Day: 6/22/2014

ISSA HYPOCRISY: Lost IRS Emails vs. Lost Bush White House Emails – Part 2

Posted by on June 22, 2014 at 3:16 pm. 2 Comments :

Last week News Corpse published a story detailing the hypocrisy of Fox News for hyperventilating over allegations of lost emails by the IRS when they said nothing about millions of lost emails by the Bush White House during investigations of improper firings of U.S. Attorneys and the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Even worse, one of those bashing the the Obama administration was Fox News host Dana Perino who, at the time of the Bush email affair, was Bush’s press secretary and personally defended losing the emails.

Now the web of hypocrisy is growing even wider. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Fake Scandal Committee, has been leading the attack on President Obama over the missing IRS emails, despite the fact that there is not a shred of evidence that the President was in any way involved with the email or the broader IRS controversy over the scrutiny given to political groups applying for tax-exempt status. Issa recently convened a hearing specifically to investigate the lost emails and declaring that the administration has “some ‘splainin’ to do.”

Darrell Issa Hypocrisy

It’s rather amusing that Issa is taking such a hard-line stance on the matter since it is such a distant position from the one he held in 2008, when he sought to dismiss any notion of scandal by blaming the computer software used to archive the email. Mother Jones reported at the time that Issa…

“…did his best to play down the extent of the Bush administration’s now well-documented email archiving problems. Defending the White House’s decision to switch from the Lotus Notes-based archiving system used by the Clinton administration, Issa compared the the software to “using wooden wagon wheels” and Sony Betamax tapes.”

Issa accused then-committee chair Henry Waxman of leading a “fishing expedition” and telling Waxman that “You have no mandate to go Peeping Tom into every piece of information.” Considering Issa’s multiple investigations into the IRS, ObamaCare, immigration, and, of course, Benghazi, if Waxman was a Peeping Tom, then Issa is an acutely perverted stalker with dangerously sociopathic tendencies.

In other IRS email related news, Ed Henry of Fox News raised the issue at a White House press briefing when he asked outgoing press secretary Jay Carney “What happened to Lois Lerner’s email?” Carney’s answer should be the benchmark for any further inquiries by Issa or any other agent of the Republican inquisition. Carney said…

“IT professionals worked to restore Lerner’s hard drive but were unable to do so. Nonetheless, the IRS has or will produce 24,000 Lerner e-mails from this 2009-2011 time period largely from the files of the other 82 individuals. So I think that answers your question that they are engaging in an effort to find e-mails in the absence of being able to restore the hard drive. […]

“Chairman Camp, as you know, requested e-mails to and from the White House. We were asked if we would produce them; we did, in fact, do a search for all communications between Lois Lerner and any person within the Executive Office of the President for this period. We found zero e-mails — sorry to disappoint — between Lois Lerner and anyone within the EOP during this period. We found three e-mails where a third party e-mailed both Lois Lerner and officials within the EOP. One was a spam e-mail and two others were from a person seeking tax assistance. Each of these e-mails has been produced to Congress.”

So the administration has taken extraordinary measures to retrieve the missing emails. They have searched servers and the computers of possible recipients. They have done everything that the harpies on the right have been badgering them to do. And they have had some measure of success in that they recovered and delivered tens of thousands of emails from the time period requested. What more is expected of them?

AT&T and Verizon users: Stop funding the Tea Party.
Switch to CREDO Mobile, the progressive cell phone company, today!

Obviously, the critics in congress and the press don’t really care about results. They only care about stirring up controversy and fake outrage. That’s how Dana Perino can defend her boss, George Bush, for losing millions of emails and then hammer the IRS for a similar problem. And that’s how Darrell Issa can dismiss Bush’s email disappearances as a computer glitch, but accuse Obama of engaging in a criminal cover up. And the only reason they get away with it is because the media doesn’t do their homework and inform the public in a fair and thorough manner. And making it worse is that some in the media (e.g. Fox News) deliberately misinform the public to advance their partisan agenda.

Fox Nation Follies: The “Stupid People Are Ruining America” Edition

Posted by on June 22, 2014 at 9:30 am. 13 Comments :

We at News Corpse will risk life and limb to ride the rapids of the ridiculousness that emanates from Fox News, but there are times when the flow is difficult to keep up with. At times like these it may be necessary to compile some of the most significant stories into one article. But rest assured, we will always persevere in order to bring you, our readers, the critical information that you need to get through your busy day. You’re welcome.

First out of the gates is a ripe bit of nonsense from pizza magnate, and former GOP presidential front-runner, Herman Cain. Cain spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference last week. This is an affair produced by Christian Coalition founder, and Jack Abramoff accomplice, Ralph Reed. The competition for “Most Ludicrous Comment” is stiff at this conference that hosted rightist luminaries like Michelle Bachmann, Ted Cruz, and Rick Santorum. It’s the classy sort of gala where one can find Obama figurines in urinals. But it was Cain who came away with the zinger of the week:

“I have even heard people say, ‘Well I don’t vote because I don’t know what’s going on.’ And I say good. Stupid people are ruining American and I’m glad some of them stay home. The solution is real simple folks. Those of us who are informed have got to out-vote the stupid people.”

Exactly! What this nation needs is more people like Herman Cain deciding America’s fate at the polls. After all this is the man whose encyclopedic knowledge of the world gave birth to the state of Uzbeckibekistanstan. And the coverage of Cain’s comedy routine at the conference provided additional examples of the not-stupid by the geniuses at Fox Nation:

Fox Nation Herman Cain

The Fox Nationalists also reached out to their ideological allies at Infowars, Alex Jones’ ultra-fringe conspiracy theory website, to find an article that alleged that border agents were resigning en masse over their objections to foreign-born gang members being allowed to freely invade our peaceful, white, Christian neighborhoods. These alleged gangsters were reputed to be coming from the ranks of the immigrant children being housed at federal facilities while awaiting deportation or unification with their families.

Fox Nation Infowars

The problem with this story is that the local newscast from which it was derived interviewed a border patrol union official who said only that some of his agents were suffering from low morale and were looking for other jobs, but that none had quit. He was also asked how many gang members he estimated were crossing the border. His answer was “A few, not too many,” thereby dispensing with the whole false premise of the article. And the photo in the Fox Nation posting is of gang members in Central America who have nothing to do with the current crisis of minor children immigrating unaccompanied into the U.S.

But what’s really troubling is that the Fox Nationalists saw fit to cite Infowars as the source for their disinformation. And this isn’t the first time. They have previously sourced articles to Infowars with similarly absurd reports. For instance:

  • Homeland Security to Purchase 141,000 Rounds of Sniper Ammo
  • Ex-TSA Screener: Officers ‘Laughing’ At Passengers’ Nude Images
  • DHS Video Characterizes Terrorists as White Americans
  • TSA Deploys Weiner Watchers at Super Bowl
  • Anarchists Plan War on Tea Parties April 15th

For more examples of Fox Nation’s lying ways…
Get Fox Nation vs. Reality. Available now at Amazon.

Finally, Fox News has shamelessly exploited the terrorist attack in Benghazi for their craven political objectives. In the process, they have tried to cast Hillary Clinton as responsible for the tragedy and uncaring about the consequences. However, it is Fox, and their right-wing cronies, who have sullied the memory of those killed in the service of their country. Fox, and their GOP pals, has even used the deaths as a means of raising money for Republican organizations.

Now another example of that callousness is on display on Fox Nation. Jason Mattera, a blitheringly idiotic wingnut who has carved a reputation out of embarrassing himself by attempting to embarrass others in foolishly contrived ambush videos, makes an appearance in a new video where he approaches Hillary Clinton at a book signing. When Clinton asks for his name, Mattera asks that she make it out to Christopher Stevens, the murdered ambassador who was also a friend of Clinton’s. Clinton refused his crass request and politely dismissed him saying “I think it would be great if you read.” the book. Mattera then made a couple of snarky remarks about Clinton’s security, who quickly ushered him away. However, he did successfully demonstrate how to disparage the memory of fallen patriots in pursuit of self-serving publicity.

And that’s today’s episode of the Fox Nation Follies. We hope you enjoyed the parade of repugnant imbeciles that populate the Fox newsroom. And with any luck, Herman Cain’s vision for America will come to pass and the sort of dimwits who make up the Fox News/Tea Party audience will stay home in November and stop wrecking the country for the rest of us.