the law placed on their volunteers and administrators. Republicans are fully aware of what they are doing. They know that third-party voter registration organizations have been successful in expanding access to the polls to the very same disenfranchised citizens that the GOP wants to suppress. GOP strategists also know that the incidence of voter fraud in America is statistically null. So if there isn’t any fraud to combat, and the citizens who are hurt are likely to vote Democratic, the only conclusion is that Republicans are exploiting their power to deny Americans they don’t like their Constitutional right to vote.
This gross inequity is not limited to Florida. It is an attack on democracy that is spreading across the country by Republicans and their lobbyists.
The GOP has commenced the process of criminalizing voting. They are constructing obstacles far greater than those of the Jim Crow era. Historically repulsive methods of voter suppression effectively kept many citizens from voting, but these new methods could cost honest citizens thousands of dollars and threaten them with incarceration. It’s downright un-American. For more on this disturbing trend watch Rachel Maddow’s expose from last July:
I hate to say I told you so…..
Sarah Palin announced today that she is not running for President of the United States of America. Oh gee, what a surprise. Anyone who thought that she was running is in serious need of in-patient psychiatric care. And that includes much of the media who followed her bus around and pretended that her incoherent ramblings resembled policy statements. Two months ago I wrote that…
Sarah Palin Is Not Running For President And Fox News Is Lying About It.
The thing is, Palin is not running. She has no campaign staff; no organization in early primary states; no press office. Polls place her near the bottom of the pack and losing to President Obama by 20 points. She is not engaging in public appearances. In fact, her much ballyhooed national bus tour was aborted after just six days without ever making it off the east coast.
And as for Fox News…
Fox knows that they can’t cover even a potential candidate who receives a Fox paycheck this late in the game. If Palin has not informed the network that she isn’t running, they would have to sideline her. Since that has not happened, it’s a safe bet that she has already told them that she’s out of the race.
If that’s the case, then Fox News knows that a prospective candidate has opted out, but they are keeping it secret. That is not acceptable behavior from a legitimate news enterprise, which of course, Fox is not. They are withholding a significant news item that journalistic ethics would require they disclose. Particularly because the only reason for them to withhold it is for their own financial benefit, and for that of Palin.
So today Palin makes it official. She is not willing to relinquish her paycheck and media platform in exchange for having to actually work for living by engaging in a tough campaign that she would certainly lose. But that didn’t stop her from hustling her disciples for cash with a plea that dangled her candidacy over their heads like a box ox of Beggin Strips. Here is the pitch from her political action committee just two weeks ago:
“Someone must save our nation from this road to European Socialism. Do you think it should be Gov. Palin? If so, can you send your best, one-time gift to SarahPAC today…”
Apparently not enough donors materialized to coax Palin into the race. Either that or the applause wasn’t loud enough to save Tinkerbell. So look for her star to fade as she descends further into irrelevance. A few days ago, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes said that the reason he hired Palin had nothing to do with politics (yeah, right). He said the hiring was “because she was hot and got ratings.” Consequently, my next prediction is that her contract with Fox News will not be renewed upon expiration.
One of the great PR successes of modern conservatism is their assumption of the mantle of “Family Values,” despite having a roster of leaders whose ill behavior has only succeeded in turning it into catchphrase that has lost all meaning.
The right is a hypocrites festival of the fallen with infidelity and broken marriage vows (Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, John McCain); hooker patrons (David Vitter, Larry Craig, Dick Morris); drug abusers (Rush Limbaugh, Ted Haggard, Glenn Beck), and the list goes on. Yet somehow they have the audacity to preach to others about family values and hold conferences like the Values Voters Summit taking place this weekend. Although they profess to honor family values, they persistently refuse to value families.
The summit is featuring a who’s who of right-wingers that will take the stage and sermonize on standards of behavior that you must comply with even if they do not.
Almost every GOP candidate for president is scheduled to speak: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Joining them will be numerous federal and state officeholders: John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Ann Marie Buerkle, Ted Cruz, Ken Cuccinelli, Vicky Hartzler, Bobby Jindal, Jim Jordan, Steve King, and Mike Pompeo. And don’t forget the media mouthpieces for the right: Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Laura Ingraham, Gary Bauer, Bill Bennett, Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly and Brent Bozell.
The Summit is sponsored by some of America’s most notorious hate mongers: The Family Research Council, The Heritage Foundation, Liberty University, and The American Family Association. These groups are united in their pursuit of religious intolerance and bigotry aimed at minorities and gays. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer has called President Obama a fascist, blamed gays for the Holocaust, asserted that Muslims have “no fundamental First Amendment claims,” and that Mormons have no right to religious freedom. That should make appearances by Romney and Beck more interesting. Here’s more hate speech from Fischer:
The Southern Poverty Law Center and People for the American Way (among others) have called for public figures to denounce these views and cease to associate with those who espouse them. But the participation of Republican presidential candidates, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and prominent rightist pundits like Beck, insures that the summit will reach their parishioners to affirm the negativity that is their trademark.
Conscientious Americans should reject the so-called Values Voters and instead, vote their values. Because the truth is that majorities of Americans believe in religious freedom, marriage equality, universal health care, and tax fairness. America is a nation that values tolerance over bigotry, and people over corporations.
I find it endlessly fascinating that these greedy multimillionaires are so distraught when average Americans propose that they pay their fair share toward restoring the economy. Now wealthy junk food magnate, Herman Cain, has joined the battle to declare that President Obama is a liar and that his rhetoric is bullshit:
This item posted on Fox Nation goes on to describe Cain’s view that taxing him and his ilk is equivalent to “highway robbery.” He further complains about having to listen “to all this bullshit that [Obama’s] talking about, ‘fairness’ and ‘balanced approach’ to get this economy going.” It’s nice of him to admit that he regards a balanced approach as bullshit. As the winner of the Florida Republican Party’s straw poll this weekend, we know that his position reflects the party.
And, have you noticed, they only call it class warfare when we fight back?
The accumulating evidence of the ignorance, bigotry and callousness of the Republican Party continues to manifest itself at their own convocations of crackpottery – the GOP presidential primary debates.
The star of these debates is turning out to be the audience, as the crowd steals the spotlight from the candidates. In the first debate a few weeks ago the audience cheered the mention of 234 executions carried out during the term of Rick Perry in Texas. In the next debate a question was asked regarding whether society should let a sick person die merely because he had no insurance. The iced (hearted) Tea Party audience began shouting “Yeah!” And last evening’s debate sponsored by the Republican PR agency, Fox News, saw the crowd disrespecting an Iraq war veteran by booing his videotaped question about equal rights for gays and lesbians serving their country in the armed forces.
While the audience endeavors to demonstrate that they are bigger jerks than the candidates, the candidates refuse to surrender that honor without a fight. Amongst the inanities erupting from this affair:
Finally, Fox News distinguished itself by inviting a question from a representative of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks people and organizations that engage in racism and extremist criminality, has classified FAIR as a hate group. That automatically qualifies the organization for participation in any Fox News event.
The embrace of FAIR and the booing of a veteran are emblematic of the modern GOP’s moral decline. And the party is generously exposing its most revolting warts in the primary as its candidates and its members seek to appeal to basest wet dreams of their Tea Bagging comrades.
Last night Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry met with News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch for dinner. Murdoch, who owns Fox News, already has a relationship with Perry. Last year Murdoch donated a million dollars to the Republican Governor’s Association which Perry chaired.
Murdoch has also had relationships with several other GOP candidates. Both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were employed by Fox News until recently. Mike Huckabee and John Bolton are still employed by Fox, however they have bowed out of the presidential race. And Sarah Palin is still on the payroll as she engages in a charade with Fox to boost their respective fortunes (she isn’t running and Fox knows it).
In the meantime Murdoch continues to be shielded by congressional lackeys like Rep. Darrel Issa who refuses to hold hearings on Murdoch’s alleged criminality because he doesn’t want to “start picking on media.” That’s a disturbingly asinine excuse. Generally when politcos talk of picking on the media they are referring to complaints about coverage or bias. What Issa is saying is that investigating crimes is off limits to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. That’s like the SEC saying that Bernie Madoff should not be investigated because they don’t want to pick on fund managers.
Former media mogul, Ted Turner, is less circumspect as he forthrightly declares that Murdoch will probably have to step down as CEO of News Corp:
“A major media company should definitely be following the law, that’s all. And when they break the law — and certainly, it’s already been admitted that News of the World broke the law. The question is how big a scandal is it.”
It remains to be seen what benefits Perry will receive for having paid his respects to the Foxfather. But Perry is well known for making deals that inure to his advantage. He certainly expects some reward, either in the form of more money or more good PR. And if he is the nominee, he will surely get some of both.
At a time when the United States is struggling to be competitive in international markets, our education system is rapidly falling behind. Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math. The Republican Party is doing everything it can to glorify the worst of American Except-tionalism: the right-wing notion that America’s success is absolute except for high standards of living; except for access to health care; except for tax equality; except for a clean environment; except for fair elections; and, of course, except for education.
The Republican Party seems to revel in its own idiocy, They are proud of it, and they say so. Currently leading in the race for the GOP nomination for president is Rick Perry. This is a man who received C’s in U.S. History, yet lectures on the meaning of the Constitution.; he received D’s in the Principles of Economics, yet presents himself as an expert on fiscal policy; he failed Organic Chemistry, yet wants to be taken seriously when denouncing evolution and Climate Change. And this isn’t some fringe candidate – this is their front-runner.
The debate over whether Social Security is Ponzi Scheme, as Perry insists, is a hoax from start to finish. There is no rational correlation between the criminal act of fraud made famous by Charles Ponzi and Social Security, perhaps the most successful and popular government program in history. Ponzi’s scam sought to deceive investors and pocket the profits himself. Social Security is not an investment program, it is an insurance program. If Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme then so is auto insurance where participants are paid benefits from the receipts collected from other participants.
Somehow, a frighteningly high number of citizens are persuaded by the inane arguments set forth by Republicans on critical matters like Social Security and Climate Science. That is likely a result of the very same policies that Republicans advocate. They abhor education. They want to eliminate the Education Department. They disparage prestigious learning institutions as elitist. They boast of their own ordinariness and shortcomings. And this example is then set for their constituents to follow. Ignorance then becomes the predictable consequence.
That is precisely what the GOP intends. It is far easier for them to manipulate an uneducated, uninformed electorate. And it is advances their goals to provide benefits to the wealthy and to corporations at the expense of the folks they are deceiving. All of this makes it evermore imperative that we persist in getting out truthful information in as broad a manner as possible.
It’s a tough assignment because it will always be easier to make people stupid than it is to help them become fully informed. The right is now whining that President Obama has declared a “class war.” The truth is that there has been a class war raging in this country for decades, and the rich are winning. The gap between the rich and the poor is wider now than at any time since the Great Depression. None other than billionaire Warren Buffet made this same argument. It’s time for the lower and middle classes to fight back. It’s time to restore some fairness in the economy. And it’s time for the wealthy to share some of the sacrifice necessary to heal the nation.
In order to do this we need to expose the robber barons who want to keep the people down and dumb. Thankfully, we have on our side the propensity for Republicans like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry to demonstrate their witlessness with unambiguous relish. They just can’t help it. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner) the people will see through their charade.
At the Tea Party/Republican debate earlier this week, there was a moment that revealed the true nature of the Tea Party’s values and compassion for their fellow citizens. It unfolded in this exchange between the CNN moderator, Wolf Blitzer, and Rep. Ron Paul. But it was the audience response to the question that merits more attention.
Wolf Blitzer: Let me ask you this hypothetical question: A healthy, thirty year old young man, has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, “You know what…I’m not gonna spend two hundred or three hundred dollars a month for health insurance because I’m healthy, I don’t need it.” But something terrible happens and all of a sudden he needs it. Who’s gonna pay for it if he goes into a coma? […] Are you saying that society should just let him die?
Tea Party Audience: (shouting) Yes! Yeah!
That pretty much sums up the Randian philosophy of self-interest that permeates the Tea Party and the right in general. It illustrates their detachment from society and the conviction that we are all on our own, that we have no moral obligation to anyone else, and that if some unfortunate person is suffering – even dying – that’s their problem.
It is notable that Blitzer’s framing of the question slanted the issue to focus on someone with a job and good pay who declined insurance by choice. However, in reality, a working person probably already has health insurance from their employer. The question completely avoids the more likely scenario wherein a person is uninsured due to unemployment or underemployment, not by their own choosing. People falling into this category can include housewives, students, and retirees, along with ordinary folks who just happen to have been laid off or had some other misfortune.
The Tea Party is now out of the closet with regard to their overt insensitivity and uncaring attitude toward those in need. They seem oblivious to the notion that the needy may include their neighbors, their family, or even themselves. What’s worse is that they have exposed themselves as hypocrites to the values they profess to hold. Do they have any recollection of the words of their Lord regarding His criteria for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven? He spoke of the treatment of the hungry and the sick saying…
“Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!”
Much is revealed of us by our treatment of others. And much is revealed of our society by its compassion for all of its citizens. The Republican audience in the previous debate demonstrated their aversion to compassion by cheering for executions. Now the Tea Party has assumed the role of the biblical Romans and, like Pontius Pilate, have washed their hands of it.
In May of 2007 I did an analysis of the ratings of the GOP 2008 presidential primaries broadcast on cable news. The conclusion showed that Fox News viewers remained glued to Fox regardless of what else on the air. I wrote at the time that…
“Fox viewers are married to the channel and couldn’t care less what’s playing down the dial. Their hypnotic attachment filters out all other sensory stimulation, even if it’s something that would ordinarily excite them. […] Fox viewers appear to be more loyal to Fox than to Republicans or conservatism. This misdirected allegiance bestows a far more influential authority onto a media entity than ought ever to be considered. It suggests that the bombastic demagogues that Fox has shaped into celebrity anchors truly do weigh down their transfixed disciples.”
The Cult of Foxonality™ was affirmed when Fox acquired Glenn Beck and saw his ratings (temporarily) skyrocket. Fox viewers were wholly uninterested in the conservative schlock-jock when he was on CNN. Switching channels, even to see someone they would later slobber over, was too much trouble. But when he moved to Fox their slobbering could begin in earnest.
Now the Republican primary debates for 2012 demonstrate that little has changed in four years. Fox viewers are simply not inclined to stray from their electronic hearth no matter the attraction. The GOP debate on MSNBC was watched by more than 5.4 million viewers. CNN’s Gop/Tea Party debate drew 3.6 million [Note: It was competing against Monday Night Football and the U.S. Tennis Open Finals]. However, the ratings for Fox News hardly budged. The primetime average for Fox News in the second quarter of 2011 was 2.184 million viewers. On September 7, during MSNBC’s debate coverage, Fox’s primetime average was actually a little higher at 2.253 million. On September 12, during CNN’s debate coverage, Fox’s primetime average dipped to 1.791 million.
Clearly Fox News viewers can’t be bothered to dig the remote out from under the cushions in order to see what the next Republican nominee for president might say if it’s on another channel. That’s too bad because they missed Rick Perry complaining that Michele Bachmann underestimated the price for which he could be bought.
Perry: “I raise about thirty million dollars, and if you’re saying I can be bought for five thousand, I’m offended.”
That’s telling her. Perry knows how important it is to defend your brand, or else cronies and lobbyists will start to lowball you. And that can really cut into your profit margin. So the question is – How much can he be bought for?
Fox viewers also missed the Tea Party audience at the debate express their compassion for their fellow Americans. In a discussion about access to health care, moderator Wolf Blitzer presented Ron Paul with a hypothetical patient who required intensive care but had no insurance. “Are you saying that society should just let him die?” Blitzer asked. Paul’s answer in the negative was nearly drowned out by numerous audience members shouting “Yeah!” It looks like Republicans owe former (and perhaps future) Florida representative Alan Grayson an apology for vilifying him when he said that the GOP health care plan was “Don’t get sick! And if you do get sick, die quickly!”
The next GOP debate will be carried by Fox News so the FoxPods won’t have to worry about what’s on opposite O’Reilly. They can lean back and scarf down their Happy Meal without missing anything important. Or, at least, anything that Fox thinks is important.