Day: 9/26/2012

Conservative Leaders Urge Their Followers To Become Even More Stupid

Posted by on September 26, 2012 at 12:53 pm. 5 Comments :

It has been proven in multiple studies that consumers of conservative media (particularly Fox News) are significantly less knowledgeable about current affairs than those who favor other media or even those who consume no news at all.

Nevertheless, it is conservatives who whine incessantly about an illusionary liberal media bias. It is astonishing how they can convince themselves that these giant, international, multi-billion dollar, conglomerates are somehow aligned to a socialist ideology that would rob them of their wealth and independence.

As if the present ignorance of the right-wing masses were not already disturbingly severe, a group of conservative organizations and authorities just issued an open letter calling on their minions to “Tune out the Liberal Media” and cease their exposure to the evil leftist press. The letter enumerates a set of perceived grievances and concludes with this desperate appeal:

“We the undersigned – representing millions of Americans from our respective organizations – are now publicly urging our members to seek out alternative sources of political news in order to make an intelligent, well-informed decision on November 6.”

Oh great. Now the least informed segment of society is being coerced to voluntarily make themselves even more stupid by constricting their media access to a narrow and partisan assemblage of right-wing propaganda and blind conservative boosterism. That’ll help.

The aforementioned list of grievances in the letter is a tired collection of debunked conspiracy theories, misrepresentations of news events, and Republican talking points. Certainly the audience to whom the letter is directed has already been sufficiently misinformed on these matters. So what goal do the letter’s co-signers have in beseeching their readers to abstain from watching a more diverse selection of media? The only plausible purpose is to insure that they remain untainted by alternative viewpoints so that they can be more easily manipulated by their conservative masters. Obviously there is some lack of confidence in the ability of conservatives to digest broad-based information and make up their own minds.

The signers of the letter are a who’s who of right-wing disinformation, starting with the head of the uber-rightist Media Research Center, Brent Bozell. Other notables include Gary Bauer, President of Campaign for American Values; Matt Kibbe, President and CEO of FreedomWorks; Laura Ingraham, National Radio Host; Amy Kremer, Chairman of Tea Party Express; Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council; and, of course, Rush Limbaugh. These are the people who are complaining about bias in the media? And their appeal was posted as a news story on the front page of the Fox News web site where there has never been a hint of bias.

Fox News Bias Alert

I think it’s a great idea to sequester the lunatic fringe to an asylum inhabited by their own kind. Then they won’t bother the rest of us with their delusions of Kenyan usurpers, climate science deniers, and fables of Jesus riding on dinosaurs. They can amuse each other with their shared distortions of reality, listen to Ron Paul books on tape, and swap stories about their gold coin collections and dehydrated survivalist dinner packets.

We’ll be here taking care of things while they’re gone, and tending to the problems of the real world. Should they ever decide to rejoin us they will find history, and diversity of opinion still in tact.

Fox News Promotes Disreputable Voter Intimidation Campaign, True The Vote

Posted by on September 26, 2012 at 3:30 am. 1 Comments :

For many months now, Fox News has been on the case of alleged voter fraud in America. And notwithstanding the fact that they have utterly failed to turn up any evidence of more than a handful of incidents (usually implicating Republicans), they persist in presenting it as a rampant crisis that threatens our democracy.

The latest example of this stain on journalism is an article Fox published yesterday about the discredited and disreputable Tea Party-affiliated band of voter intimidation activists, True the Vote. The headline for the article declares that “Voter watchdog says it’s uncovered absentee ballot fraud in Florida, New York.” This is precisely the sort of garbage that has earned Fox a reputation for demeaning professional journalism and violating ethical standards of practice. The article begins by stating that…

“A national voter fraud watchdog group announced Tuesday that it has uncovered at least 31 cases of absentee ballot fraud in New York and Florida — a finding the group claims is ‘just the tip of the iceberg.'”

That’s it. That is pretty much the whole article. There is nothing further that substantiates the claim by the “watchdog” group. There is no production of evidence. There is no affirmation from the state election agencies of New York or Florida. There is only a claim by True the Vote that their investigation yielded a massive trove of 31 voters whose names allegedly appear on the voter rolls of both states. But there is no indication that any research was done to ascertain whether they may have been different people with the same or similar names. So far as can be determined from the article, the voters themselves were not contacted.

So Fox News did precisely nothing to validate the assertions made by True the Vote. Yet they published the claims as if they were newsworthy. In effect Fox is acting as their press release publisher and as such have no obligation to verify any of the article’s content.

That’s convenient because True the Vote has never provided any documentation for their claims of election fraud. They have been operating for a couple of years after having spun off from a Texas Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots. They have been found guilty of conspiring with the Republican Party to provide in-kind contributions that were a violation of the law and cost them their tax-exempt status. And that history must be what Fox relied upon to give them the credibility of publishing their unsubstantiated allegations.

Fox News is using this hoax to further their phony campaign against non-existent election fraud and in support of voter ID laws that are designed to disenfranchise voters who happen to lean Democratic. It should be noted that the claims of fraud in this article are related to absentee ballots and would not have been prevented by any of the new laws, even if they were proven to have occurred. It is also noteworthy that the discovery of a mere 31 incidents would hardly justify purging voter rolls of millions of eligible citizens and thus denying them their right to vote.

In light of this, the only explanation for Fox publishing this story without even a cursory investigation into the substance, is that Fox News has signed on with True the Vote and is acting on their behalf. They are doing their part to prevent millions of seniors, minorities, students, and veterans, from casting votes this November. And that’s the real election fraud.

Republicans know that they can’t win this election fairly, so they are pulling out all the stops to corrupt the process and infringe on voter’s rights. And Fox News is a willing partner in this anti-democratic operation.