Month: April 2012

Post Primary Report: What Will Become Of Rick Santorum And Newt Gingrich?

Posted by on April 12, 2012 at 12:53 pm. 1 Comments :

Now that the Republican presidential primary is effectively over (sorry Ron Paul, you were always a joke, even to your own party), what will losers Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich find to while away all the free time on their hands?

Well, there will certainly be books to peddle and speaking engagements. And, of course, they can be retained as lobbyists for the one-percenters on whom their campaigns were focused. But the easiest job, because it requires no work, research, or investment, is media pundit, a role both Santorum and Gingrich played just prior to their primary candidacies.

However, the jobs that Santorum and Gingrich had at Fox News may not be waiting for them now that they are available again. Both of them have had rather uncomplimentary things to say about Fox during their campaigns:

Santorum: The media has just completely tried to shape this race. And not just the liberal media. It’s even Fox News. You know, Bill O’Reilly has refused to put me on his program. As far as he was concerned I wasn’t a worthy enough candidate to earn a spot to sit across from him and be on his program. Here you have folks supposedly in the conservative media who are saying, “You know, we’re gonna choose who are gonna win.” And then complain that the mainstream media does the same thing.

Santorum: The man has had a ten-to-one money advantage. He’s had all the organizational advantage. He has Fox News shilling for him every day — no offense, Brian, but I see it. And yet he can’t seal the deal because he just doesn’t have the goods to be able to motivate the Republican base and win this election.

Gingrich: I think FOX has been for Romney all the way through. Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of FOX, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of FOX. That’s just a fact. […] We’re going to go to the White House Correspondents’ dinner because [Callista] wants to. And we’re actually going to go to CNN’s table, not FOX.

I wouldn’t be surprised if CNN or MSNBC signed these guys – disappointed, but not surprised. However, they may have better luck with GBTV, Glenn Beck’s Internet site. Especially Santorum whom Beck told during an interview that he wanted to kiss “in the mouth.”

[Update] Fox responds to Newt: “This is nothing other than Newt auditioning for a windfall of a gig at CNN—that’s the kind of man he is,” a spokeswoman for Fox News responded in a statement to Yahoo News. “Not to mention, he’s still bitter about the fact that we terminated his contributor contract.

Not So Breitbart: Jon Stewart vs. Robot Chicken

Posted by on April 11, 2012 at 11:54 pm. 3 Comments :

The Breibrats over at BigHollywood have once again set out to knock Jon Stewart down a peg by noting that there are other TV programs with higher ratings. I suppose I should give them credit for being able to count and to read a list, but they are still embarrassingly bad at ratings analysis, so I thought I would help them out by amending their big headline:

Breitbart - BigHollywood

If the Breibart crew is intent on criticizing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for being such losers, it might have been a good idea to read a little further down the list (well, actually to the very bottom), where they would have found Fox News stars Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Then this commentary would not seem so idiotic:

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys regularly humiliated in the ratings by cartoons, reruns, and “Robot Chicken” are American phenoms…?

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys who couldn’t muster three million viewers combined are populist heroes who speak for the people…? […]

Stick that in your clown nose, you speech-policing, left-wing elitists.

Hey, maybe stop being dicks. That might help.

If Stewart and Colbert are humiliated by placing 27th and 45th, than how would the Breitbrats describe Hannity and O’Reilly showing up dead last at 99 and 100? It would seem that Stewart and Colbert are more representative spokespersons for the people than Fox’s biggest stars. And as for being dicks…I think the Breitbrats have that honor sewn up.

Graphic Evidence Of The Racism Of Fox News: Racial Photoshopping

Posted by on April 11, 2012 at 2:39 pm. 75 Comments :

News reports are suggesting that later today the authorities in Florida will announce charges against Trayvon Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman. Coverage of this story was handled by Fox News in a manner that is revealing and offensive – and wholly unique to Fox News:

Fox News - Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman

This is a journalistic lynching. And note, this is not Fox Nation. It is the mothership, Fox News. The editors at this alleged “news” network are demonstrating their overt hostility to both African-Americans and journalistic ethics. If this picture doesn’t finally establish the overarching prejudice of Fox, it’s hard to know what will. Their bias is so clearly being exercised with a zealotry that the Klan would shrink from. How do they get away with this?

[Update] Fox News changed their graphic.

Fox News - Trayvon

This is a more impartial photo that does not disparage the victim (although it still is not as overtly cheerful as Zimmerman’s pic). You think they got a few complaints about the previous photo? They must have had a reason for changing it.


[Addendum] A couple of commenters have asserted (without proof) that the lighter picture of Trayvon was the one that was Photoshopped. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that they are right and that the picture Fox used was not altered (at least by Fox). That does not change the fact that Fox made an editorial decision to use that picture. They had numerous pictures from which to choose of both Trayvon and Zimmerman, and they chose the most negative picture of Trayvon which they paired with the most positive picture of Zimmerman. That was not an accident. It was the result of deliberate editorial judgment. And it tells us everything we need to know about Fox’s editors.

For more on the subject of media and race, check out the excellent book by Democracy Now’s Juan Gonzalez: News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.

There has also been some discussion as to whether making Trayvon look darker was inherently racist. Two points: 1) Making anyone look darker has the effect of making them look more sinister. And making the subject of a photo look more sinister, regardless of race, is blatant editorial bias. 2) Darker skinned African-Americans are not viewed more negatively by fair-minded people who are free of prejudice, but they are viewed more negatively by people predisposed to discriminate on the basis of race – i.e. Fox News viewers. Fox is playing to their audience and they know who they are. Studies show that the African-American segment of viewers of Fox News in primetime is only 1.38%. That compares to 19.3% for MSNBC, and 20.7% for CNN, numbers that are much closer to the 14% of African-Americans in the population at large. Or, as the Simpsons put it…

Fox News - Simpsons

Finally, The question of whether or not George Zimmerman is racist, while important, is secondary here. The real problem is the racism exhibited by the local law enforcement authorities who simply accepted Zimmerman’s claims of self-defense without making an arrest and conducting a proper investigation. Exacerbating that is the overt racism of the right-wing press and their followers. The primary focus going forward should, of course, be the pursuit of justice and the suffering of the victims family. After that the focus should fall on the police and the media as this affair winds its way through the courts. But we should be grateful that concerned citizens spoke out and hit the streets to protest this injustice or there would be no court case at all.

For Those Who Still Don’t Think That Fox News Is The PR Arm Of The GOP

Posted by on April 11, 2012 at 12:55 pm. NO Comments :

If there is anyone out there who still thinks that Fox News is a fair and balanced news enterprise, as opposed to a Republican promotional agency, check out these recent stories at their Fox Nation web site:

RNC Catches Obama Using ‘Same Tired Rhetoric’ April 5, 2012.
Obama’s budget speech yesterday recycled the exact same scare tactics he used last year. See the original RNC video showing Obama’s State of the Union speeches side-by-side.

New Video Exposes Myth of Obama’s Great Speechmaking April 11, 2012.
Obama’s recent budget speech recycled the exact same scare tactics he used last year. See the original RNC video showing Obama’s State of the Union speeches side-by-side.

That’s right. The Fox Nationalists posted a story on April 5, and then posted the exact same story on April 11. When posted the second time they labeled it as “New.” The entirety of the story is a video by the Republican National Committee mocking President Obama for reprising a speech this year that he had made last year, as if he were guilty of plagiarizing himself. Politicians often reuse speeches when they are speaking on the same subject. Have the Fox Nationalists ever heard of a stump speech?

There is a comical irony in that Fox is rerunning a GOP video that is critical of Obama for rerunning a speech. That irony escapes the Fox dimwits. But what’s really disturbing about this is that Fox is just replaying Republican propaganda as if they were retained to promote the GOP brand. Perhaps they weren’t satisfied with the number of views the video got the first time they posted it, so they threw it up there again. How many times do they plan to run it?

This is nothing but a gift of free publicity from Fox News to the Republican Party. When will the Federal Elections Commission realize that Fox is acting on behalf of the GOP and force it to report these in-kind donations on their financial disclosure forms?

The Sick Sense: Allen West Sees Communist People In Congress

Posted by on April 11, 2012 at 11:55 am. 5 Comments :

Allen West - Fox Nation

It doesn’t get any more bizarre and disgusting than this. Florida congressman, and Sarah Palin’s choice for Mitt Romney’s running mate, Allen West, has once again uttered something so ridiculous you can’t help but wonder if he is deliberately engaging in some sort of performance art. Let’s go to the videotape:

Moderator: What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or International Socialist?

West: It’s a good question. I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Perhaps West would like to reinstate the House Un-American Activities Committee. Maybe he has a list of communists in his hand he would be willing to share with us. Would he like to start blacklisting people again? That went over so well the first time.

Allen WestAllen West is a certified whack-job. It is utterly unfathomable how he could have been elected in the first place, and it boggles the mind to imagine that he might be reelected in November. The folks promoting him as a vice-presidential candidate (Herman Cain joined Palin) are lunatics. West has not even completed his first term in the House and already he has racked up a repulsive record of vile commentaries that rely heavily on references to Nazis.

Among those promoting West are the propagandists at Fox News. Their Fox Nation approvingly posted this video and their readers posted comments that praised West for his “courage.” To be clear, they are referring to the courage to make wild, unsubstantiated accusations about the treasonous subversiveness of his colleagues in congress. And if you’re concerned that he might have been taken out of context, his spokesperson helpfully clarified what he meant:

“The Congressman was referring to the 76 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The Communist Party has publicly referred to the Progressive Caucus as its allies. The Progressive Caucus speaks for itself. These individuals certainly aren’t proponents of free markets or individual economic freedom.”

Well then, that clears that up. If this guy is reelected there is something seriously wrong with Florida’s 22nd congressional district. Anyone who wishes to help retire West can visit these sites:

Patrick Murphy for Congress
Take Down the Tea Party Ten

Murdochalypse Comes To America: Is Fox News Next To Fall?

Posted by on April 11, 2012 at 9:47 am. 1 Comments :

MurdochalypseThe scandal that is devouring Rupert Murdoch’s international media empire has thus far resulted in numerous arrests of public officials in Britain and top-level Murdoch executives. It led to the closure of Murdoch’s tabloid, News of the World. It tarnished the reputations of the Murdoch ruling family to the point that the once heir apparent, James Murdoch, was forced to resign from the chairmanship of both News International and the British Sky Broadcasting satellite network.

This cesspool of criminality and debased ethics has grown from what News Corp once tried to dismiss as a “single rogue reporter” to a corporate-wide syndicate of corruption. Nevertheless, News Corp has somehow managed to contain the damage to its European assets. That is quite a feat considering that any reputation for misbehavior on the scale seen here ought to rub off on the rest of the enterprise responsible for it. The main sticking point has been that the scandal had not crossed the Atlantic to America.

Well that shield may have just been pierced. Mark Lewis, a British attorney who has represented several figures in the News Corp hacking affair, including the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, is coming to America with a caseload that includes alleged victims of Murdoch’s Mafia who are citizens of the United States. The Daily Beast reports that…

…Lewis confirmed for the first time that he plans to file three separate lawsuits on behalf of clients who believe their phones were hacked while they were on U.S. soil. At least one of the cases, Lewis adds, involves allegations that the phone of a U.S. citizen was hacked.

If Lewis has American clients who were subjected to the same sort of illegal intrusions that were a core part of News Corp’s British operations, this is a whole new ballgame. Even though the national borders ought not to protect Murdoch from repercussions arising from his sleazy business practices, that protection will become moot if it is proven that the same activities were perpetrated on these shores.

It remains to be seen if Lewis has the goods on Murdoch, but it is hard to believe that disreputable press entities like Fox News and the New York Post would consider themselves above their British cousins, especially when many of the managers at the U.S. branches transferred to their stateside posts from the corrupt News International executive suites. And if Lewis doesn’t have the goods now, he may shortly acquire them as the investigation continues.

Even though this scandal has already ensnared News Corp executives and English police officials and politicians, it may just be beginning to heat up. Stay tuned.

Tea Party Marine Gary Stein Lies To CNN

Posted by on April 10, 2012 at 11:37 am. 3 Comments :

Last week Gary Stein, the Marine sergeant who runs the Facebook page Armed Forces Tea Party, was found to have violated military rules of conduct when he made hostile remarks directed at his commanders, including his commander-in-chief, President Obama. The board hearing his case ruled unanimously to recommend an “other than honorable” discharge for Stein and he is now awaiting a final decision from the base’s general.

As if he weren’t already in enough trouble, Stein appeared on CNN this morning for an interview with Soledad O’Brien where he was given the opportunity to defend his behavior. In response to a question from O’Brien, Stein somehow thought it would advance his position to blatantly lie.

Gary Stein CNN

Stein: First of all let’s talk about those comments. Those comments were made on a closed forum. They were up for five minutes, which we found out from testimony in the hearing. And only three people saw them. In fact the only reason anybody has a picture of those posts or knows what those posts are is because a Marine master sergeant decided that he was gonna take a screen capture and send it out to God knows who.

This is shockingly stupid on Stein’s part because the truth is so easy to verify. Stein’s assertion that the comments were made on a closed forum is rebutted by the fact that the forum is still available and is wide open for anyone on Facebook to access. His claim that the comments were up for only five minutes is rebutted by the fact that some of them, including one specifically cited by O’Brien (pictured above), are still there weeks later. And he must surely know that his comments were seen by more than three people because they have “Likes” and responses attached to them (note the 114 “Likes” and 32 responses on the image above). Finally, that image was not sent to me by a Marine master sergeant. I captured it myself on Stein’s Facebook page, and so can you.

So Stein’s remarks on CNN were entirely, and certifiably, false. That dishonesty is surely going to be apparent to anyone reviewing his case. It is startling that his attorney, sitting next to him for the whole interview, permitted him to be so brazenly deceitful on national television.

That brings us to the identity of his attorney, Gary Kreep, of the United States Justice Foundation. Kreep’s biography reveals that he was the general counsel to the racist, anti-immigration group, The Minutemen. He has been affiliated with the radical and violent anti-choice group, Operation Rescue. He was a California delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1976 and 1980. He was also the creator of the “DefendGlenn” web site launched to counter the opposition to Glenn Beck that eventually led to his ouster from Fox News.

Most notably Kreep has been a leader of the “birther” movement that seeks to nullify Obama’s election on the grounds that he is not a U.S. citizen. Kreep has been one of the most vocal proponents of the birther myths going back to at least November 2008, when he tried to prevent California delegates to the Electoral College from casting their votes. He originally worked with birther queen, Orly Taitz, representing several clients, including Alan Keyes. He later replaced Taitz as counsel to birther litigant “Rev.” Wiley Drake. Drake is notable for publicly praying for the death of President Obama.

When a man like Drake selects you to represent him, over Orly Taitz, that is quite an endorsement. It is likewise revealing that Stein should retain Kreep out of all the lawyers available to represent him. He received help during his discharge hearing from the ACLU, and Tea Party organizers FreedomWorks are rallying support for his dubious cause. Yet the best he can do for legal representation is this Kreep (and how ’bout that tie?).

[Update] On April 25, 2012, the Marines formally discharged Stein as the commanding general of the base accepted the administrative board’s recommendation for discharge.

The James O’Keefe Crew Commits Voter Fraud Again

Posted by on April 10, 2012 at 3:07 am. 4 Comments :

In his obsessive campaign to demonstrate that there is rampant voter fraud in America, James O’Keefe once again proves that the only fraud being perpetrated is by himself and his cohorts.

James O'KeefeThe latest in a series of comically lame videos features one of O’Keefe’s minions entering a polling place in Washington, D.C. and requesting the ballot for Attorney General Eric Holder. This is a ruse that O’Keefe’s camp has tried before with similarly pointless results.

By requesting a ballot in the name of someone else, the O’Keefee proved that he could break a law that has severe penalties including fines and imprisonment. The notion that enough scofflaws to sway an election would expose themselves to such risk is preposterous. What the O’Keefee did not prove is that there is any evidence of such criminality taking place. That’s what is so dishonest and lazy about this sort of stunt. A legitimate journalist would not waste time pretending to commit a crime that is not being committed by any actual criminals. A legitimate journalist would attempt to document whether any such crimes were actually occurring and what effect they have had on elections. In fact, such journalism has been conducted and revealed that the problem being hyped by O’Keefe is practically non-existent.

This phony exercise by the O’Keefee is something like walking into a convenience store, pulling out a banana and demanding all the cash from the register, then posting the video of the “robbery” online along with a conclusion that holdups at banana-point are a serious national problem and that laws must be enacted to prevent them. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, there are very few banana-related crimes, and the act of pretending to commit one is not an argument for stricter law enforcement to protect innocent citizens from felonious fruit.

Advocates of voter ID laws often insinuate that opponents are in favor of voter fraud. They ask, with all the sincerity of a snake oil peddler, why anyone would oppose such laws. Then they refuse to actually listen to the answer. If there any of them reading this, here is the simple answer that you are so desperate to avoid: Enacting laws that will have the effect of preventing as many as 21 million eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote, in order to prevent barely a handful of illusive fraudulent votes, makes no sense from the perspective of either law or democracy.

The voter ID laws proposed by conservatives only make sense if your goal is to disenfranchise voters who have difficulties acquiring IDs that satisfy the arcanely crafted laws – typically students, seniors, and low-income citizens. It’s a tactic that amounts to stealing elections by not permitting your political adversaries to cast ballots.

The hackneyed and irrelevant stunts performed by O’Keefe and company provide no justification for denying the voting rights of millions of Americans. They only serve to further embarrass O’Keefe and expose him to additional criminal penalties such as those to which he pleaded guilty in Louisiana.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Nuking The Fact Checker

Posted by on April 9, 2012 at 2:02 pm. 5 Comments :

I have previously noted the often hilarious overuse of hyperbole by the dimwits at Fox Nation. Today they deliver additional proof that they don’t really know the meaning of the words they use.

Fox Nation

The Fox Nationalists are referring to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker column. The Post analyzed remarks by President Obama about the Supreme Court that the rightist media is twisting into absurd allegations of threats and ignorance of constitutional law. But a reading of the Post’s article reveals something short of a nuking. In several places the Post outright validates the President’s points:

The Post affirms Obama’s claim that…

“…the Supreme Court hasn’t overturned a sweeping law in quite some time. By ‘sweeping,’ we mean statutes that apply to virtually all citizens, as the Affordable Care Act does.”

The Post agrees with Obama on the economic substance of the ACA.

“The court affirmed Social Security under Congress’s Constitutional power to tax, while the Affordable Care Act deals with something different: the power to regulate commerce. As such, the health law involves an economic issue, just as Obama noted.”

The Post certifies that Obama was correct in saying that the Court overturning the ACA would be extraordinary.

“Many of the right-leaning legal experts we talked to acknowledged that the modern Supreme Court has largely — but not entirely — shown deference to Congress when it comes to such matters.”

The Post takes the President’s side on the question of whether prior cases were applicable due to their having a focus on economics or commerce.

“[T]he government lost two such cases during the Bill Clinton years. It argued unsuccessfully in U.S. v. Lopez (1995) that possession of a firearm at school constituted economic activity, and in U.S. v. Morrison (2000) that violence against women affected interstate commerce. Those cases dealt with economic matters, right? Not technically. The Supreme Court determined that the laws didn’t involve commerce at all.”

The Post notes that Obama was correct in his assessment of the Court’s deference to Congress.

“Obama correctly noted that the Supreme Court has shown more deference to Congress since the 1930s when it comes to economic legislation, but he said the court has upheld such statutes without exception ever since. This is only true in a very narrow sense.”

This is Fox Nation’s impression of having been nuked by the Washington Post. In fact, the Post gave Obama two Pinocchios, which they define in part as “using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.” I’m not sure how the President could have made his case about a legal issue without resorting to legalistic language, so the Post is being somewhat obtuse in their rating.

But one thing is certain, there was no nuking going on. That’s just an effort of the part of the Fox Nationalists to inject a negative spin and hope that their audience doesn’t read the article for themselves (which they don’t have to worry about considering the incurious, dittoheadedness of their audience).

National Review Writer’s Racist Notion of ‘Intelligent, Well-Socialized Blacks’ (IWSB)

Posted by on April 7, 2012 at 2:29 pm. 7 Comments :

The excerpts below are from an article titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version” by John Derbyshire. It is presented by Derbyshire as a rebuttal to the conversation many African-American parents have with their kids to help them avoid trouble with racist people or institutions they may encounter. However, the only thing that Derbyshire accomplished was to expose his nauseating prejudice and ignorance. Be prepared, as you read this, for some of the most repulsive rhetoric you will ever hear outside of a Klan lynching.

(9) A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming.

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.

(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.

(13) In that pool of forty million, there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks. (I’ll use IWSB as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice.

Derbyshire is a writer for the conservative National Review. It is incomprehensible that they could keep him on the payroll after publishing this disgusting piece of trash. While some of their staff and editors have criticized Derbyshire, there is no indication that he will be terminated, suspended, or otherwise held accountable.

The first consequence for this atrocious column should be for Derbyshire to be forced to forfeit any IWSB’s he may have acquired. Then he should be forever associated with an acronym that better suits him: Ignorant Racist White Fuckwad (IRWF). [Note: African-Americans are not required to collect IRWF’s as amulets or for any other purpose.]

[Update] National Review does the right thing and fires Derbyshire.