Month: November 2012

Dog Whistling: The Meanstream Media Forecasting Of Election Results

Posted by on November 5, 2012 at 11:30 am. 3 Comments :

There may be just one day to go, but that is no reason for the right-wing media to relax their incessant campaign of unhinged babbling and racial insults.

No one should be surprised by Fox News hammering away at their fervent anti-Obama diatribes. This morning they have ramped up their attacks on Obama for everything from Benghazi (which they compare to Watergate) to Hurricane Sandy (which they compare to Katrina). Needless to say, their comparisons only make sense to people who have had their frontal lobes removed.

In addition to this fictionalization of the news, much of the conservative press is rushing to publish their predictions of tomorrow’s election results. In this area they are just as delusional as they are in their so-called “journalism.” The big, all-cap headline at Fox News is that “ROMNEY WILL WIN.”

Fox Nation Romney Will Win

These prognostications emanate from a group of pundits who hold the Olympic record for being wrong. Karl Rove, Michael Barone, Dick Morris, and George Will, all claim that, not only will Romney prevail, but he will win by a landslide. If I were Rove, Barone, or Will, I would change my prediction just because prostitute toe-sucker, Dick Morris, agreed with me. But the general sense of over-confidence on the part of these pundits proves that they are more interested in trying to produce a result than in honestly forecasting one.

On the other side, the conservative U.S. News and World Report consulted their own pundit for a considered analysis and prediction for this historically significant election:

US News Kenyan Witch Doctor

So there you have it. USNews went all the way to Kenya to find someone they could quote with a prediction calling for Obama to win. Of course, there are hundreds of domestic political analysts they could have consulted for the same response, but apparently it was more important to blow that birther dog whistle and associate Obama with a foreign and pagan philosophy.

By the way, that’s also what Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan is doing in his recent statement about the path Obama is leading America down:

“It’s a dangerous path. It’s a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty, and compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, western civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place.”

This sounds exactly like the late campaign desperation rhetoric of Sarah Palin when she started yammering about Obama “palling around with terrorists.” It’s the rhetoric of a campaign that knows it is going to lose.

SUCK IT MITT: Voting IS The Best Revenge

Posted by on November 4, 2012 at 10:09 am. 14 Comments :

In yet another example of the juvenile mental capacity of Mitt Romney, he is once again obsessing over a single word extracted from a speech by President Obama. This time Romney is flabbergasted that Obama would encourage supporters to vote by advising them to eschew negative outbursts and direct that energy to getting themselves and others to the polls.

The now familiar refrain is “Don’t boo, vote,” to which he added “Voting is the best revenge.” Romney appears to be unable to comprehend the meaning of that statement. He thinks it has something to do with actual vengeance and retaliation. In fact, it is a paraphrasing of the well-known aphorism “The best revenge is living well,” that first appeared in the Hebrew scripture, the Talmud, over two thousand years ago. It’s meaning is unmistakably positive in that it advocates a rejection of vengeful behavior in favor of a more productive focus on improving one’s own lot in life.

Nevertheless, Romney latched onto these remarks like a frenzied piranha. He demonstrated his inability to employ rational reasoning skills and his preference for childish tantrums and name-calling. He literally escalated his rhetoric to another attack on Obama’s patriotism by misquoting the President and then countering the misquote saying, “Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country.” So Romney thinks that Obama and his supporters (at least half of the population) don’t love their country. That’s not really a surprising position for Romney who also said that half the nation are moochers that it’s not his job to care about.

The Romney campaign has made it their mission to mangle the President’s words throughout this election cycle. It is a strategy that he resorts to because he is unable to make a positive argument for his candidacy. Here are some examples of the low-brow context mangling that Romney has made the centerpiece of his campaign:

“You didn’t build that.” This is a deliberate misquoting of Obama who was actually referring to roads and bridges, not the private businesses that Romney has tried to imply were the subject of the remarks.

“The private sector is doing fine.” This is another misrepresentation where Obama was correctly making a relative comparison of the private sector, which has grown over the past three years, to the public sector, which has been shrinking.

“We tried our plan and it worked.” Here Romney deliberately asserted that Obama was referencing his own record and implying that it had achieved complete success. In fact, Obama has consistently said that more needs to be done and this comment was plainly referencing the success of the Clinton era policies as opposed to the failure of the GOP’s years under Bush’s policies.

“[Obama] removed the requirement of work from welfare.” Romney made this accusation that is directly refuted by the facts. What Obama did was to permit waivers for states that could affirm their progress in moving people from welfare to work, and allowing them flexibility to enhance their programs. It’s a modification that Romney himself had requested when he was governor of Massachusetts.

“I actually believe in redistribution.” This was purposefully clipped from a much longer statement wherein Obama was praising entrepreneurs and the free market, while also seeking to improve the parts of government that provide services like schools, roads, etc.

Of course, Fox News has been instrumental in helping Romney to advance these phony messages. And that is true in this most recent case as well. The “revenge” scandal has been plastered all over Fox News and its web sites. They have no problem with these infantile tactics because it fits so perfectly with the stunted maturity level of their remedial audience.

For the record, Obama is in good company paraphrasing the “best revenge” meme. Here are some others who have found it to be a useful vehicle for expressing a positive course of action:

  • The Talmud: The best revenge is living well.
  • Benazir Bhutto: Democracy is the best revenge.
  • Frank Sinatra: The best revenge is massive success.
  • Ivana Trump: Looking good is the best revenge.
  • Marcus Aurelius: The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

That last one is particularly appropriate. Obama would do well to heed that advice and be as unlike Mitt Romney as possible. And here is a handy, shareable version of this information to disseminate to your friends and family to inspire them to vote on Tuesday:

Voting is the Best Revenge

Fox News Voter Fraud Reporting Leaves Out Pertinant Data

Posted by on November 3, 2012 at 3:38 pm. 2 Comments :

For years Fox News has been fear mongering about voter fraud activities that are almost non-existent. Despite their fixation on the subject, they have failed to identify any significant violations in sufficient volume to impact election outcomes. Most of their examples involved registration irregularities that could never have resulted in unlawful votes.

Today Fox News reported on an actual case of attempted voter fraud. However, as usual, it was not a credible attempt that had any real prospects for success. The attempt was thwarted by routine checks and balances and the culprit was arrested. But Fox’s reporting was somewhat incomplete.

Fox News Voter Fraud

That’s right. As reported in the Las Vegas Sun, the culprit is a registered Republican. It was not merely an oversight for Fox to neglect to identify the party affiliation of this fraudulent voter. It is a part of their mission to associate such activity with Democrats. When they reported about ACORN (who were never found to have committed any crime) Fox meticulously noted their association with Democrats and progressive issues. But that attention to detail subsides when the crime is committed by a Republican. And the result of that bias is evident in the comments that can be found on Fox’s web site.

Fox probably regards this as an example of their successful editorial policies. They must be so proud that their audience exhibits such open hostility and racism, not to mention ignorance. And the ignorance is entirely credited to Fox. How can those poor, unsuspecting racists be expected to know that the objects of their insults are Republicans if Fox doesn’t tell them?

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post Prints Racist, Pro-Assassination Cartoon – Again

Posted by on November 3, 2012 at 11:37 am. 9 Comments :

OK, so the New York Post is a puerile, dishonest, sensationalist rag. But how on earth could anyone have approved this cartoon for publication?

New York Post Racism

You might think that a cartoon depicting President Obama as the bug-eyed prey fleeing fearfully from a stallion-mounted Romney, who is armed to the teeth, would have given a major metropolitan newspaper editor pause. You would be wrong, particularly if the newspaper is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an ultra-conservative propagandist who will do anything to manipulate an election.

The racist overtones of that cartoon should have been noticeable to anyone who even glanced at it. It practically shouts recollections of slave owners chasing runaway slaves. And even setting aside that repulsive message, the cartoon presents a wholly unsavory theme of violence directed the President.

What could have possessed the editors of the New York Post to publish this offensive garbage? And why hasn’t it stirred more of reaction from the public? If this were an isolated incident it would be bad enough, but three years ago a similarly themed cartoon made it into the pages of the Post:

New York Post Stimulus

And by the way, it was the same cartoonist, Sean Delonas, who did both of these racist, pro-assassination, pictorial diatribes. It is just inconceivable that this sort of thing is considered appropriate and that a paper like the Post can get away with it. There ought to be consequences and, hopefully, the people of New York will impose them.

Fox & Friends Bashes NBC’s Sandy Telethon: Is It A Hurricane Benefit Or A Concert For Obama?

Posted by on November 2, 2012 at 3:21 pm. 9 Comments :

The compassionate cast of petulant pundits on Fox & Friends bashed the efforts by NBC and a collection of celebrities to raise money to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy. Their complaint is that the program might have a positive effect on the campaign of President Obama. And to prevent any possibility of that, Fox thinks the benefit should be called off or delayed.

Great idea. Let’s just forget about the millions of people struggling to provide for their families without power or clothes or food or homes. They can wait another week or two until we’re certain that the President won’t get any ancillary afterglow from the charity program. After all, what’s more important? Taking care of people whose lives have been turned upside down by a natural disaster, or placating heartless Republicans who are against helping people in the first place?

These weasels turn my stomach. And in case you thought it might just be limited to the imbeciles on one Fox News program, Fox also published a story saying much the same thing on their web site. That story quoted only a right-wing PR executive and a VP of the uber-conservative Media Research Center. No one from NBC or any artists representatives were allowed to comment. However, Fox did include comments from anonymous Tweeters who shamefully advocated boycotting the benefit. Seriously, they want to boycott a charity event for hurricane victims. What’s next? Picketing cancer survivors? Tripping blind people? And all of this unsympathetic bombast is being spewed prior to the event when none of these critics know what will take place, or who will participate.

Typical right-wing, knee-jerk opposition to any project that might help people. Brought to you by the same folks who opposed Social Security and Medicare, and now want to see those programs scrapped in favor of vouchers and private sector solutions so that businesses can profit from other peoples misery. Which, by the way, is precisely how Mitt Romney proposed to deal with disaster relief.

Succumbing To Desperation: Fox News’ Loony Last Days Of The Election

Posted by on November 2, 2012 at 12:24 pm. 4 Comments :

As hard as it seems to believe after an interminably long and divisive campaign, election day is upon us in just four short days. And with momentum shifting toward President Obama, Fox News is pulling out all the stops to find something – anything – to smear the President and grease the skids for Oily Mitt Romney. But this is getting ridiculous…

Fox Nation Smears

These articles are bordering on Dadaist absurdity in their wild flailing about for subjects of attack. If anything, this only makes Fox look more desperate and childish than they usually do.

For Fox to note that there are New Yorkers who are still struggling with the devastation of Superstorm Sandy is not exactly news. Every projection of the impact of the storm prior to its arrival made it clear that there was going to be severe damage and that recovery would take weeks, if not months. But to ask “Where’s Obama,” as if he should be delivering cans of soup from the back of a van is ludicrous. The truth is that Obama’s federal response is managing a variety of agencies working on restoration of power, cleanup, rebuilding, and rescue and medical attention. On top of that, CNN reported that…

“The federal government shipped one million meals Thursday to New York, where National Guard troops were distributing them to people in need, [New York Governor Andrew] Cuomo told reporters.”

Obama has cut red tape to declare disaster status and accelerate aid. And he has been universally praised by the local authorities, including political adversaries like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Where’s Obama? Right where he should be – in charge and showing leadership.

The other daft article by Fox was a reporting of a column from the Daily Caller, a right-wing rag run by Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson. The headline snidely asks if Obama had a grade-point average of 2.6 while at Columbia University. But as if to refute their own brash slander, the second paragraph of the story says…

“The 2.6 grade can’t be confirmed, is contradicted by some evidence, and it doesn’t say anything about the courses, professors and associations Obama was immersed in during his two-year stay in Columbia.”

They why fu heck print it? This is the lengths that the right will go to tarnish the President on the eve of the election. It has nothing to with his record, his leadership, or his vision for the future. It reaches back twenty years to speculate about something that they admit they have no evidence of. However, if they are determined to bring up Obama’s academic history they could just mention that he graduated from Harvard Law Magna Cum Laud. That’s verifiable and a clear indication of his scholastic excellence. It’s interesting that Fox continues to be obsessed with Obama’s decades old school files but isn’t the least bit interested in Mitt Romney’s tax returns, which are far more relevant to the question of fitness to serve as president.

Fox News NewsBustersThis sort of reporting brings Fox down to the level of the broadly ridiculed “challenge” by Donald Trump to ransom Obama’s academic records in exchange for five million dollars. The tone of Fox’s reporting just keeps getting sillier. That may be because they have handed off their editorial duties to the uber-conservative Media Research Center and their comically inept NewsBusters. Recently Fox stacked their op-ed page with content exclusively acquired from MRC/NewsBusters. Fox seems to have outsourced their opinion pages to one of the most partisan GOP flacks in the nation. The four articles featured were by Noel Sheppard, Tim Graham, Clay Waters, and Dan Gainor, all MRC/NewsBusters hacks.

This actually isn’t too surprising considering that Fox’s former chief anchor, Brit Hume, effusively credited MRC when he retired from the anchor desk saying…

“I want to say a word, however, of thanks to Brent and the team at the Media Research Center […] 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.”

Just four more days. Thank God. How much more preposterous do you think Fox can get in that brief window of opportunity? Will we see articles blaming Obama for extreme weather catastrophes? Will they charge him with murdering American ambassadors? Will they find his Kenyan passport in a shoebox along with love letters from Hugo Chavez? Don’t rule it out. Desperation causes strange and deranged behavior. And Fox is already exhibiting symptoms of Obama Dementia Disease (ODD).

Hilarious MoveOn.org Video Rankles Right-Wing Prudes

Posted by on November 1, 2012 at 10:11 am. 5 Comments :

A new video produced by MoveOn.org with help from Michael Moore is causing some right-wingers to reach for the smelling salts. The rest are falling off their chairs with outrage and frothing criticisms. What has them so unraveled?

OMG! Old people cussing. The world has finally succumbed to Satan’s call. What better evidence is there that Armageddon is imminent?

This little video is generating thousands of views, and millions of guffaws, across the InterTubes, but in the realm of the right it is stirring nothing but anxiety and outrage. It has been featured on Fox News on at least three programs: America Live with Megyn Kelly, Hannity, and the O’Reilly Factor. All of these “news” alerts castigated the video with vitriol usually reserved for terrorist bombings or Obama sightings.

Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly both brought Fox News “Democrat” Kirsten Powers on to fulfill her mission of pretending to be a liberal while bashing her alleged allies. As the representative of the left she responded to Kelly’s leading questions saying “I don’t know why Michael Moore would do it, but even worse, I don’t know why MoveOn.org would be associated with it.”

Far worse, however, was Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo segment that he titled “Threats From The Far Left.” In his feverish denouncement of the video he said “So now the far left is threatening violence if President Obama loses the election.” Then he charged that President Obama is “culpable” for the video because he hasn’t condemned it. Really?

Someone needs to inform O’Reilly that this video is what we humans like to call “comedy.” It is not threatening any actual violence. For a demonstration of actual threats, just visit the Fox News community web site, Fox Nation. There you will find Fox fans literally yearning for Harry Reid to die; for Nancy Pelosi to have her skull crushed; cheering Arlen Specter’s death; advocating the assassination of President Obama. Since O’Reilly has never condemned these remarks he must be regarded as culpable for them.

The zealous acrimony expressed by these puritanical louts is almost as funny as the video. They clearly have a hard time discerning the difference between comedy and reality. And that may explain why they are unable to see the humor in this video but they can take Mitt Romney seriously.

ADDENDUM: For an idea of what the Fox News crowd thinks is funny, note this item posted on Fox Nation:

Fox Nation

The rating given to this article by the Fox Nationalists is “Funny.” Apparently they regard bad news for American businesses and workers as a joke. These cretins actually celebrate the hardships of fellow citizens. For the record, Fox failed to note that GM’s earnings statement was actually better than analysts expected and the stock rose almost 10% after the release. It was an indication of an improving economy. But that didn’t stop Fox from latching on to what they could spin as bad news and lifting the hearts of their America-hating audience.