Day: 6/12/2013

On Fox News GOP Rep Lies, Accuses Glen Greenwald Of Threatening To Out CIA Agents

Posted by on June 12, 2013 at 6:40 pm. 3 Comments :

Remember when Fox News was OUTRAGED at the possibility of the United States government prosecuting a reporter for doing his job? It was only a couple of weeks ago. At that time their own James Rosen was revealed to have been conspiring with an employee of the State Department to acquire and publish classified documents concerning sensitive operations in North Korea.

The news of Rosen’s involvement in the matter, and the government’s investigation of him, sent Fox News squawking heads into a tizzy. They complained loudly and repeatedly that it was unconscionable that a reporter would be subject to such an unthinkable burden merely for doing what any respectable reporter would do under the same circumstances. Never mind the fact that Rosen was not conducting routine investigative reporting. He was caught persuading a source to break the law in order to advance his own political agenda. He literally told his source that he wanted to “force the administration’s hand.”

Fox News

Well, that commitment to the First Amendment was decidedly short-lived. Today on Fox News, Megyn Kelly hosted GOP Rep. Peter King to discuss King’s remarks regarding Glen Greenwald, the reporter who broke the NSA story. King had previously said that he believes that Greenwald should be arrested and prosecuted for his reporting. When Kelly gave King an opportunity to clarify his position, King said…

“In this case, when you have someone who has disclosed secrets like this and threatens to disclose more, then to me yes, there has to be…legal action should be taken against him. […] No right is absolute. Obviously, freedom of the press has to be cherished in this country, but in this case where some people are glorifying Snowden and making him a hero, and now acting as if Greenwald was a legitimate journalist.”

Kelly sought to make the connection between Greenwald and Rosen, asking King if there was a difference. King thinks there is:

“James Rosen never said he was going to release information that was going to kill Americans. He was never going to release the names of CIA agents and operatives around the world.”

Well, as Greenwald noted today on “All In with Chris Hayes,” he never made any such threat. He further insisted that he doesn’t even know the names of any covert CIA agents or operatives. King’s accusation was entirely made up. But that didn’t even matter, because when Kelly asked him if Greenwald should be prosecuted for anything he has already done, rather than something King is afraid he will do in the future, King responded in the affirmative.

Throughout this interview there was no sense of outrage, no horror that a government official – the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee no less – was advocating the prosecution of a reporter for doing his job. There was none of the indignation that Fox showed for Rosen expressed for Greenwald. There wasn’t even any push back at King’s allegation that Greenwald was threatening to take actions that would kill Americans, an allegation that if proven could result in Greenwald being executed for treason.

This is about as clear a demonstration that Fox’s concern for freedom of the press is a charade. They couldn’t care less about the First Amendment except in situations where they can exploit it for political advantage. Greenwald is a legitimate journalist (unlike Rosen who is a political operative), but when his rights are threatened by a lying congressman, Fox News thanks the congressman and moves on to their next story. Remember that the next time somebody on Fox pretends to be shocked by some scandalous event in the news.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Impeach Obama Rally Causes 10 Mile Yawn

Posted by on June 12, 2013 at 3:41 pm. 6 Comments :

The folks at Fox Nation must be getting pretty desperate for any slime to fling Obama’s way. Clearly the parade of phony scandals has failed to convince the President to resign and join a Muslim monastery, so they are grasping for ever shorter straws in an effort to break Obama’s back.

Today the Fox Nationalists reported that an “Impeach Obama” rally in Southern California organized by confirmed birther had snarled traffic for 10 miles.

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First of all, anyone who has ever driven in Southern California knows that there are very few 10 mile stretches of highway that are not snarled at almost any time of day. That said, the particular claim in this case was easily disproved by photos supplied by the source for the story. One glance shows that traffic was moving fairly well. It also shows that the rally was a pathetic affair that brought out only six or seven nutcases who were unable to articulate an actual reason to impeach the President. Their signs carried unrelated messages concerning Benghazi, immigration, guns, and something about cults. This also further confirms earlier reports that these Teabaggers have not gained any ground in the wake of recent political melodramas.

The organizer was long-time birther, Roger Ogden. He has been advocating for Obama’s impeachment for years. He continues to believe that the birth certificate the White House posted was a fake. He also defends comparing Obama to Hitler and the Nazis. I’m not sure whether Ogden is a LaRouche follower, but there was at least one LaRouche sign at the rally.

I don’t particularly care what a loser like Ogden does on his spare Saturday mornings, but the fact that Fox News saw fit to feature this non-event on their web site says something about how frantic they are to invent a new controversy. But what made them think that a lame handful of wingnuts on a freeway overpass would have a better chance of stirring up trouble than the pseudo-scandals that have already flopped, I’ll never know.

Tea Party Groups Suing The IRS Never Suffered Any Harm

Posted by on June 12, 2013 at 10:29 am. 14 Comments :

The more we learn about the IRS allegedly targeting Tea Party organizations for political purposes, the more it appears to be a thinly disguised scam by conservatives to whip up phony scandals in order to tarnish President Obama and his administration.

Never mind the fact that every named IRS employee connected to the alleged targeting just happens to be a Republican, today, Mother Jones Magazine has done the journalistic legwork of examining the pending lawsuits filed by the various Tea Party groups and has found that they are mostly frauds with little chance of success in the courtroom. The Mother Jones article goes into detail about why these cases are unlikely to prevail, but one of the key revelations sheds light on how suspect their motives really are.

Tea Party
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The most high profile of the cases is the one brought by uber-rightist legal publicity hound Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice. He has assembled 25 Tea Party groups into an action seeking both administrative and financial relief. The problem is that he is suing under a provision that addresses cases where applicants were seeking tax-exempt status for donations (501c3), but whose applications were denied or delayed. However, 23 of the 25 plaintiffs were not seeking tax-exempt status at all. They were merely applying for non-profit status (501c4). Therefore, the delays (there were no denials) would not have harmed the organizations fundraising ability because they were never structured to give donors a tax break.

That is a significant discovery because these hoaxters have been whining for weeks that their efforts to raise money were hampered by the IRS actions. As it turns out, there was nothing stopping them raising funds other than the fact that most Americans were repulsed by their extremist, right-wing agenda.

In addition, the complaints of the Teabaggers reveal that the IRS had good cause to subject them to extra scrutiny. They openly admit their belief that the IRS actions contributed to the electoral losses of Mitt Romney and other Republicans who may have won if these groups were not hamstrung by bureaucracy. But not only was there nothing preventing them from engaging in their work, their admissions show that they were, in fact, political operatives and not entitled to preferential tax treatment.

So once again, reality has encroached on the designs of the Tea Party to position themselves as “social welfare” organizations with no political motives. From the start they were deeply entangled with the Republican Party and their mission was always to advance GOP candidates and policies. And now we see that they are abusing the legal system for undeserved relief and for, of course, publicity. Expect these cases to be dismissed in short order, after which the Teabaggers will bellow some nonsense about the liberal courts denying them justice.