Day: 6/28/2018

Hannity Has Already Blamed Maxine Waters – and Obama – for the Capital Gazette Shooting

Posted by on June 28, 2018 at 2:39 pm. 3 Comments :

Thursday morning there has been yet another mass shooting in America. This one occurred in Annapolis, Maryland at the building housing the Capital Gazette newspaper. At his time there are five confirmed fatalities, and the suspect is in custody.

Sean Hannity Fox News

The local police are still interrogating the suspect and they are not reporting any motive yet. This could be the work of a disgruntled employee or domestic violence. But the lack of factual data hasn’t stopped rampant speculation on the part of conservative media and right-wing zealots who are quick to accuse liberals. Never mind that it is the right whose hostility toward the media is more likely to trigger violence. Wingnut troll Milo Yianopoulos said just a couple of days ago that he “can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.” And Trace Gallagher of Fox News has already checked into the Capital Gazette’s ideological bent, presumably hoping to find it conservative so that liberals could be blamed. And, of course, Donald Trump telling his unstable disciples that “the media is the enemy of the American people.”

But leave it to Sean Hannity to come roaring out of the gate with the first flagrantly accusatory allegations. In a radio rant, Hannity leveled his charges at both Rep. Maxine Waters and President Obama saying that (video below):

“I’ve been saying now for days that something horrible was going to happen because of the rhetoric. Really Maxine? You want people to create – Call your friends. Get in their faces – and Obama said that too. Get in their faces. Call ’em out. Call your friends. Get protesters. Follow them into restaurants and shopping malls, and wherever else she said.”

First of all, Obama never said any such thing, And what Waters said was strictly limited to legal protesting and constitutionally protected dissent. But Hannity is blatantly associating these comments with the motive of the shooter, despite not knowing anything about it.

That’s how these people work. It used to be the domain of fringe figures like Glenn Beck and Alex Jones who would dash immediately into irresponsible charges and conspiracy theories. But in today’s rancid right-wing media environment, it is now the top rated host on Fox News who is doing it. And let’s be clear, reckless rhetoric like this is likely to create exactly the sort of violence that it pretends to criticize. It’s an invitation to other maniacs who seek the notoriety that comes with being hailed by crackpots like Hannity. He should learn to keep his mouth shut when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But then that would be pretty all the time.

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

Fox News is So Littered with Repugnant Rage-aholics they Need Nannies to Avoid Being Offensive

Posted by on June 28, 2018 at 1:12 pm. NO Comments :

There is an unmistakable relationship between the tenor of Fox News reporting and the unhinged ravings of Donald Trump. Both engage in unrestrained hyperbole and lies floating in a pungent broth of foul rhetoric. What were once called “dog whistles” intended to subtly appeal to loathsome confederates, are now better described as bull horns bleating to faithful disciples.

Tucker Carlson Fox News

Recently Fox News has been taken to task for offensive remarks by their hosts and guests. The only thing about this that’s new is the criticism. Fox News has long been a source of racist commentaries and abhorrent outbursts on the air. Some examples that occurred in just the past couple of weeks include host Laura Ingraham comparing the immigrant child cages to “summer camps.” Or the former Trump deputy campaign chief, David Bossie, saying that the African-American he was debating was “out of your cotton-picking mind.” For these and many other instances, there has been a backlash against Fox News by advertisers.

Consequently, the new Fox News president, Suzanne Scott, called a meeting of the network’s producers to law down the law: “You are responsible as the producers. You have to protect the talent and the brand.” Notice that the admonition by Scott was not that they needed to refrain from making racist or derogatory statements, or from being insensitive to the suffering of children or other victims of injustice. It was purely a fiscal matter to prevent tarnishing the company or the reputation of its personnel. In other words, they were welcome to express the very same heinous opinions so long as they hid them within more “acceptable” language.

It should be noted that Scott could not have been surprised by the discourse on her network. She was the executive responsible for giving both Ingraham and Tucker Carlson prime time programs. Ironically, before Carlson supplicated himself to Fox he referred to them as “a mean, sick group of people.” So Scott knew exactly what she was getting into. But what’s unprecedented about this new corporate mandate is simply the fact that producers need to be told to clean up the patter of their hosts and guests. That’s actually a recognition on Fox’s part that there is a big problem with them going out of the bounds of decency and that they need to be carefully monitored – and even punished – to insure that they are constrained from acting on their natural, ugly impulses.

What that tells us is that Fox News is now aware of something most news consumers already knew: That Fox is a bastion of crudeness and invective and that their “talent” can’t be trusted to be civil. But to be fair, the same thing is true of Donald Trump. So if the President is doing it, and Fox News is really just a State TV asset, then maybe they need not bother with the nannies at all. Let it all out and let the viewers and advertisers decide.

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