The Fox News Confessional: Dinesh D’Souza Begs Forgiveness

Posted by Mark NC on October 18, 2012 at 12:50 pm. 3 Comments :

Pray for Fox News Most news editorial pages are devoted to expressing opinions on issues of significance to the public. However, as with everything else related to journalistic ethics, Fox News has different perspective.

Dinesh D’Souza, the director of the widely debunked crocumentary, “2016: Obama’s America,” was recently accused of having an extra-marital affair and brandishing his new, young, blonde, fiance in public. D’Souza, it should also be noted, is the president of King’s College, a Christian institution on Manhattan. [Update: The King’s College board announced this morning that D’Souza has resigned amid allegations of infidelity] The charges against D’Souza swirled around conservative circles due to the sensitive nature of a devout, right-wing, demagogue being caught with his pants down (again).

Of course, this is far from a unique occurrence in the hypocritical world of sanctimonious piety peddlers. Preachers like Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard have been been embroiled in sex scandals. Politicians like Larry Craig, Mark Sanford, and David Vitter, have had to explain their adulteries and whore mongering. And Fox News was always there to defend them. In the case of thrice-wed Catholic Newt Gingrich, Fox’s own psycho analyst, Keith Ablow, actually wrote a column arguing that America would be stronger under Gingrich precisely because of his multiple sins.

What’s interesting about this, however, is that Fox News has given D’Souza a platform to press his case for absolution. Posted as an “opinion” column, the headline declared “‘2016: Obama’s America’ filmmaker — I am not having an affair.”

Well then, that’s a relief. Apparently D’Souza was separated from his wife while he was prancing around with his new squeeze. And he was unaware that getting engaged while still married was verboten in the Jesus-sphere. [Update: D’Souza’s mistress was also married] D’Souza’s article is nothing more than a rebuttal of personal allegations of infidelity. Why is that a subject for an editorial published by a so-called “news” enterprise?

This is further evidence that the word “news” has no business being associated with anything Fox does. They have a mission that is in stark contrast to what the rest of the world calls journalism. Now it’s not enough that Fox is a blatantly biased mouthpiece for hardcore, right-wingism, but it is also assuming the role of confessor, where wayward Republicans can be redeemed by its magic glow.

The Republican March To Church OVER State

Posted by Mark NC on September 10, 2012 at 2:10 pm. 6 Comments :

Today’s Republican Party has become little more than an evangelical off-shoot of institutional Christianity. The Party’s leaders and followers alike demand unfettered adherence to the religion’s precepts and they require some form of faithfulness expressed in every public utterance. Illustrating the extent to which this applies is an article posted this morning on the Fox News community site, Fox Nation, with the headline “Obama’s 9/11 Proclamation Does Not Mention God.”

So what? What exactly would Fox like for Obama to say about God in his statement to a diverse nation about 9/11? Should he have asked why God would permit the slaughter of so many innocent people? Should he have condemned the God of the terrorists? Should he have questioned God’s allegiance to the Judeo-Christian west by siding with the extremist Muslims who attacked us? After all, if a football team regards their victories as having been blessed by God, then what must Al Qaeda think?

Is it now required that God be mentioned every time the President speaks, regardless of the context? And what other official proclamations would Fox criticize for having no mention of God? Will we soon be seeing headlines like:

Obama Fails To Credit God For The Doubling Of The Stock Market
Obama Leaves God Out Of Remarks In Praise Of Girl Scout Cookies
Obama Awards Presidential Medal of Freedom To Bob Dylan But None For God
Obama Makes No Mention Of God While Bowling At Campaign Event
Obama Refuses To Note God’s Role In The Rise And Fall Of The Unemployment Rate
Obama Takes First Dog Bo For Walk On White House Lawn Without Mentioning God

The GOP’s domination by evangelical zealots is all encompassing. It extends to its presidential nominee Mitt Romney who, while stumping on the campaign trail yesterday, made a delusional suggestion that Obama is planning to remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. coins. He never said anything of the sort. Romney also met with televangelist Pat Robertson yesterday.

The media is just as complicit in this unconstitutional melding of church and state. And leading the way is Fox News. Fox tried to turn a trivial platform issue at the Democratic National Convention into a high grade scandal when the DNC’s platform committee left God out of their document. They attacked Democrats incessantly without ever explaining why God should be in such a document in a country whose Constitution prohibits the “establishment of religion.” Yet they never gave the President credit for personally intervening to reinsert God into the platform.

It remains to seen what religion’s impact will be on the election. Many Republican’s mistakenly believe that Obama is a Muslim. And while Obama is certainly not the first choice of evangelicals, neither is Romney who, as a Mormon, is considered to be a member of a satanic cult by many mainstream Christians. And all of this debate, fanned by a fair measure of ignorance, is exactly why religion ought not to have a role in politics. But just try telling that to a Tea Partying fundamentalist.

Fox News Says: Jesus’ Real Father Was A Rapist, Claims Hollywood

Posted by Mark NC on June 26, 2012 at 5:31 pm. 7 Comments :

Dateline: Hollywood, CA, 6/26/2012: Jesus’ Real Father Was A Rapist!

This startling proclamation has been reported by Fox News on their Fox Nation web site. The source for this shocking revelation was identified as “Hollywood.”

I wasn’t aware that Hollywood took official positions on spiritual matters. Was this the result of a vote by the Hollywood City Council (which doesn’t exist because Hollywood is not a city. It is a neighborhood within the city of Los Angeles)? Is there an official spokesperson for Hollywood who decides what Hollywood’s positions are? Is everyone in Hollywood now required to hold this position? And what about the people in Burbank where most of the business described as “Hollywood” actually takes place?

The inspiration for this story was the news that Dutch filmmaker, Paul Verhoeven (not from Hollywood), has succeeded after many years in getting a green light for his production, “Jesus of Nazareth.” It is an adaptation of his own book that reportedly includes speculation that Mary’s pregnancy might have been the result of her having been raped by a Roman soldier. The publisher describes the book saying…

“Paul Verhoeven disrobes the mythical Jesus to reveal a man who is, after all, startlingly familiar to us, a man who has much in common with other great political leaders throughout history, human beings who believed that change was coming in their lifetimes.

Gone is the Jesus of the miracles, gone the son of God, gone the weaver of arcane parables whose meanings are obscure. In their place Verhoeven gives us his vision of Jesus as a complete man, someone who was changed by events, the leader of a political movement, and, perhaps most importantly, someone who, in his speeches and sayings, introduced a new ethics in which enlightened behavior and the embrace of human contradictions transcend the mechanics of value and worth that had defined the material world before Jesus.”

Fox Nation credits the uber-rightist media-bashing site, NewsBusters, with bringing the story to Fox. NewsBusters credits Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze. So you know by that trail of bread crumbs that the story is legit. And who could argue with the assertion that Hollywood is unashamedly anti-Jesus? After all, they have only made thousands of films that venerate Christ from “The Greatest Story Ever Told” to “The Passion of the Christ,” and many more about revered figures in Christianity. Not to mention all the movies about Christmas, Easter, and other events deemed holy by church.

Nevertheless, the Fox Nationalists have deemed that, because a movie is being made about an alternative version of Christ’s life, and all movies represent the official view of Hollywood even though those movies have a broad diversity of differing opinions, that this is proof that it is Hollywood making the claim that Jesus’ father was a rapist. It makes perfect sense – if you’re a lobotomized crackhead – or a Fox News viewer.

Awash In Scandal, Vatican Turns To The Pros At Fox News For Help

Posted by Mark NC on June 24, 2012 at 2:28 pm. 2 Comments :

It was announced yesterday that Greg Burke, the Fox News correspondent in Rome, has accepted the position of senior communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state. The article in the Associated Press notes that the Vatican has been having a number of problems such as “a scandal over Vatican documents that were leaked to Italian journalists,” […] “Benedict’s now-infamous speech about Muslims and violence, his 2009 decision to rehabilitate a schismatic bishop who denied the Holocaust, and the Vatican’s response to the 2010 explosion of the sex abuse scandal.”

When an institution as prominent as the Vatican requires professional guidance through a maze of public relations challenges as steep as these, it only makes sense that they reach out to experts in the propaganda arts. Conveniently, Burke was at hand in Rome and, as a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic prelature, Opus Dei, his accordance with Church dogma is not in doubt.

Presumably the Vatican is confidant that Burke will bring some measure of expertise to his new duties whitewashing the Vatican’s malfeasance. However, Fox News is better known for their prowess in inventing scandals that never occurred (i.e. Birthers, voter fraud, war on Christmas, fast and furious, etc.), rather than in quelling actual scandals. Nevertheless, Burke’s first statements after the hiring suggest that he is precisely what the Vatican is looking for:

Burke: You’re shaping the message, you’re molding the message, and you’re trying to make sure everyone remains on-message.

In other words, Burke will be doing for the church exactly what Fox News has been doing for the Republican Party for years. Which raises a question far more interesting than the one about a Fox News correspondent going to work for the Vatican: What was a member of Opus Dei doing covering the Vatican for an alleged “news” organization for the past ten years? That would be indisputably unethical. It would be fine if he were assigned to farm subsidies or Wall Street, but not the church with which he is so closely associated. That would be like having a top Republican strategist working as a political analyst at a news network.

Oh wait…Karl Rove is already doing that at Fox News. And Fox also employed four prospective GOP presidential candidates in the past year. And they also employ executives who were caught instructing their news staff to slant their reporting to favor Republicans. And they invite Republican politicians and advocates to appear on the air far more often than Democrats or liberals. Mitt Romney alone as appeared on Fox & Friends 21 times in the last year, while appearing only once on any Sunday network news program.

It may be indisputably unethical, but it’s also the Fox News business model. Whether or not it works at the Vatican remains to be seen. However, the Republican Party and the Vatican have much in common. They are both trying to sell stories on faith to ill-informed people who are motivated by fear.

Rick Santorum And The Anti-Intellectual, Theocratic Legacy Of The GOP

Posted by Mark NC on February 26, 2012 at 1:43 pm. 8 Comments :

The Republican Party has been advocating ignorance for decades. They Reject the 98% of scientists who affirm that climate change is real and the result of human activity. They scoff at evolution in favor of Biblical affirmations that put the age of the Earth at only 6,000 years. They belittle Harvard graduates as elitists and revere candidates they think would make good beer drinking companions.

Now Rick Santorum, the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has said aloud what has only been alluded to in the past. At a forum for the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, Santorum said…

“President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!”

Really. How elitist of Obama to suggest that all Americans have access to the same opportunities to improve themselves personally and professionally. What a pompous, exclusionary attitude. Santorum continued saying…

“There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”

Exactly. Heaven forbid that kids should be encouraged to learn things taught by college professors when all they are capable of is manual labor and assembly line work. Santorum is squarely opposed to kids having higher aspirations. He castigates Obama for wanting to remake kids in the image of someone who began poor, from a broken home, and rose to become president of the United States. But Santorum prefers the image of kids who skip school, get a job, and never achieve anything greater than their parents did. Never mind the fact that most parents sacrifice selflessly to give their kids the opportunity to reach their highest potential.

In Santorum’s world ignorance is the goal. It would have to be in order to persuade people to vote for him. And his followers are fully on board with this. They applauded enthusiastically at his “snob” comment. But this is a relatively recent position for Santorum. In is last campaign for senate, his web site told a different story:

“In addition to Rick’s support of ensuring that primary and secondary schools in Pennsylvania are equipped for success, he is equally committed to ensuring the {sic) every Pennsylvanian has access to higher education.”

Critics will surely jump on that reference as evidence of Santorum’s hypocrisy. But not so fast. He was only in favor of “every Pennsylvanian” having access to higher education, not every American. Screw the Kansans and the Carolinians. Obama has the temerity to favor people from Arizona to Maine earning college degrees. That is unconscionable, but it’s OK for PA.

This weekend also saw Santorum describing the parts of the Constitution that make him vomit.

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country… to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up.”

Of course, I don’t know of anyone who says that people of faith should have no role in the public square. They can and do in great numbers. However, having “involvement in the operation of the state” is another thing entirely. It’s called theocracy, and it’s what you get when there is no separation of church and state.

The combination of viewing education as a character flaw and the Bible as an addendum to the Constitution is what defines the modern Republican/Tea Party. But it is not what this country is based on and it is not the path to peace and prosperity. And when discourse devolves to the point that the Constitution makes candidates wretch and advocating greater access to a college education makes you a snob, you know that a line of reason has been crossed.

Is President Obama A Christian? Santorum? Gingrich? Romney?

Posted by Mark NC on February 21, 2012 at 10:53 am. 4 Comments :

It’s always comforting to know that there is someone you can turn to who can provide answers to the perplexing spiritual problems that we all face on a daily basis. Someone with wisdom and insight and experience in the ways of the Lord.

Such a person is Rev. Franklin Graham, at least in his own mind. He is the son and heir to the Billy Graham evangelist empire, and he appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today (video below) to discuss the personal faiths of some national leaders. Here is what transpired:

Willie Geist: Do you believe that Pres. Obama is a Christian?
Graham: You have to ask Pres. Obama.

After that dodge, Graham spent several minutes evading the question by repeating the excuse that he doesn’t know what is in another person’s heart. Throughout the segment he pointedly refused to simply say that he believes that Obama is a Christian. However, he does say that he thinks Obama bends over backwards for Muslims and he finds it significant that some Muslims regard him as one of their own.

So what about Rick Santorum? Is he a Christian? Geist posed that question to Graham and got this response:

Graham: Oh, I think so. Because his values are so clear on moral issues. No question about it.

So he cannot answer the question about Obama because he can’t see into another person’s heart, but apparently he can see into Santorum’s heart. And that’s not all. Graham then volunteered this about Newt Gingrich:

Graham: I think Newt is a Christian. At least he told me he is.

Well, Obama also told Graham that he is a Christian, but that didn’t seem to stick. Graham said that what matters most is not what people say but how they live their lives. So of course he would be suspicious of an assertion of faith from Obama, a devoted husband and churchgoer, but he would accept Gingrich’s testimony, despite being a thrice-married, admitted adulterer who left his congressional post in disgrace for ethical violations.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney. When Alex Wagner asked Graham if Romney is a Christian, Graham wiggled this out:

Graham: I like him. He’s a Mormon. Most Christians would not accept Mormonism as part of the Christian faith.

Nevertheless, Graham praised Romney as a candidate. So there you have it. According to this Christian leader, being a serial sinner or a practitioner of a false religion is not an impediment to either the White House or Heaven. But God has much stricter standards for heathens like Obama who are faithful to their families, charitable to others, and ethical in their profession. It really makes you want to sing the praises of whatever brand of Christianity Graham is peddling.

Glenn Beck: We Are All Catholics Now – Except For Muslims

Posted by Mark NC on February 20, 2012 at 7:38 pm. 2 Comments :

Evanga-Pundit Glenn Beck is once again sermonizing on religious freedom as he interprets it. By his account any church that engages in any activity, even those that have nothing to do with the practice of their faith, deserve the protection of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

That, of course, is absurd. If a church buys a chain of Jack-in-the-Boxes, they are not permitted to force their employees and patrons to adhere to their spiritual doctrine. The freedom that religion is granted under law is specifically applicable to the practice of the religion, not every other enterprise they may engage in. There are innumerable examples of limitations on the absolutist theory of religious freedom. For instance, the use of peyote by some Native Americans is not legal in most of the country, despite it being a legitimate and long-standing religious practice. And who would argue that human or animal sacrifice ought to be a protected activity?

However, when the Catholic church complains that they have to live by the same rules as the rest of society, even when they leave their churches to operate hospitals or other non-religious businesses, folks like Beck insist that their rights are being violated. And yesterday, in the Washington Post, Beck made that exact argument. It really is too bad that the Post sullied themselves by giving Beck that platform for his crackpottery.

So Beck has proclaimed that “We are all Catholics now.” No, actually, we are not. And Beck’s assertion that “Americans are offended by the ruling from the White House” fails to note that most Americans agree with the President’s position – even most Catholics. But that doesn’t stop Beck from spewing phony bravado like this:

“[W[hen the state comes against the Catholics, or the Jews, or the Muslims, or the Pentecostals, or the Mormons or those of any other faith – exotic or familiar – we must all stand up as one: We are all Catholics now. “

That’s funny. I don’t remember Beck or his ilk standing up as one with the Muslims who wanted to build a community center in lower Manhattan. While he was slow to condemn the project, and made some noises about respecting their rights at the outset of the controversy, he eventually found cause to oppose it based on spurious and unproven allegations about the Imam who was spearheading it. In other words, Beck came around to the same position that his rightist compatriots had already assumed. Here’s what Beck had to say about it:

“[T]here are some highly questionable statements surrounding this man that should be looked into before he is allowed to build a mosque a block away from Ground Zero or for that matter, in Kansas.”

That’s Beck’s version of religious freedom, wherein it is perfectly acceptable to trample the rights of religions you find distasteful as a result of your own bigotry. I’m sure he would also want to investigate the backgrounds of every Catholic or Mormon who proposes building a place to gather and worship. I can’t wait to hear Beck challenge the building permits for a new YMCA in his neighborhood.

The New And Improved War On Religion: Catholic Hypocrisy In The Media

Posted by Mark NC on February 16, 2012 at 2:00 pm. 1 Comments :

The manufactured controversy over President Obama’s initiative to make employer-provided contraceptive coverage available to all women, regardless of where they work, has been morphed into a phony debate on religious freedom. OK, if it’s a religious debate they want, then bring it on.

Juan Cole has published a brilliant analysis on Alternet enumerating the 10 Catholic Teachings Conservatives Reject While Obsessing About Birth Control.

1. Pope John Paul II was against anyone going to war against Iraq

2.The Conference of Catholic Bishops requires that health care be provided to all Americans.

3. The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty for criminals in almost all situations.

4. The US Conference of Bishops has urged that the federal minimum wage be increased, for the working poor.

5. The bishops want welfare for all needy families, saying “We reiterate our call for a minimum national welfare benefit that will permit children and their parents to live in dignity. A decent society will not balance its budget on the backs of poor children.”

6. The US bishops say that “the basic rights of workers must be respected–the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions…”.

7. Catholic bishops demand the withdrawal of Israel from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.

8. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops ripped into Arizona’s law on treatment of immigrants, Cardinal Roger Mahony characterized Arizona’s S.B. 1070 as “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law.”

9. The Bishops have urged that illegal immigrants not be treated as criminals and that their contribution to this country be recognized.

10. The US Conference of Bishops has denounced, as has the Pope, the Bush idea of ‘preventive war’, and has come out against an attack on Iran in the absence of a real and present threat of an Iranian assault on the US.

Cole goes into more detail on each item and provides examples of legal cases where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against select religious activities. For instance, both polygamy and peyote (used in religious rituals) are prohibited despite the Constitution’s enunciation of freedom of religion. So if the Catholic puritans who insist that an insurance company can’t offer legal medicine to patients on the basis that it is against their faith, then they had better switch their positions on all of the issues above as well.

The media needs to be honest about the framework of this debate. It is not about freedom of religion. Catholics are not encumbered in way from engaging in their chosen form of worship. But if they leave their churches to participate in the broader society, whether by opening hospitals or McDonalds franchises, they have to play by the same rules as everyone else. A church that preaches racial segregation can say whatever they want to their parishioners, but they can’t open a hotel and refuse to hire African-Americans or decline to admit them as guests. And any church-owned business that employs and serves the general public in a non-religious capacity cannot discriminate on the basis of their personal beliefs.

Now It’s A Holy War: The Fox Nation Launches A Crusade

Posted by Mark NC on February 3, 2012 at 1:41 pm. 7 Comments :

Notice a pattern here:

Fox News has been at war against Democrats and liberals since its inception. The have declared wars on Christmas, environmentalism, community organizers, students, seniors, the poor, and on and on. The election season has seen a ramping up of their instigation of class war.

None of that has managed to pick up support from the American people who are the real targets of these invented wars. The class war, in particular, has been a resounding failure for Fox because the country has consistently sided with the 99% over the GOP (Greedy One Percent).

So the Fox Nationalists are upping the ante by sending their troops on a mission to invade the Kingdom of Heaven. This is no longer a battle of mortals, but a celestial conflagration that they are blaming on President Obama.

Once again, the rightist crusaders are demonstrating their rank hypocrisy by lambasting the President for daring to quote scripture. Conservatives have built a cottage industry of forcing their religious beliefs into the political arena. They demand that Christian dogma be codified into law. They insist that Christian fables be taught as if they were historically affirmed. They falsely assert that the nation’s founders were devout Christians who intended their faith to direct the course of the country. They complain bitterly that Christians are the only group that are discriminated against. They are, to be succinct, delusional.

So it’s onward Republican soldiers, and marching lockstep with them are the Murdoch Militia, valiantly defending America from DemonCrats and spreading their message of an imminent Armageddon. And all because they can’t abide the fact that a Democratic President shares their faith.

Fox News Is SHOCKED That Obama Has Christian Values

Posted by Mark NC on February 2, 2012 at 11:32 am. 4 Comments :

Seriously, Fox News? Are you seriously expressing disdain for President Obama’s remarks at the annual National Prayer Breakfast about how his faith has helped form his policy opinions?

The arch-conservative, fundamentalists in America have spent decades insisting that America is a Christian nation and that the country must submit to their spiritual dogma. They have attempted to, and in many cases succeeded in, passing bills that legislatively adopt their religious principles, from abortion to creationism. And Fox Pews…I mean News has adopted the crusade of the religious right as their own.

The one Christian principle that is almost always left out of the fundamentalist agenda is the one that preaches compassion for the poor and Jesus’ admonition that “whatever you do (do not do) for the least of these you do (do not do) for me.” Now when the President articulates his principles of Christian faith at a prayer breakfast he is criticized for it with a distinct implication that it was somehow inappropriate.

OK, fine. Let’s all agree that injecting religion into public policy is inadvisable and promise to refrain from doing it. But that has to apply to all sides. The Christian Taliban can no longer try to shove its philosophy down the throats of their fellow citizens. There will be no more sermonizing on God’s alleged will. No more phony wars on Christmas. No more prayers to open congressional hearings. And if the right will not agree to these terms, then they have to shut up when the President makes barely religious comments like this:

“When I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years. And I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.”

[…] “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'”

Unfortunately, the Evangelicans will never surrender their arrogant superiority long enough to permit America to have true freedom of religion. And they will likewise refuse to refrain from castigating Democrats when they exercise their religious liberties. That’s just the nature of the sanctimonious hypocrisy embraced by the practitioners of religious tyranny.

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