Day: 8/1/2013

Fox Nation vs. Reality: The IRS Commish On ObamaCare

Posted by on August 1, 2013 at 7:35 pm. 4 Comments :

Fox News must have a battalion of glassy-eyed interns locked up in a basement somewhere watching congressional hearings all day to find snippets of testimony that they can deceitfully distort. And one of those scalawags is gonna find an extra lump of high fructose corn syrup in his satchel for this one:

Fox Nation

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault on Truth

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), the Commissioner of the IRS, David Werfel, was asked a question regarding the application of the law to IRS staff. Texas Republican Rep. Sam Johnson asked, “Why are your employees trying to exempt themselves from the very law that you’re tasked to enforce?”

To be clear, the issue was not really about any request to be exempted from the existing terms of the law. It was actually about an amendment offered by another Republican, Dave Camp of Michigan. Camp’s proposal would force federal workers into ObamaCare exchanges, and out of the federal health care plans they currently have. So what the IRS employees were requesting was that Camp’s amendment be rejected so that they could keep the plans they are on now, which is what President Obama had intended in the bill as it was passed. Camp’s attempt to amend the bill would profoundly alter the impact it would have on federal employees. Not surprisingly, they opposed this change, as did Commissioner Werfel who responded saying…

“[W]e have right now, as employees of the government or the IRS, affordable health care coverage. I think the ACA was designed to provide an option or an alternative for individuals that do not. And all else being equal, I think if you’re an individual who is satisfied with your health care coverage, you’re probably in a better position to stick with that coverage […] I would prefer to stay with the current policy that I’m pleased with rather than go through a change if I don’t need to.”

Exactly. The President has said many times that one of the features of ObamaCare was that people who were satisfied with their current plan would be able to keep it. Those without coverage, or who were not satisfied with the coverage they had, would have the option of shopping for a plan through the new exchanges. The effort by the GOP to screw with that formula was designed to sabotage the whole program.

So contrary to the false quote by the Fox Nationalists, the IRS commissioner never said that he didn’t want ObamaCare. He was saying that he didn’t want the Camp amendment that would force him and his department into a situation where they had fewer options than the law presently provides.

This is all a part of the larger strategy that the GOP is deploying to sabotage ObamaCare before it even gets underway. That strategy includes forty meaningless votes in the House to repeal the law, threats to withhold funding for it, and amendments to cripple or deform it. And, as always, Fox News is ready to lend a hand with any misinformation and propaganda that they might need.

Seriously? Fox News Complains About Liberal Media Attacking Fox News

Posted by on August 1, 2013 at 2:14 pm. 6 Comments :

The Fox News interview of Reza Aslan, author of Zealot, was one of the most pathetic displays of journalistic bias and incompetence in recent memory. The interviewer, Lauren Green, has been roundly and deservedly criticized for her amateurish attempt to ambush her guest and foment a fake controversy. The response from media professionals has been been nearly unanimous that Fox botched the affair.

However, Fox, true to form, stiffens their back and refuses to accept responsibility for an embarrassing episode and slink away with some sense of humility. They have characteristically fought back with ferocious intensity, defending their anchor and slandering their guest. Numerous articles have already appeared on FoxNews.com, but the full-on blitzkrieg took place on the air with anchor Shannon Bream fluffing the head of the uber-rightist Media Research Center, Brent Bozell.

Bozell led off his sycophantic exculpation by declaring that “I’ll be the first one to applaud Lauren Green for the question that she asked.” Bozell insisted that it was entirely appropriate to impugn Aslan repeatedly while ignoring any actual discussion of his book. He further asserted that Aslan should have confessed to having a bias, saying that…

“If he is going to take the attitude that he is just a scholar, he just happens to be Muslim, that he really doesn’t care about this issue so much, he’s not a very good Muslim.”

Bozell, a devout Catholic, may not be the best person to make that judgment. But more to the point, Aslan is indeed taking the attitude that he is a scholar who happens to be Muslim. Therefore, according to Bozell, he is not biased. Bozell actually seems to be complaining that Aslan isn’t more deferential to his faith, in which case he would be a “good” Muslim and biased. But Aslan isn’t cooperating with Bozell’s conspiracy theory.

As for anchor Shannon Bream, she could not have been more complicit with Bozell’s determined smear tactics. She opened her report saying…

“It started out with very far-left media questioning Lauren, criticizing her, saying she shouldn’t have asked the question, or that it was any of her business what his prerogative may have been on writing the book. It then trickled out into more and more mainstream media and it’s taken on a life of its own – the discussion about Lauren versus the book or the author.”

In point of fact, not a single critic ever suggested that Green should not have asked Aslan about his faith or his motivation. The criticism was that she never stopped asking about it. She obsessed over it despite his having answered her several times. Then Bream has the gall to complain that the story in the media was more focused on Green than on the book. That’s exactly what Aslan complained about throughout Green’s ridiculous interview.

The blockheaded incoherence exhibited by Green, Bream, and Bozell, was illustrated perfectly by the graphic that Fox displayed during Bozell’s segment. It read, “Liberal media attacks Fox reporter.”

Fox News
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In case you’ve been stationed on a lunar base for the past several years, Fox whining about attacks from the liberal media is evidence that their cerebral cortexes have atrophied. Fox has been on a non-stop campaign of attacking every other media outlet as dishonest, dangerous, even treasonous, since the day they launched. Fox’s slogan, “fair and balanced,” is itself an assault on the integrity of their competitors. For a sampling of how Fox deals with their media peers…..

  • Liberal media spin Benghazi scandal to protect Team Obama
  • Scandals raise new questions about liberal media bias
  • Gosnell had an accomplice in murders — the liberal media
  • Liberal media will ‘shut you down, stab you, kill you, fire you’ if you disagree
  • Liberal media lash out at Romney for daring to criticize Obama
  • Liberal media lavish praise on Obama but mercilessly mock Rubio
  • Did Liberal Media Plot Against Sarah Palin?
  • Bias Bash: Liberal Media slam possible conservative suitors
  • Bozell: Liberal Media Censoring Information About ObamaCare
  • Liberal media attacks as Woodward ‘threat’ seen as political threat to Obama
  • What the Liberal Media Are Missing
  • Racism charges a first-class way for liberal media to attack
  • Liberal media’s hateful obsession with Sarah Palin
  • Liberal Media Admits ‘The Democrats Have Lost on Sequestration
  • Liberal Media’s Dilemma Covering Obama’s Libya Decision
  • The Liberal Media’s Assault on Christianity
  • Opinion: The Liberal Media Loved Obama To Death
  • Liberal Media Panic Reaches Boiling Point

This list could go on and on. And it doesn’t even include the personal attacks leveled by Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, the Fox & Friends crew, etc. Fox spends more time on attacking the rest of the media than they do on reporting the news. But to be fair, they hardly ever report actual news, so that isn’t a particularly revealing criticism.