Month: December 2015

Fox News Wouldn’t Know Comedy “If It Hit Them In The Ass With A Fish”

Posted by on December 4, 2015 at 11:30 am. 7 Comments :

The hypersensitive crybabies at Fox News have found something new to whine about. It’s not they have exhausted their obsession with demonizing Latinos and Muslims and women, or that they are tiring of the War on Christmas and other Christianist rhetoric (supremacy). It’s just another avenue of outrage for them to venture down as they seek to spread right-wing propaganda.

Fox News Bozo

Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, is complaining about a comedy pilot being considered by ABC. According to Adweek, the program “stars Kal Penn as a journalist who aspires to work for NPR, but instead takes a job at a cable news network that resembles Fox News Channel.” The working title for the show is “Fair and Balanced.” And that’s all it took to rile up the hilarious Mr. Ailes, who doesn’t think the idea for this show is very funny.

Clearly upset, Ailes told Adweek that “They ought to call it an attempt at liberal comedy which will fail.” That’s pretty funny Roger, and a sterling example of your brilliant sense of humor. That must be why Fox News has recently been trying to transform itself into a full-fledged comedy network. Why not? They certainly suck at news. And Ailes knows what he’s talking about on the subject failing comedy. Just think back to his attempted Daily Show rip-off, “The Half-Hour News Hour.” It lasted less than one season amid scathing reviews and universal ridicule. But all of this unintentional humor was still not as funny as this:

Ailes: People tried to poke at this, and the whole Fair and Balanced concept. They wouldn’t know fair and balanced if it hit them in the ass with a fish.

Having sufficiently embarrassed himself with regard to comedy, Ailes is now reverting to the safety of his defense of Fox News as being “fair and balanced.” Indeed, the network’s slogan has been the subject of relentless ridicule, for good reason. Most cognitively functional human beings laugh hysterically at the notion. Fox News is about as fair as a carnival game of ring toss and about as balanced as Charlie Sheen.

So where does Ailes go from here? He calls out his legal beagles to attack the “poor dumb bastards” at ABC. And after threatening to sue for infringement of his allegedly trademarked slogan, Ailes compounds his threat with a typically juvenile taunt saying “I’ve got 24 hours a day to trash ABC programming. You guys can’t program your way out of the men’s room.” If he really believed that, then why is he so disturbed by the prospect of a program he’s certain will fail?

This isn’t the first time that Ailes has released his legal hounds on someone who had the audacity to use the words “fair” and “balanced” in a project satirizing Fox. Sen. Al Franken, prior to his election, wrote a book titled “Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” with the subtitle “A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” Fox News promptly filed a lawsuit against Franken that was literally laughed out of court. You might say that Ailes got himself “hit in the ass with a fish.” Fish-slapping, of course, is a time-honored staple of comedy, as demonstrated here by the masters, Monty Python:

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Refuses To Accept That “God Isn’t Fixing This” Epidemic Of Gun Violence

Posted by on December 3, 2015 at 7:46 pm. 28 Comments :

It seems inconceivable that yet another mass shooting has occurred in a public space filled with innocent people. The frequency and fatality of these events appear to be increasing. And, sadly, the efforts by partisans on both sides to find a political advantage is troubling, but unavoidable.

While the human tragedy is of paramount concern, particularly in the first few hours after the assault is over, there are real issues that have to be addresses in any discussion of the most important subject: How to prevent these tragedies from happening again. In that regard, the only thing that makes sense is to pursue real policies to mitigate the risks and intercept the perpetrators before they can cause harm.

Unfortunately, the political divisions in this country make that nearly impossible, even though there are some solutions that both sides agree on. A majority of Americans favor universal background checks, limiting magazine size, enhancing mental health screening, prohibiting people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns, and several other measures that, while not a panacea, are an improvement over what we have now. Even majorities of conservatives and NRA members favor most of these ideas.

Emerging as perhaps the biggest obstacle to progress is, not surprisingly, Fox News. Fox has long been a factor in exacerbating political division in America. And today they made a concerted effort to drive Americans farther apart. Throughout the day they fanned the flames of outrage over a headline from the New York Daily News that said “God Isn’t Fixing This.”

Fox News

To most rational people that is a fairly obvious truth. After every one of these shootings, politicians and pundits climb all over themselves to offer their “thoughts and prayers.” If praying were going to have any effect on this, ISIS would already be a deranged and distant memory. By focusing on the ludicrous notion that prayer represents a reasonable response to terrorism, Fox is transforming itself into a televangelist operation. Program after program, hour after hour, Fox repeated this story, holding up the Daily News front page to drive home their sanctimonious fury.

What could Fox News possibly hope to gain by making this a staple of the news reporting for the whole day. It does nothing but take time from more practical analyses of the array of potential solutions. And that is, in fact, what Fox News hopes to gain. They are deliberately evading thoughtful dialog on the causes and cures for the rampant gun violence our nation is enduring. It is blatant pandering to the most fringe elements of the right-wing and the NRA nutcases who are opposed to solutions.

Whenever you hear an NRA-theist claim that the best way to deal with mass shootings is make sure more people are armed, remember that the NRA is a manufacturer’s representative whose mission is to promote the sales of more guns. They benefit handsomely from events like these. There are always stories following a mass shooting about how gun sales skyrocketed to record levels in the aftermath. And since there are already more guns in America than people, if the abundance of guns were going to reduce the incidence of gun violence, there would already have been some evidence of it.

Gun advocates argue that if more people were armed they would be engaging in shootouts with criminals. The truth is that, in the country with the most heavily armed populace, there has never been an incident where an armed civilian stopped a mass shooting. The argument doesn’t even make much sense because an armed civilian would be no match for a mass murderer who shows up with body armor and semi-automatic assault weapons. In such a situation, the civilian’s bullets would bounce off of the perpetrator, but would gain his attention, making the civilian shooter the next victim.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Police protection is the second best way to avoid being a casualty. The first best is to prevent the mass shooting before it begins. That’s something that can be done if people in positions of authority would get off their asses and work together on practical solutions. It will not get done with prayer, no matter how many times Fox News runs the same story insisting that God will rescue us from this epidemic of gun violence.

If Elected President Donald Trump Promises To Commit War Crimes

Posted by on December 2, 2015 at 3:16 pm. 8 Comments :

The unlikely candidacy of Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for president just keeps getting more bizarre with each new day. This is a candidate who has already insulted Latinos as rapists and murderers, described women as stupid and ugly, he’s cheered on supporters who assaulted African-Americans and the homeless, proposed forcing Muslims to wear IDs and be tracked in databases, and has lied so often that it’s getting hard to keep track of it all (see the Donald Trump Bullshitopedia for an ongoing attempt to catalog).

Donald Trump

Today Trump hit another new low. While discussing the conflict with ISIS on Fox & Friends this morning, Trump enthusiastically bragged about his ideas for defeating the terrorist group. He told the kids on the Curvy Couch that…

“When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself when they say they don’t care about their lives. You have to take out their families.”

No doubt this display of false bravado will delight his dimwitted disciples. There is nothing they like more than reckless calls for indiscriminate violence and mayhem against manufactured foes. And consistent with his flagrant ignorance on pretty much any subject, Trump is once again proving how disastrous a Trump presidency would be.

The problem with targeting the families of suspected members of ISIS, aside from the obvious moral depravity, is that it is against international law. The Geneva Convention, a treaty developed to set standards for humane treatment of people caught up in hostilities, and to which the United States is a signatory, addresses this specifically (Article 3:1(a)) saying that…

“Persons taking no active part in the hostilities…shall in all circumstances be treated humanely […] To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited: Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture.”

Consequently, Trump is proposing to commit war crimes by deliberately targeting non-combatant family members. He regards this as a justifiable alternative to complying with the principles of the Geneva Convention, which he characterizes as too “politically correct.” But in addition to making the United States a practitioner of crimes against humanity, Trump is also validating the tactics of the terrorists who routinely target non-combatants. This would give the terrorists justification for their evil acts and remove any moral high ground we might have otherwise had. That plays into the hands of the terrorists who could then use it as an effective tool for recruiting more terrorists.

Coming from Trump, this idiocy further establishes that he is utterly incapable of governing the country. It is further proof that he is nothing but a diplomatic neanderthal who would insult and alienate our allies and foes alike. He recently expressed his support for waterboarding, an interrogation technique that the rest of the world regards as unlawful and inhumane torture.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

And if all of that isn’t enough evidence that Trump is downright dangerously inept, then consider his interview this morning with conspiracy nutcase Alex Jones. Trump spent most of the interview hawking his book and effusively praising Jones. You might wonder which of Jones’ theories Trump likes best. Is it that 9/11 was an inside job; or that Hurricane Katrina was a test run for FEMA concentration camps; or that the government is using chemicals to create gay people; or that Obama is the devil?

The question that really needs to be answered is: What chemicals are causing people to support Donald Trump for president? And is there an antidote?

Criminal Crony Ted Cruz Says Most Violent Criminals Are Democrats

Posted by on December 1, 2015 at 3:15 pm. 8 Comments :

In what can only be described as an episode of acute dementia, Sen. Ted Cruz made an allegation so bizarre that Donald Trump may sue him for infringing on his trademarked persona. Speaking to right-wing radio hack, Hugh Hewitt, Cruz embarked on a rant wherein he claimed that most violent criminals identify as Democrats.

Cruz: Here is the simple and undeniable fact – the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats. […] The Democrats know that convicted felons tend to vote Democrat. The media never reports on any of that.

Ted Cruz

Cruz never explains how he ascertained the voting habits of America’s violent criminals. As “facts” go, his are neither simple nor undeniable. Rather, it is downright loony. Particularly the part where he asserts that by an “overwhelming majority” “convicted felons tend to vote Democrat.” How Cruz determined that is a mystery since most states have some sort of restriction on voting at all for persons convicted of a felony. What’s more, there are no studies that breakout the voting preferences of felons who are violent.

It is possible that more total felons lean Democratic simply because of the demographics of the prison population. More people who are poor or minorities are sent to prison after arrests and convictions. Often it is for non-violent crimes like marijuana possession or shoplifting. In those cases it is backwards to say that upon release these felons vote as Democrats. It is more correct to say that these Democratic leaning offenders are more often subject to prosecution and incarceration by a prejudiced justice system. If bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, corporate executives, and offenders from wealthy families were arrested, convicted, and incarcerated at rates relative to their criminal activity, the situation would be very different.

What Cruz was attempting to do with these remarks was to exonerate violent conservative criminals like Robert Dear, the anti-abortion, Obama-hating wingnut who just murdered three people, and wounded nine others, at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility. Dear is another in a long line of right-wing Christianists who have engaged in violence to advance their radical agenda. And rather than address this weekend’s tragic events, Cruz sought to deflect with a ludicrous accusation against his political foes.

If Ted Cruz is really concerned about violent felons, he might want to stop associating with them. Shortly before the Planned Parenthood attack, Cruz was bragging about having received an endorsement from an activist who has called for the “execution” of abortion providers. Troy Newman, president of the far-right anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, has not only called for such executions, but has come to the defense of several radical Christianists who were convicted of bombings, shootings, and other violence against doctors and clinics. Operation Rescue was founded by Randall Terry, himself a convicted felon.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

As it turns out, Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican candidate that is saying ridiculous and unsupportable things without consequence. The so-called “liberal” media is utterly useless when it comes to holding people accountable for spewing blatant lies. Ted Cruz should not be able to get away with his hostile rhetoric and his evasion from firmly condemning the domestic terrorism against women’s rights and the senseless violence that took the lives of a police officer, a veteran, and a young mother.