Day: 5/11/2011

FOX News Invents Another George Soros Conspiracy

Posted by on May 11, 2011 at 4:29 pm. 3 Comments :

On the Fox News web site today, Dan Gainor, a VP at the ultra-conservative Media Research Center, wrote an op-ed that asked, “Why Don’t We Hear About Soros’ Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations?” The answer, as it turns out, is because there aren’t any such ties. In the opening paragraph Gainor writes that Soros…

“…has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.”

Then Gainor fails to provide a single piece of evidence that Soros is connected to any of those enterprises. The article is a hodge-podge of guilt-by-association assertions that are held together by the thinnest of threads.

Rather than support his headlined accusation, Gainor offers as examples of Soros’ omnipotent influence the fact that he has donated to a few independent, non-profit institutions that focus on journalism. The organizations he chose to pick on are ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. These groups have indeed received donations from Soros, as well as many other donors. Soros has no executive control of any of them. But more to the point, these groups hardly qualify as being “major news organizations.”

Gainor’s problem with these groups, other than that they were beneficiaries of Soros’ generosity, is that they have some working journalists serving as board members or advisors. Perhaps Gainor would prefer that media foundations put more banking and oil executives on their boards. The wild-eyed players that Gainor is so disturbed by include rabid partisans like David Gergen and Christiane Amanpour. And, again, Soros has no influence over these individuals or whether they accept invitations to serve on foundation boards.

Gainor has utterly failed to support his thesis. Not only does Soros have no control over these organizations, but they aren’t even the big media powers Gainor describes them as. However, Gainor’s column appeared on the web site of a bona fide major news organization: Fox News. And the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, also has control over an empire of media enterprises including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Dow Jones NewsWire, and BSkyB, Europe’s biggest satellite television provider. What’s more, Murdoch is also on the board of directors of the Associated Press, another bona fide big media player.

Finally, it should be noted that Gainor’s own employer, the Media Research Center, is funded by foundations run by right-wing media baron Richard Mellon Scaife. It is also closely tied to Murdoch’s Fox News. When former Fox anchor and managing editor, Brit Hume, accepted an award from the MRC, he thanked them…

“…for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report, I don’t know what we would’ve done without them. It was a daily buffet of material to work from, and we certainly made tremendous use of it.”

So, as usual, the allegations levied by the right turn out to be the very same improprieties they are guilty of themselves. Some things never change.

[Update] Media Matters reveals that Dan Gainor is “the Boone Pickens Fellow” for MRC, and that Pickens himself is an MRC trustee. Pickens is also a major player in the natural gas industry, which ProPublica has reported on and exposed for its grim environmental record. Funny that Fox News failed to disclose the conflict of interest in which Gainor is engaging by attacking ProPublica for its coverage of Pickens’ business.

Also, Glenn Beck referenced this article on his television program today and completely misstated its contents. He said that Soros funds ABC, CBS, and the Koch brothers. Not only is that not what the article says, it’s downright insane. Or in other words, typical Beck.

Phillip Morris CEO To Become New Al Qaeda Chief?

Posted by on May 11, 2011 at 1:31 pm. 2 Comments :

At their annual shareholder’s meeting in New York, Phillip Morris CEO, Louis C. Camilleri, spoke about the addictive nature of cigarettes and the obstacles to quitting. He said…

“We take our responsibility very seriously, and I don’t think we get enough recognition for the efforts we make to ensure that there is effective worldwide regulation of a product that is harmful and that is addictive. Nevertheless, whilst it is addictive, it is not that hard to quit. … There are more previous smokers in America today than current smokers.”

Wow! This guy could be a Fox News anchor with his championship skills at lying. Let’s address them one at a time.

  1. Phillip Morris has opposed every effort to regulate tobacco products that has ever come up, particularly the effective regulations.
  2. Why should he get recognition for selling a product he admits is harmful and addictive? It’s like a crack dealer asking for more recognition.
  3. It’s not that hard to quit? Studies have shown that cigarettes are harder to quit than heroin.
  4. There are NOT more previous smokers in America today than current smokers (see below). But there are more DEAD smokers in America today than current smokers.

Smoking kills over 400,000 Americans every year, and 5 million worldwide. There are presently estimated to be about 46 million smokers in the United States. According to the Lung Association there are only 36 million former smokers. And that doesn’t count those who are no longer smoking because they are no longer breathing.

But the most despicable part of Camilleri’s remarks is the contention that “it is not that hard to quit.” The only purpose for promoting that lie is to entice people who don’t currently smoke to do so, and to dissuade smokers from quitting. After all, you can do that any old time with hardly any effort. Never mind that cigarettes are harmful and addictive, they are easy to set aside should you ever choose to do so.

Now that Osama Bin Laden has been “retired” from the executive position at Al Qaeda, there has been some talk of who will succeed him. If they are looking for someone who has no qualms about killing people in mass quantities, they ought to consider Camilleri. His casualty count far surpasses that of Bin Laden, an amateur by comparison. He appears to have little or no conscience. He doesn’t mind being responsible for the exploding death rate of American citizens. And he just might be able to help them turn a profit.

The Liberal Plot To Ban Access To Guns

Posted by on May 11, 2011 at 2:11 am. 3 Comments :

A new proposal has been introduced in the South Dakota state legislature that would upend the Constitutionally protected right to bear arms. This complex and insidious scheme, if enacted, would virtually eliminate access to guns by law abiding citizens. Here are the hoops that the legislation would require honest South Dakotans to jump through:

  • Before being granted a permit, the purchaser would be required to listen to a legislature-written lecture on gun violence.
  • There would then be a 24 hour waiting period.
  • On returning to the permit office, there would be a mandatory viewing of photos and films of gun violence.
  • The purchaser would then have to visit a state-accredited weapons training center.
  • Then return to the permit office where there would be another lecture about the dangers of guns.
  • Then another two hour wait before a permit would be issued.

This process is grossly unfair and serves only to make access to guns unnecessarily difficult. What makes it even worse is that there are presently no state-accredited weapons training centers as stipulated in the law, so the conditions required for acquiring a permit are actually impossible to meet. This has the effect of making gun ownership itself impossible.

This would be an outrageous violation of the Constitution’s second amendment except for one thing: none of it is true. At least insofar as guns are concerned. However, another Constitutionally protected right is being violated in South Dakota in precisely the same way:

  • Before an abortion can be performed the patient would be required to listen to a legislature-written lecture on abortion.
  • There would then be a 24 hour waiting period.
  • On returning to the doctor’s office, there would be a mandatory viewing of a sonogram.
  • The patient would then have to visit a state-accredited crisis pregnancy counseling center.
  • Then return to the doctor’s office where there would be another lecture about alleged health dangers of abortion.
  • Then another two hour wait before the abortion could be performed.

And of course, there really are no state-accredited crisis pregnancy counseling centers in South Dakota, so the conditions required for getting an abortion are actually impossible to meet.

What I have to wonder is how these extremist Christian conservatives can lay claim to a philosophy of small government? How can they profess to desire a state that is prohibited from interfering in the private lives of citizens, especially when it violates their rights? How can they assert these principles when it comes to gun ownership, but completely abandon them when it comes to the most private medical decisions?

Is it just because men, for the most part, want their guns to play with, and are trusted to use them responsibly, but women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies?