Month: January 2015

Bill O’Reilly’s Shameful Suck-Up To White Supremacist David Duke

Posted by on January 6, 2015 at 11:54 am. 7 Comments :

The brand new Republican Majority Whip, Steve Scalise, is still sweating out the controversy over his having spoken to a white supremacist organization as a candidate for office in Louisiana. The tale has taken some twists and turns with criticism coming from both Democrats and Republicans. Sean Hannity of Fox News even went so far as to call for the resignation of GOP Speaker John Boehner for defending Scalise.

The worst thing that can come of this melodrama is for it to lead to an increased media presence for David Duke, the overtly racist leader of the group to which Scalise spoke. But that is precisely what is happening. Duke first appeared on CNN with Michael Smerconish in a debate that provided little to no news value. And now, Bill O’Reilly added to Duke’s PR campaign by inviting him on to participate in a typical O’Reilly shouting match aimed more at producing ratings rather than knowledge. (Video below)

Bill O'Reilly - David Duke

However, what really made the O’Reilly segment disturbing is that O’Reilly spent most of it agreeing with Duke and took great pains to avoid calling him a white supremacist. Each time that the conversation provided an opportunity for O’Reilly to properly label Duke, O’Reilly seemed to chicken out in mid-sentence. For instance, there was this cowardly utterance by O’Reilly:

“Don’t sit there and tell me you’re not a white … your organization isn’t looking out for the white European race.”

What made O’Reilly stop short just as he was about to say “white supremacist,” and instead use the very words that Duke uses to describe himself? Duke’s entire phony persona is one of an advocate for the rights of European Americans who is not opposed to anyone else’s rights. Of course, the historical record, rampant with bigotry against blacks and Jews, shows that he is lying. So why did O’Reilly help to advance that facade? It gave Duke the opportunity to respond saying…

“I’m looking out for the rights of all Americans. I also believe that European-Americans shouldn’t be discriminated against in jobs or scholarships or any other way.”

To which O’Reilly responded “Yeah, alright,” in effect agreeing with Duke. That shouldn’t surprise anyone because it is a position that O’Reilly has taken himself as a long-standing opponent of affirmative action.

And that wasn’t the only time in the interview that O’Reilly agreed with Duke. Later Duke tried to make a derogatory association between the late Nelson Mandela and President Obama, implying that the President had affiliated himself with communists. There also, O’Reilly agreed and even bragged that he had reported that. Then Duke complained that the media had not reported Mandela’s alleged communist ties (which is false), which O’Reilly also agreed with saying “That’s because there’s sympathetic (sic) in the mainstream media for the left.” Duke replied “Exactly.”

If it isn’t bad enough that O’Reilly continually agreed with Duke, he made things worse by demonstrating a profound ignorance of culture and history. Duke asserted that he loved his (white) people and wanted to preserve his heritage. This confused O’Reilly and led to this idiotic exchange:

O’Reilly: Preserve your heritage? What does that mean?
Duke: You don’t know what European heritage is? You don’t know what Mozart is, and Bach, and Beethoven?
O’Reilly: They’re people. They come from different countries.

Indeed, they are people. O’Reilly nailed that one. However, they are all European people, and Mozart and Beethoven are both from the same country, Germany. Bach was from neighboring Austria (as was Hitler), but spent most of his professional life in Germany (as did Hitler). Duke did not raise these particular people accidentally, and O’Reilly managed to embarrass himself by his ignorance. Furthermore, O’Reilly didn’t bother to repudiate Duke’s closing comments that illustrated his antisemitism. However, he did take another opportunity to weasel out of calling Duke what he is:

“The one thing you said – I wanna get everybody on board with this – is that Congressman Scalise was scheduled – I’m not gonna say white supremacist – but he was scheduled to speak to your group.”

What is that O’Reilly finds so difficult about calling Duke a white supremacist? Why even bother to have him on the program if you’re going to let him off the hook? And how could O’Reilly find so many areas of agreement with him? The real question that all of this raises is: What does this say about Bill O’Reilly?

Get the ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

On Fox News: Protest BY Police is Honorable. Protest OF Police Is Pathetic

Posted by on January 5, 2015 at 1:08 pm. 13 Comments :

In another example of the acutely schizophrenic and brazenly prejudiced approach to journalism practiced by Fox News, two recent stories have revealed just how blatantly they peddle their hypocrisy.

Fox News

When members of the New York Police Department decided to express their political grievances with New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, they orchestrated the profoundly disrespectful tactic of protesting during the funerals of murdered officers. It was a repulsive strategy that heretofore was only engaged in by the nauseating disciples of the Westboro Baptist Church, whose protests at the funerals of American soldiers were repudiated by just about everyone across the political spectrum.

For some reason, Fox News, and other conservative media, flipped 180 degrees and voiced their support for the officers who turned their backs on the Mayor, turning events that were supposed to be memorials to slain colleagues into political rallies. The majority of Fox pundits and guests (including Bernie Kerik, the former New York Police Commissioner and convicted felon) had no problem with this display of self-serving partisanship at such solemn occasions.

Cut to a town hall in Oregon where a 100 year old World War II veteran was to receive a tribute for his service. During the event a group of citizens paraded through the room chanting “I can’t Breathe,” the iconic last words of police chokehold victim Eric Garner. Video of this protest was aired on Fox News along with a scornful commentary by anchor Heather Nauert who called the spectacle “Unbelievable,” while an on-screen graphic condemned it as “Harassing a Hero.” On the Fox News community website Fox Nation, they posted the item with the headline “PATHETIC: Ferguson Protesters DISRUPT Ceremony Honoring 100-YEAR-OLD Veteran.”

It needs to be noted that the vet’s tribute was just a part of a public town hall meeting where citizens are permitted to gather and be heard on a variety of local concerns. It was not a dedicated ceremony for the vet. What’s more, Fox Nation got the story wrong with the “Ferguson Protesters” label when they were actually referring to the the Garner killing in New York. On the other hand, the funerals for officers Ramos and Liu were specifically planned to pay respects to two cops who were brutally murdered in an unprovoked ambush.

So according to Fox News, it is unthinkable for citizens to attend a public meeting and express themselves on a matter that directly impacts their lives. But it is perfectly fine to disrupt a funeral in order to complain about political differences with a city’s mayor. This is reminiscent of how Fox News would glorify, and even help promote, the protesters associated with the Tea Party, but condemned and slandered those connected to Occupy Wall Street.

Get the ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

On Fox News a protest BY police officers attacking a liberal mayor is reported as honorable. But a protest OF police officers by citizens is condemned as pathetic. So the legitimacy of any protest as reported by Fox News is dependent on whether the participants are aligned with the network’s biases. And while Fox often complains about big government and tyrannical politicians, they seem perfectly comfortable with advocating for a police state that cannot be criticized or held to account.

Mike Huckabee Quits His Fox News Televangical Show To Explore Presidential Bid

Posted by on January 4, 2015 at 12:25 pm. 5 Comments :

2015 is only four days old and already there are at least three potential candidates explicitly expressing their aspirations to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. There’s Jeb “Shrub” Bush, Dr. Ben “Strangelove” Carson, and now former preacher, Arkansas governor, and Fox News evanga-pundit, Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee 2016

Huckabee’s path to the nomination would be blazed through the evangelical frontiers of the electorate and populated by social issues like marriage equality and reproductive freedom. As befitting a man of the cloth, Huckabee is devoted to faith-based governing and would echo Ronald Reagan’s famed inarticulate call to “Tear down that wall.” Except that he’d be talking about the wall between church and state.

Huckabee rejects evolution science in favor of creationism. He also regards Climate Change as a hoax and has hosted the Senate’s Pope of Denial, Jim Inhofe, on his Fox program. It is notable that while Huckabee now agrees with Inhofe, in 2007, before the Tea Party doctrinaires demanded total ideological compliance, he declared that “One thing that all of us have a responsibility to do is recognize that Climate Change is here, it’s real.” A few years later, and a stint on Fox News, and that responsibility, along with reality, has disappeared.

Perhaps the most foreboding thing about a Huckabee candidacy is his affinity for wild conspiracy theories that mirror those disseminated by Glenn Beck. News Corpse covered his certifiably deranged commentary in 2011 when he went full birther by stating as fact that President Obama had grown up in Kenya. Here is an excerpt from that article:

Huckabee: If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

Let’s stop for a moment and analyze this nonsense. First of all, there is ample evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii, including a birth certificate authenticated by the state. Secondly, there is no evidence to support the contention that Obama has any animosity toward the British. Thirdly, Obama’s father left the family when he was two years old, hardly enough time to influence him on foreign affairs, even if Huckabee’s assertions about Obama’s family were correct. Obama was subsequently raised by his mother and her parents who were from that mysterious, alien locale known as Kansas. So Huckabee’s thesis is riddled with holes and makes no sense whatsoever.

Where on earth would Huckabee get an idea like this? There’s really only one person who could manufacture such a fancy of dementia; only one mind so diseased: Glenn Beck. It was Glenn Beck who first popularized the notion that Obama hated the British because his grandfather (whom he did not know) had been imprisoned in England for his efforts to secure Kenya’s independence from the British crown. Gee, what other country did that? By Beck’s logic every American must also hate the Brits because they fought us in a brutal and deadly war of independence.

There is ample reason to oppose a Huckabee candidacy based solely on his extreme Christianist views. But when you add the sort of nonsense that fuels the fringiest wingnut outposts inhabited by the likes of Beck, Alex Jones, and the WorldNetDaily crowd, the only place for Huckabee in the political realm is on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club or as target of the Daily Show.

Get the ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Comic Relief: Fox News Runs Laughably Biased Report On Media Bias

Posted by on January 3, 2015 at 12:44 pm. 10 Comments :

Reminiscing about the year gone by is a favorite pastime of media outlets as the calendar turns the page to a new year. At the top of everyone’s list are lists – generally assembling the best or worst of some category of events. And Fox News is no different as they try to capture those things that resonated for the nation, or at least for their viewers.

However, being so devoted to misinforming their audience as they are, Fox couldn’t help themselves as they demonstrated an Olympian mastery of self-delusion and unintentional comedy. They chose for their topic a collection of what they called “The Worst of the Worst: Ranking the Most Bias (sic) Reporting of 2014”

Fox News

First of all, we can’t let it go by that Fox inadvertently provided the perfect description of themselves in the on-screen graphic for this segment. Either somebody wasn’t paying attention, or there is mole in the studio with a great sense of humor. Moving on…

For the cable network best known for manipulating news stories to fit their editorial obsession, Fox should have recognized the danger of looking foolish by feebly attempting to turn the spotlight around to others. But no, not Fox. They dispatched their crack Fox & Friends crew to tackle this precarious subject ignoring the risks. The segment (video below) was anchored by the recently re-hired Scott Brown, a Republican politician-turned-talking-head who is the only candidate in history to lose two races for the Senate in two years, running in two different states. And shortly after each loss, signing up with Fox News. His co-host was evanga-pundit Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a loser in her own right having been voted off of Survivor only to wash up on the island of Fox & Friends.

Hasselbeck opened the episode by declaring, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, that “It’s been a banner year for bias in the mainstream media.” Then she and Brown welcomed their guest, Genevieve Wood. She was introduced as a senior contributor to the Daily Signal blog. What they left out was that the Daily Signal is the propaganda arm of the ultra-rightist Heritage Foundation, where she has been a member of the senior management. Wood’s appearance was solicited because she was one of the judges for “The Worst of the Worst” awards presented by another fringy right-wing enterprise, the Media Research Center (home to NewsBusters, the lie-riddled, wingnut version of Media Matters).

It was in this atmosphere that the three orthodox conservatives set off to impugn the journalistic skills of their avowed enemies in the press. They began with a swat at the head of NBC News, Jeffrey Zucker, for his refusal to be bullied by Fox into covering the Benghazi hoax. Then came a swipe at CBS’s Scott Pelley, who earned his tribute for correctly reporting that ObamaCare did not result in job losses. Then they defended the family of their Fox colleague Sarah Palin who, with her daughter Bristol, had incited a drunken brawl at an Alaskan beer bash. And finally, they slammed Politico’s Roger Simon for a rather harmless and snarky Tweet.

In what they called a “banner year for bias” they managed to miss every serious incident of it. That may be due to that fact that most of it was occurring right under their noses in the Fox News studios. With a concerted effort to portray everything that President Obama did as a step toward Armageddon, and a devotion to overtly opposing any progressive policy, the Fox news-manglers demonstrated just how media bias is done: With a year-end ceremony hosted by staunchly activist right-wingers, bashing journalists they have long castigated as ideological foes. Is it possible that in 2015 there is still anyone who actually believes that Fox News is “fair and balanced?”

Get the ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Elitists At Fox News APPALLED That The Obamas Eat At A Fancy Restaurant

Posted by on January 2, 2015 at 7:04 pm. 22 Comments :

“When will those uppity Obamas learn their place? It’s bad enough that they have occupied the “White” House, but now they are invading the exclusive, private establishments that used to be reserved for “regular” (i.e. rich, white) Americans.”

That’s the message that Fox News is sending with their segment Friday on “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” (Whose world?) Cavuto was reporting that President Obama and the First Lady had dinner at a pricey restaurant in Hawaii where they are spending their Christmas and New Years holiday. He spent several minutes batting around the notion that it was somehow unseemly for them to enjoy an evening out where they might mix socially with their superiors.

Fox News

There was an effort to spin the story as a derogatory example of the President appearing out-of-touch or insensitive to the plight of less fortunate Americans who cannot afford such extravagances. But since there was never a similar disdain for white Republicans who commonly patronize exclusive clubs (even those that prohibit blacks and Jews), the criticism rings hollow. What’s left is a transparent implication that the Obamas ought to stick to places that are more fitting for their class. You get the distinct impression that Cavuto and company believe that Burger King or KFC would be a more appropriate eatery for the First Family.

It wasn’t just Fox News that noticed the Obamas stepping out. WorldNetDaily, Breitbart News, and the Daily Caller were among the other right-wing rags that were offended by this choice of gourmet feasting. And of course, it was also featured it on the Fox Nation website. Even more “mainstream’ outlets like The Hill and Mediaite ran with it. But the hypocrisy only validates the widely circulated meme about Fox News as being “Rich people paying rich people to tell middle-class people to blame poor people.” Why the President and his family cannot enjoy an evening of fine food and drink is never explained.

Get the ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

This offensive and racist reporting is typical of the right-wing media. A few months ago Fox Nation published an item wherein wingnut screecher Mark Levin made a big deal about the Obamas vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard, which Levin falsely called “the whitest place on Earth,” and therefore no place for our African-American president. But sadly, it only took one day into the new year for this bigotry to be loosed on the air by Fox. That’s a troubling forecast of things to come as we head into another highly charged season of presidential politics.

Fairly Unbalanced: Ministry’s Essential Anti-Fox News Rock Anthem

Posted by on January 1, 2015 at 8:40 pm. 1 Comments :

The fantabulous industrial hooligans of Ministry will tour again in 2015, contrary to prior announcements of their musical farewell. They will be performing material from the album “From Beer To Eternity” that includes the classic “Fairly Unbalanced.” So, for your New Years Day hangover listening pleasure…

Ministry

The other day I watched the Fox News Network, I swear they’re all on crack
I need to get me an aluminum helmet, my brain is under attack

No more, no more
No more hate machine
No more right-wing extreme
No more stupidity
No more Fox TV

I saw a story just the other day, that put me right into shock
My “Friends” at Fox are blaming all gun violence on rap & rock

No more, no more
No more hate machine
No more right-wing extreme
No more stupidity
No more Fox TV

I finally sold my 60 inch plasma I’m tired of listening to this shit
‘Tween Bill O’ Reilly, Rush & Hannity Which one’s the biggest twit?

No more, no more
No more hate machine
No more right-wing extreme
No more stupidity
No more Fox TV

Fairly unbalanced, fairly unhinged
In the right-wing fringe

2015: Happy News Fears Day

Posted by on January 1, 2015 at 12:05 pm. 1 Comments :

We made it. It’s 2015 and with the new year stretching out before us there is a sense of new hope. At least the hope that 2015 will be nothing like 2014.

Happy New Fears Day

If there is one word that summarizes the media take on life in America for 2014 it is FEAR! Nothing was spread thicker than the notion that we are all living on borrowed time as some looming threat hangs precariously over our heads. Here is a brief retrospective of some of the frightening scenarios that haunted us over the past year and that were feverishly promoted by right-wing media.

Lindsey Graham Is Afraid That We Will “All Get Killed Back Here At Home”

The Chairman of the Panic Caucus has got to be South Carolina’s GOP Senator Lindsey Graham who warned Fox News that “This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.” Of course, Graham never specified how this national massacre would be carried out, nor what Obama should do about it. But never mind that. Just get back in your bunker and try to tune in Alex Jones on your ham radio.

Unhinged Fox News Reporter Warns Of Immigrant Children Trained By ISIL To Kill Us

On an episode of Fox News’s “Bulls and Bears,” host Brenda Buttner introduced a segment warning about “the ISIS border threat we may all regret if we don’t stop it now.” But Stealing the thunder of prominent members of the Psycho-Chicken Little Society was Fox regular Tracy Byrnes. Her hysterical assessment that ISIS is already here led to a pronouncement that terrorists will “infiltrate the minds of children and […] so many of these kids are trained to hate us and potentially kill us.” So if you know what’s good for you, you will start knocking off any unfamiliar children in your neighborhood before they get you.

Dick Cheney Warns of Gizmo-packing Terrorists plotting to blow up Fox News

Dick Cheney, (News Corpse’s Dick of the Year) has once again made news with his unrelentingly pessimistic vision for America. Emerging from his bunker in an undisclosed location in order to raise money for his new SuperPAC, Cheney joined the Curvy Couch Potatoes on Fox & Friends to warn Americans that “there will be another attack. And the next time, it’s likely to be far deadlier than the last one.” Fox’s Steve Doocy agreed with Cheney and elaborated saying that “in a couple of months one of them [terrorists] could be walking in front of our building with some sort of gizmo to wreak havoc.” So all along it is Fox News that has been the target of the terrorists.

A Ton of ObamaCare Navigators Are Criminals

Over at Fox Nation, they posted an item culled from the ultra-conservative National Review Online that alleged that people recruited to assist citizens with ObamaCare enrollments are a “fishy” and unsavory collection of outlaws. And except for the fact that the evidence they cite doesn’t corroborate their claim, it’s pretty scary narrative. The truth is that by portraying ObamaCare as a thinly-veiled assembly of hustlers just waiting to exploit innocent health insurance consumers, Fox is just continuing their “Fright Offensive” to scare people away from exploring the many benefits of the program and, thus, doom it to failure.

Get the ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Ebola Terror Threat? The Best Fox News Horror Story Since Boob Bombs

One of the most over-hyped pseudo-threats of the year was the one alleging that Ebola would decimate America. PolitiFact named the phony crisis their “Lie of the Year.” Expanding on that fallacy, Fox News is among the many media outlets who attempted to unduly frighten the American people by speculating that terrorists are going to embrace Ebola as a mechanism for their homicidal escapades. Of course, anyone with any knowledge of biology is aware that Ebola would be an awful candidate for weaponized bioterror. What’s more, immediately after the election on November 4th, the Ebola pandemic was miraculously cured.

Fox News Reports, As Fact, The Missing Libyan Planes Hoax

And closing on a more bizarre note, it should surprise no one that Fox News broadcast a story that is nothing more than a hoax perpetrated by wingnut bloggers and a coalition of disreputable pseudo-news sources. But Fox’s Jon Scott was not deterred by those facts as he introduced the segment saying…

“A potentially terrifying scenario is playing out as we approach September 11. Nearly a dozen airplanes are missing – flat out missing – from an airport in Tripoli, raising new fears of the possibility of another terror attack from the air.”

In reality every allegedly missing plane was accounted for and all credible sources repudiated the claims. For this completely made up story Fox News relied on the reporting of the Washington Free Beacon, an ultra-rightist conspiracy theory disseminator that is affiliated with Republican operatives and the Koch brothers. And even after the story was thoroughly debunked, Fox never issued a retraction.

One thing is abundantly clear from the editorial tenor of Fox and other media outlets: Fear was the main product of the media in 2014. There is an obvious effort to keep the American people in a constant state of the shivers. Either that or the media has simply determined that horror programming is the path to higher ratings. In any case they are behaving irresponsibly and have something in common with our foreign enemies. They are, by definition, terrorists:

Terrorism (ter-uh-riz-uh m): noun – The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. [See Fox News]

And HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!