Month: October 2012

More Obama Assassination Fantasies From The Scum At Fox Nation

Posted by on October 17, 2012 at 9:06 pm. 2 Comments :

This is getting ridiculous. The Fox News community web site, Fox Nation, just keeps posting repulsive items that invite the puerile trash who congregate there to exhibit their homicidal lust for President Obama’s demise. Below is the headline for an article Fox Nation cribbed from the Washington Post’s Romney flunky, Jennifer Rubin. However, while Rubin’s article was pedantic and dishonest, it did not say anything about Obama “Dig[ging] His Own Grave.” The Fox Nationalists invented that theme themselves and their readers quickly slobbered up.

Fox Nation

It’s shocking that a major “news” organization permits, and even encourages, this sort of discourse. It reveals much about the people who make these comments, and also about Fox News for providing them the platform. It is certainly not an expression of patriotism. In fact, wishing death on the American president is more in line with the sentiments of an Al Qaeda jihadist. These people clearly do not love their country or the principles for which it stands. And by “these people” I mean Fox News.

Fox News, Daily Caller, Admit That Fox News Is Not A Legitimate News Outlet

Posted by on October 17, 2012 at 12:26 pm. 1 Comments :

One of Mitt Romney’s most reality-detached comments of this campaign came when he declared that “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” The Olympian ignorance of that remark says a lot about Romney’s elitist upbringing and orientation. The truth is that thousands of people die every year due to lack of health care coverage – more than 26,000 in 2010. And it isn’t just people who get sudden illnesses in their apartments, but people who have untreated and/or undiagnosed problems that lead to more severe disorders and fatalities.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman addressed this matter in an editorial where he thoroughly demolished Romney’s preposterous theory:

“Even the idea that everyone gets urgent care when needed from emergency rooms is false. Yes, hospitals are required by law to treat people in dire need, whether or not they can pay. But that care isn’t free — on the contrary, if you go to an emergency room you will be billed, and the size of that bill can be shockingly high. Some people can’t or won’t pay, but fear of huge bills can deter the uninsured from visiting the emergency room even when they should. And sometimes they die as a result.

“More important, going to the emergency room when you’re very sick is no substitute for regular care, especially if you have chronic health problems. When such problems are left untreated — as they often are among uninsured Americans — a trip to the emergency room can all too easily come too late to save a life”

This is just common sense to everyone except Romney. But the part of Krugman’s article that is causing controversy came at the end:

Fox Nation - Krugman

“So let’s be brutally honest here. The Romney-Ryan position on health care is that many millions of Americans must be denied health insurance, and millions more deprived of the security Medicare now provides, in order to save money. At the same time, of course, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. So a literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.”

The outrage generated by this was expressed in a column by Daily Caller contributor, Jim Huffman. However, there is nothing in Huffman’s retort that attempts to rebut the substantive assertions by Krugman. He never bothers to counter the argument that thousands of Americans are at risk due to deficient or non-existent coverage. The entirety of his pique is aimed at a single sentence that Huffman interprets as Krugman alleging that Romney wants people to die.

First of all, Krugman’s statement actually refers to Romney’s “plan” that would have the effect of producing unnecessary deaths, not Romney’s personal bloodlust. But the more interesting part of Huffman’s article comes at the beginning where he writes…

“We all have heard, or read on the Internet, claims that President Obama is a Marxist and/or a Muslim extremist who wants nothing more than the downfall of America, and that he is willing to sacrifice American lives and prosperity to these ambitions. Maybe the few folks making those claims actually believe them, but there is not a shred of evidence they are true. In fact they are so preposterous no legitimate news outlets would report them as anything but the unsubstantiated nonsense they are.”

Apparently Mr. Huffman has never watched Fox News, or even read the web site his column appears on. Either that or he is admitting that Fox News and the Daily Caller are not “legitimate news outlets,” which would make more sense. Fox personalities from Glenn Beck to Eric Bolling to Sean Hannity, and more, have made overt references to President Obama as a Muslim, a Marxist, a socialist, a communist, a Kenyan, a racist, etc. And the Daily Caller, a web site run by Fox contributor Tucker Carlson, is every bit as bad. Huffman’s attempt to portray those ludicrous sentiments as the product of insignificant blogs backfires in the face of the truth: That the most prodigious disseminater of those vile lies is the heart of the right-wing media and the highest rated cable news network, Fox News.

The clincher is that Huffman’s article now appears st the top of the Fox News community web site, Fox Nation. So we have the unique circumstance of Fox News featuring an article that exposes Fox News as an illegitimate news source. That may be the first thing that Fox News has gotten right in sixteen years.

11 Mitt Romney Debate Lies For Journalists To Highlight (But Probably Won’t)

Posted by on October 17, 2012 at 1:39 am. 2 Comments :

Media Matters has compiled a list that is a good starting point for the media to address the lies Mitt Romney told during the town hall debate last night. The problem is that the press is so timid and accustomed to dishonesty on the part of Romney that they don’t consider it news and thus ignore it. After all, the Romney campaign has already stated publicly that they won’t let their campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.

Romney Fact-Checkers

Here’s the list from Media Matters (click the link for the complete documentation and rebuttal).

  1. His Tax Plan Will Create 12 Million Jobs
  2. Oil Production Is Down On Federal Lands Under Obama
  3. He Wants To Increase Pell Grants
  4. He Advocated For Same Auto Bankruptcy Obama Used
  5. Obama To Blame For High Gas Prices
  6. Obama Will Raise Taxes On Middle Class By $4,000
  7. Gun Rights Group Was Onboard With Assault Weapons Ban
  8. Obama Promised 5.4 Percent Unemployment
  9. Obama Doubled The Deficit
  10. Obama Went On An Apology Tour (This one was a PolitiFact “Pants-on-Fire” lie)
  11. Obama Did Not Call Benghazi Attack An Act Of Terror

One notable lie that was left out was Romney’s assertion that he had sought out women for his administration when he became governor of Massachusetts. This was the part of the debate where he coined the now legendary phrase “Binders Full of Women.” As it turns out, his tale was another tall one that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Best Debate Moment:

Sketchy Deal

GOP Voter Suppression Struck Down By The Courts Again – That’s 7 Straight Victories So Far

Posted by on October 16, 2012 at 3:58 pm. 4 Comments :

This election cycle has been stained by some of the most cynical and anti-democratic legal maneuvers ever perpetrated on the American public. Over the past few years, in states where Republican governors assumed power, they quickly set about abusing their position in order to corrupt the democratic process and deny citizens the right to vote.

One Vote

The methods used by the GOP included partisan redistricting, inhibiting registration, curtailing early voting, purges of voter rolls, and discriminatory voter ID procedures. Most of these gambits were described by conservatives as prudent measures to protect against voter fraud. However, they were never able to demonstrate that voter fraud was a problem calling out for a solution. In fact, experts have conducted studies that proved that such fraud was nearly non-existent. In the meantime, these new policies resulted in millions of legitimate citizens being at risk for losing their access to the ballot. In almost every instance it was Democratic-leaning constituencies who were adversely affected: minorities, seniors, students, and those with low-income.

Fortunately, these oppressors were challenged by civil libertarians and grassroots activists who took the vote-killers to court. The result has been an unprecedented string of legal victories that are restoring the Constitutional rights of citizens who want to participate in their democracy. Today the Supreme Court refused to alter the ruling of an Ohio court that restored early voting to all residents. Here is a list showing that and other recent court rulings that have put the brakes on the Republican initiative to suppress the vote:

The one message that can be derived from this is that the law is on the side of the people. When would-be tyrants strive to deny Americans their rights, the courts are a reliable resource for restoring the rule of law. Of course, this is not always the case, and there is still a lot of work to be done. And certainly the advocates of silencing the voice of the people have not terminated their efforts to shut citizens out of the process.

Amongst the most difficult fights ahead are the challenges to Citizen’s United, the court decision that paved the way for wealthy individuals and corporations to buy elections. If money is speech, as the Supreme Court ruled, then our Democracy is reduced to “one dollar, one vote,” and the rich get more speech than the rest of us. Corporations and multimillionaires should not have a greater voice in the government than the millions of citizens it was designed to serve.

Overturning Citizen’s United must be among the top priorities going forward. We will never be able to achieve our goals if we can’t have fair elections that represent the will of the people. As we approach election day, it is important to recognize that one of the best reasons for voting to reelect President Obama is to insure that the Supreme Court isn’t handed over to right-wing extremists who will dilute our civil liberties.

Rupert Murdoch Calls The Celebrities He Hacked ‘Scumbags’

Posted by on October 15, 2012 at 10:04 am. NO Comments :

It’s hard to know whether this is a case of a bitter and repugnant old man lashing out at his perceived enemies, or an example of TWS (Tweeting While Senile). This weekend Rupert Murdoch Tweeted:

“Told UK’s Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws. Trust the toffs! Transparency under attack. Bad.”

Rupert Murdoch Tweet Scumbags

Murdoch was referring to a group of people connected with Hacked Off, an advocacy group concerned with the unethical practices of the media, particularly with regard to the invasion of privacy that was at the heart of Murdoch’s British newspaper operation. The News of the World was shuttered as a result of these practices following the disclosure that it’s staff had hacked into phones of hundreds of people, including a murdered schoolgirl.

Among those who spoke with Prime Minister David Cameron were actor Hugh Grant and singer Charlotte Church, both of whom were Murdoch’s hacking victims. For him to have unlawfully violated their privacy and now call them “scumbags” says a lot about his abhorrent lack of decency. What’s more, his use of the slang word “toffs” demonstrates a massive level of hypocrisy (according to WikiPedia, a toff is “someone with an aristocratic background or belonging to the landed gentry, particularly someone who exudes an air of superiority.”

This bizarre behavior by the head of a multinational media conglomerate is even more disturbing when noted that he is resorting to this childishness as an attack on efforts to reform the media so that abuses like those he engaged in cannot harm others in the future. When Murdoch was summoned by Parliament to answer for the hacking conducted by his company, he seemed to offer an apology. But the sincerity of that has to be called into question when he now calls his victims scumbags. In what other business would a CEO be permitted to get away with that and not be compelled to resign? [Note: The News Corp annual shareholders meeting will be held later this week in Los Angeles, where Murdoch is expected to be under more pressure than ever as many U.S. pension funds and others are voting against his bid to remain CEO is challenged]

On a side note, Murdoch also had an interesting Tweet yesterday:

“Extreme inequality bad, and worse over last 4 years. Close tax rackets ((eg carried interest) and improve opportunity for all with schools. “

Rupert Murdoch Tweet Inequality

Really? One has to wonder then, why does Murdoch support Mitt Romney, a candidate for president who is the embodiment of “extreme inequality;” a candidate who personally benefits from “carried interest” tax loopholes; a candidate whose position on taxes would continue to advantage the wealthy who exploit carried interest and capital gains rules in the tax code; a candidate who espouses “trickle down” economics; and a candidate who proposes huge cuts to programs that help schools and increase educational opportunities?

Perhaps if Murdoch’s Fox News was not so fervently engaged in opposing reforms that would reduce inequality and help schools, we could make some real progress on those fronts. Murdoch takes disingenuousness and hypocrisy to new heights.

Libyan Ambassador’s Father: It Would Really Be Abhorrent To Make This Into A Campaign Issue

Posted by on October 14, 2012 at 3:39 pm. NO Comments :

From the day the news first broke about the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Republicans and conservative media have sought to exploit the tragedy and manufacture a scandal. Within hours of the initial reports Mitt Romney held a press conference blaming President Obama. Romney’s rash and irresponsible statements alleged that the administration had apologized to terrorists following the death of an American ambassador, even though the only statements made by the administration or the State Department were in response to protests and were issued before the attacks.

In the weeks that followed, the right has been feverishly attempting to invent a controversy, rather than showing a concern for the victims of for the conduct of a thorough investigation with the intent of bringing the perpetrators to justice. Partisan members of congress have held hearings designed to inflame emotions and disparage the President. Meanwhile, the press, led by Fox News, has been pumping out incomplete stories and pointing fingers without any evidence to validate their allegations.

Today, the father of Christopher Stevens, the slain ambassador, was interviewed by Bloomberg News and expressed his objection to the politicization of his son’s death:

The father of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed in the attack in Benghazi last month, said his son’s death shouldn’t be politicized in the presidential campaign.

“It would really be abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue,” Jan Stevens, 77, said in a telephone interview from his home in Loomis, California, as he prepares for a memorial service for his son next week.

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has criticized President Barack Obama for not providing adequate security in Libya, saying the administration has left the country exposed to a deadly terrorist attack.

The ambassador’s father, a lawyer, said politicians should await the findings of a formal investigation before making accusations or judgments.

“The security matters are being adequately investigated,” Stevens said. “We don’t pretend to be experts in security. It has to be objectively examined. That’s where it belongs. It does not belong in the campaign arena.” Stevens said he has been getting briefings from the State Department on the progress of the investigation.

Mr. Stevens went on to say that he “felt very strongly about Secretary Clinton,” and that he “never heard [Chris] say a critical word about the State Department or the administration, or any administration for that matter. He came up through the foreign service, not politics.”

Nevertheless, leave it to Fox News to do the abhorrent thing. Throughout their broadcast day they have focused obsessively on this issue. Every program has heaped heavy doses of their speculative reporting – or should I say gossiping, because there has been little actual news content in their stories. What’s more, they have presented a determinedly one-sided exposition of events. Fox Nation has posted dozens of items that they sensationalize as Benghazi-Gate, a wholly inappropriate analogy.

Fox Nation Benghazi-gate

Fox is not shy about exploiting family members of victims when it serves their partisan purposes. When the mother of Navy SEAL Sean Smith made some critical remarks about how the affair was being handled, Fox jumped in to feature her in exclusive interviews to expand on those criticisms. Jeanine Pirro hosted Mrs. Smith on her program for an extended segment that featured allegations that she had been lied to by the administration, and pleas for the truth that she alleged was being withheld.

Fox News Pirro

Interestingly, Fox neglected to report that the mother of slain Navy SEAL Glen Doherty explicitly requested that Romney stop talking about her son in his stump speeches saying, “He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda.” Likewise, Fox neglected to report on a close family friend of Doherty who refuted Romney’s tall tales about meeting Doherty at a neighborhood party. So it should come as no surprise that Fox has yet to note these new remarks by the ambassador’s father. Fox only thinks the feelings of friends and relatives are important when they reflect badly on the President.

It is indeed repulsive to see Romney and the GOP PR machine trying to score political points over this tragic event. Their biased presentation is obvious to any neutral observer. Every time they charge that Obama declined to give additional security to the embassies, they leave out the fact that the Republican congress voted to cut funding for such activities. They also leave out the facts that the additional security that was requested was only for the embassy in Tripoli, not the compound in Benghazi, and that the extra security would not have prevented attacks like those in Benghazi in any case.

While the legitimate investigation is continuing by reputable law enforcement authorities, the right should take the advice of the ambassador’s father and the SEAL’s mother. They should quite politicizing the deaths of Americans. It is a despicable act of insensitivity, selfishness, and disrespect for the victims and the process of justice. These people did not die to give Fox a cudgel with which beat the President or to give Romney a campaign attack line.

American Conservatives Who Still Think That Slavery Was A Good Thing

Posted by on October 14, 2012 at 10:02 am. 1 Comments :

Right-Wing RacismFor obvious reasons, the American conservative movement has long been dogged by accusations of racism and racial insensitivity. From their famed Southern strategy to their determined efforts to suppress minority voting via phony voter ID initiatives to their race-baiting Obama attacks, conservatives have made clear their opposition to a tolerant, multicultural America. In fact, much of their electoral strategy relies on scaring older, white voters about blacks and Hispanics taking over “their” country.

It’s not uncommon to hear a prominent conservative, even one who holds elected office, make patently offensive remarks, yet some occasionally hit an unimaginable low. This week, it was revealed that Republican Rep. Jon Hubbard has published a book in which he wrote that “[T]he institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise.” He defended his book on Wednesday, telling the Jonesboro Sun that he still believed slavery to be a blessing because it helped blacks come to America. Yes, he praised slavery. And when given the opportunity to backpedal, he doubled down.

This article was also published on Alternet

You may think that this does not occur often. You would be wrong. Here are a few other prominent conservatives who have suggested slavery was not all that bad.

1) Pat Buchanan
In his essay “A Brief for Whitey,” Buchanan agreed that slavery was a net positive saying that, “America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”

2 & 3) Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum
Bob Vander Plaats, the leader of the arch-conservative Family Leader, a religious organization that opposes same-sex marriage, got GOP presidential candidates Bachmann and Santorum to sign his pledge asserting that life for African-Americans was better during the era of slavery: “A child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

4) Art Robinson
Robinson was a publisher and a GOP candidate for congress in Oregon. One of the books he published included this evaluation of life under slavery: “The negroes on a well-ordered estate, under kind masters, were probably a happier class of people than the laborers upon any estate in Europe.”

5) Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson
Peterson is a conservative preacher who articulated this bit of gratitude: “Thank God for slavery, because if not, the blacks who are here would have been stuck in Africa.”

6) David Horowitz
Horowitz is the president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and edits the ultra-conservative FrontPage Magazine. In a diatribe against reparations for slavery, Horowitz thought this argument celebrating the luxurious life of blacks in America would bolster his case: “If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well, including the descendants of slaves.”

7) Wes Riddle
Riddle was a GOP congressional candidate in Texas with some peculiar conspiracy theories on a variety of subjects. His appreciation for what slavery did for African-Americans was captured in this comment: “Are the descendants of slaves really worse off? Would Jesse Jackson be better off living in Uganda?”

8) Trent Franks
Franks is the sitting congressman for the 2nd congressional district in Arizona. As shown here, he believes that a comparison of the tribulations of African-Americans today to those of their ancestors in the Confederacy would favor a life in bondage: “Far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery.”

9) Ann Coulter
Known for her incendiary rhetoric and hate speech, Coulter was right in character telling Megyn Kelly of Fox News that, “The worst thing that was done to black people since slavery was the great society programs.”

10) Rep. Loy Mauch
This Arkansas GOP state legislator has found biblical support for his pro-slavery position. He wrote to the Democrat-Gazette to inquire, “If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?”

There is an almost palpable nostalgia amongst some conservatives for a bygone era wherein they could sip Mint Juleps under the Magnolias while the fields were tended to by unpaid lackeys. And it isn’t a vague insinuation. Mitt Romney supporter Ted Nugent declared explicitly that “I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.” Allen West, the chairman of Romney’s Black Leadership Council, frequently portrays Democrats as plantation masters who want to enslave American citizens. And no one should regard it as a coincidence that so much of this racist animus has surfaced during the term of the first African-American president of the United States.

It’s one thing to harbor such offensive racial prejudices privately, but when people in public life are comfortable enough to openly express opinions like these, it reveals something of the character of their movement. And what’s worse is that conservative and Republican leaders, given the opportunity, refuse to repudiate the remarks. Mitt Romney has stated that all he’s concerned about is getting 50.1% of the vote, and if that means tolerating appeals to racist voters in order to attain his goal, then it’s just a part of the process. Conservatives often complain about being characterized as racists, but there’s a simple solution to that problem that would make it go away overnight: Stop being racist.

Fox News Knows Ryan Lost Debate, So They Resort To Distractions And Lies

Posted by on October 12, 2012 at 10:43 am. 3 Comments :

One of the best ways that experienced debate watchers know when one side has lost is if that side spends most of their time criticizing the moderator and/or the style of their opponent. That’s a clear sign that they believe they came up short on substance. And it’s precisely what Ryan’s side did from the moment the debate ended.

Twitter was buzzing with conservatives whining that moderator Martha Radditz was biased in favor of Biden, even though they had little evidence to cite for that assertion. Much of their complaining reached back twenty years to her 1991 wedding where President Obama was a guest of the groom. They conveniently wipe from their consciousness the fact that Radditz divorced Obama’s pal in 1997 and the unlikelihood that she would be inclined to do a favor for a friend of the friend of her ex-husband.

Fox News leaped to the aid of their client, resuming their role as PR agency for the GOP. And since they were no better able to attack on substance, they obsessively harped on Biden’s demeanor.

Fox Nation - Biden Smiles

They regarded his smiling and laughing as flaws that demonstrated disrespect for Ryan. But seriously, if that’s all they’ve got they might as well admit they were crushed by Biden’s command of the debate. In fact, it was clear that when Biden was laughing it was almost always in response to Ryan saying something that was blatantly false. Biden’s smile was a pretty good sign that Ryan had just lied. And had Biden remained straight-faced you can bet that he would have been castigated by the same critics as dour and unlikeable (sort of like Ryan).

Fox News also made an effort to skew the public reaction to the debate and, true to form, they outright lied. There were two post-debate polls conducted – one by CBS that showed Biden winning 50-32, and one by CNN that put Ryan ahead 48-44. Fox News reported that two polls placed Ryan in the lead.

Fox Nation Debate Polls

The way that Fox arrived at this conclusion was by including an online survey by CNBC. That was actually just a web question that could be answered by anyone who visited their site. It was not a scientific poll. In fact, while the numbers did put Ryan ahead (36-56) when Fox first reported them Thursday evening, later on Friday morning the same poll showed Biden leading (52-44).

CNBC Debate Poll

Nevertheless, Fox was still reporting the older numbers of this non-poll. When Steve Doocy brought it up on Fox & Friends he only mentioned that two polls favored Ryan. Then, when Brian Kilmeade noted a third poll by CBS, Doocy dismissed it saying that it was just a focus group with only 50 people. In fact, CBS conducted a conventional poll with 431 respondents. So Doocy lied to throw out CBS’s real poll while embracing CNBC’s fake one.

Much of the media followed the same course with Politico, The Guardian, The Daily Caller, The Washington Examiner, National Review, and Breitbart Nwes, all characterizing what CNBC posted as an actual poll. This tendency to promote dishonest information fits nicely in the GOP’s new post-truth era. Which brings us back to Paul Ryan, who did his part by dropping at least two lies during the debate that had previously been found to be “Pants-on-Fire” lies by PolitiFact. And not being a slacker, one of Ryans lies was actually the “Lie of the Year” in 2010. Nice work, Paul.

Biden/Ryan Debate: Paul Ryan Reprises PolitiFact’s 2010 Lie of the Year

Posted by on October 11, 2012 at 8:32 pm. NO Comments :

Pants on FireIt’s not enough for Republicans to merely lie after having set the bar for veracity so low this election season. Consequently, after Romney spent 90 minutes lying last week, Ryan had to aim higher. And boy, did he. He reprised the 2010 Lie of the Year per PolitiFact.

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: ‘A government takeover of health care’
Ryan: President Obama, he had his chance. He made his choices. His economic agenda, more spending, more borrowing, higher taxes, a government takeover of health care. It’s not working.

In addition to that, Ryan let loose another PolitiFact Pants-On-Fire lie:

Smallest Navy Since 1917
Ryan: If these cuts go through, our Navy will be the smallest — the smallest it has been since before World War I.

Republicans have been very upset at having been called liars lately. That’s despite the fact that Romney started it even before the first debate by projecting that Obama would lie. But I would advise them that if they don’t like being called liars, they should stop lying.