The Stupid Party: Jeb Bush Fears That Big Words Make The World Dangerous

Posted by Mark NC on July 12, 2015 at 3:55 pm. 7 Comments :

The new Prince of the Bush Dynasty is succeeding in stealing back some of the limelight that Donald Trump has been hogging. However, Jeb Bush’s method of getting attention may not be the most effective in terms of gaining respect. In the same interview where Bush revealed that he thinks Americans are not working enough, he also expressed his disdain for “sophisticated” communication:

Oh my, Matilda. The prezdent uses them long words what make chaos. It’s all parta his socialismic plot.

The problem with Bush’s criticism of President Obama et al, is that it affirms what can only be described as the aspirational ignorance (sorry for all the syllables, Tea Partyers) of the GOP. There has long been a deliberate objective within the conservative political sphere to literally dumb down their discourse to appeal to a constituency for which they obviously have little respect.

This could be traced back to Ronald Reagan’s fist-shaking demand that “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” which today is regaled by fans as soaring oratory on the scale of Churchill’s “blood, sweat, and tears.” In fact it’s more akin to an old man bellowing at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn. If Reagan had been FDR he would have settled for “Just stop fearin’ y’all.”

Jeb’s aversion to being articulate seems to run in the Bush family. His brother George is famous for his verbal gaffes and low-brow manner of speech. What’s worse, he actually regards under-achievement as a virtue. Part of a commencement speech he gave included this inspirational message: “To the C Students I say, you too can be President of the United States.” A similar message of intellectual lethargy was conveyed in a commencement address by Rick Perry who said “I’m very proud to tell you I graduated in the top 10 of my graduating class – of 13.”

Academic achievement and critical thinking is not particularly valued among some of the other current Republicans aspiring to the White House. Scott Walker is a college dropout. Rand Paul is a serial plagiarist. Harvard law grad Ted Cruz thinks the Supreme Court is too political, so the judges should be subjected to political reconfirmation votes. Chris Christie’s idea of adult discourse is to tell people to “sit down and shut up.” Ben Carson thinks that ObamaCare is the worst thing since slavery. Donald Trump just tweeted that he had 20,000 people in a hall that only fits 4,100 (He has since deleted that tweet). And of course, Bobby Jindal is the guy who coined the phrase “The Stupid Party” in reference to the GOP. Apparently he knows of what he speaks.

Remember also that Republicans are opponents of education in general. They oppose increased funding and anything that benefits teachers. They are fiercely anti-science. They cannot agree that evolution is a valid theory or that Climate Change is actually occurring, despite all of the scientific evidence for both. They advocate teaching so-called creation science in public schools. They are a party that has open disdain for the high-performing Ivy League institutions that they regard as elitist. And they are strong advocates of homeschooling where no standards of education are maintained.

No wonder leading Republican candidates are so notorious for talking down to their constituents. No wonder they talk in sound bites and bumper sticker cliches. They either don’t understand more complex concepts, or they are afraid their audience won’t. Consequently, Jeb Bush has to demean Obama for using too many syllables and holding “fancy” meetings. I guess the meetings held during a Bush administration would be dominated by coloring books and nap time. Why waste energy with boring and complicated discussions about international law and treaties? That sort of advanced intelligence doesn’t sit well with the right-wing electorate.

Nor does it work for viewers of Fox News, who are treated to a 24/7 barrage of painfully ignorant and dishonest propaganda. That’s a sad fact that was hilariously explained by Monty Python’s John Cleese, who offered a brief description of the Dunning-Kruger effect wherein stupid people are too stupid to realize how stupid they are.

Sarah Palin Stars In Night Of The Living Death Panels Sequel: The Re-Dumbification

Posted by Mark NC on July 11, 2015 at 12:42 pm. 12 Comments :

Now that Sarah Palin has been unceremoniously jettisoned from her Fox News post, she has deemed it necessary to whip up as much controversy as possible in order to keep from becoming nothing more than a creepy memory and the reason for John McCain’s eternal damnation to Hell. That’s why she ditched her unsuccessful Internet video subscription service hoping more people would watch if they didn’t have to pay.

To that end, Palin has posted a screed on her Facebook page declaring in all caps that “DEATH PANELS STILL NOT DEAD.” As the title suggests, Palin continues to suffer from an acute ignorance of law, facts, and common sense. Her blitheringly dumb resurrection of the Death Panel nonsense begins with the hilariously oblivious assertion that it’s the politicians who don’t get it.

Palin then launches into a self-defense of her faulty grasp of what “end-of-life” plans (aka Advanced Directives) are. And she predictably slams the media for correctly noting that she has been “universally discredited” on this subject. She rants about the non-existent government rationing of healthcare and criticizes the imaginary “faceless bureaucrats” who she says “will measure a person’s worth.” She preaches about the “sanctity of life” in her trademark politi-vangelical style bemoaning that “a bloated bureaucracy and weak-kneed politicians sent millions of Americans into financial distress, unseen in history, with this leftist scheme called Obamacare.” Of course the documented truth is that, since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, more Americans are covered by insurance than ever before, and fewer are facing financial difficulties and bankruptcies due to medical bills.

What launched Palin into this confused orbit was news that Medicare is considering reimbursing doctors for consulting with patients about Advanced Directives. And while Palin calls it an “unnecessary scheme,” it is something virtually every medical professional and patient advocate recommends. The Medicare proposal does not require consultations, nor steers patients toward any specific preference of care. So in effect, what Palin is objecting to is giving people more control over their medical care. And when she fails to make a coherent case against Advanced Directives, she diverts her argument to a completely different and equally benign part of the Affordable Care Act, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is a doctor-run advisory group tasked with identifying the best practices in health care to insure the best medical outcomes and to avoid unnecessary or exploitative procedures.

None of this is new. Palin has been on a rampage against these useful services for as long as they have been public. And for all of that time she has intensely misunderstood them. A year ago Fox News railed against Medicare’s exploration of this policy, making the same irrational arguments that Palin makes. In short, conservative wingnuts believe that it is a God-given right to be denied healthcare by the faceless bureaucrats at greedy insurance companies. But it is submission to tyranny if the government steps in and makes such care available and affordable. Palin et al prefer the old ways when Americans went bankrupt (or died) because they didn’t have insurance or their coverage was insufficient. And it is obvious that this zombie lie about Death Panels is going to be a cornerstone of conservative politics for the foreseeable future, despite how thoroughly it has been debunked by knowledgeable sources.

Update 7/14/2015: Sean Hannity weighed in on this with his predictably inane commentary saying…

What a boob. He apparently has forgotten that end-of-life counseling may also result in patients choosing to prolong their lives with every expensive medical procedure that exists. It’s the patient’s choice. That’s the whole point. Hannity and Palin are arguing to prohibit patients from being able to make their choices known. What’s really sad is that they have so many people who blindly believe what they spew.

Ted Cruz Whines Because NY Times Won’t Let Him Cheat His Way Onto The Best Sellers List

Posted by Mark NC on July 10, 2015 at 2:01 pm. 8 Comments :

What is it about Conservatives that makes them so ultra-sensitive about persecution when they are caught doing something wrong? Whenever they are discovered to have broken a law or violated an ethical principle, they turn it into a case of an out-of-control government trying to put the boot of tyranny on their throats.

For instance, Dinesh D’Souza insisted he was a victim of Obama’s Storm Troopers right up until he admitted guilt of election fraud. Same thing with serial slanderer James O’Keefe who confessed to unlawful activity in the office of a United States senator, but now thinks he’s a victim of federal oppressors. And then there is former Fox News anchor, Glenn Beck, who regards himself as more persecuted than Jesus.

Now we can add Senator and Republican presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz to the list. Cruz recently released a propaganda tract that he calls “A Time For Truth.” And to start off the book tour Cruz is discarding the truth in order to bitch about his book not being included on the New York Times best sellers list. Why he would want to be recognized by a news enterprise that he considers to be in cahoots with the international communist conspiracy is anyone’s guess.

More to the point, Cruz and his disciples are certain that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy intent on suppressing his book and his First Amendment rights. No doubt President Obama himself ordered the Times to remove Cruz’s book from the list in order to smother his sizzling ascendancy to the White House (for which he is currently in a distant eighth place according to the latest Fox News poll).

Of course, there may be another reason that Cruz failed to make the list. When asked by Politico why Cruz was omitted, the Times told them that “the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases.” In other words, Cruz’s book was bought by his campaign or its allies in an effort to game the system. This is often done to artificially inflate sales and grab a spot on the coveted Times list. Then they give the books away to supporters as candidate swag. The Times has procedures in place to ascertain the actual sales data so that only authentic buyers are counted. Otherwise the Koch brothers could purchase a few thousand copies of any book that they want to promote and it would become a Times best seller.

If any other evidence is needed to debunk the paranoid notion that Cruz is being singled out for persecution, a quick check of the current best sellers list shows that several right-wing authors who didn’t cheat (so far as we know) managed to get recognized. They include David Brooks, Ann Coulter, Dana Perino, and Bill O’Reilly. Going back a little further we find folks like Charles Krauthammer, Edward Klein, Dinesh D’Souza, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin. We even see current GOP primary candidates Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Ben Carson.

So obviously Ted Cruz alone has been stifled by the liberal gatekeepers of the literary world. The socialists at the Times are penalizing him simply because he and his publisher chose to engage in deliberate fraud in order to gain benefits from the Times to which they were not entitled. And they probably think that their only crime is that they were caught. Because that’s how paranoid cheaters with persecution complexes view every dilemma they encounter. In fact, this article is all part of the conspiracy.

The ReTrumplican Party: The GOP Cannot Pretend That Donald Trump Isn’t One Of Them

Posted by Mark NC on July 9, 2015 at 4:59 pm. 6 Comments :

The past few weeks have revealed a deep division between the values of Donald Trump and those of most Americans. His words maligning immigrants as criminals and rapists have been repudiated by prominent figures in politics and business. He has been shunned by groups as diverse as the PGA and Macy’s, as well as some of his fellow Republicans. However, try as they might, the GOP cannot disassociate itself from The Donald.

Trump’s demeanor may be crass and antagonistic, but the views he expresses politically are firmly rooted in those of the Republican Party. He is, of course, virulently anti-immigrant. He supports an impenetrable wall at the border that he thinks Mexico will pay for. He opposes any measures to afford legal status to the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. That opposition includes the so-called “Dreamers” who were brought here as children and don’t know any other country as home.

Those are precisely the positions of the rest of the Republican Party on the immigration issue. And Trump is in agreement with his GOP peers on every other issue as well. He advocates cutting taxes for the rich and regulations for big business. He wants boots on the ground in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan (and maybe China and North Korea). He is against reproductive rights and marriage equality. He doesn’t believe that Climate Change poses any imminent risks or is caused by human activity. He regards the Second Amendment as sacrosanct and opposes reforms like universal background checks. He has promised to repeal ObamaCare. And let’s not forget his leadership as America’s foremost Birther.

So how exactly does that differ from any other establishment Republican? The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t. Nevertheless, some of the GOP honchos are trying to put distance between themselves and Trump. Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus, let it be known that he asked Trump to “tone down” his rhetoric. Karl Rove has been using his appearances on Fox News to dismiss Trump as not credible. And this just in: Fox News just adopted Rove’s criteria for inclusion in Fox’s GOP primary debate. Rove proposed that each candidate must have filed their financial disclosure forms before being permitted into the debate. This is seen as a possible means of excluding Trump.

Despite the angst that is eating up some of the GOP elite, Trump fits squarely in the Republican mold. Evidence of that is the polling results that show Republican voters boosting Trump into the top tier of candidates. Now those numbers may change, as they have in the past. In fact, the Republican electorate is notoriously kooky at these early stages of a campaign. But that doesn’t negate the obvious compatibility between Trump’s agenda and that of the GOP.

That may be why the Democratic Party is taking this opportunity to point out the close embrace in which the Republican Party and Donald Trump are entwined. They share a deep affinity for the same regressive principles and an affection for society’s privileged upper-crusters. And so this union can be reasonably called the ReTrumplican Party.

No, Fox News, Bernie Sanders Did Not Honeymoon In The Soviet Union

Posted by Mark NC on July 8, 2015 at 3:37 am. 56 Comments :

When Hillary Clinton was running away with the Democratic nomination, it was not unusual to hear Fox News pundits pumping up Bernie Sanders. It wasn’t because they admired his progressive policies or his grassroots appeal. It was because they reflexively jumped at any opportunity to knock Clinton down a peg.

Now that the Sanders campaign is actually looking competitive, the same Foxies are getting nervous and looking for ways to discredit him. The primary line of attack has been to feverishly repeat that Sanders is a (gasp) Socialist. Under ordinary circumstances that would be sufficient to rattle the fear centers of their perpetually anxious viewers.

However, these are not ordinary times. Consequently, more creative measures were required by the Fox punditocracy. So they brought in Jamie Weinstein, senior editor of Tucker Carlson’s ultra-rightist Daily Caller, to slip a brazen lie into the discussion at the very end when there was no time left for it to be rebutted. The segment sought to concern-troll Clinton’s less commanding, but still substantial, lead over Sanders, while simultaneously dismissing the surging challenger as a far-left crank.

Where the broadcast went off the rails was at the end when Weinstein concluded his final diatribe by making an assertion that was utterly false and intended to defame Sanders. He offered as evidence of Sanders supposed extremism that he had spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. That allegation is almost laughable, but it will assuredly be swallowed whole by Fox’s dimwitted viewers. Following Weinstein’s false comment, Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett smiled and noted that you learn something new every day. The problem is that, with Fox News, what you learn each day just makes you more stupid than you were the day before.

The origin of the this made-for-Fox fallacy was a 2007 interview of Sanders’ wife, Jane, by Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. In the interview she was describing how she and Bernie met and some of their early engagements which were almost entirely related to their shared interest in community affairs. They were so involved in these sort of activities that she joked…

The context was obviously humorous. Who could possibly read that and come away thinking that she seriously meant that they honeymooned with ten other people who were implementing a sister city project? Well, apparently Weinstein and others of his ilk came away believing just that. Weinstein likely picked up the lie from uber-conservative John Fund who wrote an article for the National Review containing the same misrepresentation of Sanders’ diplomatic trip.

We are going to have to get used to wingnuts hyperventilating over the political labels attached to Sanders. Today there was an extended discussion on Fox’s The Five about “Sanders’ Socialist Agenda.” At no time during the broadcast did anyone on the show identify any policy advocated by Sanders that they could actually call Socialist (if they really have any idea what the word means). The policies they did mention were his support for higher taxes on the rich, for expanding access to education, and for single-payer healthcare. Those are pretty mainstream policies that millions of Americans support. And the right has been absurdly calling Obama a Socialist for so long that the word has lost all meaning.

There was also much feigned hand-wringing about whether Sanders was going to pull Clinton farther to the left and damage her electability in the general election. The consensus on the program was that she was already a far-left candidate without Sanders’ influence. But these cretins think that just being a Democrat means being far-left. What they don’t realize is that Sanders’ platform leans to the mainstream of the American people who elected President Obama twice. Any effect he has on Clinton moving in that direction will only enhance her electability. So bring it on, and don’t complain if the people once again reject the regressive and repressive policies of the Republican Party in November of 2016.

Going Rogue/Going Dark: Sarah Palin Quits Her Internet Video Channel

Posted by Mark NC on July 7, 2015 at 10:36 am. 16 Comments :

To nobody’s surprise, the wheels are continuing to fly off the bus that has been carrying Sarah Palin around the country to the posh hotels paid for by oil companies inviting her to deliver her famous word-salad soliloquies.

The latest bad news from Sarahville is that her much vaunted Internet video channel is shutting down. Palin made the announcement in a video (posted below) that beginning August first, all her content will be free and available on her Facebook page and her SarahPAC website. This must be a big disappointment to her devoted fans that paid a hundred bucks for an annual subscription, especially considering that the service barely lasted a year. Her bizarrely cheerful swan song said in part…

If she actually had any support she wouldn’t be ending the project. The writing was on the wall long before Palin posted her farewell. As documented here at News Corpse, she had already been neglecting the venture in terms of providing content. Palin had been AWOL for twenty days in the first two months of this year. Again in June she posted only six videos the whole month for less than nine minutes of her inspirational presence. That kinda leaves you wondering exactly what she means when she says that from now on all of her content will be free. What content? [FYI: As of this writing her channel is still available for people to sign up for subscriptions even though it isn’t continuing beyond this month]

So why did Palin decide to be so generous as to give away the paltry collection of video selfies for which she has been making people pay for the last year? One likely reason is that it wasn’t making any money, so it is no sacrifice to forego the subscription fees. But even more likely is that Palin desperately needs exposure now that she and Fox News have parted ways. It is no coincidence that this move comes less than two weeks after the announcement that Fox would not renew her contract. The first time that Palin was fired by Fox, in 2013, it was quickly discovered that the loss of a national TV platform was costly for her. As documented at the time…

Palin is in danger of disappearing from public view entirely. Without Fox she has only Facebook, Twitter, and a low-rated travelogue on the Sportsman Channel to promote herself, her ghostwritten books, and her personal, non-profit slush funds. There is no comparable replacement for Fox News for someone like Palin who is painfully shallow, ill-informed, and inarticulate. She simply is not qualified for a job with the news divisions of ABC or CNN, or even more entertainment oriented vehicles like The View. She could write op-eds for WorldNetDaily or Breitbart (which she has already done), but they don’t have nearly the audience that Fox has.

While things look bad now for the Mama Grizzly, all is not necessarily lost. There is still a market out there for her inane babbling. She could team up with Ted Nugent for a moose hunt/barbecue vacation adventure. She could license her name to the Koch brothers for a line of Palin Oils (suntan, cooking, snake, etc.). Then again, she could always star in a new reality show like “The Desperate Housewives of Wasilla.” So stay positive, Sarah. As they say, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” You just need enough minutes to cover your lavish expense account.

So F**king What? Fox News Obsessed With Hillary Clinton’s Media Rope Line

Posted by Mark NC on July 6, 2015 at 8:29 pm. 1 Comments :

You can always tell when the right-wing media is getting desperate for mud to fling at liberals, Democrats, and especially Hillary Clinton. The lunacy level of their attacks increases geometrically in both content and frequency. Today was one of those days when the wingnut press simply ran out of BS to spew.

During a fourth of July parade in New Hampshire this weekend, Hillary Clinton marched and celebrated with the local residents pretty much like every candidate does on such an occasion. The difference this time is that Fox News needed a hook to slander Clinton and there wasn’t one that was readily available. Consequently, they invented a controversy having to do with the the manner in which Clinton separated herself from the media mob that constantly surrounds her.

Clinton used the common practice of placing a rope between the candidate and the media (aka a rope line). However, since this event was a moving parade, her staff got creative and had the rope move along with the press pack down the path of the marchers. There was nothing remotely scandalous about this. But Fox News turned it into a metaphor for their preconceived and derogatory portrayal of Clinton as being hostile to the media. Then they ran it over and over again all day long.

This may be one of the most stupendously trivial attempts to manufacture a political controversy. Does anyone really care that some reporters were directed to walk a few feet away from a candidate who was trying to connect with voters? Would anyone really care if Clinton had packed them into bus and sent it to an Appleby’s in the next county? Most Americans don’t have much regard for the press to begin with. A Pew Research poll in 2013 found that only 28% felt that “journalists contribute ‘a lot’ to society’s well-being.” And that was a ten point drop from 2009.

But what really makes this more than a piddling waste of time is the fact that Fox News is turning somersaults to suddenly pretend that they have some empathy for the media. No news organization is more hostile to the non-Fox press than Fox. They constantly complain that journalists are biased and ill-informed and arrogant and elitist. And particularly with regard to Democrats, Fox is convinced that the media is working for them to advance their socialist plot to destroy America.

So you have to wonder why Fox is making such a big stink about these reporters being “corralled” like “cattle,” as if walking behind a rope was some sort of torture. If it were abusive, and a Republican did it, Fox News would be cheering the candidate for giving the media what it deserves. Every time that Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush, lash out at the press, Fox News gives them a figurative high-five. Chris Christie’s verbal abuse of reporters has made him a hero to Fox News and their audience. But if Clinton asks them to stay behind a rope line so that they don’t stumble all over each other and interrupt her conversations with voters it is viewed by Fox as “bad optics” that “reinforces the images of the regal queen in a coronation into the White House.”

This is part of Fox’s well-worn tactic of whining that Clinton doesn’t spend more time talking to reporters. But if Fox really believes that the press are Clinton’s lackeys, why are they so interested in her spending more time with them? Wouldn’t they just ask her softball questions and promote her candidacy? Clearly Fox’s complaints are either completely disingenuous or they make no sense at all.

They are simply complaining because it’s what they do. If Clinton starts giving more interviews to the media, Fox will immediately switch sides and complain that she is desperate for attention, or hogging the limelight, or ignoring the voters. And besides the reporters are all her pals who won’t challenge her on anything anyway. Fox pundits will demand that she stop preening before the press and do some old-fashioned campaigning – exactly like she is doing now.

Hopefully Clinton will do something Fox considers newsworthy soon, like slipping on a banana peel. Otherwise we will have to endure their made-up scandals for the foreseeable future. In which case, you better get ready for the bombshell disclosure that Clinton’s socks don’t match or that she uses the wrong kind of mustard on her pastrami sandwich.

Trump Bump: Just In Case You Forgot How Psycho Republican Voters Are

Posted by Mark NC on July 5, 2015 at 10:08 pm. 8 Comments :

This year’s Celebrity Pretentious Republican candidate is, without a doubt, the gold-plated ego wrapped in an orange comb-over, Donald Trump. Ever since he announced his joke of a campaign a couple of weeks ago, he has been been getting dumped by former business partners and associates who are embarrassed to be seen with him in public. To no one but Trump’s surprise, his repugnant racism directed at immigrants has insulted the fasted growing electoral demographic in the country.

Many (but not all) of Trump’s fellow Republican’s have repudiated his characterization of immigrants as criminals and rapists. And the all but the most ultra-conservative media outlets have recognized the idiocy of his comments and written him off as an un-serious candidate. Even corporations that are generally aligned with any Republican candidate are washing their hands of Trump.

What’s troubling, however, is that the Republican constituencies to whom he is addressing his hate speech are, for the time being, eating it up. In recent polls Trump has spiked up to second place behind Mr. Establishment, Jeb Bush. That exposes the GOP voters as being just as bigoted as Trump and willing to lap up his spittle-inflected rants.

That said, anyone who worries that Trump is now a plausible contender for the GOP nomination can rest easy. The Republican electorate is as fickle as they are ignorant. Trump’s polling at this stage of the campaign is less than meaningless. For some evidence of why that’s so, take a look at some of the polls during the GOP primaries in the 2012 race. It seems every crackpot got their turn at the top for brief moment in time. The GOP leaders included Trump himself, as well as Sarah Palin and Herman Cain.

In addition to this parade of losers, there was Michelle Bachmann, Ron Paul, and Rudy Giuliani, all taking turns leading the polls, despite none ever having the remotest chance of becoming president, or even their party’s nominee. That’s how crazy these freaks are.

Thankfully, they all lost just as Trump is going to. Well, that’s if he ever even becomes a legitimate candidate. He still has not filed the required financial disclosures, and he has just ten days left to do so (unless he requests an extension, which he promised not to do). Even if he stays in the race he will certainly fall in the polls as voters inevitably drift toward the more mainstream candidates (i.e. Bush, Walker, etc.) as they always do in both parties.

So everybody calm down. Trump aint goin’ nowhere. If you want to get excited about something, perhaps it should be how addle-brained your average Republican voter is. While none of the nut cases actually managed to make it into the winner’s circle, the GOP voters did flirt with them before marrying their designated loser. That’s a pretty scary statement of where they stand and what sort of leader is acceptable to them. And if you don’t get just a little nauseous knowing that the same people who thrust Palin, Cain and now Ben Carson, and Trump, to the top of the polls, are still allowed to vote in the general election, then you’ve got a stronger stomach than I do.

Fox News Scumbag Of The Week: Howard Kurtz, Trump Fluffer

Posted by Mark NC on July 4, 2015 at 7:47 pm. 19 Comments :

In a week that’s seen various Fox News personnel take inane and/or offensive positions on everything from the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality (being the cause of floods in the capital) to the Charleston church massacre (being an attack on Christianity), a late entry to the contest sneaked in Friday just before the deadline to win the Fox News Scumbag Of The Week Award:

On Friday’s broadcast of Special Report (video below), Howard Kurtz was introduced for a segment on how the press treats poor Donald Trump. Rather than report on the ever-expanding backlash to Trump’s racist assault on immigrants, Kurtz took the opportunity to slam the media for doing their job. He simultaneously attempted to run interference for the Republican Party to cleanse it of any stray excrement emanating from The Donald.

What a bunch of unadulterated hogwash. The Republican Party doesn’t need any help from the media to turn Trump’s boorish vulgarity into their own problem. They invited him into their party with open arms. In 2008 Mitt Romney solicited and received Trump’s endorsement. Fox News, the GOP’s PR division, made him a weekly feature on Fox & Friends, as well a frequent guest on other programs. And every time he lashed out at President Obama with his signature classlessness, Republicans cheered and praised him.

The reason other Republicans are expected to respond to Trump’s assholiness is because Trump represents a broad swath of the establishment Republican ideology. He is anti-immigrant, anti-tax, anti-ObamaCare, anti-gay, anti-environment, and pro-war. Where does Kurtz get the idea that Trump isn’t in line with the GOP regulars? As evidence of his harmony with conservative voters, they have boosted him to the top tier in Republican primary polls after he made his repulsive remarks about immigrants. Only now, since Trump’s misfire has ricocheted back at them, are some trying to put some distance between themselves and his hate mongering.

But what really clinched the Scumbag prize for Kurtz is a wildly off-base comparison between how the media has treated Trump and how they treated a Democrat from the past with regard to whether Trump is hurting Republicans.

WTF? It must have taken a Herculean effort for Kurtz to come up with the most reprehensibly inappropriate stab at false equivalency imaginable. First of all, unlike today’s Republicans, Democrats universally repudiated Edwards for his vile infidelity. The reason the Republican brand is hurting is because Trump’s comments are so closely aligned to the party’s platform. That simply wasn’t true with regard to Edwards. In fact, Edwards misbehavior was entirely personal, so it could not have reflected on the reputation of a political party. Trump’s transgressions, on the other hand, are purely political. And even now he is being defended by folks like Ann Coulter and Ted Cruz.

Even from an opportunistic journalistic perspective, the two scenarios are not remotely similar. Trump’s comments came during the heat of a presidential primary battle when candidates are expected to participate in open debate. However, the first reports of Edwards infidelity were published in October of 2007 by the National Enquirer, a tabloid rag with a reputation for sensationalist garbage that usually proved to be untrue. The story was justifiably dismissed considering the source.

It wasn’t until July of 2008 that Edwards was caught visiting his mistress at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. However, by that time Edwards was not a candidate. He had dropped out of the race six months earlier. In fact, there was no race because Hillary Clinton had also conceded in June of 2008 and endorsed Obama. Consequently, there was no reason for the media cover Edwards as anything but a salacious human interest story. His troubles had absolutely nothing to do with the election or the Democratic Party.

Let’s face it – Kurtz only brought this up because A) He had no other example of a Democrat who is as repugnant as Trump and as adept at harming the interests of his party, and B) He desperately wanted to stigmatize Democrats with an ancient and unrelated memory to counteract the well-deserved bad publicity that Republicans are suffering. And for that purposefully manufactured slander, Kurtz easily walks away with the Scumbag Of The Week Award. Congratulations.

p.s. Kurtz is interviewing Trump tomorrow on his Fox News program, MediaBuzz. Tune in if you have the stomach for it. As they say, “The circle jerk will be televised.”

Open Scary: Here’s The “Gun” That Fox News Thinks Should Be Banned

Posted by Mark NC on July 3, 2015 at 4:07 pm. 9 Comments :

The public debate over gun safety has been raging for decades. It picked up steam during the Obama administration because NRA-theists and wingnut pundits set about deliberating trying to frighten the already chicken-hearted ammosexuals into believing that Obama was coming for their weaponized dildos. Never mind that in seven years the nightmare scenarios of these heat packers didn’t produce the widespread confiscations they prophesied. Or any reduction in gun rights whatsoever.

The foremost media advocate for this mouthy militia has been Fox News, who regularly feature firearms evangelicals like the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre and disgraced pistol polisher John Lott. The gun lobby gospel espoused by Fox is unqualified support for every kind of access to every kind of gun. They oppose universal background checks, gun show regulations, and any restrictions on assault weapons, cop-killer bullets, and open and/or concealed carry privileges. They have even argued for the Second Amendment rights of the mentally ill, the blind, and the dead (Seriously, those are not jokes).

Well, now these gun fetishists have found something that they are perfectly willing to ban from distribution. A new cell phone case was introduced that looks like a gun. Just slap in your iPhone and tuck it into your back pocket and you can answer those distress calls by putting the pistol-shaped piece up to your head. Charming, isn’t it?

Fox News broadcast a segment on their Fox & Friends program this morning that harshly criticized this blockheaded idea. And they were right to do so. Host Ainsley Earhardt said that “This could be the most dangerous cell phone case on the market.” While technically correct, it’s hard to imagine what other “dangerous” cell phone cases she was comparing it to. (Is there an electric drill iPhone attachment I haven’t seen yet?) Then her guest, John Rafferty, a retired NYPD officer, chimed in…

Considering that too many cops have recently been shooting people (mostly African-Americans) who are not armed at all, it’s hard to argue with that statement. Rafferty went on to highlight the risks of someone who might appear to pose a threat to an officer being tragically, but justifiably, shot as they go to answer their phone during a traffic stop. He and Earhardt both agreed that the product should not be sold and that responsibility for any harm should be shared by the user, the retailer, and the manufacturer. [Side Note: Rafferty has appeared on Fox News before to argue that citizens should be arrested for taking video of police officers]

However, this unusual departure into rational commentary on Fox News comes with a heaping dose of hypocrisy. The same network that fervently advocates for the proliferation of real guns in the hands of every patriotic citizen, is now pitching the notion that we should ban a fake product because it resembles a gun. They are arguing that its appearance creates an untenable risk of harm to both citizens and police. But real guns that shoot actual bullets don’t?

That’s the absurdity of the gun nut’s position. A cell phone case that looks like a gun makes the carrier a viable target for law enforcement and ought not to be available to the general public. On the other hand, someone marching around Wal-Mart with a semi-automatic rifle strapped to his/her back is perfectly acceptable, and any perceived risk should be dismissed in favor of permitting people to drape themselves with lethal firearms in public. In what dimension does this make any sense?

The Internet's Chronicle of Media Decay

Month: July 2015

The Stupid Party: Jeb Bush Fears That Big Words Make The World Dangerous

Sarah Palin Stars In Night Of The Living Death Panels Sequel: The Re-Dumbification

Ted Cruz Whines Because NY Times Won’t Let Him Cheat His Way Onto The Best Sellers List

The ReTrumplican Party: The GOP Cannot Pretend That Donald Trump Isn’t One Of Them

No, Fox News, Bernie Sanders Did Not Honeymoon In The Soviet Union

Going Rogue/Going Dark: Sarah Palin Quits Her Internet Video Channel

So F**king What? Fox News Obsessed With Hillary Clinton’s Media Rope Line

Trump Bump: Just In Case You Forgot How Psycho Republican Voters Are

Fox News Scumbag Of The Week: Howard Kurtz, Trump Fluffer

Open Scary: Here’s The “Gun” That Fox News Thinks Should Be Banned

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