Media By Ass: Breitbart Editor Launches TruthRevolt Site To Counter Media Matters

Posted by on August 12, 2013 at 1:40 pm. 9 Comments :

The diseased minds at Breitbart News and David Horowitz’s Freedom Center are joining together to fill what they perceive as a void in media criticism. Not satisfied with the efforts by richly financed conservative operations like the Lie Factory of Fox Nation, the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, the Washington Free Beacon, or Breitbart’s own BigJournalism, this new cabal is forming with the unmistakeably hostile mission to…

“…unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases.”

Oh my. That’s sounds ominous. But if anyone is capable of venturing down such a repugnant path, it’s BreitBrat Ben Shapiro, the editor-at-large of Breitbart News. Shapiro’s record of keeping the media in check includes falling for a fake story about Chuck Hagel; bashing fact-checkers; whining when Republicans are vetted; and exposing the socialist propaganda of Sesame Street.

As for BreitBrat Ben’s partner, David Horowitz, he is a notoriously racist fringe conservative who believes that slave labor has benefited contemporary African-Americans. He also publishes “Jihad Watch,” which has labeled President Obama a “practicing Muslim.”

The new TruthRevolt project describes itself as “a conservative counterpunch to Media Matters, the Obama-linked organization that focuses on silencing conservatives in the media.” Of course, there is no Media Matters link to Obama offered by the BreitBrats, nor any evidence that they have ever silenced any conservative. What right-wingers regard as silencing is really just getting caught saying what they actually believe. That’s all that Media Matters does.

Breitbart has been after Media Matters for a long time. They have challenged the tax-exempt status of Media Matters; accused them being anti-Christian and anti-American; charged that they get their marching orders from the White House, George Soros, or any other convenient rightist bogeyman. Even their hallowed leader, St. Andrew, has taken cheap shots at Media Matters and its founder, David Brock. He published an absurd article alleging some sort of conspiracy by the media to hide an old photograph of Brock that he characterized as narcissistic and homoerotic. But he could have been talking about himself and the photos he posed for in Time Magazine:

Andrew Breitbart

Breitbart’s destructive tendencies are well documented. He once swore to “bring down the institutional left” in three weeks. He’s more than four years overdue. Now his successors are nursing the same obsessions. And as usual they are incapable of providing a single example of anything that Media Matters has done that was incorrect or deserving of criticism. Their unambiguous goal (as they admitted above) is to tear down an organization that does nothing more than document the conservative bias in the media. It is a plainly articulated, well-financed, censorious revolt against truth – hence their name.

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Bigots On Fox: Capitalist Pig On Fox News Lives Up To His Name

Posted by on August 12, 2013 at 8:45 am. 7 Comments :

Jonathan Hoenig is the manager of the Capitalistpig Hedge Fund and a Fox News contributor who appears weekly on “Cashin’ In.” He routinely blurts out ignorant rants such as declaring that access to health care makes everyone a slave, or that kids would do better on the streets than in public school, or that Social Security should be scrapped.

On this week’s edition of the program (video below) Hoenig demonstrated that he is not above religious bigotry to make a dubious point and to slander a Democratic congressman.

Fox News
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During a discussion about the Inclusive Prosperity Act (aka the Robin Hood tax), a bill that would impose a fee of a fraction of a percent on certain financial transactions, Hoenig abandoned any pretense of debating the merits of the bill and instead decided to attack the bill’s sponsor, Keith Ellison, for his religious beliefs.

Hoenig: I don’t know if Rep. Ellison has read the Constitution. I know he is a practicing Muslim and in Sharia law, there is a prohibition against trading of derivatives, against speculation of any type. And so in my opinion you could make the argument this is even a little bit of Sharia creep here with the cracking down on trade, cracking down on the derivative trade, cracking down on wealth production.

The only “creep” here is Hoenig. His repulsive attack on Ellison’s faith is not only evidence of his ingrained hatred, but he makes no sense whatsoever on a financial basis. Nothing in the bill prohibits derivative trading or any other stock transaction. And in addition to generating billions of dollars, the nominal fee would produce a more stable trading environment that in recent years has become dangerously volatile.

The fact that Ellison is Muslim has nothing to do with the bill. It is co-sponsored in the House by 17 representatives who are mostly Christians (and at least on Jew). Hoenig is obviously not an expert in Islamic practices. Millions of Muslims invest in equities markets in the United States and around the world. That includes one Muslim named Al-Waleed bin Talal, a Saudi prince whose share of stock in the network Hoenig is broadcasting on is exceeded only by Rupert Murdoch and his family.

Furthermore, Hoenig’s snide curiosity about whether Ellison has read the Constitution only reveals his own constitutional illiteracy. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution explicitly grants authority for the government to assess taxes and fees such as the one in Ellison’s bill.

This segment is the perfect capsulization of Fox’s abhorrent philosophy and mission. It illustrates both their overt contempt for anyone who is not a member of their preferred fraternity (in this case Muslims), and their kneejerk opposition to any tax measure that benefits the nation if it imposes even a tiny burden on the wealthy and greedy corporations whose rights they regard as superior to the people.

Hoening is just another ignorant and insulting cretin to whom Fox News provides a platform to disseminate hatred and disinformation. And that includes the program’s host, Eric Bolling, who was quick to agree with Hoenig’s dumbshit commentary.


Media Goes Silent As Texas Defends Constitutionality Of Racial Discrimination

Posted by on August 11, 2013 at 12:34 pm. 16 Comments :

In what may be the most under-reported story of the year so far, the media has virtually ignored the shameful response by the state of Texas to a Department of Justice challenge of voter discrimination in the state.

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One Vote

In June, the right-wing majority in the Supreme Court struck down a key provision in the fifty year old Voting Rights Act of 1964. In doing so they sanctioned efforts by racially biased state governments to discriminate against minority residents and other voters they want to suppress.

Attorney General Eric Holder moved quickly to mitigate the harm caused by the decision. He directed the Justice Department to seek a court ruling to require Texas to get permission from the federal government before making changes to their voting laws under a different section of the VRA.

Last week Texas responded to the DOJ filing with an astonishing admission that the intent of their voting reforms is to discriminate. They masked the ultimate purpose in a political argument, but the result is unarguably racist and unconstitutional. Rick Hasen of the University of California at Irvine caught the offensive passage in the Texas filing:

“DOJ’s accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats. It is perfectly constitutional for a Republican-controlled legislature to make partisan districting decisions, even if there are incidental effects on minority voters who support Democratic candidates.”

The argument by the state of Texas is that they are deliberately discriminating against Democratic voters, not minorities or other protected classes of citizens, and they regard that as permissible. The first problem with their argument is that it is questionable to assert that it is constitutional to “make partisan districting decisions.” Any overt attempt to suppress the voting rights of any citizen is challengeable and potentially in violation of civil liberties.

More to the point, the claim that they are only aiming their discriminatory activities at Democrats is disingenuous and unsupportable. The redistricting maps proposed by the Republican-controlled Texas legislature cut obviously across racial boundaries. The clear intent is to segregate blacks and Latinos into the fewest number of districts possible, denying them equal representation. These maps were struck down by federal courts as blatantly discriminatory, but now the state can re-introduce them with the blessing of an atrociously reasoned Supreme Court decision.

There is simply no way to pretend that the statement made in the filing defending the constitutionality of discrimination against Democrats is anything other than a defense of discrimination against minority communities in Texas. Given the demographic breakdown of the district mapping, it is absurd and grossly dishonest to assert that the “effects on minority voters” are “incidental.” What the state of Texas is doing is racism, pure and simple.

So where is the media coverage of this outrageous admission made in an official court document? None of the television news networks has reported on it. None of the major national newspapers has published a story about it. A few Internet news outlets have done some commendable reporting on it, but their reach is minimal at this point.

Without the establishment media informing the nation that this sort of institutionalized racism is going on, it will continue unabated. And if there is one thing that this proves other than the fact that racism is still deeply ingrained into some of our government systems, it’s that the conservative complaints about media are wholly without merit. Liberal media my ass!


HUH? Fox In Talks To Produce NBC’s Hillary Clinton Project

Posted by on August 10, 2013 at 4:04 pm. 4 Comments :

Earlier this week, Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus went apoplectic over the announcement that NBC Entertainment was developing a miniseries based on Hillary Clinton’s post-White House life. With no script, or even a firm decision to go forward, the GOP, and their PR division, Fox News, lashed out at the network for even considering such a thing. Priebus threatened NBC and CNN (who are considering their own Clinton documentary) calling it “appalling” that they “have taken it upon themselves to be Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives.” He continued…

“If they have not agreed to pull this programming prior to the start of the RNC’s Summer Meeting on August 14, I will seek a binding vote stating that the RNC will neither partner with these networks in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates they sponsor.”

RNC Debates
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Both networks waived off Priebus’ threats saying that he was prematurely judging the projects that are both in very early stages of development. They also pointed out that the projects would be produced by their respective entertainment divisions and that the news divisions would have no role whatsoever in their content. Priebus dismissed those responses and persisted in his assertion that the programs would be biased and that he would not permit his Party to be engaged with the networks should they proceed. He does not believe that the distinction between the news and entertainment divisions has any merit.

Well, today this melodrama became significantly more complex. The New York Times is reporting that NBC is in talks with Fox Television Studios to produce their miniseries. Fox has confirmed the report. NBC’s decision to go with Fox would be influenced in part by Fox’s extensive experience with long-form television.

The problem for Priebus and the GOP is that now they would have to exclude Fox News from holding any of their primary debates. After all, if they are going to take it upon themselves to be Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives, then the GOP would be forced to show them the same treatment they show NBC and CNN. And Priebus couldn’t argue that Fox’s entertainment division is separate from their news division because he already rejected that argument.

So now the Republican Party may not be able to have debates on any of the cable news networks. This leaves them with only ABC and CBS. Well, technically, there is also the highest rated national network, Univision, but that doesn’t seem like a good fit for the Hispanic-hating GOP. Perhaps they could work something out with Al-Jazeera America. The GOP is getting closer to Rush Limbaugh’s ideal. Yesterday he offered some advice to Republicans:

“Do ‘em on your own network. Put on your own debates with your own moderators,” he said, because “Wherever you go outside of Fox, you are going up against the Democrat Party.””

The opportunities for Republicans are getting narrower every day. I continue to believe, as I wrote last week, that the best thing that could happen to the Democrats is for Republicans to sequester themselves in the bosom of Fox News. It would limit their exposure to the broader electorate and the independents they need to win. It would also insure that their candidates were unvetted and unprepared for the real-life battles of a campaign. If they spend the primary season being fluffed by Fox, when they eventually face the general election they will be surprised by sharp criticisms from which they were shielded in their chummy primary.

But now they may not even be able to go to Fox. What will become of them? Will they wander the countryside looking for local broadcasters to carry their debates? Will they abandon TV altogether and have their debates on talk radio? I’m sure Limbaugh would appreciate that. Or more likely, they will retreat from their pompous rhetoric and consent to have their debates wherever they are fortunate enough to get an invitation. That is, if they’re smart. So don’t hold your breath.

[Update:] Priebus made a hysterical appearance on CNN’s State of the Union and tried desperately to wriggle out of any obligation to extend his GOP boycott to Fox News if they assume production of NBC’s project. His all too obvious dependency on Fox was in evidence as he attempted to dismiss their lead production role as akin to catering. He also reiterated that his goal is to protect Republican candidates from what he believes are unfriendly moderators. So, again, let him parade his flock on networks that will fluff them lovingly. That will soften them up for the kill when they reach the general election.


Sarah Palin Can’t Help Making A Buffoon Of Herself (With Help From Fox News)

Posted by on August 10, 2013 at 2:23 pm. 7 Comments :

Sarah Palin appeared on the Fox News Saturday program “Cashin’ In” to discuss her twisted perceptions of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), and the imaginary “death panels” she is obsessed with.

Palin was asked by wingnut host Eric Bolling if she felt vindicated by the presence of some Democrats who have come forward to criticize certain aspects of the law. Palin answered by mistakenly saying that “I don’t think we should condone them.” What she meant to say was that she didn’t want to “condemn them,” because she appreciated their position.

Setting aside that malaprop, Palin insisted that “There are, of course, death panels” in the law that she called “evil.” However, when asked what she thought the motives were of the critical Democrats, she went completely off the rails:

Palin: It’s black and white, in the law, that there will be rationing of health care. They couldn’t go forever in not acknowledging that or they would look like complete buffoons, and they would be deemed incompetent having not read the law to understand that death panels are a part of this atrocity.

If not reading the law makes you an incompetent buffoon, then Palin is at the head of her class. This is what the law actually says about the Independent Advisory Board about which Palin and Bolling were talking:

“The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.”

It’s right there in black and white. The law explicitly prohibits rationing. Of course, Fox News will never let their viewers know that. But they did accidentally provide evidence of the dishonesty of their death panel fallacy. At the outset of this trumped up issue, Palin was referring to end-of-life counseling sessions which, in her dementia, meant death panels. In fact, they were merely opportunities for people to consult with their doctors about what sort of treatment they would want in the event of a catastrophic illness that left them unable to express themselves. After it became clear that Palin had miserably misinterpreted this provision of the law, she switched the complaint to the Independent Advisory Board (which she also misinterpreted), and pretended that that was her complaint all along. Well, Bolling’s graphic proves otherwise.

Fox News

Even after showing this graphic referring to end-of-life-counseling, their discussion covered only the unrelated Independent Advisory Board. If there is one thing you can say about Fox News, it’s that it is a network where incompetence and buffoonery runs rampant.


Fox News Lies: Agent Did Not Confirm That IRS Is Still Targeting Tea Party

Posted by on August 9, 2013 at 3:50 pm. 4 Comments :

A little over a week ago the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by uber-rightist Republican Dave Camp, held a closed-door hearing wherein they interviewed an anonymous IRS agent. Immediately afterward they broke for recess and left town. Now, a week later, and still on vacation, Camp released a smidgen of the transcript from that interview and declared the testimony “outrageous.”

Fox News
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Committee: I am asking this currently, if today if a Tea Party case, a group — a case from a Tea Party group came in to your desk, you reviewed the file and there was no evidence of political activity, would you potentially approve that case?

IRS agent: At this point I would send it to secondary screening, political advocacy.

Committee: So you would treat a Tea Party group as a political advocacy case even if there was no evidence of political activity on the application. Is that right?

IRS agent: Based on my current manager’s direction, uh-huh.

Fox News, the PR arm of the GOP, predictably advanced the Republican distortion of the testimony to further inflame the phony IRS “scandal” theme that the Tea Party is still being targeted. However, before any logical characterization of this brief exchange can be made, it needs to be pointed out that Republicans have previously provided severely biased excerpts from hearing transcripts and research. They carefully redacted any information that contradicted their allegations. For instance, they deliberately withheld testimony that cleared upper-level managers of having any part in the decisions to scrutinize applications for tax exemption. They also failed to disclose that their inquiries to the Inspector General’s office specifically directed them to research only Tea Party or conservative applications. That’s why the IG didn’t find any progressive organizations at first. They were told not to look for them.

So until the entire transcript is released, it is fair to assume that the Republicans are selectively revealing only information that supports their false allegations. That’s how they’ve done it in the past and there is no reason to suspect that they’ve changed.

That said, the snippet of testimony they did release doesn’t even confirm their accusation that the IRS is still targeting conservatives. The anonymous agent was only asked what he would do if he received a Tea Party application. He answered that he would “send it to secondary screening.” That’s precisely what should be done for an application from an overtly political group. Notice that, at least in this excerpt, he was not asked what he would do with an application from a progressive group. If his answer to such a question is that he would also send that to a secondary screening, then there is no targeting going on. All political groups would be receiving the same scrutiny, which is how it ought to be.

When Camp was interviewed today by Neil Cavuto of Fox News, the story was presented as a confirmation of the IRS agent’s assertion that the Tea Party is still being targeted, but, as described above, there is no evidence of that in the portion of the agent’s testimony that was released. And without the missing portion of the transcript it’s impossible to make any rational analysis. But that has never stopped Fox before. Irrational analyses of incomplete data are one of their favorite tactics to advance right-wing disinformation.

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Glenn Beck Challenges “Anybody Who Thinks I’m A Nincompoop”

Posted by on August 9, 2013 at 11:56 am. 3 Comments :

Pope Glenn BeckSetting the stage for a stampede that could flatten Dallas, Glenn Beck took to the airwaves (video below) to glorify himself and lay down the gauntlet for his critics:

“I challenge you…for anybody who thinks I’m a nincompoop, I challenge you to find anyone on planet earth who has had the direction and the specifics as right as I have and we have over the last six years. I challenge you! Bring me the names.”

It goes without saying that there are millions of rational people who know that Beck is a nincompoop (or some other variety of poop). Fortunately for Beck, very few of them care what he says or would waste their time responding to his challenge. Since I have plenty of free time, I’ll pick up the gauntlet and point out that, contrary to his own inflated impression of himself, he has gotten more things wrong over the years than Nostra Dumbass.

Beck, while admitting that he is often “wrong on timing,” is terribly concerned now that “we are about to have an economic impact the likes of which the globe has never seen.” He predicts that it will “slide the entire globe into chaos.”

Perfect Storm

All of this fear mongering is reminiscent of his frequent “Perfect Storm” admonitions that he insisted would presage the arrival of the End Times. So far, none of the dozen or more warnings he so ominously delivered over the past few years has swept us off the face of the Earth or into chaos. Nor has his predictions of a global Muslim/Socialist Caliphate overtaking the world come to pass. And we’re still waiting for his promised unveiling of information so devastating that it would “take down pretty much the whole power structure.”

The real challenge would be for anyone to find something that Beck has said that was accurate. Amid his scrambled brain full of conspiracies theories, he couldn’t even get right the matter of whether or not he has ever been called a conspiracy theorist.

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Megyn Kelly Nabs Sean Hannity’s Timeslot On Fox News – Per Drudge

Posted by on August 8, 2013 at 4:08 pm. 22 Comments :

Megyn KellyAs reported here last month, Fox News daytime anchor Megyn Kelly is set to move to primetime when she returns from maternity leave in September. At the time of the announcement there was no indication of which current primetime host would be ousted.

Today, Matt drudge is reporting that Kelly will be taking over at 9:00pm, the timeslot currently held by Sean Hannity. Drudge may not be the best source for news, but later this afternoon Fox News CEO Roger Ailes was asked about the rumor and, while declining to confirm or deny, pretty much confirmed it. When asked specifically about Hannity, Ailes only offered a vague non-reply saying, “Hannity is a brand that many of our viewers love and want to see, and, as you know, is one of the nicest guys in the building.”

Setting aside the fact that Hannity is perhaps the most despised person in the building (Bill O’Reilly won’t even talk to him), Ailes’ obvious dodge is revealing. There is still room for speculation, however. Hannity could be moved to 10:00, and Greta Van Susteren bumped out of primetime – perhaps to 7:00 where Shepard Smith is currently hosting his second hour of the day. Ailes was quoted at an investors meeting saying that “Shep and I have been working quietly on something we will roll out in September on how news is presented, a new way to deliver news.” So there is some fluidity in Smith’s future. Rolling out a “new way to deliver news” sounds suspiciously like throwing something up on the Internet.

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In a demonstration of how inept the Fox News team is, they reported the news of Kelly’s scheduling by citing the Drudge Report and noting that “A Fox News spokesperson said no official announcement would be made at this time.” So apparently Drudge has better sources about Fox News than Fox News does. And don’t expect much to change at the network. As I wrote last month…

“[Fox News] will continue to be rabidly right-wing, with a clearly denoted bias for Republican Party dogma. Kelly’s entry into the club will not change that. In fact, it will congeal the conservative hackery into a younger, more alluring package. But the brain-dead zombies who watch Fox won’t have to worry a bit about whether they will continue to get a daily dose of propaganda devoid of those pesky and annoying facts that make understanding current events so difficult. For them, Kelly will be a comforting and reassuring breath of fresh lies.”

Megyn Kelly is nothing more than a younger, prettier, Glenn Beck. Her devotion to right-wing propaganda and conspiracy theories is just as strong, however her background in law and her personable presentation makes the disinformation that much more palatable to Fox’s geriatric, white, male audience. Stay tuned for more details.

[Update] Sean Hannity has commented on the programming rumors saying “Let’s just say in the end I’m very happy. That’s all I can say at this point.” That sounds like a confirmation that Kelly is pushing him aside and he is spinning it as positive for him. But unless he’s getting O’Reilly’s spot, I can’t see how getting booted out of the timeslot you’ve had since the network launched is a good thing.


BREAKING: Obama Does Something, Fox News Opposes It

Posted by on August 7, 2013 at 4:14 pm. 10 Comments :

This just in from our Washington bureau. The White House has announced that President Obama will be taking decisive action on a critical foreign and/or domestic policy matter effective immediately.

Fox News Alert
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The American people are paying close attention and we will be monitoring their reaction to this story as we indoctrinate them with the approved response. In the meantime, we have twenty or thirty Fox News contributors and Republican operatives standing by to renounce the President’s move as irresponsible, premature, overdue, and too costly, divisive, and impractical. Some analysts are already saying that it won’t work and is politically motivated.

That is pretty much the standard Fox News response to anything that President Obama has done for the past five years. And today is no exception. Shortly after the news broke that the administration had filed charges against several suspects in the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Fox went to work implementing the above protocol. One of the most entertaining, and farthest removed from reality, instances occurred (where else) on Fox & Friends.

Substitute host Clayton Morris asked Fox legal analyst (and Rupert Murdoch’s personal attorney) Peter Johnson, Jr. “What took so long?” Johnson bit into the leading question with a tirade of absurdity that began with his accusation that the filing was purely political.

Johnson: After a terroristic act, after an act of war in which four Americans were killed and others wounded, we’re gonna take this to the civil courts […] because there’s no will in this government today to bring people to task in a military sense. If we’re really engaged in a worldwide war on terror, which the White House doesn’t like to admit, then we’re gonna act in ways that are consistent with times of war.”

Johnson’s assertion that these charges will bring the suspects into a civil court illustrate just how dishonest he is from the start. He is a lawyer and knows very well that the charges filed are for criminal, not civil, violations. Johnson and Morris also belittled the filing of charges because they were not followed up with an arrest, even though they well know that the United States has no power to arrest foreigners in other countries. These charges are a preliminary measure taken so that if the suspects are apprehended by Libyan authorities, there is a pretext for requesting extradition.

But even more ridiculous is Johnson’s characterization that the Obama administration “has no will” to prosecute terrorists “in a military sense,” or that his actions are not “consistent with times of war.” After all, this is the President who orchestrated the killing of Osama Bin Laden and dozens of high-ranking Al Qaeda operatives. Johnson is aware of these facts, he just chooses to suppress them in order to disseminate his lies.

This is an all too predictable reaction from the Fox News team that is more fixated on disparaging the President than on delivering actual news. They regard their mission as misinforming their audience of weak-minded goons and muddying the political discourse. It’s something they are quite good at as long as they are dealing with gullible and incurious viewers. Fortunately for Fox, that is pretty much their key demographic.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: Clinton Polling Ahead Of Every Republican Is “Underwhelming”

Posted by on August 7, 2013 at 10:50 am. 6 Comments :

While it is still more than three years before the next presidential election, Fox News is desperately spinning polling results in order to diminish the broad popularity of Hillary Clinton.

In an article on Fox Nation (the notoriously dishonest Fox News community site), a poll conducted (pdf) by Monmouth University is given a thorough, four paragraph, analysis by conservative fabulist Michael Barone. The conclusion he draws from his careful examination of the poll data is that Clinton’s showing is “underwhelming.”

Fox Nation

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault on Truth

It takes a seriously determined feat of self-delusion to make that assessment. Clinton is shown to be beating every prominent Republican matched against her in the poll. She is ahead of Chris Christie 43-39; Marco Rubio 47-36; Jeb Bush 47-37; and Ted Cruz 48-32. She has the highest favorable rating (52%) of anyone in the field, including a net positive in the survey’s “red” states. The GOP’s Tea Party all-stars fare considerably worse: Rand Paul, 34%, Rubio, 33%; Cruz, 22%. And, not that this will be any factor in 2016, but Sarah Palin’s unfavorability soars over everyone else at a whopping 61%.

This tendency for Republicans to mis-read polling seems to be a permanent part of their character. During the 2012 campaign they famously embraced what they called “unskewed” polls, but were actually perversions of polling data that proved to be astronomically wrong. Facilitated by Fox News, these defective analyses produced a reality shock when President Obama was handily reelected. There was a near mental collapse on the right who didn’t think that such a thing was possible, despite all the legitimate polling that predicted it. Even Karl Rove persisted in an embarrassing on-air denial as the race was called for Obama.

After the election, the GOP and Fox News resolved to reexamine their perspectives on strategy, analysis, and reporting. However, it now appears that they have sunk back into their old habits of self-deception and disinformation. It’s fair to assume that this psychosis will produce the same results in 2014 and 2016 as they did in 2012. If you can’t face the reality of a situation, you can’t respond to what is actually taking place. And Fox seems determined to maintain their aversion to reality which, as Stephen Colbert has revealed, has “a well known liberal bias.”