Fox News Nitwits: Cheap Student Loans Keep People Out Of The Labor Market

Posted by on July 7, 2013 at 2:34 pm. 7 Comments :

If there is one thing that is not in short supply at Fox News, it’s raving, rampant, drooling stupidity. Whether expressed by their denial of science, their embrace of religious mythology, or their gullible acceptance of ludicrous conspiracy theories, Fox slathers on the dumb in thick layers. But today was one of those occasions that merit special recognition.

On Fox & Friends Sunday (video below), co-host Tucker Carlson questioned right-wing economist Peter Morici about the unemployment rate and how it is all President Obama’s fault that it isn’t lower (even though it has declined 25% since the highs produced by the Bush recession). Carlson and Morici agreed that one of the major contributing factors to the “crisis” is that Obama has artificially kept student loan rates down in a scheme to push the unemployment rate lower.

Morici: The president has been buying lower unemployment rates by essentially providing very cheap student loans and keeping people out of the labor market.
Carlson: Exactly. So, cheap student loans keep people out of the labor market. This is a dangerous spiral.

Indeed. This devious plot to help young people get an education must stop. We need to send them out into a difficult job market at the earliest opportunity so that employers can exploit their ignorance and inexperience with long hours, low wages, and few benefits. Why even bother with paying their way through high school? The last thing America needs is well-informed citizens with advanced degrees. We can get them from India at a significant discount. And if everyone were educated, who the hell would be left to watch Fox News? Other than, of course, the fine residents of southern red states:

Red State Education
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Ending this socialist abomination of financial assistance for students would give a huge boost to the economy. Corporations would become more profitable due to sharply reduced payroll expenses. Of course, they would also be hard pressed to find skilled workers, but they are already solving that problem by sending those jobs to China. This provides a related foreign policy benefit by forcing the Chinese to waste their money on educating their citizens.

There are other lessons in this for the bureaucrats in Washington. For instance, child labor laws are another major obstacle that keeps young people out of the labor market. And we have more than two million prisoners who could be put to work. And why should people who enlist in the military be taken off of the employment rolls? And what about all of those lazy senior citizens who so conveniently “retire,” so that they are no longer counted in the unemployment statistics (we’re on to you Obama)? For that matter, we could significantly reduce our Medicare and Social Security burden by making loafing seniors get off their butts or pay for their own heart bypass surgery and chemotherapy. For those unable to do so, America saves a fortune on health care when they die. We’d save billions on their frivolous prescription meds alone.

Thank goodness for Fox News who are the only media outlet with the courage to call out kids who are ripping off the nation by seeking to get an education. But then, Fox has long been at the forefront of the education hoax. They regularly disparage institutions of higher learning as bastions of liberal elitism. They campaign for defunding and/or privatization of public schools. They advocate home schooling as an alternative to trained and competent instruction. They oppose common sense programs to improve the efficiency of curriculum standards, even going to the extreme of portraying them as conspiracies to indoctrinate our children.

Clearly, Fox News has performed heroically in the battle against knowledge. And these remarks by privileged upper-cruster Tucker Carlson (whose parents were wealthy enough to pay for his education like the Founders intended) are further evidence of Fox’s commitment to preserving education for the rich and menial servitude for everyone else.

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REPORT: Obama Says Tea Party Members Fit Profile of Domestic Terrorists (Really?)

Posted by on July 6, 2013 at 10:52 am. 22 Comments :

Tea PartyIn a press conference in Tanzania, the National Report notes an extraordinary exchange between a journalist from the Associated Press, Ramona Darlington, and President Barack Obama. According to the Report, Darlington asked Obama to explain what the profile of an American domestic terrorist is. Obama’s answer will surely raise the ire of the Tea Party and their members:

“Typically domestic terrorists in the U.S. are people who cling to obsolete beliefs from the time of the American Revolution. They are conservative Christians, reactionary Republicans and conspiracy theorists many of whom belong to racist hate groups. […] Tea Partiers commonly own guns and stock up ammunition and food in anticipation of starting another civil war to overthrow the will of the governing body who represent all of the American people.”

This is a shocking statement coming from the President of the United States. Sure, the Tea Party has much in common with the Taliban and other violent extremists. They both believe that religion should be the foundation of government. They are both virulently anti-gay. They would both enforce a submissive role for women who must not be permitted to make decisions about their own bodies. They both have a perverse obsession with guns. They both advocate overthrowing the secular governments that they despise. And while these similarities are apparent to objective observers, for the President to express these thoughts openly is astonishing.

American Taliban
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Naturally, the mainstream media has suppressed the reporting of these controversial remarks. Why would they do that? Could it be because they are in the tank for Obama as conservatives have long argued? Or could it be that the source of the story, The National Report, is an obviously satirical web site and that the whole thing was a joke?

Despite all the evidence that the story is a fake, many on the Tea Party right have taken it to heart and are outraged that the President said these things that he never actually said. The story has already been picked up by FreeRepublic, TeaParty.org, TruthAboutGuns, and a popular Ron Paul fan site, the DailyPaul. These geniuses must have failed to notice the conspicuously comedic content filling the site’s home page. Here are samples of their current articles in addition to the one about the terrorist Tea Party:

  • Was Paula Deen Framed for Racism by Tasteless Food Trend Purists?
  • Lawmaker Corks Gay Talk Hole with God’s Law, Crowned D&D Champ.
  • Selfish Wendy Davis Rejects Rick Perry Compliment, Could Have Kidney Infection.
  • Poll: Can Zimmerman get a Mistrial if the Lady Jury is on Their Periods?
  • New CDC Study Indicates Pets Of Gay Couples Worse At Sports, Better At Fashion Than Pets Of Straight Couples.

Since this wasn’t enough to alert the Tea Party dimwits to the fact that the site peddles parody, they might have avoided making asses of themselves by reading the site’s rather humorous disclaimer:

“National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. […] Advice given is NOT to be construed as professional. If you are in need of professional help (and you may be if you are on this page), please consult a professional.”

Was that too vague as well? Then perhaps the Teabaggers should have done just a modicum of research whereby they would have discovered something that was later noted by a spokesman for the Associated Press:

“There is no AP reporter named Ramona Darlington, this is not an AP story and as best as I can tell, a few people have been had.”

This is fairly typical for the great thinkers of the Tea Party. They repudiate the science that overwhelmingly proves that Climate Change is occurring and is caused by humans. They reject evolution and cling to the biblical myth that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. And they have fallen for similar scams that range from Obama being a Muslim from Kenya, to FEMA building concentration camps, to the health care law creating death panels, to government plotting mass gun confiscations, and on and on.

Consequently, it isn’t much of stretch for them to buy into this phony news story. It presents a ridiculous notion that they want to believe so badly that it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s actually true, or even plausible. And that pretty much sums up their entire political philosophy. They’re wrong on the economy. They’re wrong on taxes. They are hysterically off-kilter on the Constitution, despite their neato costumes. And they are an imminent danger to satirical sites like the National Report because they are funnier in their own ineptness than anything a good satirist can invent.


Sarah Palin’s Resignation: Fox News Can’t Tell The Truth About Anything Anymore

Posted by on July 5, 2013 at 1:05 pm. 4 Comments :

It has been well documented that Fox News deliberately lies whenever it suits their extremist, Teabagging, partisan purpose. They have told innumerable falsehoods about everything from ACORN to Climate Change; from Iraq to Benghazi; from Obama’s religion to his politics to his birthplace. But now it is apparent that Fox cannot even be trusted to tell the truth about the most basic and innocent of facts.

Fox News

In a story about the race for senator in Alaska, Fox News was ostensibly reporting on the emerging and contentious battle for the GOP nomination. Palin’s name was brought up mainly to dismiss her as a possible candidate due to, among other things, her recent re-signing with Fox News as a paid contributor. But when referencing her, Fox described the now infamous tale of her quitting her job as governor barely half way through the term. Here is how Fox portrayed that event:

“The return of Palin, the state’s most high-profile Republican, appears unlikely despite the persistent beckoning of national conservatives. She hasn’t run for elected office since resigning as Alaska governor to become the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and recently returned to Fox News as a paid commentator.”

Of course, anyone who was not strung out on Oxycontin or some other mind-altering substance (which eliminates Rush Limbaugh), knows that Palin didn’t resign her post until July of 2009. That was eight months after she had already lost the election in November of 2008, and eleven months after she was offered the VP slot on the McCain ticket.

Clearly Palin did not resign as governor “to become the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee.” So Fox was off by nearly a year on the timing of Palin’s bailout. Fox was also off as to the reason, because Palin stated in her own announcement that she was resigning to avoid further trouble and expense resulting from numerous ethics violations investigations which she was undergoing in Alaska.

It is understandable, although still despicable, that Fox would resort to dishonesty about political matters. They are devoted to advancing their rightist agenda and since they can’t do so honestly, they lie. But what on earth compels them to lie about something for which their is no apparent benefit? The only plausible answer is that they have just become so accustomed to lying that they do so as a matter habit. It is such a routine behavior for them at this point that they simply have lost the ability to grasp the difference between truth and lies. Lucky for them, their audience is no more concerned about truth than they are, and will remain loyal, if ill-informed, viewers.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Schizophrenic, Obama-Bashing, Fox News Reaction To Egypt’s Quest For Democracy

Posted by on July 4, 2013 at 11:06 am. 4 Comments :

Watching Fox News struggle to frame the demonstrations in Egypt is like watching a man with a split personality have an argument with himself.

Fox Nation

For more made-up Fox-aganda, get the acclaimed ebook:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault on Truth

On the one hand, Fox is adamantly opposed to any expression of faith that is not devoutly Christian. They are particularly averse to Islam, which they regard, falsely, as an innately violent religion that is responsible for most of the world’s terrorism. So you might think that they would celebrate the fall of an increasingly dictatorial regime in Egypt that sprung from the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. And you would be right.

However, at the same time, Fox has reported on the ousting of Mohammed Morsi with a distinct negativity that conflicts with their broader worldview. The angle that Fox has taken is that the failure of Egypt’s new democracy is the fault of President Obama’s incompetent foreign policy. They manage to blame Obama for both the ascendency of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and for its downfall. That’s a thin line for Fox to walk, but they are used to it. They work very hard at characterizing everything Obama does as a disaster. If he eats a slice of apple pie on Friday he is promoting an unhealthy diet. If he doesn’t have a slice on Saturday, he is un-American.

Of course the reality is that foreign policy is a much more complex endeavor than Fox (or its viewers) can comprehend. Just one year ago, the Fox pundits unanimously condemned Obama for supporting the Arab Spring uprising that resulted in the nation’s first democratic elections ever. But today the same pundits are condemning him for not speaking out. What these simpletons fail to realize is that, if Obama were to more vocally advocate on behalf of the protesters, he would give the Morsi government ammunition to dismiss them as pawns of the Great Satan in the United States. So Obama has adopted a more diplomatic approach that allows the demonstrators to pursue their goals, while maintaining support for the role of democracy.

Another example of how the Fox Nationalists have misread these events is their criticism that Egypt’s new found aspirations for democracy have failed under Obama’s watch. First of all, let’s not forget that they blossomed under Obama’s watch. But more to the point, it is shortsighted and simplistic to pronounce them as a failure at this early stage of the game. Egypt has only been a democracy for one year. That is not a long time historically for new democracies to stabilize.

Take the United States of America, for a random example. They declared their independence from a colonial monarchy in 1776. But they didn’t secure their sovereignty until 1783, with the end of the Revolutionary War. Then, they didn’t have a functional constitution until 1789. The Bill of Rights was not ratified until 1791. For much of the next half century, only white, male, property owners were permitted to vote. And in 1861 a Civil War broke out dividing the new nation and taking the lives of hundreds of thousands of its citizens. By comparison, Egypt is doing way better.

Let’s face it, the only reason Fox is reporting on this (or any other) subject is to bash Obama. That’s why they so blatantly stuff inflammatory rhetoric into their headlines. And this one offered them an opportunity to associate Obama with the Muslim religion that they have tried for years to connect to him. In the end it’s just another attempt to revive the birther crap that has been such a big part of their Obama-hate campaign.


Rupert Murdoch Was Secretly Recorded Admitting Violations Of American Law

Posted by on July 3, 2013 at 6:14 pm. 6 Comments :

MurdochalypseA recording of a board meeting of Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper in Britain has surfaced and it contains some rather damning evidence of Murdoch’s knowledge of illegal activity, including possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the United States. Murdoch and his staff were discussing the fallout from the scandal wherein Murdoch’s newspapers were discovered to have been hacking into the phones, computers and email of politicians, royals, celebrities, and private citizens, including a kidnapped schoolgirl who was later found to have been murdered.

The tape was disclosed by a British investigative news service and broadcast on the UK’s Channel4. The transcript, published in part by the Columbia Journalism Review, revealed Murdoch admitting that he had prior knowledge of bribes paid to police officials, which he previously testified before parliament that he knew nothing about.

Murdoch: We’re talking about payments for news tips from cops: that’s been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn’t instigate it.

I remember when I first bought the News of the World, the first day I went to the office… and there was a big wall-safe… And I said, “What’s that for?” And they said, “We keep some cash in there.” And I said, “What for?” They said, “Well, sometimes the editor needs some on a Saturday night for powerful friends. And sometimes the chairman [the late Sir William Carr] is doing badly at the tables, (laughter) and he helps himself…”

There is a certain irony in Murdoch getting caught admitting to criminally eavesdropping on others by a secret recording made, most likely, by one of his own criminal reporters. But now that this has come out, Murdoch needs to be held accountable for his crimes in England and here in the U.S. The FCPA prohibits exactly the sort of bribery of government officials that Murdoch confesses to in this recording. And that may be why Murdoch once gave a million dollars to a lobbying group that was attempting to have the FCPA altered in a manner that would benefit Murdoch.

It is time for the Department of Justice to investigate Murdoch and bring charges against him if the evidence supports it. The FCC should also look into whether Murdoch still satisfies its criteria for owning a media enterprise. America must stop coddling its wealthy industrialists when there is reason to believe that they have broken the law.


Why Is The Fox Nation Rooting For George Zimmerman?

Posted by on July 3, 2013 at 2:38 pm. 107 Comments :

For the past week a murder trial in Florida has fixated the nation and the media. This sort of thing is not unusual as the past trials of Jodie Arias, Scott Peterson, Casey Anthony, and all the way back to O.J. Simpson have proved. What is unusual is the lengths to which Fox News has gone to cheerlead for the defendant.

From the very beginning Fox has sought to portray George Zimmerman as the victim who was only acting in his own defense. At the same time, they cast Trayvon Martin as a violent thug who must have been up to no good. Take a look at the graphic editorializing Fox engaged in early on:

Fox News Racism

In reporting on the court proceedings this week, Fox continued to demonstrate their overt prejudice in favor of Zimmerman. Nearly every commentator Fox put on the air found fault with the prosecution and managed to spin the witness testimony as beneficial to the defense. And the headlines at the Fox Nation Lie Factory tell the story that Fox is desperately trying to implant in the weak minds of their viewers:

  • Zimmerman Blockbuster: Witness Saw Man With ‘Lighter Skin Color’ Getting Pummeled ‘Ground And Pound’ Style
  • ZIMMERMAN PROSECUTION WITNESS IMPLODES
  • Zimmerman ‘Elated’ at Prospect That Trayvon Fight Was Recorded
  • Prosecutors ‘Must Have Had a Stroke’ Over Detective’s Testimony
  • AP: Trayvon Martin’s Legal Troubles Reportedly Covered Up By Police
  • GRETA: THE ZIMMERMAN PROSECUTION HAS A GIANT PROBLEM
  • Travyon Martin’s Friend Grilled By Defense

This parade of pro-Zimmerman analysis is reminiscent of last year’s election analysis on Fox, where every discussion leaned heavily in favor of a Romney victory. Fox irresponsibly led their audience to believe that President Obama was irredeemably unpopular and bound for defeat. Fox would only present disreputable polls that showed Romney ahead, while ignoring all the other surveys (including their own) that forecast an Obama victory. When reality set in on election day, Team Fox and the gullible dupes who watch the network, were dumbfounded at a result for which they were entirely unprepared.

The same thing is happening now with this trial. The obvious zeal that Fox is expressing for a Zimmerman acquittal is not incidental. It fits into their mission to demonize minorities. Try to imagine what Fox’s (or the rest of the media) reaction to this case would have been if the races were reversed. Do you think Fox would be defending a black man who had shot and killed an unarmed white kid walking home with Skittles and iced tea?

Zimmerman-Martin

The consequences of Fox’s disinformation could be troublesome. If Zimmerman is convicted, the response by the racially biased viewers of Fox will be shock and awe. Just like after the election, they will be unable to grasp how a jury had concluded that Zimmerman was guilty when everything they had seen on Fox News convinced them that he was innocent and that there was no chance of a conviction. Fox appears to be priming their viewers to rise up in outrage at a verdict they never saw as even a remote possibility.

On CNN and MSNBC there has been a much more balanced presentation of the court proceedings. When the prosecution flubbed an argument, it was reported as such, even on Al Sharpton’s show, despite the clear bias of the host. When a witness contradicted a defense assertion, that was reported as well. The reason for this is that unbiased journalists do not have a stake in the outcome. Liberals, from the outset, have only wanted justice to be done. They were appropriately disturbed at the start of this affair when Zimmerman was let off without an arrest or investigation. The protests that erupted were focused on those ends, not on railroading Zimmerman into jail.

Now that the people are getting their trial, the judgment of the jury ought to be respected. But That is not the tone that Fox is advancing. The hunger for absolution on Fox is palpable. They are convinced that a black youth with no record of violence or criminal activity initiated an unprovoked attack on a conscientious neighborhood watch captain. And until the jury rules, that is the position Fox is sticking with. If that isn’t racism, then what the hell is it?

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Fox News Rewards Megyn Kelly’s Bootlicking Conservative Bias With A Promotion To Primetime

Posted by on July 2, 2013 at 2:14 pm. 13 Comments :

This just in: “Megyn Kelly will move to FOX News Channel’s (FNC) primetime lineup upon her return from maternity leave, announced Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO, FOX News.”

Megyn Kelly GQThis was just a matter of time as Fox News has pretty obviously been grooming Kelly for a prominent role at the network from the day she was hired. Both Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes had taken a profound (and somewhat creepy) interest in her due to her pinup girl good looks, her background as a lawyer, and her eagerness to fulfill the Fox mission of slandering anyone and everything liberal without regard to honesty or ethics. (See Fox Nation vs. Reality)

Kelly fits the Fox mold to a tee, as a busty blonde presenter who would appeal to the Cialis-chomping, scooter-riding, gold-hoarding, geezers who make up such a large part of Fox’s audience and advertiser base. And Kelly is not shy about marketing her sex appeal as demonstrated by her pictorial in GQ Magazine.

As an anchor, Kelly has fashioned a more palatable version of Glenn Beck’s conspiracy-riddled wingnuttery. The stories she features are a collection of partisan tripe and manufactured outrages that have little basis in fact. From her near-obsession with the irrelevant New Black Panther Party, to her false accusations against then-Pennsylvania senate candidate Joe Sestak, Kelly has been a non-stop, gushing flow of disinformation and gossip. For more examples:

  • Kelly defended an anti-Islam filmmaker as a “patsy” of the Obama administration.
  • Kelly asserted that Americans have “gotta get a little squeamish” about the prospect of being killed by drones.
  • Kelly told her colleague Bill O’Reilly that pepper spray used against student protesters was just “a food product, essentially.”
  • Kelly moderated a discussion that was based on a series of “Fox Facts” that were cribbed directly from a Republican National Committee press release.
  • Kelly featured a disreputable reporter with a history of violence (who was later arrested for sexually assaulting a four year old girl) in her frequent attacks on the funders of the Islamic Center that Fox derisively referred to as the “Ground Zero Mosque.”
  • Kelly misrepresented the results of a Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll to argue that Democrats are defying the will of the people.
  • Kelly helped to cover up the extra-marital affair of GOP senator John Ensign and failed to disclose her personal involvement in the story.

It’s easy to see why Fox would want to advance Kelly to their primetime lineup. The musty presences of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Greta Van Susteren could surely use an injection of new blood. The problem is that one of them will have to be booted from their perch. The most obvious loser would be Van Susteren, whose show is the weakest performer of the lot. However, Hannity’s position is hardly safe considering that he is despised by most of his colleagues. Even O’Reilly cannot be dismissed since he has floated suggestions that he might be ready to retire.

So we will have to wait until Fox announces their new schedule to see who comes up short. But in the end it will make no difference in the content that Fox offers. It 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.

[Update: 7/10/2003] There is still no word on where Kelly will land in primetime, but one of the replacements for her daytime gig will be Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson, whose experience as a former Miss America certainly prepared her for a role as a Fox News anchor. Media Matters has prepared an exhaustive look back at Carlson’s credentials.


The GOP Alienates Another Key Constituent Group: Seniors

Posted by on July 1, 2013 at 8:36 pm. 7 Comments :

The Republican Party seems to be on a frantic mission to destroy their reputation with every constituency of voters in America, other than the Taliban wing of the Tea Party Christianists.

The GOP is currently engaged in nationwide battles to give government control over women’s bodies. They are exploiting every opportunity to suppress voting rights for African-Americans and other minorities. They oppose immigration reform that would eventually offer a path to legalized status for Latinos, some of whom have lived their whole lives in the United States. They obstructed the enactment of measures that would have prevented the interest rates for student loans from doubling. And, as always, they work feverishly to protect the wealthy from paying a fair tax rate, while allowing the rates to increase for those less fortunate.

So let’s see…who did they leave out? They got women, African-Americans, Latinos, youth, the poor and middle class. Who is left for Republicans to piss off?

Well, it should come as no surprise that the masterminds running the Republican machine noticed the crack in their strategic foundation and have promptly dedicated themselves to its repair.

That’s why Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the senate, jumped into action to attack Hillary Clinton, a prospective candidate for president in 2016, as an old hag, thus insulting the final demographic group that may still have had some affection for the GOP. McConnell uproariously joked…

“Don’t tell me Democrats are the party of the future when their presidential ticket for 2016 is shaping up to look like a rerun of the ‘Golden Girls.'”

Let’s just set aside the fact that “The Golden Girls” was a successful and popular sitcom that ran for seven years, with a cast of mature women who had active lives professionally, socially, and romantically. America’s seniors, who already have some cause to reject the Republican agenda that has sought to dismantle Social Security and cut funding for Medicare, can’t be too thrilled with being portrayed as useless fossils who should be consigned to history’s dustbin. Now they have been directly assaulted as has-beens, in the words of Karl Rove, who said of Clinton and her peers that “we’re at the end of her generation and that it’s time for another to step forward.”

For the record, Hillary Clinton is 65, Karl Rove is 62, and Mitch McConnell is 71. In January of 2017, when the next president is inaugurated, Clinton will be a year younger than Ronald Reagan was when his term began.

Mitch McConnell

McConnell had better start paying more attention to what’s in his own Depends. He is approaching his thirtieth year in office and has one of the lowest favorability ratings of any sitting senator. He is up for reelection next year and his first announced opponent is the 34 year old Kentucky Secretary of State, Alison Lundergan Grimes. Not exactly what you would call a “Golden Girl,” unless you what you meant by golden was someone with a rich set of skills, experience and support.

It’s hard to understand what the Republican Party is up to by alienating so many voters. Perhaps their plan to is expand their efforts to define corporations and fetuses as persons and give them the right to vote. But if they have to depend on Teabaggers, End-Timers, and NRA-theists, they are likely to find themselves elected only in districts dug into underground bunkers with ham radio reception that only gets Glenn Beck and Pat Robertson.


Half-Term Governor Sarah Palin Calls Obama ‘Lackadaisical’ In Racist Rant

Posted by on June 30, 2013 at 12:29 pm. 50 Comments :

Sarah PalinFox News is already getting its money’s worth by re-hiring Sarah Palin. When the need came for an imbecile to provide an incoherent rhetorical jumble of nonsense in response to President’s Obama’s remarks about NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Fox was fortunate enough to have Palin back on the payroll. Who else could deliver a level of idiocy that so perfectly meshes with the bigoted leanings of the Fox audience?

President Obama was asked Thursday about his involvement in efforts to bring Snowden back to the United States. His answer was measured and appropriate: “I’m not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker,” Obama said. Indeed, there is no justification for engaging in acts of war over one guy who has had a negligible impact on foreign relations. Whatever one thinks of Snowden, his apprehension certainly has no discernible impact on international relations and doesn’t require the attention of the President.

That, however, is not the way Sarah Palin sees it. She appeared on Fox News with her predictable objection to whatever Obama might have done. But in this case she revealed an ugliness that is known to many, but which she tries to disguise.

Palin: “With Obama deciding to just, oh I guess, lead from behind on this issue too, that’s the community organizer in our president. That’s a little bit of that lackadaisical, eh you know, don’t have to take responsibility. And his resume proves he hasn’t had to take responsibility for much in all these years. This is just another issue, another example that falls in line with a community organizer.”

“Lackadaisical?” Surely Palin is aware that this word is associated with derogatory racial stereotypes that have persisted for decades. African-Americans have long been portrayed in the media and popular culture as lazy and shiftless. It’s an enduring insult that is kept in circulation by racists like Palin. And this isn’t the first time she has resurrected a classic vulgarity to attack the President. Last October she reached into her bag of verbal bigotry to say that “President Obama’s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end.”

Even from a substantive perspective, there is no logic in her repulsive condemnation of Obama. If she ever met a community organizer she would know that they are the hardest working people in politics. There is no activity in public life that requires more commitment and devotion to mission than pounding the pavement and securing the support of diverse constituencies in pursuit of a political goal.

But how would Palin know these things when she didn’t even have the fortitude to complete the one term as governor to which she had been elected and for which she had begged the people of Alaska for their support? For someone with such a lazy approach to duty, Palin has a lot of nerve to invoke a repugnant reference to the work habits of others. She doesn’t even have the good sense to educate herself on the issues on which she pontificates in order to avoid appearing the fool that she is. Now that’s lackadaisical.

This is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern for Palin and most of her conservative cohorts. It is repeated frequently on a daily basis. Both racism and lethargy (especially with regard to obtaining and reporting facts), are hallmarks of the Palin wing of the right. They are emblematic of the Tea Party’s absence of moral integrity and commitment to anything other than their narrow self interests. And they are also characteristics that fit squarely into the editorial philosophy of Fox News.

[Note: To those who argue that marking Palin as a racist because she used the word “lackadaisical” is too far a reach, please understand that it is not the word by itself, it is the context and the history. Maligning African-Americans as lazy goes back for decades. Disparaging representations abound, from Stepin Fetchit to “welfare queens.” Like the rest of the kneejerk Obama-haters, Palin has often characterized the President as a determined socialist bent on destroying America. Well, she can’t have it both ways. If Obama is a hard-working tyrant, he can’t also be sluggish lout. And for Palin to portray him as such can only be interpreted as an effort to associate him with the old and offensive stereotype.]


The Fox News Campaign To Keep Citizens From Learning About ObamaCare

Posted by on June 29, 2013 at 12:32 pm. 23 Comments :

We all know about the Republican support for a health care system that gouges patients, fails to serve at-risk constituencies, and enriches heartless corporations (who in turn enrich the Republicans). We know about the right-wing’s indifference to families who are thrust into bankruptcy due to exorbitant medical bills. And we are all too aware of the Tea Party conservatives’ fixation on repealing the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), which they have voted on thirty-seven times in the House of Representatives knowing full well it would never advance to the senate.

There is no ambiguity in the fact that the GOP is determined to defend a broken system that favors the rich and abandons everyone else to a Randian law of the jungle that guarantees that people will die unnecessarily. And Fox News is a critical component in the anti-health propaganda fest designed to keep the American people ignorant and sick.

Fox News
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In recent days Fox News has been escalating their disinformation campaign by attacking uncontroversial plans to give the American people information about their options under the new law and to educate them about the health insurance exchanges that will be launching next year. Fox has taken the side of the GOP anti-health zealots by criticizing routine efforts to provide the public with details about the program.

Reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to publicize the availability of insurance plans by advertising and otherwise partnering with sports leagues, libraries, and schools have been met with ludicrous objections from the right. They have characterized these efforts as communist-style indoctrination and tyrannical coercion, even though they are nothing more than free market publicity. Fox News anchor Bret Baier went so far as to call it “threatening.”

Bret Baier: Forget reading, writing and arithmetic, you are paying about a million dollars to train public school children in California how to promote President Obama’s health care reform law. […] Officials are promising – or threatening – strict enforcement of the grants with monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.

Holy crap! Now the feds want reports to ascertain whether federal grant money is being used effectively. What’s next, concentration camps?

Other plans being discussed include working with the NFL and the NBA to educate citizens about their options. This has been lambasted by right-wingers on Fox who seem to think that providing information to citizens about programs that they are entitled to use is the work of Satan. They call it propaganda, but it is no more propaganda than public service announcements about seat belts or the dangers of drug use.

The only propaganda here is that employed by Fox News who is trying desperately to misrepresent ObamaCare and the efforts to educate the public about it. Their arguments against publicity campaigns that work with sports leagues, schools, and libraries, consist mainly of phony attempts to turn it all into a political debate. However, ObamaCare is not a political debate – it is the law. And consequently, people are entitled to know what it is and how to use it. There is nothing partisan about that.

What Fox and the GOP are hoping to do is to sabotage the new health care law. They want it to fail (like everything else this administration tries to do) so that they can achieve their goal of repeal and restore the previous system that made them all rich, but that left millions of Americans without coverage. And the best way to produce failure is to make sure that the American people are kept ignorant of the program, which would keep enrollment down. So any effort by the government to let the people know what their options are must be shot down by any means necessary.

This campaign of deceit by Fox and their benefactors is meant only to harm citizens who may be interested in improving health care for themselves and their families. It is not an effort to persuade anyone of the political merits of the plan. It merely informs people of what is currently available. But the anti-health right prefers that the nation be kept as ignorant as possible. That’s something that is apparent to any objective person who watches Fox News. But in this case, the result is not merely being ill-informed, it can lead to serious repercussions for the medical well-being of innocent citizens who are more interested in the health of their families than the phony political controversies that Fox is trying to create.

Fox is embarking on a shameful exercise in greed over humanity. And even Fox viewers should be concerned that their network is working so hard to make sure they stay stupid.